20813	----	Transcribed from the 1884 D. Lothrop and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org {Book cover: cover.jpg} HOW LISA LOVED THE KING BY GEORGE ELIOT AUTHOR OF "DANIEL DERONDA," "MIDDLEMARCH," "ADAM BEDE," ETC., ETC WITH NEW ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BOSTON D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS Copyright by D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 1884 _Presswork by Berwick & Smith_, _118 Purchase Street_, _Boston_. {Knight on horse: p0.jpg} How Lisa loved the King. Six hundred years ago, in Dante's time, Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme; When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story, Was like a garden tangled with the glory Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown, Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown, Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars, And springing blades, green troops in innocent wars, Crowd every shady spot of teeming earth, Making invisible motion visible birth,-- Six hundred years ago, Palermo town Kept holiday. A deed of great renown, A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe's rock To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun, 'Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon, Was welcomed master of all Sicily,-- A royal knight, supreme as kings should be In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry. Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace, Where generous men rode steeds of generous race; Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired By mutual spirit, that each motion fired With beauteous response, like minstrelsy Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy. So, when Palermo made high festival, The joy of matrons and of maidens all Was the mock terror of the tournament, Where safety, with the glimpse of danger blent, Took exaltation as from epic song, Which greatly tells the pains that to great life belong. And in all eyes King Pedro was the king Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring The largest ruby, or as that bright star Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are. His the best genet, and he sat it best; His weapon, whether tilting or in rest, Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen, Gave to the promise of his royal mien Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise Of vernal day, whose joy o'er stream and meadow flies. But of the maiden forms that thick enwreathed The broad piazza, and sweet witchery breathed, With innocent faces budding all arow, From balconies and windows high and low, Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow, The impregnation with supernal fire Of young ideal love, transformed desire, Whose passion is but worship of that Best Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast? {Lady walking through garden: p10.jpg} 'Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line, Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine, Who from his merchant-city hither came To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame, And had the virtue not to try and sell Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well, But loved them chiefly for his Lisa's sake, Whom with a father's care he sought to make The bride of some true honorable man,-- Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran), Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were, For still your trader likes a mixture fair Of blood that hurries to some higher strain Than reckoning money's loss and money's gain. And of such mixture good may surely come: Lord's scions so may learn to cast a sum, A trader's grandson bear a well-set head, And have less conscious manners, better bred; Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead. 'Twas Perdicone's friends made overtures To good Bernardo; so one dame assures Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth, Eyes that could see her on this summer day Might find it hard to turn another way. She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad; Rather like minor cadences that glad The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs: And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow, Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought, Then quickened by him with the passionate thought, The soul that trembled in the lustrous night Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight, It seemed she could have floated in the sky, And with the angelic choir made symphony; But in her cheek's rich tinge, and in the dark Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark Of kinship to her generous mother-earth, The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth. She saw not Perdicone; her young mind Dreamed not that any man had ever pined For such a little simple maid as she: She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be To love some hero noble, beauteous, great, Who would live stories worthy to narrate, Like Roland, or the warriors of Troy, The Cid, or Amadis, or that fair boy Who conquered every thing beneath the sun, And somehow, some time, died at Babylon Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good And fair as that archangel who withstood The Evil One, the author of all wrong,-- That Evil One who made the French so strong; And now the flower of heroes must he be Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily, So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly. Young Lisa saw this hero in the king; And as wood-lilies that sweet odors bring Might dream the light that opes their modest eyne Was lily-odored; and as rites divine, Round turf-laid altars, or 'neath roofs of stone, Draw sanctity from out the heart alone That loves and worships: so the miniature Perplexed of her soul's world, all virgin pure, Filled with heroic virtues that bright form, Raona's royalty, the finished norm Of horsemanship, the half of chivalry; For how could generous men avengers be, Save as God's messengers on coursers fleet?-- These, scouring earth, made Spain with Syria meet In one self-world where the same right had sway, And good must grow as grew the blessed day. No more: great Love his essence had endued With Pedro's form, and, entering, subdued The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense, Proud in its choice of proud obedience To hardship glorified by perfect reverence. Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest, And in her chamber, through the hours of rest, The darkness was alight for her with sheen Of arms, and plumed helm; and bright between Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring 'Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird's bright wing 'Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare: The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh, Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves, Clothing her life of life. Oh! she believes That she could be content if he but knew (Her poor small self could claim no other due) How Lisa's lowly love had highest reach Of winged passion, whereto winged speech Would be scorched remnants left by mounting flame. Though, had she such lame message, were it blame To tell what greatness dwelt in her, what rank She held in loving? Modest maidens shrank From telling love that fed on selfish hope; But love, as hopeless as the shattering song, Wailed for loved beings who have joined the throng Of mighty dead ones. . . . Nay, but she was weak, Knew only prayers and ballads, could not speak With eloquence, save what dumb creatures have, That with small cries and touches small boons crave. She watched all day that she might see him pass With knights and ladies; but she said, "Alas! Though he should see me, it were all as one He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone Of wall or balcony: some colored spot His eye just sees, his mind regardeth not. I have no music-touch that could bring nigh My love to his soul's hearing. I shall die, And he will never know who Lisa was,-- The trader's child, whose soaring spirit rose As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose. {Lady seated overlooking garden: p18.jpg} "For were I now a fair deep-breasted queen A-horseback, with blonde hair, and tunic green, Gold-bordered, like Costanza, I should need No change within to make me queenly there: For they the royal-hearted women are Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace; For needy suffering lives in lowliest place, Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile, The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile. My love is such, it cannot choose but soar Up to the highest; yet forevermore, Though I were happy, throned beside the king, I should be tender to each little thing With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well With tender touch, and with a low soft moan For company: my dumb love-pang is lone, Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone." So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days. Each night the August moon with changing phase Looked broader, harder, on her unchanged pain; Each noon the heat lay heavier again On her despair, until her body frail Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale See narrowed on the height each summer morn; While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn, As if the soul within her, all on fire, Made of her being one swift funeral-pyre. Father and mother saw with sad dismay The meaning of their riches melt away; For without Lisa what would sequins buy? What wish were left if Lisa were to die? Through her they cared for summers still to come, Else they would be as ghosts without a home In any flesh that could feel glad desire. They pay the best physicians, never tire Of seeking what will soothe her, promising That aught she longed for, though it were a thing Hard to be come at as the Indian snow, Or roses that on Alpine summits blow, It should be hers. She answers with low voice, She longs for death alone--death is her choice; Death is the king who never did think scorn, But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born. Yet one day, as they bent above her bed, And watched her in brief sleep, her drooping head Turned gently, as the thirsty flowers that feel Some moist revival through their petals steal; And little flutterings of her lids and lips Told of such dreamy joy as sometimes dips A skyey shadow in the mind's poor pool. She oped her eyes, and turned their dark gems full Upon her father, as in utterance dumb Of some new prayer that in her sleep had come. "What is it, Lisa?"--"Father, I would see Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me." For always, night and day, her unstilled thought, Wandering all o'er its little world, had sought How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch, King Pedro's soul, that she who loved so much, Dying, might have a place within his mind,-- A little grave which he would sometimes find And plant some flower on it,--some thought, some memory kind. Till in her dream she saw Minuccio Touching his viola, and chanting low A strain, that, falling on her brokenly, Seemed blossoms lightly blown from off a tree; Each burthened with a word that was a scent,-- Raona, Lisa, love, death, tournament; Then in her dream she said, "He sings of me, Might be my messenger; ah! now I see The king is listening"--Then she awoke, And, missing her dear dream, that new-born longing spoke. She longed for music: that was natural; Physicians said it was medicinal; The humors might be schooled by true consent Of a fine tenor and fine instrument; In short, good music, mixed with doctor's stuff, Apollo with Asklepios--enough! Minuccio, entreated, gladly came. (He was a singer of most gentle fame, A noble, kindly spirit, not elate That he was famous, but that song was great; Would sing as finely to this suffering child As at the court where princes on him smiled.) Gently he entered and sat down by her, Asking what sort of strain she would prefer,-- The voice alone, or voice with viol wed; Then, when she chose the last, he preluded With magic hand, that summoned from the strings Aerial spirits, rare yet palpable wings That fanned the pulses of his listener, And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir. Her cheek already showed a slow, faint blush; But soon the voice, in pure, full, liquid rush, Made all the passion, that till now she felt, Seem but as cooler waters that in warmer melt. Finished the song, she prayed to be alone With kind Minuccio; for her faith had grown To trust him as if missioned like a priest With some high grace, that, when his singing ceased, Still made him wiser, more magnanimous, Than common men who had no genius. So, laying her small hand within his palm, She told him how that secret, glorious harm Of loftiest loving had befallen her; That death, her only hope, most bitter were, If, when she died, her love must perish too As songs unsung, and thoughts unspoken do, Which else might live within another breast. She said, "Minuccio, the grave were rest, If I were sure, that, lying cold and lone, My love, my best of life, had safely flown And nestled in the bosom of the king. See, 'tis a small weak bird, with unfledged wing; But you will carry it for me secretly, And bear it to the king; then come to me And tell me it is safe, and I shall go Content, knowing that he I love my love doth know." Then she wept silently; but each large tear Made pleading music to the inward ear Of good Minuccio. "Lisa, trust in me," He said, and kissed her fingers loyally: "It is sweet law to me to do your will, And, ere the sun his round shall thrice fulfil, I hope to bring you news of such rare skill As amulets have, that aches in trusting bosoms still." He needed not to pause and first devise How he should tell the king; for in nowise Were such love-message worthily bested Save in fine verse by music rendered. He sought a poet-friend, a Siennese, And "Mico, mine," he said, "full oft to please Thy whim of sadness I have sung thee strains To make thee weep in verse: now pay my pains, And write me a canzon divinely sad, Sinlessly passionate, and meekly mad With young despair, speaking a maiden's heart Of fifteen summers, who would fain depart From ripening life's new-urgent mystery,-- Love-choice of one too high her love to be,-- But cannot yield her breath till she has poured Her strength away in this hot-bleeding word, Telling the secret of her soul to her soul's lord." Said Mico, "Nay, that thought is poesy, I need but listen as it sings to me. Come thou again to-morrow." The third day, When linked notes had perfected the lay, Minuccio had his summons to the court, To make, as he was wont, the moments short Of ceremonious dinner to the king. This was the time when he had meant to bring Melodious message of young Lisa's love; He waited till the air had ceased to move To ringing silver, till Falernian wine Made quickened sense with quietude combine; And then with passionate descant made each ear incline. {Court scene: p28.jpg} _Love_, _thou didst see me_, _light as morning's breath_, _Roaming a garden in a joyous error_, _Laughing at chases vain_, _a happy child_, _Till of thy countenance the alluring terror_ _In majesty from out the blossoms smiled_, _From out their life seeming a beauteous Death_ _O Love_, _who so didst choose me for thine own_ _Taking this little isle to thy great sway_, _See now_, _it is the honor of thy throne_ _That what thou gavest perish not away_, _Nor leave some sweet remembrance to atone_ _By life that will be for the brief life gone_: _Hear_, _ere the shroud o'er these frail limbs be thrown_-- _Since every king is vassal unto thee_, _My heart's lord needs must listen loyally_-- _O tell him I am waiting for my Death_! _Tell him_, _for that he hath such royal power_ _'Twere hard for him to think how small a thing_, _How slight a sign_, _would make a wealthy dower_ _For one like me_, _the bride of that pale king_ _Whose bed is mine at some swift-nearing hour_. _Go to my lord_, _and to his memory bring_ _That happy birthday of my sorrowing_, _When his large glance made meaner gazers glad_, _Entering the bannered lists_: _'twas then I had_ _The wound that laid me in the arms of Death_. _Tell him_, _O Love_, _I am a lowly maid_, _No more than any little knot of thyme_ _That he with careless foot may often tread_; _Yet lowest fragrance oft will mount sublime_ _And cleave to things most high and hallowed_, _As doth the fragrance of my life's springtime_, _My lowly love_, _that_, _soaring_, _seeks to climb_ _Within his thought_, _and make a gentle bliss_, _More blissful than if mine_, _in being his_: _So shall I live in him_, _and rest in Death_. The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry, And yet a rounded, perfect melody, Making grief beauteous as the tear-filled eyes Of little child at little miseries. Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose, Like rising light that broad and broader grows, It filled the hall, and so possessed the air, That not one living, breathing soul was there, Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering In Music's grasp, and forced to hear her sing. But most such sweet compulsion took the mood Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would). Whether the words which that strange meaning bore Were but the poet's feigning, or aught more, Was bounden question, since their aim must be At some imagined or true royalty. He called Minuccio, and bade him tell What poet of the day had writ so well; For, though they came behind all former rhymes, The verses were not bad for these poor times. "Monsignor, they are only three days old," Minuccio said; "but it must not be told How this song grew, save to your royal ear." Eager, the king withdrew where none was near, And gave close audience to Minuccio, Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know. The king had features pliant to confess The presence of a manly tenderness,-- Son, father, brother, lover, blent in one, In fine harmonic exaltation; The spirit of religious chivalry. He listened, and Minuccio could see The tender, generous admiration spread O'er all his face, and glorify his head With royalty that would have kept its rank, Though his brocaded robes to tatters shrank. He answered without pause, "So sweet a maid, In Nature's own insignia arrayed, Though she were come of unmixed trading blood That sold and bartered ever since the flood, Would have the self-contained and single worth Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth. Raona were a shame to Sicily, Letting such love and tears unhonored be: Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring." Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word, And told at full, while none but Lisa heard, How each thing had befallen, sang the song, And, like a patient nurse who would prolong All means of soothing, dwelt upon each tone, Each look, with which the mighty Aragon Marked the high worth his royal heart assigned To that dear place he held in Lisa's mind. She listened till the draughts of pure content Through all her limbs like some new being went-- Life, not recovered, but untried before, From out the growing world's unmeasured store Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed. 'Twas glad reverse: she had so firmly fixed To die, already seemed to fall a veil Shrouding the inner glow from light of senses pale. {Man on horse: p34.jpg} Her parents, wondering, see her half arise; Wondering, rejoicing, see her long dark eyes Brimful with clearness, not of 'scaping tears, But of some light ethereal that enspheres Their orbs with calm, some vision newly learnt Where strangest fires erewhile had blindly burnt. She asked to have her soft white robe and band And coral ornaments; and with her hand She gave her long dark locks a backward fall, Then looked intently in a mirror small, And feared her face might, perhaps, displease the king: "In truth," she said, "I am a tiny thing: I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring." Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell, With careless mien which hid his purpose well, Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance Passing Bernardo's house, he paused to glance At the fine garden of this wealthy man, This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan; But, presently dismounting, chose to walk Amid the trellises, in gracious talk With this same trader, deigning even to ask If he had yet fulfilled the father's task Of marrying that daughter, whose young charms Himself, betwixt the passages of arms, Noted admiringly. "Monsignor, no, She is not married: that were little woe, Since she has counted barely fifteen years; But all such hopes of late have turned to fears; She droops and fades, though, for a space quite brief,-- Scarce three hours past,--she finds some strange relief." The king avised: "'Twere dole to all of us, The world should lose a maid so beauteous: Let me now see her; since I am her liege lord, Her spirits must wage war with death at my strong word." In such half-serious playfulness, he wends, With Lisa's father and two chosen friends, Up to the chamber where she pillowed sits, Watching the door that opening admits A presence as much better than her dreams, As happiness than any longing seems. The king advanced, and, with a reverent kiss Upon her hand, said, "Lady, what is this? You, whose sweet youth should others' solace be, Pierce all our hearts, languishing piteously. We pray you, for the love of us, be cheered, Nor be too reckless of that life, endeared To us who know your passing worthiness, And count your blooming life as part of our life's bliss." Those words, that touch upon her hand from him Whom her soul worshipped, as far seraphim Worship the distant glory, brought some shame Quivering upon her cheek, yet thrilled her frame With such deep joy she seemed in paradise, In wondering gladness, and in dumb surprise, That bliss could be so blissful. Then she spoke: "Signor, I was too weak to bear the yoke, The golden yoke, of thoughts too great for me; That was the ground of my infirmity. But now I pray your grace to have belief That I shall soon be well, nor any more cause grief." The king alone perceived the covert sense Of all her words, which made one evidence, With her pure voice and candid loveliness, That he had lost much honor, honoring less That message of her passionate distress. He staid beside her for a little while, With gentle looks and speech, until a smile As placid as a ray of early morn On opening flower-cups o'er her lips was borne When he had left her, and the tidings spread Through all the town, how he had visited The Tuscan trader's daughter, who was sick, Men said it was a royal deed, and catholic. And Lisa? She no longer wished for death; But as a poet, who sweet verses saith Within his soul, and joys in music there, Nor seeks another heaven, nor can bear Disturbing pleasures, so was she content, Breathing the life of grateful sentiment. She thought no maid betrothed could be more blest; For treasure must be valued by the test Of highest excellence and rarity, And her dear joy was best as best could be: There seemed no other crown to her delight, Now the high loved one saw her love aright. Thus her soul thriving on that exquisite mood, Spread like the May-time all its beauteous good O'er the soft bloom of neck and arms and cheek, And strengthened the sweet body, once so weak, Until she rose and walked, and, like a bird With sweetly rippling throat, she made her spring joys heard. The king, when he the happy change had seen, Trusted the ear of Constance, his fair queen, With Lisa's innocent secret, and conferred How they should jointly, by their deed and word, Honor this maiden's love, which, like the prayer Of loyal hermits, never thought to share In what it gave. The queen had that chief grace Of womanhood, a heart that can embrace All goodness in another woman's form; And that same day, ere the sun lay too warm On southern terraces, a messenger Informed Bernardo that the royal pair Would straightway visit him, and celebrate Their gladness at his daughter's happier state, Which they were fain to see. Soon came the king On horseback, with his barons, heralding The advent of the queen in courtly state; And all, descending at the garden gate, Streamed with their feathers, velvet, and brocade, Through the pleached alleys, till they, pausing, made A lake of splendor 'mid the aloes gray; When, meekly facing all their proud array, The white-robed Lisa with her parents stood, As some white dove before the gorgeous brood Of dapple-breasted birds born by the Colchian flood. The king and queen, by gracious looks and speech, Encourage her, and thus their courtiers teach How, this fair morning, they may courtliest be, By making Lisa pass it happily. And soon the ladies and the barons all Draw her by turns, as at a festival Made for her sake, to easy, gay discourse, And compliment with looks and smiles enforce; A joyous hum is heard the gardens round; Soon there is Spanish dancing, and the sound Of minstrel's song, and autumn fruits are pluckt; Till mindfully the king and queen conduct Lisa apart to where a trellised shade Made pleasant resting. Then King Pedro said,-- "Excellent maiden, that rich gift of love Your heart hath made us hath a worth above All royal treasures, nor is fitly met Save when the grateful memory of deep debt Lies still behind the outward honors done: And as a sign that no oblivion Shall overflood that faithful memory, We while we live your cavalier will be; Nor will we ever arm ourselves for fight, Whether for struggle dire, or brief delight Of warlike feigning, but we first will take The colors you ordain, and for your sake Charge the more bravely where your emblem is: Nor will we claim from you an added bliss To our sweet thoughts of you save one sole kiss. But there still rests the outward honor meet To mark your worthiness; and we entreat That you will turn your ear to proffered vows Of one who loves you, and would be your spouse We must not wrong yourself and Sicily By letting all your blooming years pass by Unmated: you will give the world its due From beauteous maiden, and become a matron true." {King and Lisa: p42.jpg} Then Lisa, wrapt in virgin wonderment At her ambitious love's complete content, Which left no further good for her to seek Than love's obedience, said, with accent meek,-- "Monsignor, I know well that were it known To all the world how high my love had flown, There would be few who would not deem me mad, Or say my mind the falsest image had Of my condition and your loftiness. But Heaven has seen that for no moment's space Have I forgotten you to be the king, Or me myself to be a lowly thing-- A little lark, enamoured of the sky, That soared to sing, to break its breast, and die. But, as you better know than I, the heart In choosing chooseth not its own desert, But that great merit which attracteth it: 'Tis law, I struggled, but I must submit, And having seen a worth all worth above, I loved you, love you, and shall always love. But that doth mean, my will is ever yours, Not only when your will my good insures, But if it wrought me what the world calls harm: Fire, wounds, would wear from your dear will a charm. That you will be my knight is full content, And for that kiss,--I pray, first, for the queen's consent." Her answer, given with such firm gentleness, Pleased the queen well, and made her hold no less Of Lisa's merit than the king had held. And so, all cloudy threats of grief dispelled, There was betrothal made that very morn 'Twixt Perdicone, youthful, brave, well-born, And Lisa whom he loved; she loving well The lot that from obedience befell. The queen a rare betrothal ring on each Bestowed, and other gems, with gracious speech. And, that no joy might lack, the king, who knew The youth was poor, gave him rich Ceffalu And Cataletta,--large and fruitful lands,-- Adding much promise when he joined their hands. At last he said to Lisa, with an air Gallant yet noble, "Now we claim our share From your sweet love, a share which is not small; For in the sacrament one crumb is all." Then, taking her small face his hands between, He kissed her on the brow with kiss serene,-- Fit seal to that pure vision her young soul had seen. And many witnessed that King Pedro kept His royal promise. Perdicone stept To many honors honorably won, Living with Lisa in true union. Throughout his life, the king still took delight To call himself fair Lisa's faithful knight; And never wore in field or tournament A scarf or emblem, save by Lisa sent. Such deeds made subjects loyal in that land; They joyed that one so worthy to command, So chivalrous and gentle, had become The king of Sicily, and filled the room Of Frenchmen, who abused the Church's trust, Till, in a righteous vengeance on their lust, Messina rose, with God, and with the dagger's thrust. L'ENVOI. _Reader_, _this story pleased me long ago_ _In the bright pages of Boccaccio_; _And where the author of a good we know_, _Let us not fail to pay the grateful thanks we owe_. 
20742	----	Transcribed from the 1884 D. Lothrop and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org {Book cover: cover.jpg} O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE! BY GEORGE ELIOT AND OTHER FAVORITE POEMS _ILLUSTRATED_ BOSTON D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS Copyright by D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 1884 {"May I reach that purest Heaven!": p0.jpg} O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE! O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn Of miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's minds To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing a beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed and agonized With widening retrospect that bred despair. Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, A vicious parent shaming still its child, Poor, anxious penitence is quick dissolved; Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, Die in the large and charitable air; And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burden of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better--saw rather A worthier image for the sanctuary And shaped it forth before the multitude, Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love-- That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever. This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven--be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world. HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX. {At Aerschot up leaped of a sudden the Sun: p1.jpg} I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he: I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew, "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through. Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace-- Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right, Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom a great yellow star came out to see; At Duffeld 'twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime-- So Joris broke silence with "Yet there is time!" At Aerschot up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past; And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray; And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track, And one eye's black intelligence--ever that glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance; And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her; "We'll remember at Aix"--for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh; 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Delhem a dome spire sprung white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight! "How they'll greet us!"--and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer-- Clapped my hands, laughed and sung, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is friends flocking around, As I sate with his head twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. MOTHER AND POET. Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast And are wanting a great song for Italy free, Let none look at _me_! Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art for a woman, men said, But _this_ woman, _this_, who is agonized here, The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head Forever instead. What art can woman be good at? Oh, vain! What art _is_ she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed, And _I_ proud by that test. What's art for a woman? To hold on her knees Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat Cling, strangle a little! To sew by degrees, And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat! To dream and to dote. To teach them . . . It stings there. _I_ made them indeed Speak plain the word 'country.' I taught them, no doubt, That a country's a thing men should die for at need. _I_ prated of liberty, rights, and about The tyrant turned out. And when their eyes flashed, oh, my beautiful eyes! I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise, When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels! --God! how the house feels. At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me, and soon, coming home to be spoiled, In return would fan off every fly from my brow With their green laurel bough. Then was triumph at Turin. 'Ancona was free!' And some one came out of the cheers in the street, With a face pale as stone to say something to me. My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet While they cheered in the street. I bore it--friends soothed me: my grief looked sublime As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained To the height he had gained. And letters still came--shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand. I was not to faint, One loved me for two . . . would be with me ere long, And 'Viva Italia' _he_ died for, our saint, Who forbids our complaint. { Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the West by the sea: p2.jpg} My Nanni would add, 'he was safe and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls . . . was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed, To live on for the rest.' On which, without pause, up the telegraph line, Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta--_Shot_. _Tell his mother_. Ah, ah! 'his,' 'their' mother: not 'mine.' No voice says '_my_ mother' again to me. What! You think Guido forgot? Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, They drop earth's affection, conceive not of woe? I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven Through that Love and Sorrow which reconciled so The Above and Below. O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say! Both boys dead! but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile hewing out roads to a wall, And when Italy's made, for what end is it done If we have not a son? Ah! ah! ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair, wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When your guns of Cavalli, with final retort, Have cut the game short-- When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all Heaven for its white, green, and red, When _you_ have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my dead) What then? Do not mock me! Ah, ring your bells low! And burn your lights faintly. _My_ country is there, Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow. _My_ Italy's there--with my brave civic Pair, To disfranchise despair. Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn, But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this! and we sit on forlorn When the man-child is born. Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the west! And one of them shot in the east by the sea! Both! both my boys! If, in keeping the feast, You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at _me_! NATURE'S LADY. Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take, She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own. "Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse: and with me The Girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. "She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm, Of mute insensate things. {She shall be sportive as the fawn: p3.jpg} "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willows bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy. "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face." TO A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit-- Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds art bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight-- Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow-clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:-- Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not; Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower; Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view; Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much heat these heavy-winged thieves; {Thou art unseen, but yet I hear they shrill delight: p4.jpg} Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers-- All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh--thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of the happy strain? What fields, or waves or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet, if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear, If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then as I am listening now. 
2171	----	Transcribed from the 1921 Oxford University Press edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk BROTHER JACOB CHAPTER I Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered. How is the son of a British yeoman, who has been fed principally on salt pork and yeast dumplings, to know that there is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise of glass jars full of sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that the tedium of life can reach a pitch where plum-buns at discretion cease to offer the slightest excitement? Or how, at the tender age when a confectioner seems to him a very prince whom all the world must envy--who breakfasts on macaroons, dines on meringues, sups on twelfth-cake, and fills up the intermediate hours with sugar-candy or peppermint--how is he to foresee the day of sad wisdom, when he will discern that the confectioner's calling is not socially influential, or favourable to a soaring ambition? I have known a man who turned out to have a metaphysical genius, incautiously, in the period of youthful buoyancy, commence his career as a dancing-master; and you may imagine the use that was made of this initial mistake by opponents who felt themselves bound to warn the public against his doctrine of the Inconceivable. He could not give up his dancing-lessons, because he made his bread by them, and metaphysics would not have found him in so much as salt to his bread. It was really the same with Mr. David Faux and the confectionery business. His uncle, the butler at the great house close by Brigford, had made a pet of him in his early boyhood, and it was on a visit to this uncle that the confectioners' shops in that brilliant town had, on a single day, fired his tender imagination. He carried home the pleasing illusion that a confectioner must be at once the happiest and the foremost of men, since the things he made were not only the most beautiful to behold, but the very best eating, and such as the Lord Mayor must always order largely for his private recreation; so that when his father declared he must be put to a trade, David chose his line without a moment's hesitation; and, with a rashness inspired by a sweet tooth, wedded himself irrevocably to confectionery. Soon, however, the tooth lost its relish and fell into blank indifference; and all the while, his mind expanded, his ambition took new shapes, which could hardly be satisfied within the sphere his youthful ardour had chosen. But what was he to do? He was a young man of much mental activity, and, above all, gifted with a spirit of contrivance; but then, his faculties would not tell with great effect in any other medium than that of candied sugars, conserves, and pastry. Say what you will about the identity of the reasoning process in all branches of thought, or about the advantage of coming to subjects with a fresh mind, the adjustment of butter to flour, and of heat to pastry, is _not_ the best preparation for the office of prime minister; besides, in the present imperfectly-organized state of society, there are social barriers. David could invent delightful things in the way of drop-cakes, and he had the widest views of the sugar department; but in other directions he certainly felt hampered by the want of knowledge and practical skill; and the world is so inconveniently constituted, that the vague consciousness of being a fine fellow is no guarantee of success in any line of business. This difficulty pressed with some severity on Mr. David Faux, even before his apprenticeship was ended. His soul swelled with an impatient sense that he ought to become something very remarkable--that it was quite out of the question for him to put up with a narrow lot as other men did: he scorned the idea that he could accept an average. He was sure there was nothing average about him: even such a person as Mrs. Tibbits, the washer- woman, perceived it, and probably had a preference for his linen. At that particular period he was weighing out gingerbread nuts; but such an anomaly could not continue. No position could be suited to Mr. David Faux that was not in the highest degree easy to the flesh and flattering to the spirit. If he had fallen on the present times, and enjoyed the advantages of a Mechanic's Institute, he would certainly have taken to literature and have written reviews; but his education had not been liberal. He had read some novels from the adjoining circulating library, and had even bought the story of _Inkle and Yarico_, which had made him feel very sorry for poor Mr. Inkle; so that his ideas might not have been below a certain mark of the literary calling; but his spelling and diction were too unconventional. When a man is not adequately appreciated or comfortably placed in his own country, his thoughts naturally turn towards foreign climes; and David's imagination circled round and round the utmost limits of his geographical knowledge, in search of a country where a young gentleman of pasty visage, lipless mouth, and stumpy hair, would be likely to be received with the hospitable enthusiasm which he had a right to expect. Having a general idea of America as a country where the population was chiefly black, it appeared to him the most propitious destination for an emigrant who, to begin with, had the broad and easily recognizable merit of whiteness; and this idea gradually took such strong possession of him that Satan seized the opportunity of suggesting to him that he might emigrate under easier circumstances, if he supplied himself with a little money from his master's till. But that evil spirit, whose understanding, I am convinced, has been much overrated, quite wasted his time on this occasion. David would certainly have liked well to have some of his master's money in his pocket, if he had been sure his master would have been the only man to suffer for it; but he was a cautious youth, and quite determined to run no risks on his own account. So he stayed out his apprenticeship, and committed no act of dishonesty that was at all likely to be discovered, reserving his plan of emigration for a future opportunity. And the circumstances under which he carried it out were in this wise. Having been at home a week or two partaking of the family beans, he had used his leisure in ascertaining a fact which was of considerable importance to him, namely, that his mother had a small sum in guineas painfully saved from her maiden perquisites, and kept in the corner of a drawer where her baby-linen had reposed for the last twenty years--ever since her son David had taken to his feet, with a slight promise of bow-legs which had not been altogether unfulfilled. Mr. Faux, senior, had told his son very frankly, that he must not look to being set up in business by _him_: with seven sons, and one of them a very healthy and well-developed idiot, who consumed a dumpling about eight inches in diameter every day, it was pretty well if they got a hundred apiece at his death. Under these circumstances, what was David to do? It was certainly hard that he should take his mother's money; but he saw no other ready means of getting any, and it was not to be expected that a young man of his merit should put up with inconveniences that could be avoided. Besides, it is not robbery to take property belonging to your mother: she doesn't prosecute you. And David was very well behaved to his mother; he comforted her by speaking highly of himself to her, and assuring her that he never fell into the vices he saw practised by other youths of his own age, and that he was particularly fond of honesty. If his mother would have given him her twenty guineas as a reward of this noble disposition, he really would not have stolen them from her, and it would have been more agreeable to his feelings. Nevertheless, to an active mind like David's, ingenuity is not without its pleasures: it was rather an interesting occupation to become stealthily acquainted with the wards of his mother's simple key (not in the least like Chubb's patent), and to get one that would do its work equally well; and also to arrange a little drama by which he would escape suspicion, and run no risk of forfeiting the prospective hundred at his father's death, which would be convenient in the improbable case of his _not_ making a large fortune in the "Indies." First, he spoke freely of his intention to start shortly for Liverpool and take ship for America; a resolution which cost his good mother some pain, for, after Jacob the idiot, there was not one of her sons to whom her heart clung more than to her youngest-born, David. Next, it appeared to him that Sunday afternoon, when everybody was gone to church except Jacob and the cowboy, was so singularly favourable an opportunity for sons who wanted to appropriate their mothers' guineas, that he half thought it must have been kindly intended by Providence for such purposes. Especially the third Sunday in Lent; because Jacob had been out on one of his occasional wanderings for the last two days; and David, being a timid young man, had a considerable dread and hatred of Jacob, as of a large personage who went about habitually with a pitchfork in his hand. Nothing could be easier, then, than for David on this Sunday afternoon to decline going to church, on the ground that he was going to tea at Mr. Lunn's, whose pretty daughter Sally had been an early flame of his, and, when the church-goers were at a safe distance, to abstract the guineas from their wooden box and slip them into a small canvas bag--nothing easier than to call to the cowboy that he was going, and tell him to keep an eye on the house for fear of Sunday tramps. David thought it would be easy, too, to get to a small thicket and bury his bag in a hole he had already made and covered up under the roots of an old hollow ash, and he had, in fact, found the hole without a moment's difficulty, had uncovered it, and was about gently to drop the bag into it, when the sound of a large body rustling towards him with something like a bellow was such a surprise to David, who, as a gentleman gifted with much contrivance, was naturally only prepared for what he expected, that instead of dropping the bag gently he let it fall so as to make it untwist and vomit forth the shining guineas. In the same moment he looked up and saw his dear brother Jacob close upon him, holding the pitchfork so that the bright smooth prongs were a yard in advance of his own body, and about a foot off David's. (A learned friend, to whom I once narrated this history, observed that it was David's guilt which made these prongs formidable, and that the "mens nil conscia sibi" strips a pitchfork of all terrors. I thought this idea so valuable, that I obtained his leave to use it on condition of suppressing his name.) Nevertheless, David did not entirely lose his presence of mind; for in that case he would have sunk on the earth or started backward; whereas he kept his ground and smiled at Jacob, who nodded his head up and down, and said, "Hoich, Zavy!" in a painfully equivocal manner. David's heart was beating audibly, and if he had had any lips they would have been pale; but his mental activity, instead of being paralysed, was stimulated. While he was inwardly praying (he always prayed when he was much frightened)--"Oh, save me this once, and I'll never get into danger again!"--he was thrusting his hand into his pocket in search of a box of yellow lozenges, which he had brought with him from Brigford among other delicacies of the same portable kind, as a means of conciliating proud beauty, and more particularly the beauty of Miss Sarah Lunn. Not one of these delicacies had he ever offered to poor Jacob, for David was not a young man to waste his jujubes and barley-sugar in giving pleasure to people from whom he expected nothing. But an idiot with equivocal intentions and a pitchfork is as well worth flattering and cajoling as if he were Louis Napoleon. So David, with a promptitude equal to the occasion, drew out his box of yellow lozenges, lifted the lid, and performed a pantomime with his mouth and fingers, which was meant to imply that he was delighted to see his dear brother Jacob, and seized the opportunity of making him a small present, which he would find particularly agreeable to the taste. Jacob, you understand, was not an intense idiot, but within a certain limited range knew how to choose the good and reject the evil: he took one lozenge, by way of test, and sucked it as if he had been a philosopher; then, in as great an ecstacy at its new and complex savour as Caliban at the taste of Trinculo's wine, chuckled and stroked this suddenly beneficent brother, and held out his hand for more; for, except in fits of anger, Jacob was not ferocious or needlessly predatory. David's courage half returned, and he left off praying; pouring a dozen lozenges into Jacob's palm, and trying to look very fond of him. He congratulated himself that he had formed the plan of going to see Miss Sally Lunn this afternoon, and that, as a consequence, he had brought with him these propitiatory delicacies: he was certainly a lucky fellow; indeed, it was always likely Providence should be fonder of him than of other apprentices, and since he _was_ to be interrupted, why, an idiot was preferable to any other sort of witness. For the first time in his life, David thought he saw the advantage of idiots. As for Jacob, he had thrust his pitchfork into the ground, and had thrown himself down beside it, in thorough abandonment to the unprecedented pleasure of having five lozenges in his mouth at once, blinking meanwhile, and making inarticulate sounds of gustative content. He had not yet given any sign of noticing the guineas, but in seating himself he had laid his broad right hand on them, and unconsciously kept it in that position, absorbed in the sensations of his palate. If he could only be kept so occupied with the lozenges as not to see the guineas before David could manage to cover them! That was David's best hope of safety; for Jacob knew his mother's guineas; it had been part of their common experience as boys to be allowed to look at these handsome coins, and rattle them in their box on high days and holidays, and among all Jacob's narrow experiences as to money, this was likely to be the most memorable. "Here, Jacob," said David, in an insinuating tone, handing the box to him, "I'll give 'em all to you. Run!--make haste!--else somebody'll come and take 'em." David, not having studied the psychology of idiots, was not aware that they are not to be wrought upon by imaginative fears. Jacob took the box with his left hand, but saw no necessity for running away. Was ever a promising young man wishing to lay the foundation of his fortune by appropriating his mother's guineas obstructed by such a day-mare as this? But the moment must come when Jacob would move his right hand to draw off the lid of the tin box, and then David would sweep the guineas into the hole with the utmost address and swiftness, and immediately seat himself upon them. Ah, no! It's of no use to have foresight when you are dealing with an idiot: he is not to be calculated upon. Jacob's right hand was given to vague clutching and throwing; it suddenly clutched the guineas as if they had been so many pebbles, and was raised in an attitude which promised to scatter them like seed over a distant bramble, when, from some prompting or other--probably of an unwonted sensation--it paused, descended to Jacob's knee, and opened slowly under the inspection of Jacob's dull eyes. David began to pray again, but immediately desisted--another resource having occurred to him. "Mother! zinnies!" exclaimed the innocent Jacob. Then, looking at David, he said, interrogatively, "Box?" "Hush! hush!" said David, summoning all his ingenuity in this severe strait. "See, Jacob!" He took the tin box from his brother's hand, and emptied it of the lozenges, returning half of them to Jacob, but secretly keeping the rest in his own hand. Then he held out the empty box, and said, "Here's the box, Jacob! The box for the guineas!" gently sweeping them from Jacob's palm into the box. This procedure was not objectionable to Jacob; on the contrary, the guineas clinked so pleasantly as they fell, that he wished for a repetition of the sound, and seizing the box, began to rattle it very gleefully. David, seizing the opportunity, deposited his reserve of lozenges in the ground and hastily swept some earth over them. "Look, Jacob!" he said, at last. Jacob paused from his clinking, and looked into the hole, while David began to scratch away the earth, as if in doubtful expectation. When the lozenges were laid bare, he took them out one by one, and gave them to Jacob. "Hush!" he said, in a loud whisper, "Tell nobody--all for Jacob--hush--sh--sh! Put guineas in the hole--they'll come out like this!" To make the lesson more complete, he took a guinea, and lowering it into the hole, said, "Put in _so_." Then, as he took the last lozenge out, he said, "Come out _so_," and put the lozenge into Jacob's hospitable mouth. Jacob turned his head on one side, looked first at his brother and then at the hole, like a reflective monkey, and, finally, laid the box of guineas in the hole with much decision. David made haste to add every one of the stray coins, put on the lid, and covered it well with earth, saying in his meet coaxing tone-- "Take 'm out to-morrow, Jacob; all for Jacob! Hush--sh--sh!" Jacob, to whom this once indifferent brother had all at once become a sort of sweet-tasted fetish, stroked David's best coat with his adhesive fingers, and then hugged him with an accompaniment of that mingled chuckling and gurgling by which he was accustomed to express the milder passions. But if he had chosen to bite a small morsel out of his beneficent brother's cheek, David would have been obliged to bear it. And here I must pause, to point out to you the short-sightedness of human contrivance. This ingenious young man, Mr. David Faux, thought he had achieved a triumph of cunning when he had associated himself in his brother's rudimentary mind with the flavour of yellow lozenges. But he had yet to learn that it is a dreadful thing to make an idiot fond of you, when you yourself are not of an affectionate disposition: especially an idiot with a pitchfork--obviously a difficult friend to shake off by rough usage. It may seem to you rather a blundering contrivance for a clever young man to bury the guineas. But, if everything had turned out as David had calculated, you would have seen that his plan was worthy of his talents. The guineas would have lain safely in the earth while the theft was discovered, and David, with the calm of conscious innocence, would have lingered at home, reluctant to say good-bye to his dear mother while she was in grief about her guineas; till at length, on the eve of his departure, he would have disinterred them in the strictest privacy, and carried them on his own person without inconvenience. But David, you perceive, had reckoned without his host, or, to speak more precisely, without his idiot brother--an item of so uncertain and fluctuating a character, that I doubt whether he would not have puzzled the astute heroes of M. de Balzac, whose foresight is so remarkably at home in the future. It was clear to David now that he had only one alternative before him: he must either renounce the guineas, by quietly putting them back in his mother's drawer (a course not unattended with difficulty); or he must leave more than a suspicion behind him, by departing early the next morning without giving notice, and with the guineas in his pocket. For if he gave notice that he was going, his mother, he knew, would insist on fetching from her box of guineas the three she had always promised him as his share; indeed, in his original plan, he had counted on this as a means by which the theft would be discovered under circumstances that would themselves speak for his innocence; but now, as I need hardly explain, that well-combined plan was completely frustrated. Even if David could have bribed Jacob with perpetual lozenges, an idiot's secrecy is itself betrayal. He dared not even go to tea at Mr. Lunn's, for in that case he would have lost sight of Jacob, who, in his impatience for the crop of lozenges, might scratch up the box again while he was absent, and carry it home--depriving him at once of reputation and guineas. No! he must think of nothing all the rest of this day, but of coaxing Jacob and keeping him out of mischief. It was a fatiguing and anxious evening to David; nevertheless, he dared not go to sleep without tying a piece of string to his thumb and great toe, to secure his frequent waking; for he meant to be up with the first peep of dawn, and be far out of reach before breakfast-time. His father, he thought, would certainly cut him off with a shilling; but what then? Such a striking young man as he would be sure to be well received in the West Indies: in foreign countries there are always openings--even for cats. It was probable that some Princess Yarico would want him to marry her, and make him presents of very large jewels beforehand; after which, he needn't marry her unless he liked. David had made up his mind not to steal any more, even from people who were fond of him: it was an unpleasant way of making your fortune in a world where you were likely to surprised in the act by brothers. Such alarms did not agree with David's constitution, and he had felt so much nausea this evening that no doubt his liver was affected. Besides, he would have been greatly hurt not to be thought well of in the world: he always meant to make a figure, and be thought worthy of the best seats and the best morsels. Ruminating to this effect on the brilliant future in reserve for him, David by the help of his check-string kept himself on the alert to seize the time of earliest dawn for his rising and departure. His brothers, of course, were early risers, but he should anticipate them by at least an hour and a half, and the little room which he had to himself as only an occasional visitor, had its window over the horse-block, so that he could slip out through the window without the least difficulty. Jacob, the horrible Jacob, had an awkward trick of getting up before everybody else, to stem his hunger by emptying the milk-bowl that was "duly set" for him; but of late he had taken to sleeping in the hay-loft, and if he came into the house, it would be on the opposite side to that from which David was making his exit. There was no need to think of Jacob; yet David was liberal enough to bestow a curse on him--it was the only thing he ever did bestow gratuitously. His small bundle of clothes was ready packed, and he was soon treading lightly on the steps of the horse-block, soon walking at a smart pace across the fields towards the thicket. It would take him no more than two minutes to get out the box; he could make out the tree it was under by the pale strip where the bark was off, although the dawning light was rather dimmer in the thicket. But what, in the name of--burnt pastry--was that large body with a staff planted beside it, close at the foot of the ash-tree? David paused, not to make up his mind as to the nature of the apparition--he had not the happiness of doubting for a moment that the staff was Jacob's pitchfork--but to gather the self-command necessary for addressing his brother with a sufficiently honeyed accent. Jacob was absorbed in scratching up the earth, and had not heard David's approach. "I say, Jacob," said David in a loud whisper, just as the tin box was lifted out of the hole. Jacob looked up, and discerning his sweet-flavoured brother, nodded and grinned in the dim light in a way that made him seem to David like a triumphant demon. If he had been of an impetuous disposition, he would have snatched the pitchfork from the ground and impaled this fraternal demon. But David was by no means impetuous; he was a young man greatly given to calculate consequences, a habit which has been held to be the foundation of virtue. But somehow it had not precisely that effect in David: he calculated whether an action would harm himself, or whether it would only harm other people. In the former case he was very timid about satisfying his immediate desires, but in the latter he would risk the result with much courage. "Give it me, Jacob," he said, stooping down and patting his brother. "Let us see." Jacob, finding the lid rather tight, gave the box to his brother in perfect faith. David raised the lids and shook his head, while Jacob put his finger in and took out a guinea to taste whether the metamorphosis into lozenges was complete and satisfactory. "No, Jacob; too soon, too soon," said David, when the guinea had been tasted. "Give it me; we'll go and bury it somewhere else; we'll put it in yonder," he added, pointing vaguely toward the distance. David screwed on the lid, while Jacob, looking grave, rose and grasped his pitchfork. Then, seeing David's bundle, he snatched it, like a too officious Newfoundland, stuck his pitchfork into it and carried it over his shoulder in triumph as he accompanied David and the box out of the thicket. What on earth was David to do? It would have been easy to frown at Jacob, and kick him, and order him to get away; but David dared as soon have kicked the bull. Jacob was quiet as long as he was treated indulgently; but on the slightest show of anger, he became unmanageable, and was liable to fits of fury which would have made him formidable even without his pitchfork. There was no mastery to be obtained over him except by kindness or guile. David tried guile. "Go, Jacob," he said, when they were out of the thicket--pointing towards the house as he spoke; "go and fetch me a spade--a spade. But give _me_ the bundle," he added, trying to reach it from the fork, where it hung high above Jacob's tall shoulder. But Jacob showed as much alacrity in obeying as a wasp shows in leaving a sugar-basin. Near David, he felt himself in the vicinity of lozenges: he chuckled and rubbed his brother's back, brandishing the bundle higher out of reach. David, with an inward groan, changed his tactics, and walked on as fast as he could. It was not safe to linger. Jacob would get tired of following him, or, at all events, could be eluded. If they could once get to the distant highroad, a coach would overtake them, David would mount it, having previously by some ingenious means secured his bundle, and then Jacob might howl and flourish his pitchfork as much as he liked. Meanwhile he was under the fatal necessity of being very kind to this ogre, and of providing a large breakfast for him when they stopped at a roadside inn. It was already three hours since they had started, and David was tired. Would no coach be coming up soon? he inquired. No coach for the next two hours. But there was a carrier's cart to come immediately, on its way to the next town. If he could slip out, even leaving his bundle behind, and get into the cart without Jacob! But there was a new obstacle. Jacob had recently discovered a remnant of sugar-candy in one of his brother's tail-pockets; and, since then, had cautiously kept his hold on that limb of the garment, perhaps with an expectation that there would be a further development of sugar-candy after a longer or shorter interval. Now every one who has worn a coat will understand the sensibilities that must keep a man from starting away in a hurry when there is a grasp on his coat-tail. David looked forward to being well received among strangers, but it might make a difference if he had only one tail to his coat. He felt himself in a cold perspiration. He could walk no more: he must get into the cart and let Jacob get in with him. Presently a cheering idea occurred to him: after so large a breakfast, Jacob would be sure to go to sleep in the cart; you see at once that David meant to seize his bundle, jump out, and be free. His expectation was partly fulfilled: Jacob did go to sleep in the cart, but it was in a peculiar attitude--it was with his arms tightly fastened round his dear brother's body; and if ever David attempted to move, the grasp tightened with the force of an affectionate boa-constrictor. "Th' innicent's fond on you," observed the carrier, thinking that David was probably an amiable brother, and wishing to pay him a compliment. David groaned. The ways of thieving were not ways of pleasantness. Oh, why had he an idiot brother? Oh, why, in general, was the world so constituted that a man could not take his mother's guineas comfortably? David became grimly speculative. Copious dinner at noon for Jacob; but little dinner, because little appetite, for David. Instead of eating, he plied Jacob with beer; for through this liberality he descried a hope. Jacob fell into a dead sleep, at last, without having his arms round David, who paid the reckoning, took his bundle, and walked off. In another half-hour he was on the coach on his way to Liverpool, smiling the smile of the triumphant wicked. He was rid of Jacob--he was bound for the Indies, where a gullible princess awaited him. He would never steal any more, but there would be no need; he would show himself so deserving, that people would make him presents freely. He must give up the notion of his father's legacy; but it was not likely he would ever want that trifle; and even if he did--why, it was a compensation to think that in being for ever divided from his family he was divided from Jacob, more terrible than Gorgon or Demogorgon to David's timid green eyes. Thank heaven, he should never see Jacob any more! CHAPTER II It was nearly six years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the West Indies, that the vacant shop in the market-place at Grimworth was understood to have been let to the stranger with a sallow complexion and a buff cravat, whose first appearance had caused some excitement in the bar of the Woolpack, where he had called to wait for the coach. Grimworth, to a discerning eye, was a good place to set up shopkeeping in. There was no competition in it at present; the Church-people had their own grocer and draper; the Dissenters had theirs; and the two or three butchers found a ready market for their joints without strict reference to religious persuasion--except that the rector's wife had given a general order for the veal sweet-breads and the mutton kidneys, while Mr. Rodd, the Baptist minister, had requested that, so far as was compatible with the fair accommodation of other customers, the sheep's trotters might be reserved for him. And it was likely to be a growing place, for the trustees of Mr. Zephaniah Crypt's Charity, under the stimulus of a late visitation by commissioners, were beginning to apply long-accumulating funds to the rebuilding of the Yellow Coat School, which was henceforth to be carried forward on a greatly-extended scale, the testator having left no restrictions concerning the curriculum, but only concerning the coat. The shopkeepers at Grimworth were by no means unanimous as to the advantages promised by this prospect of increased population and trading, being substantial men, who liked doing a quiet business in which they were sure of their customers, and could calculate their returns to a nicety. Hitherto, it had been held a point of honour by the families in Grimworth parish, to buy their sugar and their flannel at the shop where their fathers and mothers had bought before them; but, if newcomers were to bring in the system of neck-and-neck trading, and solicit feminine eyes by gown-pieces laid in fan-like folds, and surmounted by artificial flowers, giving them a factitious charm (for on what human figure would a gown sit like a fan, or what female head was like a bunch of China-asters?), or, if new grocers were to fill their windows with mountains of currants and sugar, made seductive by contrast and tickets,--what security was there for Grimworth, that a vagrant spirit in shopping, once introduced, would not in the end carry the most important families to the larger market town of Cattleton, where, business being done on a system of small profits and quick returns, the fashions were of the freshest, and goods of all kinds might be bought at an advantage? With this view of the times predominant among the tradespeople at Grimworth, their uncertainty concerning the nature of the business which the sallow-complexioned stranger was about to set up in the vacant shop, naturally gave some additional strength to the fears of the less sanguine. If he was going to sell drapery, it was probable that a pale- faced fellow like that would deal in showy and inferior articles--printed cottons and muslins which would leave their dye in the wash-tub, jobbed linen full of knots, and flannel that would soon look like gauze. If grocery, then it was to be hoped that no mother of a family would trust the teas of an untried grocer. Such things had been known in some parishes as tradesmen going about canvassing for custom with cards in their pockets: when people came from nobody knew where, there was no knowing what they might do. It was a thousand pities that Mr. Moffat, the auctioneer and broker, had died without leaving anybody to follow him in the business, and Mrs. Cleve's trustee ought to have known better than to let a shop to a stranger. Even the discovery that ovens were being put up on the premises, and that the shop was, in fact, being fitted up for a confectioner and pastry-cook's business, hitherto unknown in Grimworth, did not quite suffice to turn the scale in the newcomer's favour, though the landlady at the Woolpack defended him warmly, said he seemed to be a very clever young man, and from what she could make out, came of a very good family; indeed, was most likely a good many people's betters. It certainly made a blaze of light and colour, almost as if a rainbow had suddenly descended into the market-place, when, one fine morning, the shutters were taken down from the new shop, and the two windows displayed their decorations. On one side, there were the variegated tints of collared and marbled meats, set off by bright green leaves, the pale brown of glazed pies, the rich tones of sauces and bottled fruits enclosed in their veil of glass--altogether a sight to bring tears into the eyes of a Dutch painter; and on the other, there was a predominance of the more delicate hues of pink, and white, and yellow, and buff, in the abundant lozenges, candies, sweet biscuits and icings, which to the eyes of a bilious person might easily have been blended into a faery landscape in Turner's latest style. What a sight to dawn upon the eyes of Grimworth children! They almost forgot to go to their dinner that day, their appetites being preoccupied with imaginary sugar-plums; and I think even Punch, setting up his tabernacle in the market-place, would not have succeeded in drawing them away from those shop-windows, where they stood according to gradations of size and strength, the biggest and strongest being nearest the window, and the little ones in the outermost rows lifting wide-open eyes and mouths towards the upper tier of jars, like small birds at meal-time. The elder inhabitants pished and pshawed a little at the folly of the new shopkeeper in venturing on such an outlay in goods that would not keep; to be sure, Christmas was coming, but what housewife in Grimworth would not think shame to furnish forth her table with articles that were not home-cooked? No, no. Mr. Edward Freely, as he called himself, was deceived, if he thought Grimworth money was to flow into his pockets on such terms. Edward Freely was the name that shone in gilt letters on a mazarine ground over the doorplace of the new shop--a generous-sounding name, that might have belonged to the open-hearted, improvident hero of an old comedy, who would have delighted in raining sugared almonds, like a new manna-gift, among that small generation outside the windows. But Mr. Edward Freely was a man whose impulses were kept in due subordination: he held that the desire for sweets and pastry must only be satisfied in a direct ratio with the power of paying for them. If the smallest child in Grimworth would go to him with a halfpenny in its tiny fist, he would, after ringing the halfpenny, deliver a just equivalent in "rock." He was not a man to cheat even the smallest child--he often said so, observing at the same time that he loved honesty, and also that he was very tender- hearted, though he didn't show his feelings as some people did. Either in reward of such virtue, or according to some more hidden law of sequence, Mr. Freely's business, in spite of prejudice, started under favourable auspices. For Mrs. Chaloner, the rector's wife, was among the earliest customers at the shop, thinking it only right to encourage a new parishioner who had made a decorous appearance at church; and she found Mr. Freely a most civil, obliging young man, and intelligent to a surprising degree for a confectioner; well-principled, too, for in giving her useful hints about choosing sugars he had thrown much light on the dishonesty of other tradesmen. Moreover, he had been in the West Indies, and had seen the very estate which had been her poor grandfather's property; and he said the missionaries were the only cause of the negro's discontent--an observing young man, evidently. Mrs. Chaloner ordered wine-biscuits and olives, and gave Mr. Freely to understand that she should find his shop a great convenience. So did the doctor's wife, and so did Mrs. Gate, at the large carding-mill, who, having high connexions frequently visiting her, might be expected to have a large consumption of ratafias and macaroons. The less aristocratic matrons of Grimworth seemed likely at first to justify their husbands' confidence that they would never pay a percentage of profits on drop-cakes, instead of making their own, or get up a hollow show of liberal housekeeping by purchasing slices of collared meat when a neighbour came in for supper. But it is my task to narrate the gradual corruption of Grimworth manners from their primitive simplicity--a melancholy task, if it were not cheered by the prospect of the fine peripateia or downfall by which the progress of the corruption was ultimately checked. It was young Mrs. Steene, the veterinary surgeons wife, who first gave way to temptation. I fear she had been rather over-educated for her station in life, for she knew by heart many passages in _Lalla Rookh_, the _Corsair_, and the _Siege of Corinth_, which had given her a distaste for domestic occupations, and caused her a withering disappointment at the discovery that Mr. Steene, since his marriage, had lost all interest in the "bulbul," openly preferred discussing the nature of spavin with a coarse neighbour, and was angry if the pudding turned out watery--indeed, was simply a top-booted "vet.", who came in hungry at dinner-time; and not in the least like a nobleman turned Corsair out of pure scorn for his race, or like a renegade with a turban and crescent, unless it were in the irritability of his temper. And scorn is such a very different thing in top-boots! This brutal man had invited a supper-party for Christmas eve, when he would expect to see mince-pies on the table. Mrs. Steene had prepared her mince-meat, and had devoted much butter, fine flour, and labour, to the making of a batch of pies in the morning; but they proved to be so very heavy when they came out of the oven, that she could only think with trembling of the moment when her husband should catch sight of them on the supper-table. He would storm at her, she was certain; and before all the company; and then she should never help crying: it was so dreadful to think she had come to that, after the bulbul and everything! Suddenly the thought darted through her mind that _this once_ she might send for a dish of mince-pies from Freely's: she knew he had some. But what was to become of the eighteen heavy mince-pies? Oh, it was of no use thinking about that; it was very expensive--indeed, making mince-pies at all was a great expense, when they were not sure to turn out well: it would be much better to buy them ready-made. You paid a little more for them, but there was no risk of waste. Such was the sophistry with which this misguided young woman--enough. Mrs. Steene sent for the mince-pies, and, I am grieved to add, garbled her household accounts in order to conceal the fact from her husband. This was the second step in a downward course, all owing to a young woman's being out of harmony with her circumstances, yearning after renegades and bulbuls, and being subject to claims from a veterinary surgeon fond of mince-pies. The third step was to harden herself by telling the fact of the bought mince-pies to her intimate friend Mrs. Mole, who had already guessed it, and who subsequently encouraged herself in buying a mould of jelly, instead of exerting her own skill, by the reflection that "other people" did the same sort of thing. The infection spread; soon there was a party or clique in Grimworth on the side of "buying at Freely's"; and many husbands, kept for some time in the dark on this point, innocently swallowed at two mouthfuls a tart on which they were paying a profit of a hundred per cent., and as innocently encouraged a fatal disingenuousness in the partners of their bosoms by praising the pastry. Others, more keen-sighted, winked at the too frequent presentation on washing-days, and at impromptu suppers, of superior spiced-beef, which flattered their palates more than the cold remnants they had formerly been contented with. Every housewife who had once "bought at Freely's" felt a secret joy when she detected a similar perversion in her neighbour's practice, and soon only two or three old- fashioned mistresses of families held out in the protest against the growing demoralization, saying to their neighbours who came to sup with them, "I can't offer you Freely's beef, or Freely's cheesecakes; everything in our house is home-made; I'm afraid you'll hardly have any appetite for our plain pastry." The doctor, whose cook was not satisfactory, the curate, who kept no cook, and the mining agent, who was a great _bon vivant_, even began to rely on Freely for the greater part of their dinner, when they wished to give an entertainment of some brilliancy. In short, the business of manufacturing the more fanciful viands was fast passing out of the hinds of maids and matrons in private families, and was becoming the work of a special commercial organ. I am not ignorant that this sort of thing is called the inevitable course of civilization, division of labour, and so forth, and that the maids and matrons may be said to have had their hands set free from cookery to add to the wealth of society in some other way. Only it happened at Grimworth, which, to be sure, was a low place, that the maids and matrons could do nothing with their hands at all better than cooking: not even those who had always made heavy cakes and leathery pastry. And so it came to pass, that the progress of civilization at Grimworth was not otherwise apparent than in the impoverishment of men, the gossiping idleness of women, and the heightening prosperity of Mr. Edward Freely. The Yellow Coat School was a double source of profit to the calculating confectioner; for he opened an eating-room for the superior workmen employed on the new school, and he accommodated the pupils at the old school by giving great attention to the fancy-sugar department. When I think of the sweet-tasted swans and other ingenious white shapes crunched by the small teeth of that rising generation, I am glad to remember that a certain amount of calcareous food has been held good for young creatures whose bones are not quite formed; for I have observed these delicacies to have an inorganic flavour which would have recommended them greatly to that young lady of the _Spectator's_ acquaintance who habitually made her dessert on the stems of tobacco-pipes. As for the confectioner himself, he made his way gradually into Grimworth homes, as his commodities did, in spite of some initial repugnance. Somehow or other, his reception as a guest seemed a thing that required justifying, like the purchasing of his pastry. In the first place, he was a stranger, and therefore open to suspicion; secondly, the confectionery business was so entirely new at Grimworth, that its place in the scale of rank had not been distinctly ascertained. There was no doubt about drapers and grocers, when they came of good old Grimworth families, like Mr. Luff and Mr. Prettyman: they visited with the Palfreys, who farmed their own land, played many a game at whist with the doctor, and condescended a little towards the timber-merchant, who had lately taken to the coal-trade also, and had got new furniture; but whether a confectioner should be admitted to this higher level of respectability, or should be understood to find his associates among butchers and bakers, was a new question on which tradition threw no light. His being a bachelor was in his favour, and would perhaps have been enough to turn the scale, even if Mr. Edward Freely's other personal pretensions had been of an entirely insignificant cast. But so far from this, it very soon appeared that he was a remarkable young man, who had been in the West Indies, and had seen many wonders by sea and land, so that he could charm the ears of Grimworth Desdemonas with stories of strange fishes, especially sharks, which he had stabbed in the nick of time by bravely plunging overboard just as the monster was turning on his side to devour the cook's mate; of terrible fevers which he had undergone in a land where the wind blows from all quarters at once; of rounds of toast cut straight from the breadfruit trees; of toes bitten off by land- crabs; of large honours that had been offered to him as a man who knew what was what, and was therefore particularly needed in a tropical climate; and of a Creole heiress who had wept bitterly at his departure. Such conversational talents as these, we know, will overcome disadvantages of complexion; and young Towers, whose cheeks were of the finest pink, set off by a fringe of dark whisker, was quite eclipsed by the presence of the sallow Mr. Freely. So exceptional a confectioner elevated the business, and might well begin to make disengaged hearts flutter a little. Fathers and mothers were naturally more slow and cautious in their recognition of the newcomer's merits. "He's an amusing fellow," said Mr. Prettyman, the highly respectable grocer. (Mrs. Prettyman was a Miss Fothergill, and her sister had married a London mercer.) "He's an amusing fellow; and I've no objection to his making one at the Oyster Club; but he's a bit too fond of riding the high horse. He's uncommonly knowing, I'll allow; but how came he to go to the Indies? I should like that answered. It's unnatural in a confectioner. I'm not fond of people that have been beyond seas, if they can't give a good account how they happened to go. When folks go so far off, it's because they've got little credit nearer home--that's my opinion. However, he's got some good rum; but I don't want to be hand and glove with him, for all that." It was this kind of dim suspicion which beclouded the view of Mr. Freely's qualities in the maturer minds of Grimworth through the early months of his residence there. But when the confectioner ceased to be a novelty, the suspicions also ceased to be novel, and people got tired of hinting at them, especially as they seemed to be refuted by his advancing prosperity and importance. Mr. Freely was becoming a person of influence in the parish; he was found useful as an overseer of the poor, having great firmness in enduring other people's pain, which firmness, he said, was due to his great benevolence; he always did what was good for people in the end. Mr. Chaloner had even selected him as clergyman's churchwarden, for he was a very handy man, and much more of Mr. Chaloner's opinion in everything about church business than the older parishioners. Mr. Freely was a very regular churchman, but at the Oyster Club he was sometimes a little free in his conversation, more than hinting at a life of Sultanic self-indulgence which he had passed in the West Indies, shaking his head now and then and smiling rather bitterly, as men are wont to do when they intimate that they have become a little too wise to be instructed about a world which has long been flat and stale to them. For some time he was quite general in his attentions to the fair sex, combining the gallantries of a lady's man with a severity of criticism on the person and manners of absent belles, which tended rather to stimulate in the feminine breast the desire to conquer the approval of so fastidious a judge. Nothing short of the very best in the department of female charms and virtues could suffice to kindle the ardour of Mr. Edward Freely, who had become familiar with the most luxuriant and dazzling beauty in the West Indies. It may seem incredible that a confectioner should have ideas and conversation so much resembling those to be met with in a higher walk of life, but it must be remembered that he had not merely travelled, he had also bow-legs and a sallow, small- featured visage, so that nature herself had stamped him for a fastidious connoisseur of the fair sex. At last, however, it seemed clear that Cupid had found a sharper arrow than usual, and that Mr. Freely's heart was pierced. It was the general talk among the young people at Grimworth. But was it really love, and not rather ambition? Miss Fullilove, the timber-merchant's daughter, was quite sure that if _she_ were Miss Penny Palfrey, she would be cautious; it was not a good sign when men looked so much above themselves for a wife. For it was no less a person than Miss Penelope Palfrey, second daughter of the Mr. Palfrey who farmed his own land, that had attracted Mr. Freely's peculiar regard, and conquered his fastidiousness; and no wonder, for the Ideal, as exhibited in the finest waxwork, was perhaps never so closely approached by the Real as in the person of the pretty Penelope. Her yellowish flaxen hair did not curl naturally, I admit, but its bright crisp ringlets were such smooth, perfect miniature tubes, that you would have longed to pass your little finger through them, and feel their soft elasticity. She wore them in a crop, for in those days, when society was in a healthier state, young ladies wore crops long after they were twenty, and Penelope was not yet nineteen. Like the waxen ideal, she had round blue eyes, and round nostrils in her little nose, and teeth such as the ideal would be seen to have, if it ever showed them. Altogether, she was a small, round thing, as neat as a pink and white double daisy, and as guileless; for I hope it does not argue guile in a pretty damsel of nineteen, to think that she should like to have a beau and be "engaged," when her elder sister had already been in that position a year and a half. To be sure, there was young Towers always coming to the house; but Penny felt convinced he only came to see her brother, for he never had anything to say to her, and never offered her his arm, and was as awkward and silent as possible. It is not unlikely that Mr. Freely had early been smitten by Penny's charms, as brought under his observation at church, but he had to make his way in society a little before he could come into nearer contact with them; and even after he was well received in Grimworth families, it was a long while before he could converse with Penny otherwise than in an incidental meeting at Mr. Luff's. It was not so easy to get invited to Long Meadows, the residence of the Palfreys; for though Mr. Palfrey had been losing money of late years, not being able quite to recover his feet after the terrible murrain which forced him to borrow, his family were far from considering themselves on the same level even as the old-established tradespeople with whom they visited. The greatest people, even kings and queens, must visit with somebody, and the equals of the great are scarce. They were especially scarce at Grimworth, which, as I have before observed, was a low parish, mentioned with the most scornful brevity in gazetteers. Even the great people there were far behind those of their own standing in other parts of this realm. Mr. Palfrey's farmyard doors had the paint all worn off them, and the front garden walks had long been merged in a general weediness. Still, his father had been called Squire Palfrey, and had been respected by the last Grimworth generation as a man who could afford to drink too much in his own house. Pretty Penny was not blind to the fact that Mr. Freely admired her, and she felt sure that it was he who had sent her a beautiful valentine; but her sister seemed to think so lightly of him (all young ladies think lightly of the gentlemen to whom they are not engaged), that Penny never dared mention him, and trembled and blushed whenever they met him, thinking of the valentine, which was very strong in its expressions, and which she felt guilty of knowing by heart. A man who had been to the Indies, and knew the sea so well, seemed to her a sort of public character, almost like Robinson Crusoe or Captain Cook; and Penny had always wished her husband to be a remarkable personage, likely to be put in Mangnall's Questions, with which register of the immortals she had become acquainted during her one year at a boarding-school. Only it seemed strange that a remarkable man should be a confectioner and pastry- cook, and this anomaly quite disturbed Penny's dreams. Her brothers, she knew, laughed at men who couldn't sit on horseback well, and called them tailors; but her brothers were very rough, and were quite without that power of anecdote which made Mr. Freely such a delightful companion. He was a very good man, she thought, for she had heard him say at Mr. Luff's, one day, that he always wished to do his duty in whatever state of life he might be placed; and he knew a great deal of poetry, for one day he had repeated a verse of a song. She wondered if he had made the words of the valentine!--it ended in this way:-- "Without thee, it is pain to live, But with thee, it were sweet to die." Poor Mr. Freely! her father would very likely object--she felt sure he would, for he always called Mr. Freely "that sugar-plum fellow." Oh, it was very cruel, when true love was crossed in that way, and all because Mr. Freely was a confectioner: well, Penny would be true to him, for all that, and since his being a confectioner gave her an opportunity of showing her faithfulness, she was glad of it. Edward Freely was a pretty name, much better than John Towers. Young Towers had offered her a rose out of his button-hole the other day, blushing very much; but she refused it, and thought with delight how much Mr. Freely would be comforted if he knew her firmness of mind. Poor little Penny! the days were so very long among the daisies on a grazing farm, and thought is so active--how was it possible that the inward drama should not get the start of the outward? I have known young ladies, much better educated, and with an outward world diversified by instructive lectures, to say nothing of literature and highly-developed fancy-work, who have spun a cocoon of visionary joys and sorrows for themselves, just as Penny did. Her elder sister Letitia, who had a prouder style of beauty, and a more worldly ambition, was engaged to a wool-factor, who came all the way from Cattelton to see her; and everybody knows that a wool-factor takes a very high rank, sometimes driving a double-bodied gig. Letty's notions got higher every day, and Penny never dared to speak of her cherished griefs to her lofty sister--never dared to propose that they should call at Mr. Freely's to buy liquorice, though she had prepared for such an incident by mentioning a slight sore throat. So she had to pass the shop on the other side of the market-place, and reflect, with a suppressed sigh, that behind those pink and white jars somebody was thinking of her tenderly, unconscious of the small space that divided her from him. And it was quite true that, when business permitted, Mr. Freely thought a great deal of Penny. He thought her prettiness comparable to the loveliest things in confectionery; he judged her to be of submissive temper--likely to wait upon him as well as if she had been a negress, and to be silently terrified when his liver made him irritable; and he considered the Palfrey family quite the best in the parish, possessing marriageable daughters. On the whole, he thought her worthy to become Mrs. Edward Freely, and all the more so, because it would probably require some ingenuity to win her. Mr. Palfrey was capable of horse-whipping a too rash pretender to his daughter's hand; and, moreover, he had three tall sons: it was clear that a suitor would be at a disadvantage with such a family, unless travel and natural acumen had given him a countervailing power of contrivance. And the first idea that occurred to him in the matter was, that Mr. Palfrey would object less if he knew that the Freelys were a much higher family than his own. It had been foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and to shut up the portrait of his great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait should be hung--over the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely, K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous position, was seen to have had one arm only, and one eye--in these points resembling the heroic Nelson--while a certain pallid insignificance of feature confirmed the relationship between himself and his grand-nephew. Next, Mr. Freely was seized with an irrepressible ambition to posses Mrs. Palfrey's receipt for brawn, hers being pronounced on all hands to be superior to his own--as he informed her in a very flattering letter carried by his errand-boy. Now Mrs. Palfrey, like other geniuses, wrought by instinct rather than by rule, and possessed no receipts--indeed, despised all people who used them, observing that people who pickled by book, must pickle by weights and measures, and such nonsense; as for herself, her weights and measures were the tip of her finger and the tip of her tongue, and if you went nearer, why, of course, for dry goods like flour and spice, you went by handfuls and pinches, and for wet, there was a middle-sized jug--quite the best thing whether for much or little, because you might know how much a teacupful was if you'd got any use of your senses, and you might be sure it would take five middle-sized jugs to make a gallon. Knowledge of this kind is like Titian's colouring, difficult to communicate; and as Mrs. Palfrey, once remarkably handsome, had now become rather stout and asthmatical, and scarcely ever left home, her oral teaching could hardly be given anywhere except at Long Meadows. Even a matron is not insusceptible to flattery, and the prospect of a visitor whose great object would be to listen to her conversation, was not without its charms to Mrs. Palfrey. Since there was no receipt to be sent in reply to Mr. Freely's humble request, she called on her more docile daughter, Penny, to write a note, telling him that her mother would be glad to see him and talk with him on brawn, any day that he could call at Long Meadows. Penny obeyed with a trembling hand, thinking how wonderfully things came about in this world. In this way, Mr. Freely got himself introduced into the home of the Palfreys, and notwithstanding a tendency in the male part of the family to jeer at him a little as "peaky" and bow-legged, he presently established his position as an accepted and frequent guest. Young Towers looked at him with increasing disgust when they met at the house on a Sunday, and secretly longed to try his ferret upon him, as a piece of vermin which that valuable animal would be likely to tackle with unhesitating vigour. But--so blind sometimes are parents--neither Mr. nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a tradesman of questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered. Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her, and _that_ was likely enough to be a match some day; but Penny was a child at present. And all the while Penny was imagining the circumstances under which Mr. Freely would make her an offer: perhaps down by the row of damson-trees, when they were in the garden before tea; perhaps by letter--in which case, how would the letter begin? "Dearest Penelope?" or "My dear Miss Penelope?" or straight off, without dear anything, as seemed the most natural when people were embarrassed? But, however he might make the offer, she would not accept it without her father's consent: she would always be true to Mr. Freely, but she would not disobey her father. For Penny was a good girl, though some of her female friends were afterwards of opinion that it spoke ill for her not to have felt an instinctive repugnance to Mr. Freely. But he was cautious, and wished to be quite sure of the ground he trod on. His views on marriage were not entirely sentimental, but were as duly mingled with considerations of what would be advantageous to a man in his position, as if he had had a very large amount of money spent on his education. He was not a man to fall in love in the wrong place; and so, he applied himself quite as much to conciliate the favour of the parents, as to secure the attachment of Penny. Mrs. Palfrey had not been inaccessible to flattery, and her husband, being also of mortal mould, would not, it might be hoped, be proof against rum--that very fine Jamaica rum--of which Mr. Freely expected always to have a supply sent him from Jamaica. It was not easy to get Mr. Palfrey into the parlour behind the shop, where a mild back-street light fell on the features of the heroic admiral; but by getting hold of him rather late one evening as he was about to return home from Grimworth, the aspiring lover succeeded in persuading him to sup on some collared beef which, after Mrs. Palfrey's brawn, he would find the very best of cold eating. From that hour Mr. Freely felt sure of success: being in privacy with an estimable man old enough to be his father, and being rather lonely in the world, it was natural he should unbosom himself a little on subjects which he could not speak of in a mixed circle--especially concerning his expectations from his uncle in Jamaica, who had no children, and loved his nephew Edward better than any one else in the world, though he had been so hurt at his leaving Jamaica, that he had threatened to cut him off with a shilling. However, he had since written to state his full forgiveness, and though he was an eccentric old gentleman and could not bear to give away money during his life, Mr. Edward Freely could show Mr. Palfrey the letter which declared, plainly enough, who would be the affectionate uncle's heir. Mr. Palfrey actually saw the letter, and could not help admiring the spirit of the nephew who declared that such brilliant hopes as these made no difference to his conduct; he should work at his humble business and make his modest fortune at it all the same. If the Jamaica estate was to come to him--well and good. It was nothing very surprising for one of the Freely family to have an estate left him, considering the lands that family had possessed in time gone by--nay, still possessed in the Northumberland branch. Would not Mr. Palfrey take another glass of rum? and also look at the last year's balance of the accounts? Mr. Freely was a man who cared to possess personal virtues, and did not pique himself on his family, though some men would. We know how easily the great Leviathan may be led, when once there is a hook in his nose or a bridle in his jaws. Mr. Palfrey was a large man, but, like Leviathan's, his bulk went against him when once he had taken a turning. He was not a mercurial man, who easily changed his point of view. Enough. Before two months were over, he had given his consent to Mr. Freely's marriage with his daughter Penny, and having hit on a formula by which he could justify it, fenced off all doubts and objections, his own included. The formula was this: "I'm not a man to put my head up an entry before I know where it leads." Little Penny was very proud and fluttering, but hardly so happy as she expected to be in an engagement. She wondered if young Towers cared much about it, for he had not been to the house lately, and her sister and brothers were rather inclined to sneer than to sympathize. Grimworth rang with the news. All men extolled Mr. Freely's good fortune; while the women, with the tender solicitude characteristic of the sex, wished the marriage might turn out well. While affairs were at this triumphant juncture, Mr. Freely one morning observed that a stone-carver who had been breakfasting in the eating-room had left a newspaper behind. It was the _X-shire Gazette_, and X-shire being a county not unknown to Mr. Freely, he felt some curiosity to glance over it, and especially over the advertisements. A slight flush came over his face as he read. It was produced by the following announcement:--"If David Faux, son of Jonathan Faux, late of Gilsbrook, will apply at the office of Mr. Strutt, attorney, of Rodham, he will hear of something to his advantage." "Father's dead!" exclaimed Mr. Freely, involuntarily. "Can he have left me a legacy?" CHAPTER III Perhaps it was a result quite different from your expectations, that Mr. David Faux should have returned from the West Indies only a few years after his arrival there, and have set up in his old business, like any plain man who has never travelled. But these cases do occur in life. Since, as we know, men change their skies and see new constellations without changing their souls, it will follow sometimes that they don't change their business under those novel circumstances. Certainly, this result was contrary to David's own expectations. He had looked forward, you are aware, to a brilliant career among "the blacks"; but, either because they had already seen too many white men, or for some other reason, they did not at once recognize him as a superior order of human being; besides, there were no princesses among them. Nobody in Jamaica was anxious to maintain David for the mere pleasure of his society; and those hidden merits of a man which are so well known to himself were as little recognized there as they notoriously are in the effete society of the Old World. So that in the dark hints that David threw out at the Oyster Club about that life of Sultanic self-indulgence spent by him in the luxurious Indies, I really think he was doing himself a wrong; I believe he worked for his bread, and, in fact, took to cooking as, after all, the only department in which he could offer skilled labour. He had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to circumvent people of large fortune and small faculty; but then he never met with exactly the right circumstances. David's devices for getting rich without work had apparently no direct relation with the world outside him, as his confectionery receipts had. It is possible to pass a great many bad half pennies and bad half-crowns, but I believe there has no instance been known of passing a halfpenny or a half-crown as a sovereign. A sharper can drive a brisk trade in this world: it is undeniable that there may be a fine career for him, if he will dare consequences; but David was too timid to be a sharper, or venture in any way among the mantraps of the law. He dared rob nobody but his mother. And so he had to fall back on the genuine value there was in him--to be content to pass as a good halfpenny, or, to speak more accurately, as a good confectioner. For in spite of some additional reading and observation, there was nothing else he could make so much money by; nay, he found in himself even a capability of extending his skill in this direction, and embracing all forms of cookery; while, in other branches of human labour, he began to see that it was not possible for him to shine. Fate was too strong for him; he had thought to master her inclination and had fled over the seas to that end; but she caught him, tied an apron round him, and snatching him from all other devices, made him devise cakes and patties in a kitchen at Kingstown. He was getting submissive to her, since she paid him with tolerable gains; but fevers and prickly heat, and other evils incidental to cooks in ardent climates, made him long for his native land; so he took ship once more, carrying his six years' savings, and seeing distinctly, this time, what were Fate's intentions as to his career. If you question me closely as to whether all the money with which he set up at Grimworth consisted of pure and simple earnings, I am obliged to confess that he got a sum or two for charitably abstaining from mentioning some other people's misdemeanours. Altogether, since no prospects were attached to his family name, and since a new christening seemed a suitable commencement of a new life, Mr. David Faux thought it as well to call himself Mr. Edward Freely. But lo! now, in opposition to all calculable probability, some benefit appeared to be attached to the name of David Faux. Should he neglect it, as beneath the attention of a prosperous tradesman? It might bring him into contact with his family again, and he felt no yearnings in that direction: moreover, he had small belief that the "something to his advantage" could be anything considerable. On the other hand, even a small gain is pleasant, and the promise of it in this instance was so surprising, that David felt his curiosity awakened. The scale dipped at last on the side of writing to the lawyer, and, to be brief, the correspondence ended in an appointment for a meeting between David and his eldest brother at Mr. Strutt's, the vague "something" having been defined as a legacy from his father of eighty-two pounds, three shillings. David, you know, had expected to be disinherited; and so he would have been, if he had not, like some other indifferent sons, come of excellent parents, whose conscience made them scrupulous where much more highly- instructed people often feel themselves warranted in following the bent of their indignation. Good Mrs. Faux could never forget that she had brought this ill-conditioned son into the world when he was in that entirely helpless state which excluded the smallest choice on his part; and, somehow or other, she felt that his going wrong would be his father's and mother's fault, if they failed in one tittle of their parental duty. Her notion of parental duty was not of a high and subtle kind, but it included giving him his due share of the family property; for when a man had got a little honest money of his own, was he so likely to steal? To cut the delinquent son off with a shilling, was like delivering him over to his evil propensities. No; let the sum of twenty guineas which he had stolen be deducted from his share, and then let the sum of three guineas be put back from it, seeing that his mother had always considered three of the twenty guineas as his; and, though he had run away, and was, perhaps, gone across the sea, let the money be left to him all the same, and be kept in reserve for his possible return. Mr. Faux agreed to his wife's views, and made a codicil to his will accordingly, in time to die with a clear conscience. But for some time his family thought it likely that David would never reappear; and the eldest son, who had the charge of Jacob on his hands, often thought it a little hard that David might perhaps be dead, and yet, for want of certitude on that point, his legacy could not fall to his legal heir. But in this state of things the opposite certitude--namely, that David was still alive and in England--seemed to be brought by the testimony of a neighbour, who, having been on a journey to Cattelton, was pretty sure he had seen David in a gig, with a stout man driving by his side. He could "swear it was David," though he could "give no account why, for he had no marks on him; but no more had a white dog, and that didn't hinder folks from knowing a white dog." It was this incident which had led to the advertisement. The legacy was paid, of course, after a few preliminary disclosures as to Mr. David's actual position. He begged to send his love to his mother, and to say that he hoped to pay her a dutiful visit by and by; but, at present, his business and near prospect of marriage made it difficult for him to leave home. His brother replied with much frankness. "My mother may do as she likes about having you to see her, but, for my part, I don't want to catch sight of you on the premises again. When folks have taken a new name, they'd better keep to their new 'quinetance." David pocketed the insult along with the eighty-two pounds three, and travelled home again in some triumph at the ease of a transaction which had enriched him to this extent. He had no intention of offending his brother by further claims on his fraternal recognition, and relapsed with full contentment into the character of Mr. Edward Freely, the orphan, scion of a great but reduced family, with an eccentric uncle in the West Indies. (I have already hinted that he had some acquaintance with imaginative literature; and being of a practical turn, he had, you perceive, applied even this form of knowledge to practical purposes.) It was little more than a week after the return from his fruitful journey, that the day of his marriage with Penny having been fixed, it was agreed that Mrs. Palfrey should overcome her reluctance to move from home, and that she and her husband should bring their two daughters to inspect little Penny's future abode and decide on the new arrangements to be made for the reception of the bride. Mr. Freely meant her to have a house so pretty and comfortable that she need not envy even a wool-factor's wife. Of course, the upper room over the shop was to be the best sitting-room; but also the parlour behind the shop was to be made a suitable bower for the lovely Penny, who would naturally wish to be near her husband, though Mr. Freely declared his resolution never to allow _his_ wife to wait in the shop. The decisions about the parlour furniture were left till last, because the party was to take tea there; and, about five o'clock, they were all seated there with the best muffins and buttered buns before them, little Penny blushing and smiling, with her "crop" in the best order, and a blue frock showing her little white shoulders, while her opinion was being always asked and never given. She secretly wished to have a particular sort of chimney ornaments, but she could not have brought herself to mention it. Seated by the side of her yellow and rather withered lover, who, though he had not reached his thirtieth year, had already crow's-feet about his eyes, she was quite tremulous at the greatness of her lot in being married to a man who had travelled so much--and before her sister Letty! The handsome Letitia looked rather proud and contemptuous, thought her nature brother-in-law an odious person, and was vexed with her father and mother for letting Penny marry him. Dear little Penny! She certainly did look like a fresh white-heart cherry going to be bitten off the stem by that lipless mouth. Would no deliverer come to make a slip between that cherry and that mouth without a lip? "Quite a family likeness between the admiral and you, Mr. Freely," observed Mrs. Palfrey, who was looking at the family portrait for the first time. "It's wonderful! and only a grand-uncle. Do you feature the rest of your family, as you know of?" "I can't say," said Mr. Freely, with a sigh. "My family have mostly thought themselves too high to take any notice of me." At this moment an extraordinary disturbance was heard in the shop, as of a heavy animal stamping about and making angry noises, and then of a glass vessel falling in shivers, while the voice of the apprentice was heard calling "Master" in great alarm. Mr. Freely rose in anxious astonishment, and hastened into the shop, followed by the four Palfreys, who made a group at the parlour-door, transfixed with wonder at seeing a large man in a smock-frock, with a pitchfork in his hand, rush up to Mr. Freely and hug him, crying out,--"Zavy, Zavy, b'other Zavy!" It was Jacob, and for some moments David lost all presence of mind. He felt arrested for having stolen his mother's guineas. He turned cold, and trembled in his brother's grasp. "Why, how's this?" said Mr. Palfrey, advancing from the door. "Who is he?" Jacob supplied the answer by saying over and over again-- "I'se Zacob, b'other Zacob. Come 'o zee Zavy"--till hunger prompted him to relax his grasp, and to seize a large raised pie, which he lifted to his mouth. By this time David's power of device had begun to return, but it was a very hard task for his prudence to master his rage and hatred towards poor Jacob. "I don't know who he is; he must be drunk," he said, in a low tone to Mr. Palfrey. "But he's dangerous with that pitchfork. He'll never let it go." Then checking himself on the point of betraying too great an intimacy with Jacob's habits, he added "You watch him, while I run for the constable." And he hurried out of the shop. "Why, where do you come from, my man?" said Mr. Palfrey, speaking to Jacob in a conciliatory tone. Jacob was eating his pie by large mouthfuls, and looking round at the other good things in the shop, while he embraced his pitchfork with his left arm, and laid his left hand on some Bath buns. He was in the rare position of a person who recovers a long absent friend and finds him richer than ever in the characteristics that won his heart. "I's Zacob--b'other Zacob--'t home. I love Zavy--b'other Zavy," he said, as soon as Mr. Palfrey had drawn his attention. "Zavy come back from z' Indies--got mother's zinnies. Where's Zavy?" he added, looking round and then turning to the others with a questioning air, puzzled by David's disappearance. "It's very odd," observed Mr. Palfrey to his wife and daughters. "He seems to say Freely's his brother come back from th' Indies." "What a pleasant relation for us!" said Letitia, sarcastically. "I think he's a good deal like Mr. Freely. He's got just the same sort of nose, and his eyes are the same colour." Poor Penny was ready to cry. But now Mr. Freely re-entered the shop without the constable. During his walk of a few yards he had had time and calmness enough to widen his view of consequences, and he saw that to get Jacob taken to the workhouse or to the lock-up house as an offensive stranger might have awkward effects if his family took the trouble of inquiring after him. He must resign himself to more patient measures. "On second thoughts," he said, beckoning to Mr. Palfrey and whispering to him while Jacob's back was turned, "he's a poor half-witted fellow. Perhaps his friends will come after him. I don't mind giving him something to eat, and letting him lie down for the night. He's got it into his head that he knows me--they do get these fancies, idiots do. He'll perhaps go away again in an hour or two, and make no more ado. I'm a kind-hearted man _myself_--I shouldn't like to have the poor fellow ill- used." "Why, he'll eat a sovereign's worth in no time," said Mr. Palfrey, thinking Mr. Freely a little too magnificent in his generosity. "Eh, Zavy, come back?" exclaimed Jacob, giving his dear brother another hug, which crushed Mr. Freely's features inconveniently against the stale of the pitchfork. "Aye, aye," said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in his mind, except the courage to commit it. He wished the Bath buns might by chance have arsenic in them. "Mother's zinnies?" said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow lozenges that stood in the window. "Zive 'em me." David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob a handful. He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for more. "They'll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate," thought David, and emptied the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with delight. "You're very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely," said Letitia; and then spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, "I think you could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother." "I've always thought it a duty to be good to idiots," said Mr. Freely, striving after the most moral view of the subject. "We might have been idiots ourselves--everybody might have been born idiots, instead of having their right senses." "I don't know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then," observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light. "But let us sit down again and finish our tea," said Mr. Freely. "Let us leave the poor creature to himself." They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table. "Well," said Miss Letitia, rising, "I don't know whether _you_ mean to stay, mother; but I shall go home." "Oh, me too," said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to nod and grin at her. "Well, I think we _had_ better be going, Mr. Palfrey," said the mother, rising more slowly. Mr. Freely, whose complexion had become decidedly yellower during the last half-hour, did not resist this proposition. He hoped they should meet again "under happier circumstances." "It's my belief the man is his brother," said Letitia, when they were all on their way home. "Nonsense!" said Mr. Palfrey. "Freely's got no brother--he's said so many and many a time; he's an orphan; he's got nothing but uncles--leastwise, one. What's it matter what an idiot says? What call had Freely to tell lies?" Letitia tossed her head and was silent. Mr. Freely, left alone with his affectionate brother Jacob, brooded over the possibility of luring him out of the town early the next morning, and getting him conveyed to Gilsbrook without further betrayals. But the thing was difficult. He saw clearly that if he took Jacob himself, his absence, conjoined with the disappearance of the stranger, would either cause the conviction that he was really a relative, or would oblige him to the dangerous course of inventing a story to account for his disappearance, and his own absence at the same time. David groaned. There come occasions when falsehood is felt to be inconvenient. It would, perhaps, have been a longer-headed device, if he had never told any of those clever fibs about his uncles, grand and otherwise; for the Palfreys were simple people, and shared the popular prejudice against lying. Even if he could get Jacob away this time, what security was there that he would not come again, having once found the way? O guineas! O lozenges! what enviable people those were who had never robbed their mothers, and had never told fibs! David spent a sleepless night, while Jacob was snoring close by. Was this the upshot of travelling to the Indies, and acquiring experience combined with anecdote? He rose at break of day, as he had once before done when he was in fear of Jacob, and took all gentle means to rouse this fatal brother from his deep sleep; he dared not be loud, because his apprentice was in the house, and would report everything. But Jacob was not to be roused. He fought out with his fist at the unknown cause of disturbance, turned over, and snored again. He must be left to wake as he would. David, with a cold perspiration on his brow, confessed to himself that Jacob could not be got away that day. Mr. Palfrey came over to Grimworth before noon, with a natural curiosity to see how his future son-in-law got on with the stranger to whom he was so benevolently inclined. He found a crowd round the shop. All Grimworth by this time had heard how Freely had been fastened on by an idiot, who called him "Brother Zavy"; and the younger population seemed to find the singular stranger an unwearying source of fascination, while the householders dropped in one by one to inquire into the incident. "Why don't you send him to the workhouse?" said Mr. Prettyman. "You'll have a row with him and the children presently, and he'll eat you up. The workhouse is the proper place for him; let his kin claim him, if he's got any." "Those may be _your_ feelings, Mr. Prettyman," said David, his mind quite enfeebled by the torture of his position. "What! _is_ he your brother, then?" said Mr. Prettyman, looking at his neighbour Freely rather sharply. "All men are our brothers, and idiots particular so," said Mr. Freely, who, like many other travelled men, was not master of the English language. "Come, come, if he's your brother, tell the truth, man," said Mr. Prettyman, with growing suspicion. "Don't be ashamed of your own flesh and blood." Mr. Palfrey was present, and also had his eye on Freely. It is difficult for a man to believe in the advantage of a truth which will disclose him to have been a liar. In this critical moment, David shrank from this immediate disgrace in the eyes of his future father-in-law. "Mr. Prettyman," he said, "I take your observations as an insult. I've no reason to be otherwise than proud of my own flesh and blood. If this poor man was my brother more than all men are, I should say so." A tall figure darkened the door, and David, lifting his eyes in that direction, saw his eldest brother, Jonathan, on the door-sill. "I'll stay wi' Zavy," shouted Jacob, as he, too, caught sight of his eldest brother; and, running behind the counter, he clutched David hard. "What, he _is_ here?" said Jonathan Faux, coming forward. "My mother would have no nay, as he'd been away so long, but I must see after him. And it struck me he was very like come after you, because we'd been talking of you o' late, and where you lived." David saw there was no escape; he smiled a ghastly smile. "What! is this a relation of yours, sir?" said Mr. Palfrey to Jonathan. "Aye, it's my innicent of a brother, sure enough," said honest Jonathan. "A fine trouble and cost he is to us, in th' eating and other things, but we must bear what's laid on us." "And your name's Freely, is it?" said Mr. Prettyman. "Nay, nay, my name's Faux, I know nothing o' Freelys," said Jonathan, curtly. "Come," he added, turning to David, "I must take some news to mother about Jacob. Shall I take him with me, or will you undertake to send him back?" "Take him, if you can make him loose his hold of me," said David, feebly. "Is this gentleman here in the confectionery line your brother, then, sir?" said Mr. Prettyman, feeling that it was an occasion on which formal language must be used. "_I_ don't want to own him," said Jonathan, unable to resist a movement of indignation that had never been allowed to satisfy itself. "He ran away from home with good reasons in his pocket years ago: he didn't want to be owned again, I reckon." Mr. Palfrey left the shop; he felt his own pride too severely wounded by the sense that he had let himself be fooled, to feel curiosity for further details. The most pressing business was to go home and tell his daughter that Freely was a poor sneak, probably a rascal, and that her engagement was broken off. Mr. Prettyman stayed, with some internal self-gratulation that _he_ had never given in to Freely, and that Mr. Chaloner would see now what sort of fellow it was that he had put over the heads of older parishioners. He considered it due from him (Mr. Prettyman) that, for the interests of the parish, he should know all that was to be known about this "interloper." Grimworth would have people coming from Botany Bay to settle in it, if things went on in this way. It soon appeared that Jacob could not be made to quit his dear brother David except by force. He understood, with a clearness equal to that of the most intelligent mind, that Jonathan would take him back to skimmed milk, apple-dumpling, broad beans, and pork. And he had found a paradise in his brother's shop. It was a difficult matter to use force with Jacob, for he wore heavy nailed boots; and if his pitchfork had been mastered, he would have resorted without hesitation to kicks. Nothing short of using guile to bind him hand and foot would have made all parties safe. "Let him stay," said David, with desperate resignation, frightened above all things at the idea of further disturbances in his shop, which would make his exposure all the more conspicuous. "_You_ go away again, and to- morrow I can, perhaps, get him to go to Gilsbrook with me. He'll follow me fast enough, I daresay," he added, with a half-groan. "Very well," said Jonathan, gruffly. "I don't see why _you_ shouldn't have some trouble and expense with him as well as the rest of us. But mind you bring him back safe and soon, else mother'll never rest." On this arrangement being concluded, Mr. Prettyman begged Mr. Jonathan Faux to go and take a snack with him, an invitation which was quite acceptable; and as honest Jonathan had nothing to be ashamed of, it is probable that he was very frank in his communications to the civil draper, who, pursuing the benefit of the parish, hastened to make all the information he could gather about Freely common parochial property. You may imagine that the meeting of the Club at the Woolpack that evening was unusually lively. Every member was anxious to prove that he had never liked Freely, as he called himself. Faux was his name, was it? Fox would have been more suitable. The majority expressed a desire to see him hooted out of the town. Mr. Freely did not venture over his door-sill that day, for he knew Jacob would keep at his side, and there was every probability that they would have a train of juvenile followers. He sent to engage the Woolpack gig for an early hour the next morning; but this order was not kept religiously a secret by the landlord. Mr. Freely was informed that he could not have the gig till seven; and the Grimworth people were early risers. Perhaps they were more alert than usual on this particular morning; for when Jacob, with a bag of sweets in his hand, was induced to mount the gig with his brother David, the inhabitants of the market-place were looking out of their doors and windows, and at the turning of the street there was even a muster of apprentices and schoolboys, who shouted as they passed in what Jacob took to be a very merry and friendly way, nodding and grinning in return. "Huzzay, David Faux! how's your uncle?" was their morning's greeting. Like other pointed things, it was not altogether impromptu. Even this public derision was not so crushing to David as the horrible thought that though he might succeed now in getting Jacob home again there would never be any security against his coming back, like a wasp to the honey-pot. As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob's return would be hanging over him. But could he go on living at Grimworth--an object of ridicule, discarded by the Palfreys, after having revelled in the consciousness that he was an envied and prosperous confectioner? David liked to be envied; he minded less about being loved. His doubts on this point were soon settled. The mind of Grimworth became obstinately set against him and his viands, and the new school being finished, the eating-room was closed. If there had been no other reason, sympathy with the Palfreys, that respectable family who had lived in the parish time out of mind, would have determined all well-to-do people to decline Freely's goods. Besides, he had absconded with his mother's guineas: who knew what else he had done, in Jamaica or elsewhere, before he came to Grimworth, worming himself into families under false pretences? Females shuddered. Dreadful suspicions gathered round him: his green eyes, his bow-legs had a criminal aspect. The rector disliked the sight of a man who had imposed upon him; and all boys who could not afford to purchase, hooted "David Faux" as they passed his shop. Certainly no man now would pay anything for the "goodwill" of Mr. Freely's business, and he would be obliged to quit it without a peculium so desirable towards defraying the expense of moving. In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr. David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely, had gone--nobody at Grimworth knew whither. In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked. Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after. The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly house-wives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them. You will further, I hope, be glad to hear, that some purchases of drapery made by pretty Penny, in preparation for her marriage with Mr. Freely, came in quite as well for her wedding with young Towers as if they had been made expressly for the latter occasion. For Penny's complexion had not altered, and blue always became it best. Here ends the story of Mr. David Faux, confectioner, and his brother Jacob. And we see in it, I think, an admirable instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself. (1860) 
30273	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: Tom came running to prevent Maggie from snatching her line away.] TOM AND MAGGIE TULLIVER TOLD FROM GEORGE ELIOT'S "THE MILL ON THE FLOSS" THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD. LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK 1909 CONTENTS. I. TOM MUST GO TO SCHOOL II. THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL III. TOM COMES HOME IV. ALL ABOUT A JAM PUFF V. THE FAMILY PARTY VI. THE MAGIC MUSIC VII. MAGGIE IS VERY NAUGHTY VIII. MAGGIE AND THE GIPSIES IX. THE GIPSY QUEEN ABDICATES X. TOM AT SCHOOL XI. THE NEW SCHOOLFELLOW XII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON XIII. PHILIP AND MAGGIE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TOM CAME RUNNING TO PREVENT MAGGIE FROM SNATCHING HER LINE AWAY . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "MY PRETTY LADY, ARE YOU COME TO STAY WITH US?" "HERE, MAGGIE, COME AND HEAR IF I CAN SAY THIS" "O TOM, PLEASE DON'T," CRIED MAGGIE MAGGIE AND TOM TULLIVER. Chapter I. TOM MUST GO TO SCHOOL. "What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill--"what I want is to give Tom a good eddication. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Lady Day. I meant to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. "The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough," the miller went on, "if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him like myself. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits and things." Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond, comely woman in a fan-shaped cap. "Well, Mr. Tulliver," said she, "you know best. But hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's a couple o' fowl _wants_ killing!" "You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy, but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," said Mr. Tulliver. "Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have calico as linen, for they'd be one as yallow as th' other before they'd been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is goin' backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple." "Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "But you mustn't put a spoke i' the wheel about the washin' if we can't get a school near enough. But it's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick." Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his pockets, as if he hoped to find some idea there. Then he said, "I know what I'll do, I'll talk it over wi' Riley. He's coming to-morrow." "Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will." As Mrs. Tulliver spoke she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the clear fire. "I think I've hit it, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, after a short silence. "Riley's as likely a man as any to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to all sorts o' places--auctioneering and vallyin' and that. I want Tom to be such a sort o' man as Riley, you know--as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and a good solid knowledge o' business too." "Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought up to that. But them fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it with a bib;--I know Riley does. And then, if Tom's to go and live at Mudport, like Riley, he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in, an' niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an' sleep up three pair o' stairs--or four, for what I know--an' be burnt to death before he can get down." "No, no," said Mr. Tulliver; "I've no thoughts of his going to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close by us, an' live at home. I doubt Tom's a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy." "Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver; "he's wonderful for liking a deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's way, and my father's before him." "It seems a bit of a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as the lad should take after the mother's side instead o' the little wench. The little un takes after my side, now: she's twice as 'cute as Tom." "Yes, Mr. Tulliver, and it all runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours together passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continued Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where she is now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so--there she is, wanderin' up an' down by the water, like a wild thing. She'll tumble in some day." Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her head. "You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she said as she sat down; "but I'm sure the child's very slow i' some things, for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for." "Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver. "She's a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see; and she can read almost as well as the parson." "But her hair won't curl, all I can do with it, and she's so franzy about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th' irons." "Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father rashly. "How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell--gone nine, and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short.--Maggie, Maggie," continued the mother, as the child herself entered the room, "where's the use o' my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll tumble in and be drownded some day, and then you'll be sorry you didn't do as mother told you." Maggie threw off her bonnet. Now, Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a curled crop, had had it cut too short in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes. "Oh dear, oh dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your shoes--do, for shame; an' come and go on with your patchwork, like a little lady." "O mother," said Maggie in a very cross tone, "I don't want to do my patchwork." "What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your Aunt Glegg?" "It's silly work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane--"tearing things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I don't want to sew anything for my Aunt Glegg; I don't like her." Exit Maggie, drawing her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver laughs audibly. "I wonder at you as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver," said the mother. "An' her aunts will have it as it's _me_ spoils her." Chapter II. THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL. Mr. Riley, who came next day, was a gentleman with a waxen face and fat hands. He talked with his host for some time about the water supply to Dorlcote Mill. Then after a short silence Mr. Tulliver changed the subject. "There's a thing I've got i' my head," said he at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked at his companion. "Ah!" said Mr. Riley, in a tone of mild interest. "It's a very particular thing," Mr. Tulliver went on; "it's about my boy Tom." At the sound of this name Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair back and looked up eagerly. "You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer," said Mr. Tulliver. "He's comin' away from the 'cademy at Lady Day, an' I shall let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to a downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him." "Well," said Mr. Riley, "there's no greater advantage you can give him than a good education." "I don't mean Tom to be a miller and farmer," said Mr. Tulliver; "I see no fun i' that. Why, if I made him a miller, he'd be expectin' to take the mill an' the land, an' a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by. Nay, nay; I've seen enough o' that wi' sons." These words cut Maggie to the quick. Tom was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors! This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the fender, and going up between her father's knees said, in a half-crying, half-angry voice,-- "Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't." "What! they mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" said Mr. Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then he added gently, "Go, go and see after your mother." "Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver as Maggie retired. "It's a pity but what she'd been the lad." Mr. Riley laughed, took a pinch of snuff, and said,-- "But your lad's not stupid, is he?" said Mr. Riley. "I saw him, when I was here last, busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it." "Well, he isn't stupid. He's got a notion o' things out o' door, an' a sort o' common sense, and he'll lay hold o' things by the right handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but poorly, and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' you never hear him say 'cute things like the little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a school where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, and make a smart chap of him." "You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver," observed Mr. Riley. "Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education than leave it him in your will." "I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the thing for Tom," said Mr. Tulliver. Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and waited a little before he said,-- "I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the necessary money, and that's what you have, Tulliver. But if any one wanted his boy to be placed under a first-rate fellow, I know his man. He's an Oxford man, and a parson. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to fill up his time. The boys would be quite of the family--the finest thing in the world for them--under Stelling's eye continually." "But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?" said Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again. "And what money 'ud he want?" said Mr. Tulliver. "Stelling is moderate in his terms; he's not a grasping man," said Mr. Riley. "I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred. I'll write to him about it if you like." Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet. "But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver, "an' I've no opinion o' house-keepers. It 'ud break my heart to send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an' I hope you won't think of it, Mr. Tulliver." "You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr. Riley, "for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world." "Father," broke in Maggie, who had stolen to her father's elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the chair--"father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Shan't we ever go to see him?" "I don't know, my wench," said the father tenderly. "Ask Mr. Riley; he knows." Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, "How far is it, please sir?" "Oh, a long, long way off," that gentleman answered. "You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him." "That's nonsense!" said Maggie, tossing her head and turning away with the tears springing to her eyes. "Hush, Maggie, for shame of you, chattering so," said her mother. "Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulliver, who had her own alarm awakened, "is it so far off as I couldn't wash him and mend him?" "About fifteen miles, that's all," said Mr. Riley. "You can drive there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or--Stelling is a kind, pleasant man--he'd be glad to have you stay." "But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tulliver sadly. Chapter III. TOM COMES HOME. Tom was to arrive early one afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came, and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came and stood outside the door with her hand on Maggie's head. "There he is, my sweet lad! But he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the set!" Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom stepped down from the gig, and said, "Hallo, Yap! what, are you there?" Then he allowed himself to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue eyes wandered towards the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was a lad with light brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, and full lips. "Maggie," said Tom, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, "you don't know what I've got in my pockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery. "No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cob-nuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was "no good" playing with her at those games, she played so badly. "Marls! no. I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows; and cobnuts are no fun, you silly--only when the nuts are green. But see here!" He drew something out of his right-hand pocket. "What is it?" said Maggie in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of yellow." "Why, it's a new-- Guess, Maggie!" "Oh, I can't guess, Tom," said Maggie impatiently. "Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket. "No, Tom," said Maggie, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing. Please be good to me." Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish-line--'two new uns--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks; see here! I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by Round Pond? And you shall catch your own fish, and put the worms on, and everything. Won't it be fun!" Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him, and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,-- "Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn't have bought it if I hadn't liked!" "Yes, very, very good. I do love you, Tom." Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again. "And the fellows fought me because I wouldn't give in about the toffee." "Oh dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?" "Hurt me? No," said Tom, putting up the hooks again. Then he took out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opened the largest blade and rubbed his finger along it. At last he said,-- "I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know--that's what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me." "Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him; wouldn't you, Tom?" "How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions--only in the shows." "No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean, in Africa, where it's very hot--the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it." "Well, I should get a gun and shoot him." "But if you hadn't got a gun. We might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a _great_ lion might run towards us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What _should_ you do, Tom?" Tom paused, and at last turned away, saying, "But the lion isn't coming. What's the use of talking?" "But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom." "Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my rabbits." Upon this Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear, for she had bad news for Tom. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out. "Tom," she said timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?" "Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom promptly. "I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you." "What for?" said Tom. "I don't want your money, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy." "Well, but, Tom, if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it." "More rabbits? I don't want any more." "Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead!" Tom stopped, and turned round towards Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his colour rising for a moment. "I'll pitch into Harry--I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You shan't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day." He walked on again. "Yes, but I forgot; and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast. "You're a naughty girl," said Tom severely, "and I'm sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you." "O Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you if you forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and love you." "Yes, you're a silly; but I never do forget things--I don't." "Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder. Tom shook her off. "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?" "Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie. "Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?" "Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom." "But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box; and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this Tom ran away from Maggie towards the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry. "Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud. She would stay up in the attic and starve herself--hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. Meanwhile, Tom was too much interested in his talk with Luke, and in going the round of the mill, to think of Maggie at all. But when he had been called in to tea, his father said, "Why, where's the little wench?" And Mrs. Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?" "I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honour. "What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home." "I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom. "Goodness heart! she's got drownded," exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window. "Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver.--"You've been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?" "I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom quickly. "I think she's in the house." "Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times." "You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else I'll let you know better." Maggie, who had taken refuge in the attic, knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat with the shock of hope. But he only stood still on the top of the stairs and said, "Maggie, you're to come down." Then she rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, "O Tom, please forgive me! I can't bear it. I will always be good--always remember things. Do love me--please, dear Tom?" And the boy quite forgot his desire to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say,-- "Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake." Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they ate together, and rubbed each other's cheeks and brows and noses together while they ate like two friendly ponies. "Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last. So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was to be seen trotting out with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the basket in the other. She had told Tom, however, that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her. They were on their way to the Round Pool--that wonderful pool which the floods had made a long while ago. The sight of the old spot always heightened Tom's good-humour, and he opened the basket and prepared their tackle. He threw Maggie's line for her, and put the rod into her hand. She thought it probable that the small fish would come to her hook, and the large ones to Tom's. But after a few moments she had forgotten all about the fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in a loud whisper, "Look, look, Maggie!" and came running to prevent her from snatching her line away. Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as usual; but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench bouncing out upon the grass. Tom was excited. "O Magsie! you little duck! Empty the basket." Maggie did not know how clever she had been; but it was quite enough that Tom called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dipping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if the willows and the reeds and the water had their happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never knew she had a bite until Tom told her, it is true, but she liked fishing very much. It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them. They would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always be like the holidays; they would always live together, and be very, very fond of each other. Chapter IV. ALL ABOUT A JAM PUFF. It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheese-cakes were even more light than usual, so that no season could have been better for a family party to consult Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet and Sister Deane about Tom's going to school. On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, where great preparations were being made, and were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed to carry away some of the good things to eat. "Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder tree, eating their jam puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?" "No," said Tom slowly--"no, I shan't." "Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?" "No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the last jam puff, with his head on one side. "What do I care about Lucy? She's only a girl; she can't play at bandy." "Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, while she leaned forward towards Tom with her eyes fixed on the knife. "No, you silly; that'll be good the day after. It's the pudding. I know what the pudding's to be--apricot roll-up--oh, my buttons!" With this the knife came down on the puff, and in a moment that dainty lay in two; but the result was not pleasing to Tom, and after a few moments' thought he said,-- "Shut your eyes, Maggie." "What for?" "You never mind what for. Shut 'em, when I tell you." Maggie obeyed. "Now which'll you have, Maggie--right hand or left?" "I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyes shut to please Tom. "Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to you fair, but I shan't give it you without. Right or left?--you choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, as Maggie peeped. "You keep your eyes shut, now, else you shan't have any." So Maggie shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to "say which," and then she said, "Left hand." "You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone. "What! the bit with the jam run out?" "No; here, take it," said Tom firmly, handing the best piece to Maggie. "Oh please, Tom, have it. I don't mind; I like the other. Please take this." "No, I shan't," said Tom, almost crossly. Maggie began to eat up her half puff with great relish; But Tom had finished his own first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last morsel or two without noticing that Tom was looking at her. "Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had eaten the last morsel. Maggie turned quite pale. "O Tom, why didn't you ask me?" "I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit." "But I wanted you to have it--you know I did," said Maggie, in an injured tone. "Yes; but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair. But if I go halves, I'll go 'em fair--only I wouldn't be a greedy." With this Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone with a "hoigh!" to Yap, who had also been looking on wistfully while the jam puff vanished. Maggie sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to misery. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice; but she would have gone without it many times over sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with her. And he had said he wouldn't have it; and she ate it without thinking. How could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; then she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer near her, nor in the paddock behind the rickyard. Where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree, where she could see far away towards the Floss. There was Tom in the distance; but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great river, and that he had another companion besides Yap--naughty Bob Jakin, whose task of frightening the birds was just now at a standstill. It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a swallow's, or a tom-tit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the wasps' nests, and could set all sorts of traps; he could climb the trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of finding hedgehogs and stoats; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because Tom had gone off with Bob. Well, there was no help for it. He was gone now, and Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the holly, or wander lonely by the hedgerow, nursing her grief. Chapter V. THE FAMILY PARTY. On the day of the family party Aunt Glegg was the first to arrive, and she was followed not long afterwards by Aunt Pullet and her husband. Maggie and Tom, on their part, thought their Aunt Pullet tolerable, because she was not their Aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more than once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his uncles tipped him that once, of course; but at his Aunt Pullet's there were a great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred the visit to her. Maggie disliked the toads, and dreamed of them horribly; but she liked her Uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. When Maggie and Tom came in from the garden with their father and their Uncle Glegg, they found that Aunt Deane and Cousin Lucy had also arrived. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed. Everything about her was neat--her little round neck with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls to match her hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a year older. "O Lucy," burst out Maggie, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tom and me, won't you?--Oh, kiss her, Tom." Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her--no; he came up to her with Maggie because it seemed easier, on the whole, than saying, "How do you do?" to all those aunts and uncles. "Heyday!" said Aunt Glegg loudly. "Do little boys and gells come into a room without taking notice o' their uncles and aunts? That wasn't the way when _I_ was a little gell." "Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver. She wanted also to whisper to Maggie a command to go and have her hair brushed. "Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children--are you?" said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud way, as she took their hands, hurting them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeks, much against their desire. "Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to boarding-schools should hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tom would not do so, and tried to draw his hand away. "Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your shoulder." Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud way, as if she thought them quite deaf, or perhaps rather silly. "Well, my dears," said Aunt Pullet sadly, "you grow wonderful fast.--I doubt they'll outgrow their strength," she added, looking over their heads at their mother. "I think the gell has too much hair. I'd have it thinned and cut shorter, sister, if I was you. It isn't good for her health. It's that as makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't wonder.--Don't you think so, Sister Deane?" "I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane. "No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough--there's nothing ails her. There's red wheat as well as white, for that matter, and some like the dark grain best. But it 'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud have the child's hair cut, so as it 'ud lie smooth." Maggie now wished to learn from her Aunt Deane whether she would leave Lucy behind to stay at the mill. Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy come to see them, to Maggie's great regret. "You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?" she said to her little daughter. "Yes, please, mother," said Lucy timidly, blushing very pink all over her little neck. "Well done, Lucy!--Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr. Deane, a large man, who held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now and then exchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver. "Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's staying was settled, "go and get your hair brushed--do, for shame. I told you not to come in without going to Martha first; you know I did." "Tom, come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough. "Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside the door. "There's something I want to do before dinner." "There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom. "Oh yes, there is time for this. Do come, Tom." Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at once to a drawer, from which she took a large pair of scissors. "What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom. Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight across the middle of her forehead. "Oh, my buttons, Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd better not cut any more off." Snip went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking; and he couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun--Maggie would look so queer. "Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, much excited. "You'll catch it, you know," said Tom as he took the scissors. "Never mind; make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another. The hinder locks fell heavily on the floor, and soon Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven manner. "O Maggie!" said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as he laughed--"oh, my buttons, what a queer thing you look! Look at yourself in the glass." Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She didn't want her hair to look pretty--she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her untidy head. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, while Maggie's flushed cheeks began to pale and her lips to tremble a little. "O Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh my!" "Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push. "Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I shall go down; I can smell the dinner going in." He hurried downstairs at once. Maggie could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think more about her hair than ever. As she stood crying before the glass she felt it impossible to go down to dinner and endure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom, and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles, would laugh at her--for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! "Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering the room after a few moments. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I niver see such a fright." "Don't, Kezia," said Maggie angrily. "Go away!" "But I tell you, you're to come down, miss, this minute; your mother says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to raise her from the floor, on which she had thrown herself. "Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting Kezia's arm. "I shan't come." "Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia, going out again. "Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room ten minutes later, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots o' goodies, and mother says you're to come." Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard. If _he_ had been crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the dinner, so nice, and she was so hungry. It was very bitter. But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, but he went and put his head near her and said in a lower, comforting tone,-- "Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when I've had mine, and a custard and things?" "Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more tolerable. "Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and said, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert--nuts, you know, and cowslip wine." Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against the frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in as it stood ajar. She saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the custards on a side-table. It was too much. She slipped in and went towards the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she wished herself back again. Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a "turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the most serious results to the table-cloth. Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same point as her own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn, while Uncle Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,-- "Heyday! What little gell's this? Why, I don't know her. Is it some little gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?" "Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr. Tulliver in an undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. "Did you ever know such a little hussy as it is?" "Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny," said Uncle Pullet. "Fie, for shame!" said Aunt Glegg in her loudest tone. "Little gells as cut their own hair should be whipped, and fed on bread and water--not come and sit down with their aunts and uncles." "Ay, ay," said Uncle Glegg playfully "she must be sent to jail, I think, and they'll cut the rest off there, and make it all even." "She's more like a gipsy nor ever," said Aunt Pullet in a pitying tone. "It's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the boy's fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life, to be so brown." "She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs. Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes. "Oh my, Maggie," whispered Tom, "I told you you'd catch it." The child's heart swelled, and getting up from her chair she ran to her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing. "Come, come, my wench," said her father soothingly, putting his arm round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if it plagued you. Give over crying; father'll take your part." "How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg in a loud "aside" to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be the ruin of her if you don't take care. My father niver brought his children up so, else we should ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are." Mrs. Tulliver took no notice of her sister's remark, but threw back her cap-strings and served the pudding in silence. When the dessert came the children were told they might have their nuts and wine in the summer-house, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out among the budding bushes of the garden like small animals getting from under a burning-glass. Chapter VI. THE MAGIC MUSIC. The children were to pay an afternoon visit on the following day to Aunt Pullet at Garum Firs, where they would hear Uncle Pullet's musical-box. Already, at twelve o'clock, Mrs. Tulliver had on her visiting costume. Maggie was frowning, and twisting her shoulders, that she might, if possible, shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers; while her mother was saying, "Don't, Maggie, my dear--don't look so ugly!" Tom's cheeks were looking very red against his best blue suit, in the pockets of which he had, to his great joy, stowed away all the contents of his everyday pockets. As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been yesterday, and she looked with wondering pity at Maggie pouting and writhing under the tucker. While waiting for the time to set out, they were allowed to build card-houses, as a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom could build splendid houses, but Maggie's would never bear the laying on of the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie made, and Tom said that no girls could ever make anything. But it happened that Lucy was very clever at building; she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that Tom admired her houses as well as his own--the more readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy's houses if Tom had not laughed when her houses fell, and told her that she was "a stupid." "Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily. "I'm not a stupid. I know a great many things you don't." "Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing as you--making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. I like Lucy better than you. I wish Lucy was _my_ sister." "Then it's wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said Maggie, starting up from her place on the floor and upsetting Tom's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but appearances were against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said nothing. He would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl. Maggie stood in dismay and terror while Tom got up from the floor and walked away. Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping. "O Tom," said Maggie at last, going half-way towards him, "I didn't mean to knock it down--indeed, indeed, I didn't." Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the window, with the object of hitting a bluebottle which was sporting in the spring sunshine. Thus the morning had been very sad to Maggie, and when at last they set out Tom's coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it to Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie, shouldn't _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf. Still, the sight of the peacock spreading his tail on the stackyard wall, just as they reached the aunt's house, was enough to turn the mind from sadness. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there--bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew and screamed, and dropped their pretty-spotted feathers; pouter pigeons, and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a wonderful dog, half mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a lion! Uncle Pullet had seen the party from the window, and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing said, "Stop the children, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps. Sally's bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes." "You must come with me into the best room," she went on as soon as her guests had passed the portal. "May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. "Well," said Aunt Pullet, "it'll perhaps be safer for the girls to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind." When they all came down again Uncle Pullet said that he reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet--that was what had made them so long upstairs. Meanwhile Tom had spent the time on the edge of the sofa directly opposite his Uncle Pullet, who looked at him with twinkling gray eyes and spoke to him as "young sir." "Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was the usual question with Uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish, rubbed his hand across his face, and answered, "I don't know." The appearance of the little girls made Uncle Pullet think of some small sweetcakes, of which he kept a stock under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days; but the three children had no sooner got them between their fingers than Aunt Pullet desired them to abstain from eating till the tray and the plates came, since with those crisp cakes they would make the floor "all over" crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the cake was so pretty she thought it was rather a pity to eat it; but Tom, watching his chance while the elders were talking, hastily stowed his own cake in his mouth at two bites. As for Maggie, she presently let fall her cake, and by an unlucky movement crushed it beneath her foot--a source of such disgrace to her that she began to despair of hearing the musical snuff-box to-day, till it occurred to her that Lucy was in high favour enough to venture on asking for a tune. So she whispered to Lucy, and Lucy, who always did what she was asked to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee, and, blushing all over her neck while she fingered her necklace, said, "Will you please play us a tune, uncle?" But Uncle Pullet never gave a too ready consent. "We'll see about it," was the answer he always gave, waiting till a suitable number of minutes had passed. Perhaps the waiting increased Maggie's enjoyment when the tune began. For the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on her mind--that Tom was angry with her; and by the time "Hush, ye pretty warbling choir" had been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness, while she sat still with her hands clasped, which sometimes comforted her mother that Maggie could look pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But when the magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running towards Tom, put her arm round his neck and said, "O Tom, isn't it pretty?" Now Tom had his glass of cowslip wine in his hand, and Maggie jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He would have been an extreme milksop if he had not said angrily, "Look there, now!" "Why don't you sit still, Maggie?" her mother said peevishly. "Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said Aunt Pullet. "Why, you're too rough, little miss," said Uncle Pullet. Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul. Mrs. Tulliver wisely took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now they were rested after their walk, the children might go and play out of doors; and Aunt Pullet gave them leave, only telling them not to go off the paved walks in the garden, and if they wanted to see the poultry fed, to view them from a distance on the horse-block. For a long time after the children had gone out the elders sat deep in talk about family matters, till at last Mrs. Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer a fine damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion of an apron. Then the door was thrown open; but instead of the tea-tray, Sally brought in an object so startling that both Mrs. Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing Uncle Pullet to swallow a lozenge he was sucking--for the fifth time in his life, as he afterwards noted. The startling object was no other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discoloured with mud, holding out two tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. Chapter VII. MAGGIE IS VERY NAUGHTY. As soon as the children reached the open air Tom said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and walked off to the place where the toads were, as if there were no Maggie in existence. Lucy was naturally pleased that Cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string, when the toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie to enjoy the sight also, especially as she would doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past history; for Lucy loved Maggie's stories about the live things they came upon by accident--how Mrs. Earwig had a wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper, for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. So now the desire to know the history of a very portly toad made her run back to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad, Maggie! Do come and see." Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deep frown. She was actually beginning to think that she should like to make Lucy cry, by slapping or pinching her, especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there, Maggie was sure he would have made friends with her sooner. Tickling a fat toad is an amusement that does not last, and Tom by-and-by began to look round for some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice of sport. "I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I mean to do?" "What, Tom?" said Lucy. "I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if you like." "O Tom, dare you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the garden." "Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody 'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do; I'll run off home." "But I couldn't run," said Lucy. "Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with you," said Tom. "You say I took you." Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side. Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse to follow. She kept a few yards behind them unseen by Tom, who was watching for the pike--a highly interesting monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have such a great appetite. "Here, Lucy," he said in a loud whisper, "come here." Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the wave of its body, wondering very much that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer; she must see it too, though it was bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy, and Tom turned round and said,-- "Now, get away, Maggie. There's no room for you on the grass here. Nobody asked _you_ to come." Then Maggie, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm, pushed poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud. Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on. Why should she be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive _her_, however sorry she might have been. "I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was not Tom's practice to "tell," but here justice clearly demanded that Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment. "Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door--"Sally, tell mother it was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud." Sally, as we have seen, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlour door. "Goodness gracious!" Aunt Pullet exclaimed, after giving a scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off the oilcloth, whatever you do." "Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to Lucy. "If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally. "Master Tom's been and said so; and they must ha' been to the pond, for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt." "There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said Mrs. Pullet. "It's your children; there's no knowing what they'll come to." Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that she found Tom leaning with rather a careless air against the white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means of teasing the turkey-cock. "Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver in a distressed voice. "I don't know," said Tom. "Why, where did you leave her?" said his mother, looking round. "Sitting under the tree against the pond," said Tom. "Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was dirt? You know she'll do mischief, if there's mischief to be done." The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused a fear in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very quickly--on his way towards her. "They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far enough." But when she not only failed to see Maggie, but presently saw Tom returning from the pond alone, she hurried to meet him. "Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone away." Chapter VIII. MAGGIE AND THE GIPSIES. After Tom and Lucy had walked away, Maggie's quick mind formed a plan which was not so simple as that of going home. No; she would run away and go to the gipsies, and Tom should never see her any more. She had been often told she was like a gipsy, and "half wild;" so now she would go and live in a little brown tent on the common. The gipsies, she considered, would gladly receive her, and pay her much respect on account of her superior knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom, and suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing that gipsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat, and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day, however, Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gipsydom was her only refuge, and she rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this was a great crisis in her life. She would run straight away till she came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gipsies; and cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her, should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran along, but made up her mind that she would secretly send him a letter by a small gipsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much. Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time that Tom got to the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She presently passed through the gate into the lane, and she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men coming along the lane in front of her. She had not thought of meeting strangers; and, to her surprise, while she was dreading their scolding as a runaway, one of the men stopped, and in a half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give a poor fellow. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket--her Uncle Glegg's present--which she drew out and gave this "poor fellow" with a polite smile. "That's the only money I've got," she said. "Thank you, little miss," said the man in a less grateful tone than Maggie expected, and she even saw that he smiled and winked at his companion. She now went on, and turning through the first gate that was not locked, crept along by the hedgerows. She was used to wandering about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common. She hoped so, for she was getting rather tired and hungry. It was still broad daylight, yet it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not come in sight. At last, however, the green fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of it. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on with a new spirit, and at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little black tent with the blue smoke rising before it which was to be her refuge. She even saw a tall female figure by the column of smoke--doubtless the gipsy-mother, who provided the tea and other groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delighted. But it was startling to find the gipsies in a lane after all, and not on a common--indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a mysterious common, where there were sand-pits to hide in, and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's picture of gipsy life. She went on, however, and before long a tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the new face and thought that her Aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called her a gipsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long hair, was really something like what she used to see in her own glass before she cut her hair off. "My little lady, where are you going to?" the gipsy said. It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected--the gipsy saw at once that she was a little lady. "Not any farther," said Maggie. "I'm come to stay with you, please." "That's pritty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to be sure!" said the gipsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her very nice, but wished she had not been so dirty. There was quite a group round the fire when they reached it. An old gipsy-woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small, shock-headed children were lying down resting on their elbows; and a donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back, was scratching his nose and feeding him with a bite of excellent stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the tea-cups. It was a little confusing, though, that the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl who was feeding the donkey sat up and stared at her. At last the old woman said,-- "What, my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down, and tell us where you come from." [Illustration: "My pretty lady, are you come to stay with us?"] It was just like a story. Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and treated in this way. She sat down and said,-- "I'm come from home because I'm unhappy, and I mean to be a gipsy. I'll live with you, if you like, and I can teach you a great many things." "Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby, sitting down by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; "and such a pritty bonnet and frock," she added, taking off Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while she spoke to the old woman in the unknown language. The tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost with a grin; but Maggie was determined not to show that she cared about her bonnet. "I don't want to wear a bonnet," she said; "I'd rather wear a red handkerchief, like yours" (looking at her friend by her side). "My hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I dare say it will grow again very soon." "Oh, what a nice little lady!--and rich, I'm sure," said the old woman. "Didn't you live in a beautiful house at home?" "Yes, my home is pretty, and I'm very fond of the river, where we go fishing; but I'm often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell you almost everything there is in my books, I've read them so many times, and that will amuse you. And I can tell you something about geography too--that's about the world we live in--very useful and interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?" "Is that where you live, my little lady?" said the old woman at the mention of Columbus. "Oh no!" said Maggie, with some pity. "Columbus was a very wonderful man, who found out half the world; and they put chains on him and treated him very badly, you know--but perhaps it's rather too long to tell before tea. _I want my tea so_." "Why, she's hungry, poor little lady," said the younger woman. "Give her some o' the cold victual.--You've been walking a good way, I'll be bound, my dear. Where's your home?" "It's Dorlcote Mill--a good way off," said Maggie. "My father is Mr. Tulliver; but we mustn't let him know where I am, else he'll fetch me home again. Where does the queen of the gipsies live?" "What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?" said the younger woman. "No," said Maggie; "I'm only thinking that if she isn't a very good queen you might be glad when she died, and you could choose another. If I was a queen, I'd be a very good queen, and kind to everybody." "Here's a bit o' nice victual, then," said the old woman, handing to Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken from a bag of scraps, and a piece of cold bacon. "Thank you," said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; "but will you give me some bread and butter and tea instead? I don't like bacon." "We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman with something like a scowl. "Oh, a little bread and treacle would do," said Maggie. "We han't got no treacle," said the old woman crossly. Meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently there came running up a rough urchin about the age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and she felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to cry before long. But the springing tears were checked when two rough men came up, while a black cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her into a tremor of fear. Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of _these_ people. "This nice little lady's come to live with us," said the young woman. "Aren't you glad?" "Ay, very glad," said the younger man, who was soon examining Maggie's silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman, and she immediately restored them to Maggie's pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the contents of the kettle--a stew of meat and potatoes--which had been taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter. Chapter IX. THE GIPSY QUEEN ABDICATES. Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gipsies: they must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble by-and-by. All thieves, except Robin Hood, were wicked people. The women now saw she was frightened. "We've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old woman, in her coaxing tone. "And she's so hungry, sweet little lady!" "Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o' this," said the younger woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to Maggie, who dared not refuse it, though fear had chased away her appetite. If her father would but come by in the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr. Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies, would happen to pass that way! "What! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the young woman, observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. "Try a bit--come." "No, thank you," said Maggie, trying to smile in a friendly way. "I haven't time, I think--it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some jam-tarts and things." Maggie rose from her seat, when the old gipsy-woman said, "Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we'll take you home all safe when we've done supper. You shall ride home like a lady." Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey and throwing a couple of bags on his back. "Now, then, little missis," said the younger man, rising and leading the donkey forward, "tell us where you live. What's the name o' the place?" "Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie eagerly. "My father is Mr. Tulliver; he lives there." "What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?" "Yes," said Maggie. "Is it far off? I think I should like to walk there, if you please." "No, no, it'll be getting dark; we must make haste. And the donkey'll carry you as nice as can be--you'll see." He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. "Here's your pretty bonnet," said the younger woman, putting it on Maggie's head. "And you'll say we've been very good to you, won't you, and what a nice little lady we said you was?" "Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie; "I'm very much obliged to you. But I wish you'd go with me too." "Ah, you're fondest o' me, aren't you?" said the woman. "But I can't go; you'll go too fast for me." It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey, holding Maggie before him, and no nightmare had ever seemed to her more horrible. When the woman had patted her on the back, and said "good-bye," the donkey, at a strong hint from the man's stick, set off at a rapid walk along the lane towards the point Maggie had come from an hour ago. Maggie was completely terrified at this ride on a short-paced donkey, with a gipsy behind her, who considered that he was earning half a crown. Two low thatched cottages--the only houses they passed in this lane--seemed to add to the dreariness. They had no windows to speak of, and the doors were closed. It was probable that they were inhabited by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey did not stop there. At last--oh, sight of joy!--this lane, the longest in the world, was coming to an end, and was opening on a broad highroad, where there was actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the corner. She had surely seen that finger-post before--"To St. Ogg's, 2 miles." The gipsy really meant to take her home, then. He was probably a good man after all, and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she didn't like coming with him alone. This idea became stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road quite well, when, as they reached a cross-road, Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a horse which seemed familiar to her. "Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father!--O father, father!" The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver's wonder, for he had been paying a visit to a married sister, and had not yet been home. "Why, what's the meaning o' this?" he said, checking his horse, while Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father's stirrup. "The little miss lost herself, I reckon," said the gipsy. "She'd come to our tent at the far end o' Dunlow Lane, and I was bringing her where she said her home was. It's a good way to come arter being on the tramp all day." "Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home," said Maggie--"a very kind, good man!" "Here, then, my man," said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings. "It's the best day's work you ever did. I couldn't afford to lose the little wench. Here, lift her up before me." "Why, Maggie, how's this, how's this?" he said, as they rode along, while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. "How came you to be rambling about and lose yourself?" "O father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was so unhappy--Tom was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it." "Pooh, pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver soothingly; "you mustn't think o' running away from father. What 'ud father do without his little wench?" "Oh no, I never will again, father--never." Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening, and Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about running away to be queen of the gipsies. Chapter X. TOM AT SCHOOL. In due time Tom found himself at King's Lorton, under the care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, a big, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with fair hair standing erect, large light-gray eyes, and a deep bass voice. The schoolmaster had made up his mind to bring Tom on very quickly during the first half-year; but Tom did not greatly enjoy the process, though he made good progress in a very short time. The boy was, however, very lonely, and longed for playfellows. In his secret heart he yearned to have Maggie with him; though, when he was at home, he always made it out to be a great favour on his part to let Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions. And before this dreary half-year was ended Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in October, Maggie came too. It was Mr. Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn, he had said, not to think too much about home. "Well, my lad," the miller said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom freely, "you look rarely. School agrees with you." Tom wished he had looked rather ill. "I don't think I am well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the tooth-ache, I think." "Euclid, my lad. Why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver. "Oh, I don't know. It's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and things. It's a book I've got to learn in; there's no sense in it." "Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver; "you mustn't say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to learn." "I'll help you now, Tom," said Maggie. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs. Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores--haven't I, father?" "_You_ help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom. "I should like to see _you_ doing one of my lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never learn such things; they're too silly." "I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie confidently. "Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the dictionary. There's _bonus_, a gift." "Now you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom. "You think you're very wise. But _bonus_ means 'good,' as it happens--_bonus, bona, bonum_." "Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie stoutly. "It may mean several things--almost every word does. There's 'lawn'--it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff handkerchiefs are made of." "Well done, little un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt rather disgusted. Mrs. Stelling did not mention a longer time than a week for Maggie's stay, but Mr. Stelling said that she must stay a fortnight. "Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as their father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now for, you silly? It makes you look as if you were crazy." "Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie. "Don't tease me, Tom. Oh, what books!" she exclaimed, as she saw the bookcases in the study. "How I should like to have as many books as that!" "Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom triumphantly. "They're all Latin." "No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of this--_History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_." "Well, what does that mean? You don't know," said Tom, wagging his head. "But I could soon find out," said Maggie. "Why, how?" "I should look inside, and see what it was about." "You'd better not, Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand on the volume. "Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and I shall catch it if you take it out." "Oh, very well! Let me see all your books, then," said Maggie, turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with her small round nose. Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to dispute with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began to jump with her round the large library table. Away they jumped with more and more vigour, till at last, reaching Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they sent it thundering down with its heavy books to the floor. Tom stood dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling. "Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, "we must keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything, Mrs. Stelling'll make us cry _peccavi_." "What's that?" said Maggie. "Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom. "Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie. "I believe you!" said Tom, with a nod. "I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a great deal crosser than Uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than father does." "Well, you'll be a woman some day," said Tom, "so you needn't talk." "But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with a toss. "Oh, I dare say, and a nasty, conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you." "But _you_ oughtn't to hate me, Tom. It'll be very wicked of you, for I shall be your sister." "Yes; but if you're a nasty, disagreeable thing, I shall hate you." "Oh but, Tom, you won't! I shan't be disagreeable. I shall be very good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate me really, will you, Tom?" "Oh, bother, never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn my lessons. See here what I've got to do," Tom went on, drawing Maggie towards him, and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind her ears, and prepared herself to help him in Euclid. "It's nonsense!" she said, after a few moments reading, "and very ugly stuff; nobody need want to make it out." "Ah, there now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, drawing the book away and wagging his head at her; "you see you're not so clever as you thought you were." "Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out if I'd learned what goes before, as you have." "But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For it's all the harder when you know what goes before. But get along with you now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you can make of that." Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing, for she delighted in new words, and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end, which would make her very wise about Latin at slight expense. After a short period of silence Tom called out,-- "Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!" "O Tom, it's such a pretty book!" she said, as she jumped out of the large armchair to give it him. "I could learn Latin very soon. I don't think it's at all hard." "Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do that. Here, come and hear if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table." [Illustration: "Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say this."] Maggie obeyed, and took the open book. "Where do you begin, Tom?" "Oh, I begin at '_Appellativa arborum_,' because I say all over again what I've been learning this week." Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines, and then he stuck fast. "There, you needn't laugh at me, Tom, for you didn't remember it at all, you see." "Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin." "Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. "I can say it as well as you can. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest stops where there ought to be no stops at all." "Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on." It was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit to Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, and in time got very deep into the examples in the Latin Grammar. Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best of terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling, as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what ABC meant--they were the names of the lines. "I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom, "and I'll just ask Mr. Stelling if you could." "I don't mind," said she. "I'll ask him myself." "Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were in the drawing-room, "couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's lessons, if you were to teach me instead of him?" "No, you couldn't," said Tom indignantly. "Girls can't do Euclid--can they, sir?" "They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said Mr. Stelling; "but they couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow." Tom, delighted with this, wagged his head at Maggie behind Mr. Stelling's chair. As for Maggie, she had hardly ever been so angry. She had been so proud to be called "quick" all her little life, and now it appeared that this quickness showed what a poor creature she was. It would have been better to be slow, like Tom. "Ha, ha, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, when they were alone; "you see it's not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never go far into anything, you know." And Maggie had no spirit for a retort. But when she was fetched away in the gig by Luke, and the study was once more quite lonely for Tom, he missed her grievously. Still, the dreary half-year did come to an end at last. How glad Tom was to see the last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The dark afternoons, and the first December snow, seemed to him far livelier than the August sunshine; and that he might make himself the surer about the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great wrench, throwing it to a distance. But it was worth buying, even at the heavy price of the Latin Grammar--the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlour at home as the gig passed over the snow-covered bridge--the happiness of passing from the cold air to the warmth, and the kisses, and the smiles of home. Chapter XI. THE NEW SCHOOLFELLOW. "Father," said Tom one evening near the end of the holidays, "Uncle Glegg says Lawyer Wakem is going to send his son to Mr. Stelling. You won't like me to go to school with Wakem's son, will you, father?" "It's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliver; "don't you learn anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's a poor deformed creatur. It's a sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Stelling, as he sends his son to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran, lawyer and rascal though he is." It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school. If he had not carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy, there would have been no ray of pleasure to enliven the gloom. "Well, Tulliver, we're glad to see you again," said Mr. Stelling heartily, on his arrival. "Take off your wrappings and come into the study till dinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a new companion." Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St. Ogg's, but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible, for he knew that for several reasons his father hated the Wakem family with all his heart. "Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver," said Mr. Stelling on entering the study--"Master Philip Wakem. You already know something of each other, I imagine, for you are neighbours at home." Tom looked confused, while Philip rose and glanced at him timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was not prepared to say, "How do you do?" on so short a notice. Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him. He knew that boys' shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders. Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk towards Tom. He thought, or rather felt, that Tom did not like to look at him. So they remained without shaking hands or even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now and then casting glances at Philip, who seemed to be drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper he had before him. What was he drawing? wondered Tom, after a spell of silence. He was quite warm now, and wanted something new to be going forward. Suddenly he walked across the hearth, and looked over Philip's paper. "Why, that's a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges in the corn!" he exclaimed. "Oh, my buttons! I wish I could draw like that. I'm to learn drawing this half. I wonder if I shall learn to make dogs and donkeys!" "Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I never learned drawing." "Never learned?" said Tom, in amazement. "Why, when I make dogs and horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won't come right, though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses, and all sorts of chimneys--chimneys going all down the wall, and windows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and horses if I was to try more," he added. "Oh yes," said Philip, "it's very easy. You've only to look well at things, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, you can alter the next time." "But haven't you been taught anything?" said Tom. "Yes," said Philip, smiling; "I've been taught Latin, and Greek, and mathematics, and writing, and such things." "Oh, but, I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?" said Tom. "Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip. "But I've done with the grammar," he added. "I don't learn that any more." "Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?" said Tom, with a sense of disappointment. "No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you if I can." Tom did not say "Thank you," for he was quite absorbed in the thought that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been expected. "I say," he said presently, "do you love your father?" "Yes," said Philip, colouring deeply; "don't you love yours?" "Oh yes; I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather ashamed of himself, now he saw Philip colouring and looking uncomfortable. "Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of changing the subject. "No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all my time to other things now." "What! Latin, and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom. "Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was resting his head on one hand, while Tom was leaning forward on both elbows, and looking at the dog and the donkey. "And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curiosity. "No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like by-and-by." "I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom. "It's no good." "It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip. "All gentlemen learn the same things." "What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows Latin?" said Tom. "He learnt it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip. "But I dare say he's forgotten it." "Oh, well, I can do that, then," said Tom readily. "Oh, I don't mind Latin," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh; "I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons I'm very fond of. I'm very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. I should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and then have come home and written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand death." "Why, were the Greeks great fighters?" said Tom, who saw a vista in this direction. "Is there anything like David, and Goliath, and Samson in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of the Jews." "Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks--about the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did. And in the _Odyssey_ (that's a beautiful poem) there's a more wonderful giant than Goliath--Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning, got a red-hot pine tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him roar like a thousand bulls." "Oh, what fun!" said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stamping first with one leg and then the other. "I say, can you tell me all about those stories? because I shan't learn Greek, you know. Shall I?" he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the contrary might be possible. "Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will Mr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?" "No, I should think not--very likely not," said Philip. "But you may read those stories without knowing Greek. I've got them in English." "Oh, but I don't like reading; I'd sooner have you tell them me--but only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting to tell me stories, but they're stupid things. Girls' stories always are. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?" "Oh yes," said Philip--"lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can tell you about Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about William Wallace, and Robert Bruce, and James Douglas. I know no end." "You're older than I am, aren't you?" said Tom. "Why, how old are you? I'm fifteen." "I'm only going in fourteen," said Tom. "But I thrashed all the fellows at Jacobs'--that's where I was before I came here. And I beat 'em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr. Stelling would let us go fishing. I could show you how to fish. You could fish, couldn't you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know." Philip winced under this allusion to his unfitness for active sports, and he answered almost crossly,-- "I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing." "Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a big pike, I can tell you," said Tom. Wakem's son, it was plain, had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Chapter XII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. As time went on Philip and Tom found many common interests, and became, on the whole, good comrades; but they had occasional tiffs, as was to be expected, and at one time had a serious difference which promised to be final. This occurred shortly before Maggie's second visit to Tom. She was going to a boarding school with Lucy, and wished to see Tom before setting out. When Maggie came, she could not help looking with growing interest at the new schoolfellow, although he was the son of that wicked Lawyer Wakem who made her father so angry. She had arrived in the middle of school hours, and had sat by while Philip went through his lessons with Mr. Stelling. Tom, some weeks before, had sent her word that Philip knew no end of stories--not stupid stories like hers; and she was convinced now that he must be very clever. She hoped he would think her rather clever too when she came to talk to him. "I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said, when they went out of the study together into the garden. "He couldn't choose his father, you know; and I've read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry for him because his father is not a good man. You like him, don't you?" "Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be with me, because I told him one day his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to tell him so, for it was true; and he began it, with calling me names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Magsie, will you? I've got something I want to do upstairs." "Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who, in this first day of meeting again, loved Tom's very shadow. "No; it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet," said Tom, skipping away. In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing the morrow's lessons, that they might have a holiday in the evening in honour of Maggie's arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin Grammar, and Philip, at the other end of the room, was busy with two volumes that excited Maggie's curiosity; he did not look at all as if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other. "I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books, "I've done my lessons now. Come upstairs with me." "What is it?" said Maggie, when they were outside the door. "It isn't a trick you're going to play me, now?" "No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; "it's something you'll like ever so." He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and, twined together in this way, they went upstairs. "I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said Tom, "else I shall get fifty lines." "Is it alive?" said Maggie, thinking that Tom kept a ferret. "Oh, I shan't tell you," said he. "Now you go into that corner and hide your face while I reach it out," he added, as he locked the bedroom door behind them. "I'll tell you when to turn round. You mustn't squeal out, you know." "Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall," said Maggie, beginning to look rather serious. "You won't be frightened, you silly thing," said Tom. "Go and hide your face, and mind you don't peep." "Of course I shan't peep," said Maggie disdainfully; and she buried her face in the pillow like a person of strict honour. But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet; then he stepped into the narrow space, and almost closed the door. Maggie kept her face buried until Tom called out, "Now, then, Magsie!" Nothing but very careful study could have enabled Tom to present so striking a figure as he did to Maggie when she looked up. With some burnt cork he had made himself a pair of black eyebrows that met over his nose, and were matched by a blackness about the chin. He had wound a red handkerchief round his cloth cap to give it the air of a turban, and his red comforter across his breast as a scarf--an amount of red which, with the frown on his brow, and the firmness with which he grasped a real sword, as he held it with its point resting on the ground, made him look very fierce and bloodthirsty indeed. Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed that moment keenly; but in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together, and said, "O Tom, you've made yourself like Bluebeard at the show." It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of the sword--it was not unsheathed. Her foolish mind required a more direct appeal to its sense of the terrible; and Tom prepared for his master-stroke. Frowning fiercely, he (carefully) drew the sword--a real one--from its sheath and pointed it at Maggie. "O Tom, please don't," cried Maggie, in a tone of dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner; "I shall scream--I'm sure I shall! Oh, don't! I wish I'd never come upstairs!" [Illustration: "O Tom, please don't,", cried Maggie.] The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a smile that was immediately checked. Slowly he let down the scabbard on the floor lest it should make too much noise, and then said sternly,-- "I'm the Duke of Wellington! March!" stamping forward with the right leg a little bent, and the sword still pointed towards Maggie, who, trembling, and with tear-filled eyes, got upon the bed, as the only means of widening the space between them. Tom, happy in this spectator, even though it was only Maggie, proceeded to such an exhibition of the cut and thrust as would be expected of the Duke of Wellington. "Tom, I will not bear it--I will scream," said Maggie, at the first movement of the sword. "You'll hurt yourself; you'll cut your head off!" "One--two," said Tom firmly, though at "two" his wrist trembled a little. "Three" came more slowly, and with it the sword swung downwards, and Maggie gave a loud shriek. The sword had fallen with its edge on Tom's foot, and in a moment after he had fallen too. Maggie leaped from the bed, still shrieking, and soon there was a rush of footsteps towards the room. Mr. Stelling, from his upstairs study, was the first to enter. He found both the children on the floor. Tom had fainted, and Maggie was shaking him by the collar of his jacket, screaming, with wild eyes. She thought he was dead, poor child! And yet she shook him, as if that would bring him back to life. In another minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom had opened his eyes. She couldn't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot; it seemed as if all happiness lay in his being alive. In a very short time the wounded hero was put to bed, and a surgeon was fetched, who dressed the wound with a serious face which greatly impressed every one. Chapter XIII. PHILIP AND MAGGIE. Poor Tom bore his severe pain like a hero, but there was a terrible dread weighing on his mind--so terrible that he dared not ask the question which might bring the fatal "yes"--he dared not ask the surgeon or Mr. Stelling, "Shall I be lame, sir?" It had not occurred to either of these gentlemen to set the lad's mind at rest with hopeful words. But Philip watched the surgeon out of the house, and waylaid Mr. Stelling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask for himself. "I beg your pardon, sir, but does Mr. Askern say Tulliver will be lame?" "Oh no, oh no," said Mr. Stelling; "only for a little while." "Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?" "No; nothing was said to him on the subject." "Then I may go and tell him, sir?" "Yes, to be sure. Now you mention it, I dare say he may be troubling about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet." It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the accident, "Will Tulliver be lame? It will be very hard for him if he is." And Tom's offences against himself were all washed out by that pity. "Mr. Askern says you'll soon be all right again, Tulliver; did you know?" he said, rather timidly, as he stepped gently up to Tom's bed. "I've just been to ask Mr. Stelling, and he says you'll walk as well as ever again, by-and-by." Tom looked up with that stopping of the breath which comes with a sudden joy; then he gave a long sigh, and turned his blue-gray eyes straight on Philip's face, as he had not done for a fortnight or more. As for Maggie, the bare idea of Tom's being always lame overcame her, and she clung to him and cried afresh. "Don't be a little silly, Magsie," said Tom tenderly, feeling very brave now. "I shall soon get well." "Good-bye, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small, delicate hand, which Tom clasped with his strong fingers. "I say," said Tom, "ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and sit with me sometimes, till I get up again, Wakem, and tell me about Robert Bruce, you know." After that Philip spent all his time out of lesson hours with Tom and Maggie. Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much as ever; but he said he was sure that those great fighters, who did so many wonderful things and came off unhurt, wore excellent armour from head to foot, which made fighting easy work. One day, soon after Philip had been to visit Tom, he and Maggie were in the study alone together while Tom's foot was being dressed. Philip was at his books, and Maggie went and leaned on the table near him to see what he was doing; for they were quite old friends now, and perfectly at home with each other. "What are you reading about in Greek?" she said. "It's poetry; I can see that, because the lines are so short." "It's about the lame man I was telling you of yesterday," he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her as if he were not at all sorry to stop. Maggie continued to lean forward, resting on her arms, while her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if she had quite forgotten Philip and his book. "Maggie," said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning on his elbow and looking at her, "if you had had a brother like me, do you think you should have loved him as well as Tom?" Maggie started a little and said, "What?" Philip repeated his question. "Oh yes--better," she answered immediately. "No, not better, because I don't think I could love you better than Tom; but I should be so sorry--so sorry for you." Philip coloured. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake. Hitherto she had behaved as if she were quite unconscious of Philip's deformity. "But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you. And you would stay at home with me when Tom went out, and you would teach me everything, wouldn't you--Greek, and everything?" "But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie," said Philip, "and then you'll forget all about me, and not care for me any more. And then I shall see you when you're grown up, and you'll hardly take any notice of me." "Oh no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure," said Maggie, shaking her head very seriously. "I never forget anything, and I think about everybody when I'm away from them. I think about poor Yap. He's got a lump in his throat, and Luke says he'll die. Only don't you tell Tom, because it will vex him so. You never saw Yap. He's a queer little dog; nobody cares about him but Tom and me." "Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie?" said Philip, smiling rather sadly. "Oh yes, I should think so," said Maggie, laughing. "I'm very fond of you, Maggie; I shall never forget you," said Philip. "And when I'm very unhappy, I shall always think of you, and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours." "Why do you like my eyes?" said Maggie, well pleased. She had never heard of any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit. "I don't know," said Philip. "They're not like any other eyes. They seem trying to speak--trying to speak kindly. I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Maggie." "Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is," said Maggie. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said,-- "Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like." "Yes, very much. Nobody kisses me." Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him. "There now," she said; "I shall always remember you, and kiss you when I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I think Mr. Askern's done with Tom's foot." When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, "O father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he is such a clever boy, and I do love him.--And you love him too, Tom, don't you? Say you love him," she added entreatingly. Tom coloured a little as he looked at his father, and said, "I shan't be friends with him when I leave school, father. But we've made it up now, since my foot has been bad; and he's taught me to play at draughts, and I can beat him." "Well, well," said Mr. Tulliver, "if he's good to you, try and make him amends and be good to him. He's a poor crooked creatur, and takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with him; he's got his father's blood in him too." * * * * * By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King's Lorton the years had made striking changes in him. He was a tall youth now, and wore his tail-coat and his stand-up collars. Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair. She was almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really looked older than he did. At last the day came when Tom was to say good-bye to his tutor, and Maggie came over to King's Lorton to fetch him home. Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder, and said, "God bless you, my boy; let me know how you get on." Then he pressed Maggie's hand; but there were no audible good-byes. Tom had so often thought how joyful he should be the day he left school "for good." And now that the great event had come, his school years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end. THE END PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. Contains ten Fairy Tales, with six Coloured and numerous other Illustrations. THE WATER-BABIES. By CHARLES KINGSLEY. Four exquisite Coloured Pictures and many Pen-and-ink Illustrations. ALICE IN WONDERLAND. By LEWIS CARROLL. Eight Coloured Plates by Harry Rountree. The prettiest cheap edition of this delightful Children's Classic in existence. THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER, and Other Stories. By JOHN RUSKIN and Others. Eight Coloured Plates by John Hassall. UNCLE REMUS. By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. Brer Rabbit has become a household word, and every child should know his adventures. Eight Coloured Plates. KNIGHTS OF THE GRAIL. The Legend of Lohengrin and the Story of Galahad. Eight Coloured Plates. JOHN DIETRICH. Eight stories from "The Fairy Book" by Mrs. Craik. Eight Coloured Plates. AESOP'S FABLES. MOTHER GOOSE. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. THE LINDEN LEAF. The Story of Siegfried from the _Nibelungen Lied_. Eight Coloured Plates. STORIES FROM TENNYSON. COX'S GREEK STORIES. Selections from "Tales of the Gods and Heroes." Eight Coloured Plates. STORIES FROM SPENSER. GULLIVER IN LILLIPUT. ROBINSON CRUSOE. (Abridged.) The famous story simply told in outline, but without loss of interest, for children not yet able to read and understand the complete work of Defoe. THE UGLY DUCKLING. A especially prepared edition of an evergreen nursery classic. STORIES FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. Simply told for children. THE SIX GIFTS. Stories retold for children from the "Earthly Paradise" of William Morris. JOHN HALIFAX'S BOYHOOD. An adaptation and abridgment of the famous novel. STORIES FROM "HIAWATHA." The story of Longfellow's fine Indian Poem. SIR THOMAS THUMB; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Fairy Knight. Eight Coloured Plates by Granville Fell DON QUIXOTE Told for children. CHILDREN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Six Coloured Plates in each. _All these books are of high literary merit and of unusual artistic charm._ OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD., LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK. 
2165	----	Transcribed from the 1921 Oxford University Press edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk THE LIFTED VEIL Give me no light, great Heaven, but such as turns To energy of human fellowship; No powers beyond the growing heritage That makes completer manhood. CHAPTER I The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of _angina pectoris_; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence. If it were to be otherwise--if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for--I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will happen in my last moments. Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting in this chair, in this study, at ten o'clock at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions and without hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, and my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my chest. I shall only have time to reach the bell, and pull it violently, before the sense of suffocation will come. No one will answer my bell. I know why. My two servants are lovers, and will have quarrelled. My housekeeper will have rushed out of the house in a fury, two hours before, hoping that Perry will believe she has gone to drown herself. Perry is alarmed at last, and is gone out after her. The little scullery-maid is asleep on a bench: she never answers the bell; it does not wake her. The sense of suffocation increases: my lamp goes out with a horrible stench: I make a great effort, and snatch at the bell again. I long for life, and there is no help. I thirsted for the unknown: the thirst is gone. O God, let me stay with the known, and be weary of it: I am content. Agony of pain and suffocation--and all the while the earth, the fields, the pebbly brook at the bottom of the rookery, the fresh scent after the rain, the light of the morning through my chamber-window, the warmth of the hearth after the frosty air--will darkness close over them for ever? Darkness--darkness--no pain--nothing but darkness: but I am passing on and on through the darkness: my thought stays in the darkness, but always with a sense of moving onward . . . Before that time comes, I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven--the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it--it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition--make haste--oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still--"ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit"; the eye will cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them. That is a trivial schoolboy text; why do I dwell on it? It has little reference to me, for I shall leave no works behind me for men to honour. I have no near relatives who will make up, by weeping over my grave, for the wounds they inflicted on me when I was among them. It is only the story of my life that will perhaps win a little more sympathy from strangers when I am dead, than I ever believed it would obtain from my friends while I was living. My childhood perhaps seems happier to me than it really was, by contrast with all the after-years. For then the curtain of the future was as impenetrable to me as to other children: I had all their delight in the present hour, their sweet indefinite hopes for the morrow; and I had a tender mother: even now, after the dreary lapse of long years, a slight trace of sensation accompanies the remembrance of her caress as she held me on her knee--her arms round my little body, her cheek pressed on mine. I had a complaint of the eyes that made me blind for a little while, and she kept me on her knee from morning till night. That unequalled love soon vanished out of my life, and even to my childish consciousness it was as if that life had become more chill I rode my little white pony with the groom by my side as before, but there were no loving eyes looking at me as I mounted, no glad arms opened to me when I came back. Perhaps I missed my mother's love more than most children of seven or eight would have done, to whom the other pleasures of life remained as before; for I was certainly a very sensitive child. I remember still the mingled trepidation and delicious excitement with which I was affected by the tramping of the horses on the pavement in the echoing stables, by the loud resonance of the groom's voices, by the booming bark of the dogs as my father's carriage thundered under the archway of the courtyard, by the din of the gong as it gave notice of luncheon and dinner. The measured tramp of soldiery which I sometimes heard--for my father's house lay near a county town where there were large barracks--made me sob and tremble; and yet when they were gone past, I longed for them to come back again. I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five- and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But, intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's _AEschylus_, and dipping into Francis's _Horace_. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that a scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, auspicious manner--then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows-- "The deficiency is there, sir--there; and here," he added, touching the upper sides of my head, "here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep." I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred--hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. I am not aware how much Mr. Letherall had to do with the system afterwards adopted towards me, but it was presently clear that private tutors, natural history, science, and the modern languages, were the appliances by which the defects of my organization were to be remedied. I was very stupid about machines, so I was to be greatly occupied with them; I had no memory for classification, so it was particularly necessary that I should study systematic zoology and botany; I was hungry for human deeds and humane motions, so I was to be plentifully crammed with the mechanical powers, the elementary bodies, and the phenomena of electricity and magnetism. A better-constituted boy would certainly have profited under my intelligent tutors, with their scientific apparatus; and would, doubtless, have found the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as fascinating as I was, every Thursday, assured they were. As it was, I could have paired off, for ignorance of whatever was taught me, with the worst Latin scholar that was ever turned out of a classical academy. I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that "an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill." I had no desire to be this improved man; I was glad of the running water; I could watch it and listen to it gurgling among the pebbles, and bathing the bright green water-plants, by the hour together. I did not want to know _why_ it ran; I had perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very beautiful. There is no need to dwell on this part of my life. I have said enough to indicate that my nature was of the sensitive, unpractical order, and that it grew up in an uncongenial medium, which could never foster it into happy, healthy development. When I was sixteen I was sent to Geneva to complete my course of education; and the change was a very happy one to me, for the first sight of the Alps, with the setting sun on them, as we descended the Jura, seemed to me like an entrance into heaven; and the three years of my life there were spent in a perpetual sense of exaltation, as if from a draught of delicious wine, at the presence of Nature in all her awful loveliness. You will think, perhaps, that I must have been a poet, from this early sensibility to Nature. But my lot was not so happy as that. A poet pours forth his song and _believes_ in the listening ear and answering soul, to which his song will be floated sooner or later. But the poet's sensibility without his voice--the poet's sensibility that finds no vent but in silent tears on the sunny bank, when the noonday light sparkles on the water, or in an inward shudder at the sound of harsh human tones, the sight of a cold human eye--this dumb passion brings with it a fatal solitude of soul in the society of one's fellow-men. My least solitary moments were those in which I pushed off in my boat, at evening, towards the centre of the lake; it seemed to me that the sky, and the glowing mountain-tops, and the wide blue water, surrounded me with a cherishing love such as no human face had shed on me since my mother's love had vanished out of my life. I used to do as Jean Jacques did--lie down in my boat and let it glide where it would, while I looked up at the departing glow leaving one mountain-top after the other, as if the prophet's chariot of fire were passing over them on its way to the home of light. Then, when the white summits were all sad and corpse-like, I had to push homeward, for I was under careful surveillance, and was allowed no late wanderings. This disposition of mine was not favourable to the formation of intimate friendships among the numerous youths of my own age who are always to be found studying at Geneva. Yet I made _one_ such friendship; and, singularly enough, it was with a youth whose intellectual tendencies were the very reverse of my own. I shall call him Charles Meunier; his real surname--an English one, for he was of English extraction--having since become celebrated. He was an orphan, who lived on a miserable pittance while he pursued the medical studies for which he had a special genius. Strange! that with my vague mind, susceptible and unobservant, hating inquiry and given up to contemplation, I should have been drawn towards a youth whose strongest passion was science. But the bond was not an intellectual one; it came from a source that can happily blend the stupid with the brilliant, the dreamy with the practical: it came from community of feeling. Charles was poor and ugly, derided by Genevese _gamins_, and not acceptable in drawing-rooms. I saw that he was isolated, as I was, though from a different cause, and, stimulated by a sympathetic resentment, I made timid advances towards him. It is enough to say that there sprang up as much comradeship between us as our different habits would allow; and in Charles's rare holidays we went up the Saleve together, or took the boat to Vevay, while I listened dreamily to the monologues in which he unfolded his bold conceptions of future experiment and discovery. I mingled them confusedly in my thought with glimpses of blue water and delicate floating cloud, with the notes of birds and the distant glitter of the glacier. He knew quite well that my mind was half absent, yet he liked to talk to me in this way; for don't we talk of our hopes and our projects even to dogs and birds, when they love us? I have mentioned this one friendship because of its connexion with a strange and terrible scene which I shall have to narrate in my subsequent life. This happier life at Geneva was put an end to by a severe illness, which is partly a blank to me, partly a time of dimly-remembered suffering, with the presence of my father by my bed from time to time. Then came the languid monotony of convalescence, the days gradually breaking into variety and distinctness as my strength enabled me to take longer and longer drives. On one of these more vividly remembered days, my father said to me, as he sat beside my sofa-- "When you are quite well enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you home with me. The journey will amuse you and do you good, for I shall go through the Tyrol and Austria, and you will see many new places. Our neighbours, the Filmores, are come; Alfred will join us at Basle, and we shall all go together to Vienna, and back by Prague" . . . My father was called away before he had finished his sentence, and he left my mind resting on the word _Prague_, with a strange sense that a new and wondrous scene was breaking upon me: a city under the broad sunshine, that seemed to me as if it were the summer sunshine of a long- past century arrested in its course--unrefreshed for ages by dews of night, or the rushing rain-cloud; scorching the dusty, weary, time-eaten grandeur of a people doomed to live on in the stale repetition of memories, like deposed and superannuated kings in their regal gold-inwoven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that the broad river seemed to me a sheet of metal; and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I thought, who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches its monotonous length on the height; who worship wearily in the stifling air of the churches, urged by no fear or hope, but compelled by their doom to be ever old and undying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, as they live on in perpetual midday, without the repose of night or the new birth of morning. A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and I became conscious of the objects in my room again: one of the fire-irons had fallen as Pierre opened the door to bring me my draught. My heart was palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draught beside me; I would take it presently. As soon as I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether I had been sleeping. Was this a dream--this wonderfully distinct vision--minute in its distinctness down to a patch of rainbow light on the pavement, transmitted through a coloured lamp in the shape of a star--of a strange city, quite unfamiliar to my imagination? I had seen no picture of Prague: it lay in my mind as a mere name, with vaguely-remembered historical associations--ill-defined memories of imperial grandeur and religious wars. Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in my dreaming experience before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent terrors of nightmare. But I could not believe that I had been asleep, for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing distinctness of the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the morning mist. And while I was conscious of this incipient vision, I was also conscious that Pierre came to tell my father Mr. Filmore was waiting for him, and that my father hurried out of the room. No, it was not a dream; was it--the thought was full of tremulous exultation--was it the poet's nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter. Was it that my illness had wrought some happy change in my organization--given a firmer tension to my nerves--carried off some dull obstruction? I had often read of such effects--in works of fiction at least. Nay; in genuine biographies I had read of the subtilizing or exalting influence of some diseases on the mental powers. Did not Novalis feel his inspiration intensified under the progress of consumption? When my mind had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it seemed to me that I might perhaps test it by an exertion of my will. The vision had begun when my father was speaking of our going to Prague. I did not for a moment believe it was really a representation of that city; I believed--I hoped it was a picture that my newly liberated genius had painted in fiery haste, with the colours snatched from lazy memory. Suppose I were to fix my mind on some other place--Venice, for example, which was far more familiar to my imagination than Prague: perhaps the same sort of result would follow. I concentrated my thoughts on Venice; I stimulated my imagination with poetic memories, and strove to feel myself present in Venice, as I had felt myself present in Prague. But in vain. I was only colouring the Canaletto engravings that hung in my old bedroom at home; the picture was a shifting one, my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more vivid images; I could see no accident of form or shadow without conscious labour after the necessary conditions. It was all prosaic effort, not rapt passivity, such as I had experienced half an hour before. I was discouraged; but I remembered that inspiration was fitful. For several days I was in a state of excited expectation, watching for a recurrence of my new gift. I sent my thoughts ranging over my world of knowledge, in the hope that they would find some object which would send a reawakening vibration through my slumbering genius. But no; my world remained as dim as ever, and that flash of strange light refused to come again, though I watched for it with palpitating eagerness. My father accompanied me every day in a drive, and a gradually lengthening walk as my powers of walking increased; and one evening he had agreed to come and fetch me at twelve the next day, that we might go together to select a musical box, and other purchases rigorously demanded of a rich Englishman visiting Geneva. He was one of the most punctual of men and bankers, and I was always nervously anxious to be quite ready for him at the appointed time. But, to my surprise, at a quarter past twelve he had not appeared. I felt all the impatience of a convalescent who has nothing particular to do, and who has just taken a tonic in the prospect of immediate exercise that would carry off the stimulus. Unable to sit still and reserve my strength, I walked up and down the room, looking out on the current of the Rhone, just where it leaves the dark-blue lake; but thinking all the while of the possible causes that could detain my father. Suddenly I was conscious that my father was in the room, but not alone: there were two persons with him. Strange! I had heard no footstep, I had not seen the door open; but I saw my father, and at his right hand our neighbour Mrs. Filmore, whom I remembered very well, though I had not seen her for five years. She was a commonplace middle-aged woman, in silk and cashmere; but the lady on the left of my father was not more than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy figure, with luxuriant blond hair, arranged in cunning braids and folds that looked almost too massive for the slight figure and the small-featured, thin-lipped face they crowned. But the face had not a girlish expression: the features were sharp, the pale grey eyes at once acute, restless, and sarcastic. They were fixed on me in half-smiling curiosity, and I felt a painful sensation as if a sharp wind were cutting me. The pale-green dress, and the green leaves that seemed to form a border about her pale blond hair, made me think of a Water-Nixie--for my mind was full of German lyrics, and this pale, fatal-eyed woman, with the green weeds, looked like a birth from some cold sedgy stream, the daughter of an aged river. "Well, Latimer, you thought me long," my father said . . . But while the last word was in my ears, the whole group vanished, and there was nothing between me and the Chinese printed folding-screen that stood before the door. I was cold and trembling; I could only totter forward and throw myself on the sofa. This strange new power had manifested itself again . . . But _was_ it a power? Might it not rather be a disease--a sort of intermittent delirium, concentrating my energy of brain into moments of unhealthy activity, and leaving my saner hours all the more barren? I felt a dizzy sense of unreality in what my eye rested on; I grasped the bell convulsively, like one trying to free himself from nightmare, and rang it twice. Pierre came with a look of alarm in his face. "Monsieur ne se trouve pas bien?" he said anxiously. "I'm tired of waiting, Pierre," I said, as distinctly and emphatically as I could, like a man determined to be sober in spite of wine; "I'm afraid something has happened to my father--he's usually so punctual. Run to the Hotel des Bergues and see if he is there." Pierre left the room at once, with a soothing "Bien, Monsieur"; and I felt the better for this scene of simple, waking prose. Seeking to calm myself still further, I went into my bedroom, adjoining the _salon_, and opened a case of eau-de-Cologne; took out a bottle; went through the process of taking out the cork very neatly, and then rubbed the reviving spirit over my hands and forehead, and under my nostrils, drawing a new delight from the scent because I had procured it by slow details of labour, and by no strange sudden madness. Already I had begun to taste something of the horror that belongs to the lot of a human being whose nature is not adjusted to simple human conditions. Still enjoying the scent, I returned to the salon, but it was not unoccupied, as it had been before I left it. In front of the Chinese folding-screen there was my father, with Mrs. Filmore on his right hand, and on his left--the slim, blond-haired girl, with the keen face and the keen eyes fixed on me in half-smiling curiosity. "Well, Latimer, you thought me long," my father said . . . I heard no more, felt no more, till I became conscious that I was lying with my head low on the sofa, Pierre, and my father by my side. As soon as I was thoroughly revived, my father left the room, and presently returned, saying-- "I've been to tell the ladies how you are, Latimer. They were waiting in the next room. We shall put off our shopping expedition to-day." Presently he said, "That young lady is Bertha Grant, Mrs. Filmore's orphan niece. Filmore has adopted her, and she lives with them, so you will have her for a neighbour when we go home--perhaps for a near relation; for there is a tenderness between her and Alfred, I suspect, and I should be gratified by the match, since Filmore means to provide for her in every way as if she were his daughter. It had not occurred to me that you knew nothing about her living with the Filmores." He made no further allusion to the fact of my having fainted at the moment of seeing her, and I would not for the world have told him the reason: I shrank from the idea of disclosing to any one what might be regarded as a pitiable peculiarity, most of all from betraying it to my father, who would have suspected my sanity ever after. I do not mean to dwell with particularity on the details of my experience. I have described these two cases at length, because they had definite, clearly traceable results in my after-lot. Shortly after this last occurrence--I think the very next day--I began to be aware of a phase in my abnormal sensibility, to which, from the languid and slight nature of my intercourse with others since my illness, I had not been alive before. This was the obtrusion on my mind of the mental process going forward in first one person, and then another, with whom I happened to be in contact: the vagrant, frivolous ideas and emotions of some uninteresting acquaintance--Mrs. Filmore, for example--would force themselves on my consciousness like an importunate, ill-played musical instrument, or the loud activity of an imprisoned insect. But this unpleasant sensibility was fitful, and left me moments of rest, when the souls of my companions were once more shut out from me, and I felt a relief such as silence brings to wearied nerves. I might have believed this importunate insight to be merely a diseased activity of the imagination, but that my prevision of incalculable words and actions proved it to have a fixed relation to the mental process in other minds. But this superadded consciousness, wearying and annoying enough when it urged on me the trivial experience of indifferent people, became an intense pain and grief when it seemed to be opening to me the souls of those who were in a close relation to me--when the rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily-turned phrases, and the kindly deeds, which used to make the web of their characters, were seen as if thrust asunder by a microscopic vision, that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all the suppressed egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague capricious memories, and indolent make-shift thoughts, from which human words and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap. At Basle we were joined by my brother Alfred, now a handsome, self-confident man of six-and-twenty--a thorough contrast to my fragile, nervous, ineffectual self. I believe I was held to have a sort of half- womanish, half-ghostly beauty; for the portrait-painters, who are thick as weeds at Geneva, had often asked me to sit to them, and I had been the model of a dying minstrel in a fancy picture. But I thoroughly disliked my own physique and nothing but the belief that it was a condition of poetic genius would have reconciled me to it. That brief hope was quite fled, and I saw in my face now nothing but the stamp of a morbid organization, framed for passive suffering--too feeble for the sublime resistance of poetic production. Alfred, from whom I had been almost constantly separated, and who, in his present stage of character and appearance, came before me as a perfect stranger, was bent on being extremely friendly and brother-like to me. He had the superficial kindness of a good-humoured, self-satisfied nature, that fears no rivalry, and has encountered no contrarieties. I am not sure that my disposition was good enough for me to have been quite free from envy towards him, even if our desires had not clashed, and if I had been in the healthy human condition which admits of generous confidence and charitable construction. There must always have been an antipathy between our natures. As it was, he became in a few weeks an object of intense hatred to me; and when he entered the room, still more when he spoke, it was as if a sensation of grating metal had set my teeth on edge. My diseased consciousness was more intensely and continually occupied with his thoughts and emotions, than with those of any other person who came in my way. I was perpetually exasperated with the petty promptings of his conceit and his love of patronage, with his self-complacent belief in Bertha Grant's passion for him, with his half- pitying contempt for me--seen not in the ordinary indications of intonation and phrase and slight action, which an acute and suspicious mind is on the watch for, but in all their naked skinless complication. For we were rivals, and our desires clashed, though he was not aware of it. I have said nothing yet of the effect Bertha Grant produced in me on a nearer acquaintance. That effect was chiefly determined by the fact that she made the only exception, among all the human beings about me, to my unhappy gift of insight. About Bertha I was always in a state of uncertainty: I could watch the expression of her face, and speculate on its meaning; I could ask for her opinion with the real interest of ignorance; I could listen for her words and watch for her smile with hope and fear: she had for me the fascination of an unravelled destiny. I say it was this fact that chiefly determined the strong effect she produced on me: for, in the abstract, no womanly character could seem to have less affinity for that of a shrinking, romantic, passionate youth than Bertha's. She was keen, sarcastic, unimaginative, prematurely cynical, remaining critical and unmoved in the most impressive scenes, inclined to dissect all my favourite poems, and especially contemptous towards the German lyrics which were my pet literature at that time. To this moment I am unable to define my feeling towards her: it was not ordinary boyish admiration, for she was the very opposite, even to the colour of her hair, of the ideal woman who still remained to me the type of loveliness; and she was without that enthusiasm for the great and good, which, even at the moment of her strongest dominion over me, I should have declared to be the highest element of character. But there is no tyranny more complete than that which a self-centred negative nature exercises over a morbidly sensitive nature perpetually craving sympathy and support. The most independent people feel the effect of a man's silence in heightening their value for his opinion--feel an additional triumph in conquering the reverence of a critic habitually captious and satirical: no wonder, then, that an enthusiastic self-distrusting youth should watch and wait before the closed secret of a sarcastic woman's face, as if it were the shrine of the doubtfully benignant deity who ruled his destiny. For a young enthusiast is unable to imagine the total negation in another mind of the emotions which are stirring his own: they may be feeble, latent, inactive, he thinks, but they are there--they may be called forth; sometimes, in moments of happy hallucination, he believes they may be there in all the greater strength because he sees no outward sign of them. And this effect, as I have intimated, was heightened to its utmost intensity in me, because Bertha was the only being who remained for me in the mysterious seclusion of soul that renders such youthful delusion possible. Doubtless there was another sort of fascination at work--that subtle physical attraction which delights in cheating our psychological predictions, and in compelling the men who paint sylphs, to fall in love with some _bonne et brave femme_, heavy-heeled and freckled. Bertha's behaviour towards me was such as to encourage all my illusions, to heighten my boyish passion, and make me more and more dependent on her smiles. Looking back with my present wretched knowledge, I conclude that her vanity and love of power were intensely gratified by the belief that I had fainted on first seeing her purely from the strong impression her person had produced on me. The most prosaic woman likes to believe herself the object of a violent, a poetic passion; and without a grain of romance in her, Bertha had that spirit of intrigue which gave piquancy to the idea that the brother of the man she meant to marry was dying with love and jealousy for her sake. That she meant to marry my brother, was what at that time I did not believe; for though he was assiduous in his attentions to her, and I knew well enough that both he and my father had made up their minds to this result, there was not yet an understood engagement--there had been no explicit declaration; and Bertha habitually, while she flirted with my brother, and accepted his homage in a way that implied to him a thorough recognition of its intention, made me believe, by the subtlest looks and phrases--feminine nothings which could never be quoted against her--that he was really the object of her secret ridicule; that she thought him, as I did, a coxcomb, whom she would have pleasure in disappointing. Me she openly petted in my brother's presence, as if I were too young and sickly ever to be thought of as a lover; and that was the view he took of me. But I believe she must inwardly have delighted in the tremors into which she threw me by the coaxing way in which she patted my curls, while she laughed at my quotations. Such caresses were always given in the presence of our friends; for when we were alone together, she affected a much greater distance towards me, and now and then took the opportunity, by words or slight actions, to stimulate my foolish timid hope that she really preferred me. And why should she not follow her inclination? I was not in so advantageous a position as my brother, but I had fortune, I was not a year younger than she was, and she was an heiress, who would soon be of age to decide for herself. The fluctuations of hope and fear, confined to this one channel, made each day in her presence a delicious torment. There was one deliberate act of hers which especially helped to intoxicate me. When we were at Vienna her twentieth birthday occurred, and as she was very fond of ornaments, we all took the opportunity of the splendid jewellers' shops in that Teutonic Paris to purchase her a birthday present of jewellery. Mine, naturally, was the least expensive; it was an opal ring--the opal was my favourite stone, because it seems to blush and turn pale as if it had a soul. I told Bertha so when I gave it her, and said that it was an emblem of the poetic nature, changing with the changing light of heaven and of woman's eyes. In the evening she appeared elegantly dressed, and wearing conspicuously all the birthday presents except mine. I looked eagerly at her fingers, but saw no opal. I had no opportunity of noticing this to her during the evening; but the next day, when I found her seated near the window alone, after breakfast, I said, "You scorn to wear my poor opal. I should have remembered that you despised poetic natures, and should have given you coral, or turquoise, or some other opaque unresponsive stone." "Do I despise it?" she answered, taking hold of a delicate gold chain which she always wore round her neck and drawing out the end from her bosom with my ring hanging to it; "it hurts me a little, I can tell you," she said, with her usual dubious smile, "to wear it in that secret place; and since your poetical nature is so stupid as to prefer a more public position, I shall not endure the pain any longer." She took off the ring from the chain and put it on her finger, smiling still, while the blood rushed to my cheeks, and I could not trust myself to say a word of entreaty that she would keep the ring where it was before. I was completely fooled by this, and for two days shut myself up in my own room whenever Bertha was absent, that I might intoxicate myself afresh with the thought of this scene and all it implied. I should mention that during these two months--which seemed a long life to me from the novelty and intensity of the pleasures and pains I underwent--my diseased anticipation in other people's consciousness continued to torment me; now it was my father, and now my brother, now Mrs. Filmore or her husband, and now our German courier, whose stream of thought rushed upon me like a ringing in the ears not to be got rid of, though it allowed my own impulses and ideas to continue their uninterrupted course. It was like a preternaturally heightened sense of hearing, making audible to one a roar of sound where others find perfect stillness. The weariness and disgust of this involuntary intrusion into other souls was counteracted only by my ignorance of Bertha, and my growing passion for her; a passion enormously stimulated, if not produced, by that ignorance. She was my oasis of mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge. I had never allowed my diseased condition to betray itself, or to drive me into any unusual speech or action, except once, when, in a moment of peculiar bitterness against my brother, I had forestalled some words which I knew he was going to utter--a clever observation, which he had prepared beforehand. He had occasionally a slightly affected hesitation in his speech, and when he paused an instant after the second word, my impatience and jealousy impelled me to continue the speech for him, as if it were something we had both learned by rote. He coloured and looked astonished, as well as annoyed; and the words had no sooner escaped my lips than I felt a shock of alarm lest such an anticipation of words--very far from being words of course, easy to divine--should have betrayed me as an exceptional being, a sort of quiet energumen, whom every one, Bertha above all, would shudder at and avoid. But I magnified, as usual, the impression any word or deed of mine could produce on others; for no one gave any sign of having noticed my interruption as more than a rudeness, to be forgiven me on the score of my feeble nervous condition. While this superadded consciousness of the actual was almost constant with me, I had never had a recurrence of that distinct prevision which I have described in relation to my first interview with Bertha; and I was waiting with eager curiosity to know whether or not my vision of Prague would prove to have been an instance of the same kind. A few days after the incident of the opal ring, we were paying one of our frequent visits to the Lichtenberg Palace. I could never look at many pictures in succession; for pictures, when they are at all powerful, affect me so strongly that one or two exhaust all my capability of contemplation. This morning I had been looking at Giorgione's picture of the cruel-eyed woman, said to be a likeness of Lucrezia Borgia. I had stood long alone before it, fascinated by the terrible reality of that cunning, relentless face, till I felt a strange poisoned sensation, as if I had long been inhaling a fatal odour, and was just beginning to be conscious of its effects. Perhaps even then I should not have moved away, if the rest of the party had not returned to this room, and announced that they were going to the Belvedere Gallery to settle a bet which had arisen between my brother and Mr. Filmore about a portrait. I followed them dreamily, and was hardly alive to what occurred till they had all gone up to the gallery, leaving me below; for I refused to come within sight of another picture that day. I made my way to the Grand Terrace, since it was agreed that we should saunter in the gardens when the dispute had been decided. I had been sitting here a short space, vaguely conscious of trim gardens, with a city and green hills in the distance, when, wishing to avoid the proximity of the sentinel, I rose and walked down the broad stone steps, intending to seat myself farther on in the gardens. Just as I reached the gravel-walk, I felt an arm slipped within mine, and a light hand gently pressing my wrist. In the same instant a strange intoxicating numbness passed over me, like the continuance or climax of the sensation I was still feeling from the gaze of Lucrezia Borgia. The gardens, the summer sky, the consciousness of Bertha's arm being within mine, all vanished, and I seemed to be suddenly in darkness, out of which there gradually broke a dim firelight, and I felt myself sitting in my father's leather chair in the library at home. I knew the fireplace--the dogs for the wood-fire--the black marble chimney-piece with the white marble medallion of the dying Cleopatra in the centre. Intense and hopeless misery was pressing on my soul; the light became stronger, for Bertha was entering with a candle in her hand--Bertha, my wife--with cruel eyes, with green jewels and green leaves on her white ball-dress; every hateful thought within her present to me . . . "Madman, idiot! why don't you kill yourself, then?" It was a moment of hell. I saw into her pitiless soul--saw its barren worldliness, its scorching hate--and felt it clothe me round like an air I was obliged to breathe. She came with her candle and stood over me with a bitter smile of contempt; I saw the great emerald brooch on her bosom, a studded serpent with diamond eyes. I shuddered--I despised this woman with the barren soul and mean thoughts; but I felt helpless before her, as if she clutched my bleeding heart, and would clutch it till the last drop of life-blood ebbed away. She was my wife, and we hated each other. Gradually the hearth, the dim library, the candle-light disappeared--seemed to melt away into a background of light, the green serpent with the diamond eyes remaining a dark image on the retina. Then I had a sense of my eyelids quivering, and the living daylight broke in upon me; I saw gardens, and heard voices; I was seated on the steps of the Belvedere Terrace, and my friends were round me. The tumult of mind into which I was thrown by this hideous vision made me ill for several days, and prolonged our stay at Vienna. I shuddered with horror as the scene recurred to me; and it recurred constantly, with all its minutiae, as if they had been burnt into my memory; and yet, such is the madness of the human heart under the influence of its immediate desires, I felt a wild hell-braving joy that Bertha was to be mine; for the fulfilment of my former prevision concerning her first appearance before me, left me little hope that this last hideous glimpse of the future was the mere diseased play of my own mind, and had no relation to external realities. One thing alone I looked towards as a possible means of casting doubt on my terrible conviction--the discovery that my vision of Prague had been false--and Prague was the next city on our route. Meanwhile, I was no sooner in Bertha's society again than I was as completely under her sway as before. What if I saw into the heart of Bertha, the matured woman--Bertha, my wife? Bertha, the _girl_, was a fascinating secret to me still: I trembled under her touch; I felt the witchery of her presence; I yearned to be assured of her love. The fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst. Nay, I was just as jealous of my brother as before--just as much irritated by his small patronizing ways; for my pride, my diseased sensibility, were there as they had always been, and winced as inevitably under every offence as my eye winced from an intruding mote. The future, even when brought within the compass of feeling by a vision that made me shudder, had still no more than the force of an idea, compared with the force of present emotion--of my love for Bertha, of my dislike and jealousy towards my brother. It is an old story, that men sell themselves to the tempter, and sign a bond with their blood, because it is only to take effect at a distant day; then rush on to snatch the cup their souls thirst after with an impulse not the less savage because there is a dark shadow beside them for evermore. There is no short cut, no patent tram-road, to wisdom: after all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time. My mind speculated eagerly on the means by which I should become my brother's successful rival, for I was still too timid, in my ignorance of Bertha's actual feeling, to venture on any step that would urge from her an avowal of it. I thought I should gain confidence even for this, if my vision of Prague proved to have been veracious; and yet, the horror of that certitude! Behind the slim girl Bertha, whose words and looks I watched for, whose touch was bliss, there stood continually that Bertha with the fuller form, the harder eyes, the more rigid mouth--with the barren, selfish soul laid bare; no longer a fascinating secret, but a measured fact, urging itself perpetually on my unwilling sight. Are you unable to give me your sympathy--you who react this? Are you unable to imagine this double consciousness at work within me, flowing on like two parallel streams which never mingle their waters and blend into a common hue? Yet you must have known something of the presentiments that spring from an insight at war with passion; and my visions were only like presentiments intensified to horror. You have known the powerlessness of ideas before the might of impulse; and my visions, when once they had passed into memory, were mere ideas--pale shadows that beckoned in vain, while my hand was grasped by the living and the loved. In after-days I thought with bitter regret that if I had foreseen something more or something different--if instead of that hideous vision which poisoned the passion it could not destroy, or if even along with it I could have had a foreshadowing of that moment when I looked on my brother's face for the last time, some softening influence would have been shed over my feeling towards him: pride and hatred would surely have been subdued into pity, and the record of those hidden sins would have been shortened. But this is one of the vain thoughts with which we men flatter ourselves. We try to believe that the egoism within us would have easily been melted, and that it was only the narrowness of our knowledge which hemmed in our generosity, our awe, our human piety, and hindered them from submerging our hard indifference to the sensations and emotions of our fellows. Our tenderness and self-renunciation seem strong when our egoism has had its day--when, after our mean striving for a triumph that is to be another's loss, the triumph comes suddenly, and we shudder at it, because it is held out by the chill hand of death. Our arrival in Prague happened at night, and I was glad of this, for it seemed like a deferring of a terribly decisive moment, to be in the city for hours without seeing it. As we were not to remain long in Prague, but to go on speedily to Dresden, it was proposed that we should drive out the next morning and take a general view of the place, as well as visit some of its specially interesting spots, before the heat became oppressive--for we were in August, and the season was hot and dry. But it happened that the ladies were rather late at their morning toilet, and to my father's politely-repressed but perceptible annoyance, we were not in the carriage till the morning was far advanced. I thought with a sense of relief, as we entered the Jews' quarter, where we were to visit the old synagogue, that we should be kept in this flat, shut-up part of the city, until we should all be too tired and too warm to go farther, and so we should return without seeing more than the streets through which we had already passed. That would give me another day's suspense--suspense, the only form in which a fearful spirit knows the solace of hope. But, as I stood under the blackened, groined arches of that old synagogue, made dimly visible by the seven thin candles in the sacred lamp, while our Jewish cicerone reached down the Book of the Law, and read to us in its ancient tongue--I felt a shuddering impression that this strange building, with its shrunken lights, this surviving withered remnant of medieval Judaism, was of a piece with my vision. Those darkened dusty Christian saints, with their loftier arches and their larger candles, needed the consolatory scorn with which they might point to a more shrivelled death-in-life than their own. As I expected, when we left the Jews' quarter the elders of our party wished to return to the hotel. But now, instead of rejoicing in this, as I had done beforehand, I felt a sudden overpowering impulse to go on at once to the bridge, and put an end to the suspense I had been wishing to protract. I declared, with unusual decision, that I would get out of the carriage and walk on alone; they might return without me. My father, thinking this merely a sample of my usual "poetic nonsense," objected that I should only do myself harm by walking in the heat; but when I persisted, he said angrily that I might follow my own absurd devices, but that Schmidt (our courier) must go with me. I assented to this, and set off with Schmidt towards the bridge. I had no sooner passed from under the archway of the grand old gate leading an to the bridge, than a trembling seized me, and I turned cold under the midday sun; yet I went on; I was in search of something--a small detail which I remembered with special intensity as part of my vision. There it was--the patch of rainbow light on the pavement transmitted through a lamp in the shape of a star. CHAPTER II Before the autumn was at an end, and while the brown leaves still stood thick on the beeches in our park, my brother and Bertha were engaged to each other, and it was understood that their marriage was to take place early in the next spring. In spite of the certainty I had felt from that moment on the bridge at Prague, that Bertha would one day be my wife, my constitutional timidity and distrust had continued to benumb me, and the words in which I had sometimes premeditated a confession of my love, had died away unuttered. The same conflict had gone on within me as before--the longing for an assurance of love from Bertha's lips, the dread lest a word of contempt and denial should fall upon me like a corrosive acid. What was the conviction of a distant necessity to me? I trembled under a present glance, I hungered after a present joy, I was clogged and chilled by a present fear. And so the days passed on: I witnessed Bertha's engagement and heard her marriage discussed as if I were under a conscious nightmare--knowing it was a dream that would vanish, but feeling stifled under the grasp of hard-clutching fingers. When I was not in Bertha's presence--and I was with her very often, for she continued to treat me with a playful patronage that wakened no jealousy in my brother--I spent my time chiefly in wandering, in strolling, or taking long rides while the daylight lasted, and then shutting myself up with my unread books; for books had lost the power of chaining my attention. My self-consciousness was heightened to that pitch of intensity in which our own emotions take the form of a drama which urges itself imperatively on our contemplation, and we begin to weep, less under the sense of our suffering than at the thought of it. I felt a sort of pitying anguish over the pathos of my own lot: the lot of a being finely organized for pain, but with hardly any fibres that responded to pleasure--to whom the idea of future evil robbed the present of its joy, and for whom the idea of future good did not still the uneasiness of a present yearning or a present dread. I went dumbly through that stage of the poet's suffering, in which he feels the delicious pang of utterance, and makes an image of his sorrows. I was left entirely without remonstrance concerning this dreamy wayward life: I knew my father's thought about me: "That lad will never be good for anything in life: he may waste his years in an insignificant way on the income that falls to him: I shall not trouble myself about a career for him." One mild morning in the beginning of November, it happened that I was standing outside the portico patting lazy old Caesar, a Newfoundland almost blind with age, the only dog that ever took any notice of me--for the very dogs shunned me, and fawned on the happier people about me--when the groom brought up my brother's horse which was to carry him to the hunt, and my brother himself appeared at the door, florid, broad-chested, and self-complacent, feeling what a good-natured fellow he was not to behave insolently to us all on the strength of his great advantages. "Latimer, old boy," he said to me in a tone of compassionate cordiality, "what a pity it is you don't have a run with the hounds now and then! The finest thing in the world for low spirits!" "Low spirits!" I thought bitterly, as he rode away; "that is the sort of phrase with which coarse, narrow natures like yours think to describe experience of which you can know no more than your horse knows. It is to such as you that the good of this world falls: ready dulness, healthy selfishness, good-tempered conceit--these are the keys to happiness." The quick thought came, that my selfishness was even stronger than his--it was only a suffering selfishness instead of an enjoying one. But then, again, my exasperating insight into Alfred's self-complacent soul, his freedom from all the doubts and fears, the unsatisfied yearnings, the exquisite tortures of sensitiveness, that had made the web of my life, seemed to absolve me from all bonds towards him. This man needed no pity, no love; those fine influences would have been as little felt by him as the delicate white mist is felt by the rock it caresses. There was no evil in store for _him_: if he was not to marry Bertha, it would be because he had found a lot pleasanter to himself. Mr. Filmore's house lay not more than half a mile beyond our own gates, and whenever I knew my brother was gone in another direction, I went there for the chance of finding Bertha at home. Later on in the day I walked thither. By a rare accident she was alone, and we walked out in the grounds together, for she seldom went on foot beyond the trimly-swept gravel-walks. I remember what a beautiful sylph she looked to me as the low November sun shone on her blond hair, and she tripped along teasing me with her usual light banter, to which I listened half fondly, half moodily; it was all the sign Bertha's mysterious inner self ever made to me. To-day perhaps, the moodiness predominated, for I had not yet shaken off the access of jealous hate which my brother had raised in me by his parting patronage. Suddenly I interrupted and startled her by saying, almost fiercely, "Bertha, how can you love Alfred?" She looked at me with surprise for a moment, but soon her light smile came again, and she answered sarcastically, "Why do you suppose I love him?" "How can you ask that, Bertha?" "What! your wisdom thinks I must love the man I'm going to marry? The most unpleasant thing in the world. I should quarrel with him; I should be jealous of him; our _menage_ would be conducted in a very ill-bred manner. A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of life." "Bertha, that is not your real feeling. Why do you delight in trying to deceive me by inventing such cynical speeches?" "I need never take the trouble of invention in order to deceive you, my small Tasso"--(that was the mocking name she usually gave me). "The easiest way to deceive a poet is to tell him the truth." She was testing the validity of her epigram in a daring way, and for a moment the shadow of my vision--the Bertha whose soul was no secret to me--passed between me and the radiant girl, the playful sylph whose feelings were a fascinating mystery. I suppose I must have shuddered, or betrayed in some other way my momentary chill of horror. "Tasso!" she said, seizing my wrist, and peeping round into my face, "are you really beginning to discern what a heartless girl I am? Why, you are not half the poet I thought you were; you are actually capable of believing the truth about me." The shadow passed from between us, and was no longer the object nearest to me. The girl whose light fingers grasped me, whose elfish charming face looked into mine--who, I thought, was betraying an interest in my feelings that she would not have directly avowed,--this warm breathing presence again possessed my senses and imagination like a returning siren melody which had been overpowered for an instant by the roar of threatening waves. It was a moment as delicious to me as the waking up to a consciousness of youth after a dream of middle age. I forgot everything but my passion, and said with swimming eyes-- "Bertha, shall you love me when we are first married? I wouldn't mind if you really loved me only for a little while." Her look of astonishment, as she loosed my hand and started away from me, recalled me to a sense of my strange, my criminal indiscretion. "Forgive me," I said, hurriedly, as soon as I could speak again; "I did not know what I was saying." "Ah, Tasso's mad fit has come on, I see," she answered quietly, for she had recovered herself sooner than I had. "Let him go home and keep his head cool. I must go in, for the sun is setting." I left her--full of indignation against myself. I had let slip words which, if she reflected on them, might rouse in her a suspicion of my abnormal mental condition--a suspicion which of all things I dreaded. And besides that, I was ashamed of the apparent baseness I had committed in uttering them to my brother's betrothed wife. I wandered home slowly, entering our park through a private gate instead of by the lodges. As I approached the house, I saw a man dashing off at full speed from the stable-yard across the park. Had any accident happened at home? No; perhaps it was only one of my father's peremptory business errands that required this headlong haste. Nevertheless I quickened my pace without any distinct motive, and was soon at the house. I will not dwell on the scene I found there. My brother was dead--had been pitched from his horse, and killed on the spot by a concussion of the brain. I went up to the room where he lay, and where my father was seated beside him with a look of rigid despair. I had shunned my father more than any one since our return home, for the radical antipathy between our natures made my insight into his inner self a constant affliction to me. But now, as I went up to him, and stood beside him in sad silence, I felt the presence of a new element that blended us as we had never been blent before. My father had been one of the most successful men in the money- getting world: he had had no sentimental sufferings, no illness. The heaviest trouble that had befallen him was the death of his first wife. But he married my mother soon after; and I remember he seemed exactly the same, to my keen childish observation, the week after her death as before. But now, at last, a sorrow had come--the sorrow of old age, which suffers the more from the crushing of its pride and its hopes, in proportion as the pride and hope are narrow and prosaic. His son was to have been married soon--would probably have stood for the borough at the next election. That son's existence was the best motive that could be alleged for making new purchases of land every year to round off the estate. It is a dreary thing onto live on doing the same things year after year, without knowing why we do them. Perhaps the tragedy of disappointed youth and passion is less piteous than the tragedy of disappointed age and worldliness. As I saw into the desolation of my father's heart, I felt a movement of deep pity towards him, which was the beginning of a new affection--an affection that grew and strengthened in spite of the strange bitterness with which he regarded me in the first month or two after my brother's death. If it had not been for the softening influence of my compassion for him--the first deep compassion I had ever felt--I should have been stung by the perception that my father transferred the inheritance of an eldest son to me with a mortified sense that fate had compelled him to the unwelcome course of caring for me as an important being. It was only in spite of himself that he began to think of me with anxious regard. There is hardly any neglected child for whom death has made vacant a more favoured place, who will not understand what I mean. Gradually, however, my new deference to his wishes, the effect of that patience which was born of my pity for him, won upon his affection, and he began to please himself with the endeavour to make me fill any brother's place as fully as my feebler personality would admit. I saw that the prospect which by and by presented itself of my becoming Bertha's husband was welcome to him, and he even contemplated in my case what he had not intended in my brother's--that his son and daughter-in- law should make one household with him. My softened feelings towards my father made this the happiest time I had known since childhood;--these last months in which I retained the delicious illusion of loving Bertha, of longing and doubting and hoping that she might love me. She behaved with a certain new consciousness and distance towards me after my brother's death; and I too was under a double constraint--that of delicacy towards my brother's memory and of anxiety as to the impression my abrupt words had left on her mind. But the additional screen this mutual reserve erected between us only brought me more completely under her power: no matter how empty the adytum, so that the veil be thick enough. So absolute is our soul's need of something hidden and uncertain for the maintenance of that doubt and hope and effort which are the breath of its life, that if the whole future were laid bare to us beyond to-day, the interest of all mankind would be bent on the hours that lie between; we should pant after the uncertainties of our one morning and our one afternoon; we should rush fiercely to the Exchange for our last possibility of speculation, of success, of disappointment: we should have a glut of political prophets foretelling a crisis or a no-crisis within the only twenty-four hours left open to prophecy. Conceive the condition of the human mind if all propositions whatsoever were self-evident except one, which was to become self-evident at the close of a summer's day, but in the meantime might be the subject of question, of hypothesis, of debate. Art and philosophy, literature and science, would fasten like bees on that one proposition which had the honey of probability in it, and be the more eager because their enjoyment would end with sunset. Our impulses, our spiritual activities, no more adjust themselves to the idea of their future nullity, than the beating of our heart, or the irritability of our muscles. Bertha, the slim, fair-haired girl, whose present thoughts and emotions were an enigma to me amidst the fatiguing obviousness of the other minds around me, was as absorbing to me as a single unknown to-day--as a single hypothetic proposition to remain problematic till sunset; and all the cramped, hemmed-in belief and disbelief, trust and distrust, of my nature, welled out in this one narrow channel. And she made me believe that she loved me. Without ever quitting her tone of _badinage_ and playful superiority, she intoxicated me with the sense that I was necessary to her, that she was never at ease, unless I was near her, submitting to her playful tyranny. It costs a woman so little effort to beset us in this way! A half-repressed word, a moment's unexpected silence, even an easy fit of petulance on our account, will serve us as _hashish_ for a long while. Out of the subtlest web of scarcely perceptible signs, she set me weaving the fancy that she had always unconsciously loved me better than Alfred, but that, with the ignorant fluttered sensibility of a young girl, she had been imposed on by the charm that lay for her in the distinction of being admired and chosen by a man who made so brilliant a figure in the world as my brother. She satirized herself in a very graceful way for her vanity and ambition. What was it to me that I had the light of my wretched provision on the fact that now it was I who possessed at least all but the personal part of my brother's advantages? Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions, like effects of colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags. We were married eighteen months after Alfred's death, one cold, clear morning in April, when there came hail and sunshine both together; and Bertha, in her white silk and pale-green leaves, and the pale hues of her hair and face, looked like the spirit of the morning. My father was happier than he had thought of being again: my marriage, he felt sure, would complete the desirable modification of my character, and make me practical and worldly enough to take my place in society among sane men. For he delighted in Bertha's tact and acuteness, and felt sure she would be mistress of me, and make me what she chose: I was only twenty-one, and madly in love with her. Poor father! He kept that hope a little while after our first year of marriage, and it was not quite extinct when paralysis came and saved him from utter disappointment. I shall hurry through the rest of my story, not dwelling so much as I have hitherto done on my inward experience. When people are well known to each other, they talk rather of what befalls them externally, leaving their feelings and sentiments to be inferred. We lived in a round of visits for some time after our return home, giving splendid dinner-parties, and making a sensation in our neighbourhood by the new lustre of our equipage, for my father had reserved this display of his increased wealth for the period of his son's marriage; and we gave our acquaintances liberal opportunity for remarking that it was a pity I made so poor a figure as an heir and a bridegroom. The nervous fatigue of this existence, the insincerities and platitudes which I had to live through twice over--through my inner and outward sense--would have been maddening to me, if I had not had that sort of intoxicated callousness which came from the delights of a first passion. A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl of society, filling their solitary moments with hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared for their future life together as the novice is prepared for the cloister--by experiencing its utmost contrast. Through all these crowded excited months, Bertha's inward self remained shrouded from me, and I still read her thoughts only through the language of her lips and demeanour: I had still the human interest of wondering whether what I did and said pleased her, of longing to hear a word of affection, of giving a delicious exaggeration of meaning to her smile. But I was conscious of a growing difference in her manner towards me; sometimes strong enough to be called haughty coldness, cutting and chilling me as the hail had done that came across the sunshine on our marriage morning; sometimes only perceptible in the dexterous avoidance of a _tete-a-tete_ walk or dinner to which I had been looking forward. I had been deeply pained by this--had even felt a sort of crushing of the heart, from the sense that my brief day of happiness was near its setting; but still I remained dependent on Bertha, eager for the last rays of a bliss that would soon be gone for ever, hoping and watching for some after-glow more beautiful from the impending night. I remember--how should I not remember?--the time when that dependence and hope utterly left me, when the sadness I had felt in Bertha's growing estrangement became a joy that I looked back upon with longing as a man might look back on the last pains in a paralysed limb. It was just after the close of my father's last illness, which had necessarily withdrawn us from society and thrown us more on each other. It was the evening of father's death. On that evening the veil which had shrouded Bertha's soul from me--had made me find in her alone among my fellow-beings the blessed possibility of mystery, and doubt, and expectation--was first withdrawn. Perhaps it was the first day since the beginning of my passion for her, in which that passion was completely neutralized by the presence of an absorbing feeling of another kind. I had been watching by my father's deathbed: I had been witnessing the last fitful yearning glance his soul had cast back on the spent inheritance of life--the last faint consciousness of love he had gathered from the pressure of my hand. What are all our personal loves when we have been sharing in that supreme agony? In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny. In that state of mind I joined Bertha in her private sitting-room. She was seated in a leaning posture on a settee, with her back towards the door; the great rich coils of her pale blond hair surmounting her small neck, visible above the back of the settee. I remember, as I closed the door behind me, a cold tremulousness seizing me, and a vague sense of being hated and lonely--vague and strong, like a presentiment. I know how I looked at that moment, for I saw myself in Bertha's thought as she lifted her cutting grey eyes, and looked at me: a miserable ghost-seer, surrounded by phantoms in the noonday, trembling under a breeze when the leaves were still, without appetite for the common objects of human desires, but pining after the moon-beams. We were front to front with each other, and judged each other. The terrible moment of complete illumination had come to me, and I saw that the darkness had hidden no landscape from me, but only a blank prosaic wall: from that evening forth, through the sickening years which followed, I saw all round the narrow room of this woman's soul--saw petty artifice and mere negation where I had delighted to believe in coy sensibilities and in wit at war with latent feeling--saw the light floating vanities of the girl defining themselves into the systematic coquetry, the scheming selfishness, of the woman--saw repulsion and antipathy harden into cruel hatred, giving pain only for the sake of wreaking itself. For Bertha too, after her kind, felt the bitterness of disillusion. She had believed that my wild poet's passion for her would make me her slave; and that, being her slave, I should execute her will in all things. With the essential shallowness of a negative, unimaginative nature, she was unable to conceive the fact that sensibilities were anything else than weaknesses. She had thought my weaknesses would put me in her power, and she found them unmanageable forces. Our positions were reversed. Before marriage she had completely mastered my imagination, for she was a secret to me; and I created the unknown thought before which I trembled as if it were hers. But now that her soul was laid open to me, now that I was compelled to share the privacy of her motives, to follow all the petty devices that preceded her words and acts, she found herself powerless with me, except to produce in me the chill shudder of repulsion-- powerless, because I could be acted on by no lever within her reach. I was dead to worldly ambitions, to social vanities, to all the incentives within the compass of her narrow imagination, and I lived under influences utterly invisible to her. She was really pitiable to have such a husband, and so all the world thought. A graceful, brilliant woman, like Bertha, who smiled on morning callers, made a figure in ball-rooms, and was capable of that light repartee which, from such a woman, is accepted as wit, was secure of carrying off all sympathy from a husband who was sickly, abstracted, and, as some suspected, crack-brained. Even the servants in our house gave her the balance of their regard and pity. For there were no audible quarrels between us; our alienation, our repulsion from each other, lay within the silence of our own hearts; and if the mistress went out a great deal, and seemed to dislike the master's society, was it not natural, poor thing? The master was odd. I was kind and just to my dependants, but I excited in them a shrinking, half-contemptuous pity; for this class of men and women are but slightly determined in their estimate of others by general considerations, or even experience, of character. They judge of persons as they judge of coins, and value those who pass current at a high rate. After a time I interfered so little with Bertha's habits that it might seem wonderful how her hatred towards me could grow so intense and active as it did. But she had begun to suspect, by some involuntary betrayal of mine, that there was an abnormal power of penetration in me--that fitfully, at least, I was strangely cognizant of her thoughts and intentions, and she began to be haunted by a terror of me, which alternated every now and then with defiance. She meditated continually how the incubus could be shaken off her life--how she could be freed from this hateful bond to a being whom she at once despised as an imbecile, and dreaded as an inquisitor. For a long while she lived in the hope that my evident wretchedness would drive me to the commission of suicide; but suicide was not in my nature. I was too completely swayed by the sense that I was in the grasp of unknown forces, to believe in my power of self-release. Towards my own destiny I had become entirely passive; for my one ardent desire had spent itself, and impulse no longer predominated over knowledge. For this reason I never thought of taking any steps towards a complete separation, which would have made our alienation evident to the world. Why should I rush for help to a new course, when I was only suffering from the consequences of a deed which had been the act of my intensest will? That would have been the logic of one who had desires to gratify, and I had no desires. But Bertha and I lived more and more aloof from each other. The rich find it easy to live married and apart. That course of our life which I have indicated in a few sentences filled the space of years. So much misery--so slow and hideous a growth of hatred and sin, may be compressed into a sentence! And men judge of each other's lives through this summary medium. They epitomize the experience of their fellow-mortal, and pronounce judgment on him in neat syntax, and feel themselves wise and virtuous--conquerors over the temptations they define in well-selected predicates. Seven years of wretchedness glide glibly over the lips of the man who has never counted them out in moments of chill disappointment, of head and heart throbbings, of dread and vain wrestling, of remorse and despair. We learn _words_ by rote, but not their meaning; _that_ must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves. But I will hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at once to those who readily understand, and to those who will never understand. Some years after my father's death, I was sitting by the dim firelight in my library one January evening--sitting in the leather chair that used to be my father's--when Bertha appeared at the door, with a candle in her hand, and advanced towards me. I knew the ball-dress she had on--the white ball-dress, with the green jewels, shone upon by the light of the wax candle which lit up the medallion of the dying Cleopatra on the mantelpiece. Why did she come to me before going out? I had not seen her in the library, which was my habitual place for months. Why did she stand before me with the candle in her hand, with her cruel contemptuous eyes fixed on me, and the glittering serpent, like a familiar demon, on her breast? For a moment I thought this fulfilment of my vision at Vienna marked some dreadful crisis in my fate, but I saw nothing in Bertha's mind, as she stood before me, except scorn for the look of overwhelming misery with which I sat before her . . . "Fool, idiot, why don't you kill yourself, then?"--that was her thought. But at length her thoughts reverted to her errand, and she spoke aloud. The apparently indifferent nature of the errand seemed to make a ridiculous anticlimax to my prevision and my agitation. "I have had to hire a new maid. Fletcher is going to be married, and she wants me to ask you to let her husband have the public-house and farm at Molton. I wish him to have it. You must give the promise now, because Fletcher is going to-morrow morning--and quickly, because I'm in a hurry." "Very well; you may promise her," I said, indifferently, and Bertha swept out of the library again. I always shrank from the sight of a new person, and all the more when it was a person whose mental life was likely to weary my reluctant insight with worldly ignorant trivialities. But I shrank especially from the sight of this new maid, because her advent had been announced to me at a moment to which I could not cease to attach some fatality: I had a vague dread that I should find her mixed up with the dreary drama of my life--that some new sickening vision would reveal her to me as an evil genius. When at last I did unavoidably meet her, the vague dread was changed into definite disgust. She was a tall, wiry, dark-eyed woman, this Mrs. Archer, with a face handsome enough to give her coarse hard nature the odious finish of bold, self-confident coquetry. That was enough to make me avoid her, quite apart from the contemptuous feeling with which she contemplated me. I seldom saw her; but I perceived that she rapidly became a favourite with her mistress, and, after the lapse of eight or nine months, I began to be aware that there had arisen in Bertha's mind towards this woman a mingled feeling of fear and dependence, and that this feeling was associated with ill-defined images of candle-light scenes in her dressing-room, and the locking-up of something in Bertha's cabinet. My interviews with my wife had become so brief and so rarely solitary, that I had no opportunity of perceiving these images in her mind with more definiteness. The recollections of the past become contracted in the rapidity of thought till they sometimes bear hardly a more distinct resemblance to the external reality than the forms of an oriental alphabet to the objects that suggested them. Besides, for the last year or more a modification had been going forward in my mental condition, and was growing more and more marked. My insight into the minds of those around me was becoming dimmer and more fitful, and the ideas that crowded my double consciousness became less and less dependent on any personal contact. All that was personal in me seemed to be suffering a gradual death, so that I was losing the organ through which the personal agitations and projects of others could affect me. But along with this relief from wearisome insight, there was a new development of what I concluded--as I have since found rightly--to be a provision of external scenes. It was as if the relation between me and my fellow-men was more and more deadened, and my relation to what we call the inanimate was quickened into new life. The more I lived apart from society, and in proportion as my wretchedness subsided from the violent throb of agonized passion into the dulness of habitual pain, the more frequent and vivid became such visions as that I had had of Prague--of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks flecked with the afternoon sunshine through the boughs: I was in the midst of such scenes, and in all of them one presence seemed to weigh on me in all these mighty shapes--the presence of something unknown and pitiless. For continual suffering had annihilated religious faith within me: to the utterly miserable--the unloving and the unloved--there is no religion possible, no worship but a worship of devils. And beyond all these, and continually recurring, was the vision of my death--the pangs, the suffocation, the last struggle, when life would be grasped at in vain. Things were in this state near the end of the seventh year. I had become entirely free from insight, from my abnormal cognizance of any other consciousness than my own, and instead of intruding involuntarily into the world of other minds, was living continually in my own solitary future. Bertha was aware that I was greatly changed. To my surprise she had of late seemed to seek opportunities of remaining in my society, and had cultivated that kind of distant yet familiar talk which is customary between a husband and wife who live in polite and irrevocable alienation. I bore this with languid submission, and without feeling enough interest in her motives to be roused into keen observation; yet I could not help perceiving something triumphant and excited in her carriage and the expression of her face--something too subtle to express itself in words or tones, but giving one the idea that she lived in a state of expectation or hopeful suspense. My chief feeling was satisfaction that her inner self was once more shut out from me; and I almost revelled for the moment in the absent melancholy that made me answer her at cross purposes, and betray utter ignorance of what she had been saying. I remember well the look and the smile with which she one day said, after a mistake of this kind on my part: "I used to think you were a clairvoyant, and that was the reason why you were so bitter against other clairvoyants, wanting to keep your monopoly; but I see now you have become rather duller than the rest of the world." I said nothing in reply. It occurred to me that her recent obtrusion of herself upon me might have been prompted by the wish to test my power of detecting some of her secrets; but I let the thought drop again at once: her motives and her deeds had no interest for me, and whatever pleasures she might be seeking, I had no wish to baulk her. There was still pity in my soul for every living thing, and Bertha was living--was surrounded with possibilities of misery. Just at this time there occurred an event which roused me somewhat from my inertia, and gave me an interest in the passing moment that I had thought impossible for me. It was a visit from Charles Meunier, who had written me word that he was coming to England for relaxation from too strenuous labour, and would like too see me. Meunier had now a European reputation; but his letter to me expressed that keen remembrance of an early regard, an early debt of sympathy, which is inseparable from nobility of character: and I too felt as if his presence would be to me like a transient resurrection into a happier pre-existence. He came, and as far as possible, I renewed our old pleasure of making _tete-a-tete_ excursions, though, instead of mountains and glacers and the wide blue lake, we had to content ourselves with mere slopes and ponds and artificial plantations. The years had changed us both, but with what different result! Meunier was now a brilliant figure in society, to whom elegant women pretended to listen, and whose acquaintance was boasted of by noblemen ambitious of brains. He repressed with the utmost delicacy all betrayal of the shock which I am sure he must have received from our meeting, or of a desire to penetrate into my condition and circumstances, and sought by the utmost exertion of his charming social powers to make our reunion agreeable. Bertha was much struck by the unexpected fascinations of a visitor whom she had expected to find presentable only on the score of his celebrity, and put forth all her coquetries and accomplishments. Apparently she succeeded in attracting his admiration, for his manner towards her was attentive and flattering. The effect of his presence on me was so benignant, especially in those renewals of our old _tete-a-tete_ wanderings, when he poured forth to me wonderful narratives of his professional experience, that more than once, when his talk turned on the psychological relations of disease, the thought crossed my mind that, if his stay with me were long enough, I might possibly bring myself to tell this man the secrets of my lot. Might there not lie some remedy for me, too, in his science? Might there not at least lie some comprehension and sympathy ready for me in his large and susceptible mind? But the thought only flickered feebly now and then, and died out before it could become a wish. The horror I had of again breaking in on the privacy of another soul, made me, by an irrational instinct, draw the shroud of concealment more closely around my own, as we automatically perform the gesture we feel to be wanting in another. When Meunier's visit was approaching its conclusion, there happened an event which caused some excitement in our household, owing to the surprisingly strong effect it appeared to produce on Bertha--on Bertha, the self-possessed, who usually seemed inaccessible to feminine agitations, and did even her hate in a self-restrained hygienic manner. This event was the sudden severe illness of her maid, Mrs. Archer. I have reserved to this moment the mention of a circumstance which had forced itself on my notice shortly before Meunier's arrival, namely, that there had been some quarrel between Bertha and this maid, apparently during a visit to a distant family, in which she had accompanied her mistress. I had overheard Archer speaking in a tone of bitter insolence, which I should have thought an adequate reason for immediate dismissal. No dismissal followed; on the contrary, Bertha seemed to be silently putting up with personal inconveniences from the exhibitions of this woman's temper. I was the more astonished to observe that her illness seemed a cause of strong solicitude to Bertha; that she was at the bedside night and day, and would allow no one else to officiate as head- nurse. It happened that our family doctor was out on a holiday, an accident which made Meunier's presence in the house doubly welcome, and he apparently entered into the case with an interest which seemed so much stronger than the ordinary professional feeling, that one day when he had fallen into a long fit of silence after visiting her, I said to him-- "Is this a very peculiar case of disease, Meunier?" "No," he answered, "it is an attack of peritonitis, which will be fatal, but which does not differ physically from many other cases that have come under my observation. But I'll tell you what I have on my mind. I want to make an experiment on this woman, if you will give me permission. It can do her no harm--will give her no pain--for I shall not make it until life is extinct to all purposes of sensation. I want to try the effect of transfusing blood into her arteries after the heart has ceased to beat for some minutes. I have tried the experiment again and again with animals that have died of this disease, with astounding results, and I want to try it on a human subject. I have the small tubes necessary, in a case I have with me, and the rest of the apparatus could be prepared readily. I should use my own blood--take it from my own arm. This woman won't live through the night, I'm convinced, and I want you to promise me your assistance in making the experiment. I can't do without another hand, but it would perhaps not be well to call in a medical assistant from among your provincial doctors. A disagreeable foolish version of the thing might get abroad." "Have you spoken to my wife on the subject?" I said, "because she appears to be peculiarly sensitive about this woman: she has been a favourite maid." "To tell you the truth," said Meunier, "I don't want her to know about it. There are always insuperable difficulties with women in these matters, and the effect on the supposed dead body may be startling. You and I will sit up together, and be in readiness. When certain symptoms appear I shall take you in, and at the right moment we must manage to get every one else out of the room." I need not give our farther conversation on the subject. He entered very fully into the details, and overcame my repulsion from them, by exciting in me a mingled awe and curiosity concerning the possible results of his experiment. We prepared everything, and he instructed me in my part as assistant. He had not told Bertha of his absolute conviction that Archer would not survive through the night, and endeavoured to persuade her to leave the patient and take a night's rest. But she was obstinate, suspecting the fact that death was at hand, and supposing that he wished merely to save her nerves. She refused to leave the sick-room. Meunier and I sat up together in the library, he making frequent visits to the sick-room, and returning with the information that the case was taking precisely the course he expected. Once he said to me, "Can you imagine any cause of ill-feeling this woman has against her mistress, who is so devoted to her?" "I think there was some misunderstanding between them before her illness. Why do you ask?" "Because I have observed for the last five or six hours--since, I fancy, she has lost all hope of recovery--there seems a strange prompting in her to say something which pain and failing strength forbid her to utter; and there is a look of hideous meaning in her eyes, which she turns continually towards her mistress. In this disease the mind often remains singularly clear to the last." "I am not surprised at an indication of malevolent feeling in her," I said. "She is a woman who has always inspired me with distrust and dislike, but she managed to insinuate herself into her mistress's favour." He was silent after this, looking at the fire with an air of absorption, till he went upstairs again. He stayed away longer than usual, and on returning, said to me quietly, "Come now." I followed him to the chamber where death was hovering. The dark hangings of the large bed made a background that gave a strong relief to Bertha's pale face as I entered. She started forward as she saw me enter, and then looked at Meunier with an expression of angry inquiry; but he lifted up his hand as it to impose silence, while he fixed his glance on the dying woman and felt her pulse. The face was pinched and ghastly, a cold perspiration was on the forehead, and the eyelids were lowered so as to conceal the large dark eyes. After a minute or two, Meunier walked round to the other side of the bed where Bertha stood, and with his usual air of gentle politeness towards her begged her to leave the patient under our care--everything should be done for her--she was no longer in a state to be conscious of an affectionate presence. Bertha was hesitating, apparently almost willing to believe his assurance and to comply. She looked round at the ghastly dying face, as if to read the confirmation of that assurance, when for a moment the lowered eyelids were raised again, and it seemed as if the eyes were looking towards Bertha, but blankly. A shudder passed through Bertha's frame, and she returned to her station near the pillow, tacitly implying that she would not leave the room. The eyelids were lifted no more. Once I looked at Bertha as she watched the face of the dying one. She wore a rich _peignoir_, and her blond hair was half covered by a lace cap: in her attire she was, as always, an elegant woman, fit to figure in a picture of modern aristocratic life: but I asked myself how that face of hers could ever have seemed to me the face of a woman born of woman, with memories of childhood, capable of pain, needing to be fondled? The features at that moment seemed so preternaturally sharp, the eyes were so hard and eager--she looked like a cruel immortal, finding her spiritual feast in the agonies of a dying race. For across those hard features there came something like a flash when the last hour had been breathed out, and we all felt that the dark veil had completely fallen. What secret was there between Bertha and this woman? I turned my eyes from her with a horrible dread lest my insight should return, and I should be obliged to see what had been breeding about two unloving women's hearts. I felt that Bertha had been watching for the moment of death as the sealing of her secret: I thanked Heaven it could remain sealed for me. Meunier said quietly, "She is gone." He then gave his arm to Bertha, and she submitted to be led out of the room. I suppose it was at her order that two female attendants came into the room, and dismissed the younger one who had been present before. When they entered, Meunier had already opened the artery in the long thin neck that lay rigid on the pillow, and I dismissed them, ordering them to remain at a distance till we rang: the doctor, I said, had an operation to perform--he was not sure about the death. For the next twenty minutes I forgot everything but Meunier and the experiment in which he was so absorbed, that I think his senses would have been closed against all sounds or sights which had no relation to it. It was my task at first to keep up the artificial respiration in the body after the transfusion had been effected, but presently Meunier relieved me, and I could see the wondrous slow return of life; the breast began to heave, the inspirations became stronger, the eyelids quivered, and the soul seemed to have returned beneath them. The artificial respiration was withdrawn: still the breathing continued, and there was a movement of the lips. Just then I heard the handle of the door moving: I suppose Bertha had heard from the women that they had been dismissed: probably a vague fear had arisen in her mind, for she entered with a look of alarm. She came to the foot of the bed and gave a stifled cry. The dead woman's eyes were wide open, and met hers in full recognition-- the recognition of hate. With a sudden strong effort, the hand that Bertha had thought for ever still was pointed towards her, and the haggard face moved. The gasping eager voice said-- "You mean to poison your husband . . . the poison is in the black cabinet . . . I got it for you . . . you laughed at me, and told lies about me behind my back, to make me disgusting . . . because you were jealous . . . are you sorry . . . now?" The lips continued to murmur, but the sounds were no longer distinct. Soon there was no sound--only a slight movement: the flame had leaped out, and was being extinguished the faster. The wretched woman's heart- strings had been set to hatred and vengeance; the spirit of life had swept the chords for an instant, and was gone again for ever. Great God! Is this what it is to live again . . . to wake up with our unstilled thirst upon us, with our unuttered curses rising to our lips, with our muscles ready to act out their half-committed sins? Bertha stood pale at the foot of the bed, quivering and helpless, despairing of devices, like a cunning animal whose hiding-places are surrounded by swift-advancing flame. Even Meunier looked paralysed; life for that moment ceased to be a scientific problem to him. As for me, this scene seemed of one texture with the rest of my existence: horror was my familiar, and this new revelation was only like an old pain recurring with new circumstances. * * * * * Since then Bertha and I have lived apart--she in her own neighbourhood, the mistress of half our wealth, I as a wanderer in foreign countries, until I came to this Devonshire nest to die. Bertha lives pitied and admired; for what had I against that charming woman, whom every one but myself could have been happy with? There had been no witness of the scene in the dying room except Meunier, and while Meunier lived his lips were sealed by a promise to me. Once or twice, weary of wandering, I rested in a favourite spot, and my heart went out towards the men and women and children whose faces were becoming familiar to me; but I was driven away again in terror at the approach of my old insight--driven away to live continually with the one Unknown Presence revealed and yet hidden by the moving curtain of the earth and sky. Till at last disease took hold of me and forced me to rest here--forced me to live in dependence on my servants. And then the curse of insight--of my double consciousness, came again, and has never left me. I know all their narrow thoughts, their feeble regard, their half-wearied pity. * * * * * It is the 20th of September, 1850. I know these figures I have just written, as if they were a long familiar inscription. I have seen them on this pace in my desk unnumbered times, when the scene of my dying struggle has opened upon me . . . (1859) 
43044	----	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 letter from Blackwood announcing the despatch of the first eight sheets of proof of "The Mill on the Floss," and expressing his delight in it. To-night G. has read them, and says, "_Ganz famos!_" Ebenezer! _Feb. 23._--Sir Edward Lytton called on us. Guy Darrell in _propriâ personâ_. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 23d Feb. 1860.] Sir Edward Lytton called on us yesterday. The conversation lapsed chiefly into monologue, from the difficulty I found in making him hear, but under all disadvantages I had an agreeable impression of his kindness and sincerity. He thinks the two defects of "Adam Bede" are the dialect and Adam's marriage with Dinah; but, of course, I would have my teeth drawn rather than give up either. Jacobi told Jean Paul that unless he altered the _dénouement_ of his Titan he would withdraw his friendship from him; and I am preparing myself for your lasting enmity on the ground of the tragedy in my third volume. But an unfortunate duck can only lay blue eggs, however much white ones may be in demand. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _Feb. 29._--G. has been in the town to-day, and has agreed for £300 for "The Mill on the Floss" from Harpers of New York. This evening, too, has come a letter from Williams & Norgate, saying that Tauchnitz will give £100 for the German reprint; also, that "Bede Adam" is translated into Hungarian. _March 5._--Yesterday Mr. Lawrence, the portrait-painter, lunched with us, and expressed to G. his wish to take my portrait. _March 9._--Yesterday a letter from Blackwood, expressing his strong delight in my third volume, which he had read to the beginning of "Borne on the tide." To-day young Blackwood called, and told us, among other things, that the last copies of "Clerical Scenes" had gone to-day--twelve for export. Letter came from Germany, announcing a translation of G.'s "Biographical History of Philosophy." _March 11._--To-day the first volume of the German translation of "Adam Bede" came. It is done by Dr. Frese, the same man who translated the "Life of Goethe." _March 20._--Professor Owen sent me his "Palæontology" to-day. Have missed two days of work from headache, and so have not yet finished my book. _March 21._--Finished this morning "The Mill on the Floss," writing from the moment when Maggie, carried out on the water, thinks of her mother and brother. We hope to start for Rome on Saturday, 24th. _Magnificat anima mea!_ The manuscript of "The Mill on the Floss" bears the following inscription: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21st March, 1860." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 22d March, 1860.] Your letter yesterday morning helped to inspire me for the last eleven pages, if they have any inspiration in them. They were written in a _furor_, but I dare say there is not a word different from what it would have been if I had written them at the slowest pace. We expect to start on Saturday morning, and to be in Rome by Palm Sunday, or else by the following Tuesday. Of course we shall write to you when we know what will be our address in Rome. In the meantime news will gather. I don't mean to send "The Mill on the Floss" to any one except to Dickens, who has behaved with a delicate kindness in a recent matter, which I wish to acknowledge. I am grateful and yet rather sad to have finished--sad that I shall live with my people on the banks of the Floss no longer. But it is time that I should go and absorb some new life and gather fresh ideas. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1859, TO MARCH, 1860. Looking for cases of _inundation_ in _Annual Register_--New House--Holly Lodge, Wandsworth--Letter to John Blackwood--George Eliot fears she has not characteristics of "the popular author"--Subscription to "Adam Bede" 730 copies--Appreciation by a cabinet-maker--Dr. John Brown sends "Rab and his Friends" with an inscription--Letter to Blackwood thereon--Tries to be hopeful--Letters to Miss Hennell--Description of Holly Lodge--Miss Nightingale--Thoughts on death--Scott--Mrs. Clarke writes--Mr. and Mrs. Congreve--Letter to Mrs. Bray on effects of anxiety--Mrs. Clarke dying--Letter to John Blackwood--Wishes Carlyle to read "Adam Bede"--"Life of Frederic" painful--Susceptibility to newspaper criticism--Edinburgh more encouraging than London--Letter to Blackwood to stop puffing notices--Letter from E. Hall, working-man, asking for cheap editions--Sale of "Adam Bede"--Death of Mrs. Clarke--1800 copies of "Adam Bede" sold--Letter to Blackwood--Awakening to fame--Letter to Froude--Mrs. Poyser quoted in House of Commons by Mr. Charles Buxton--Opinions of Charles Reade, Shirley Brooks, and John Murray--Letter to John Blackwood--Warwickshire correspondent insists that Liggins is author of "Adam Bede"--Not flushed with success--Visit to Isle of Wight--Letter to Miss Hennell on rewriting, and pleasure in Mr. and Mrs. Congreve--Letter to _Times_, denying that Liggins is the author--Letter to Blackwood--The Liggins myth--Letter from Bulwer--Finished "The Lifted Veil"--Writing "The Tullivers"--Mrs. Congreve--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Faith in her--Letter from Madame Bodichon--Reply breathing joy in sympathy--Letter to Major Blackwood--Mr. Anders's apology for the Liggins business--"Adam Bede" worth writing--Dulwich gallery--Blackwood gives £400 more in acknowledgment of "Adam Bede's" success--Letter to Miss Hennell on Mrs. Congreve--On difficulty of getting cheap music in England--Professor Aytoun on "Adam Bede"--Letter to Major Blackwood--Liggins--Mrs. Gaskell--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Dislike of Wandsworth--To Crystal Palace to hear "Messiah," and reveals herself to Brays as author of "Adam Bede"--Letter to Brays--Bad effect of talking of her books--Letter to Charles Bray--Melancholy that her writing does not produce effect intended--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--To Switzerland by Paris--At Schweizerhof, Lucerne, with Congreves--Mr. Lewes goes to Hofwyl--Return to Richmond by Bâle and Paris--Fourth edition of "Adam Bede" (5000) sold in a fortnight--Letter to Mrs. Bray on Mrs. Congreve--On the effect of her books and fame--Herbert Spencer on "Adam Bede"--Pamphlet to prove that Scott's novels were written by Thomas Scott--Letter from Dickens on "Adam Bede" referred to--Letter to John Blackwood on "Pug"--Letter to Charles Lewes--"The Physiology of Common Life"--American proposition for a story for £1200--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Distance from experience artistically necessary--Letter to John Blackwood--Development of stories--Visit to Penmaenmawr--Return by Lichfield to Weymouth--Sixth edition of "Adam Bede"--Back to Richmond--Anxiety about new novel--Journey to Gainsboro', Lincolnshire--Letter to Miss Hennell--End of Liggins business--Letter to John Blackwood--A correspondent suggests a sequel to "Adam Bede"--Susceptibility to outside opinion--Seventh edition of "Adam Bede"--Blackwood proposes to pay £800 beyond the bargain for success of "Adam Bede"--Dickens dines at Holly Lodge--Letter to Miss Hennell--Quotes letter from Mrs. Gaskell--Miss Martineau--Dickens asks for story for _All the Year Round_--"Adam Bede, Junior"--Reading Darwin on "Origin of Species"--Bunyan--Letter to Mr. Bray--Article on "Adam Bede" in _Bentley_--In _Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Emile Montégut--Reviews generally--16,000 of "Adam Bede" sold in year--Darwin's book--Letter to Charles Lewes--Mentions fondness of algebra--Letter to Madame Bodichon quoting Mrs. Gaskell's letter--Rewards of the artist lie apart from everything personal--Darwin's book--Molière--Letter to Miss Hennell--Likes to see Shakspeare acted--Hears from M. and Mme. d'Albert--_Cornhill Magazine_--Blackwood's terms for "Mill on the Floss"--Christmas-day with Congreves--Letter of sympathy from Professor Blackie--Third edition of "Clerical Scenes"--Letters to Blackwood--Thanks for concession of copyright of "Adam Bede"--Title of new novel considered--Suggestion of the "Mill on the Floss" accepted--The third volume of "Adam Bede" written in six weeks--Depression with the "Mill"--Sir Edward Lytton--"Adam Bede" translated into Hungarian and German--"Mill on the Floss" finished--Letter to Blackwood--Sad at finishing--Start for Italy. FOOTNOTES: [7] Miss Emily Bury, now Mrs. Geddes. [8] Madame Bodichon. [9] Professor Blackie. [10] Mrs. Congreve's sister. CHAPTER X. [Sidenote: Italy, 1860.] We have finished our journey to Italy--the journey I had looked forward to for years, rather with the hope of the new elements it would bring to my culture than with the hope of immediate pleasure. Travelling can hardly be without a continual current of disappointment, if the main object is not the enlargement of one's general life, so as to make even weariness and annoyances enter into the sum of benefit. One great deduction to me from the delight of seeing world-famous objects is the frequent double consciousness which tells me that I am not enjoying the actual vision enough, and that, when higher enjoyment comes with the reproduction of the scenes in my imagination, I shall have lost some of the details, which impress me too feebly in the present, because the faculties are not wrought up into energetic action. I have no other journal than the briefest record of what we did each day, so I shall put down my recollections whenever I happen to have leisure and inclination--just for the sake of making clear to myself the impressions I have brought away from our three months' travel. The first striking moment in our journey was when we arrived, I think about eleven o'clock at night, at the point in the ascent of the Mont Cenis where we were to quit the diligences and take to the sledges. After a hasty drink of hot coffee in the roadside inn, our large party--the inmates of three diligences--turned out into the starlight to await the signal for getting into the sledges. That signal seemed to be considerably on in the future--to be arrived at through much confusion of luggage-lifting, voices, and leading about of mules. The human bustle and confusion made a poetic contrast with the sublime stillness of the starlit heavens spread over the snowy table-land and surrounding heights. The keenness of the air contributed strongly to the sense of novelty; we had left our every-day, conventional world quite behind us, and were on a visit to Nature in her private home. Once closely packed in our sledge, congratulating ourselves that, after all, we were no more squeezed than in our diligence, I gave myself up to as many naps as chose to take possession of me, and actually slept without very considerable interruption till we were near the summit of the mighty pass. Already there was a faint hint of the morning in the starlight, which showed us the vast, sloping snow-fields as we commenced the descent. I got a few glimpses of the pure, far-stretching whiteness before the sharpening edge of cold forced us to close the window. Then there was no more to be seen till it was time to get out of the sledge and ascend the diligence once more; not, however, without a preliminary struggle with the wind, which fairly blew me down on my slippery standing-ground. The rest of our descent showed us fine, varied scenes of mountain and ravine till we got down at Susa, where breakfast and the railway came as a desirable variety after our long mountain journey and long fast. One of our companions had been a gigantic French soldier, who had in charge a bag of government money. He was my _vis-à-vis_ for some time, and cramped my poor legs not a little with his precious bag, which he would by no means part from. The approach to Turin by the railway gave us a grand view of snowy mountains surrounding the city on three sides. A few hours of rest spent there could leave no very vivid impression. A handsome street, well broken by architectural details, with a glimpse of snowy mountains at the end of the vista, colonnades on each side, and flags waving their bright colors in sign of political joy, is the image that usually rises before me at the mention of Turin. I fancy the said street is the principal one, but in our walk about the town we saw everywhere a similar character of prosperous, well-lodged town existence--only without the colonnades and without the balconies and other details, which make the principal street picturesque. This is the place that Alfieri lived in through many of his young follies, getting tired of it at last for the Piedmontese pettiness of which it was the centre. And now, eighty years later, it is the centre of a widening life which may at last become the life of resuscitated Italy. At the railway station, as we waited to take our departure for Genoa, we had a sight of the man whose name will always be connected with the story of that widening life--Count Cavour--"imitant son portrait," which we had seen in the shops, with unusual closeness. A man pleasant to look upon, with a smile half kind, half caustic; giving you altogether the impression that he thinks of "many matters," but thanks Heaven and makes no boast of them. He was there to meet the Prince de Carignan, who was going to Genoa on his way towards Florence by the same train as ourselves. The prince is a notability with a thick waist, bound in by a gold belt, and with a fat face, predominated over by a large mustache--"Non ragionam di lui." The railway journey from Turin was chiefly distinguished by dust; but I slept through the latter half, without prejudice, however, to the satisfaction with which I lay down in a comfortable bedroom in the Hotel Feder. In Genoa again on a bright, warm spring morning! I was here eleven years ago, and the image that visit had left in my mind was surprisingly faithful, though fragmentary. The outlook from our hotel was nearly the same as before--over a low building with a colonnade, at the masts of the abundant shipping. But there was a striking change in the interior of the hotel. It was like the other, a palace adapted to the purposes of an inn; but be-carpeted and be-furnished with an exaggeration of English fashion. We lost no time in turning out, after breakfast, into the morning sunshine. George was enchanted with the aspect of the place, as we drove or walked along the streets. It was his first vision of anything corresponding to his preconception of Italy. After the Adlergasse, in Nürnberg, surely no streets can be more impressive than the Strada Nuova and Strada Nuovissima, at Genoa. In street architecture I can rise to the highest point of the admiration given to the Palladian style. And here in these chief streets of Genoa the palaces have two advantages over those of Florence: they form a series, creating a general impression of grandeur of which each particular palace gets the benefit; and they have the open gateway, showing the _cortile_ within--sometimes containing grand stone staircases. And all this architectural splendor is accompanied with the signs of actual prosperity. Genova la Superba is not a name of the past merely. We ascended the tower of Santa Maria di Carignano to get a panoramic view of the city, with its embosoming hills and bay--saw the cathedral, with its banded black-and-white marble--the churches of the Annunziata and San Ambrogio, with their wealth of gilding and rich pink-brown marbles--the Palazzo Rosso, with its collection of eminently forgettable pictures--and the pretty gardens of the Palazzo Doria, with their flourishing green close against the sea. A drive in the direction of the Campo Santo, along the dry, pebbly bed of the river, showed us the terraced hills planted with olives, and many picturesque groups of the common people with mules or on carts; not to mention what gives beauty to every corner of the inhabited world--the groups of children squatting against walls or trotting about by the side of their elders or grinning together over their play. One of the personages we were pleased to encounter in the streets here was a quack--a Dulcamara--mounted on his carriage and holding forth with much _brio_ before proceeding to take out the tooth of a negro, already seated in preparation. We left Genoa on the second evening--unhappily, a little too long after sundown, so that we did not get a perfect view of the grand city from the sea. The pale starlight could bring out no color. We had a prosperous passage to Leghorn. Leghorn on a brilliant, warm morning, with five or six hours before us to fill as agreeably as possible! Of course, the first thought was to go to Pisa, but the train would not start till eleven; so, in the meantime, we took a drive about the prosperous-looking town, and saw the great reservoir which receives the water brought from the distant mountains; a beautiful and interesting sight--to look into the glassy depth and see columns and grand arches reflected as if in mockery and frustration of one's desire to see the bottom. But in one corner the light fell so as to reveal that reality instead of the beautiful illusion. On our way back we passed the Hebrew synagogue, and were glad of our coachman's suggestion that we should enter, seeing it was the Jews' Sabbath. At Pisa we took a carriage and drove at once to the cathedral, seeing as we went the well-looking lines of building on each side of the Arno. A wonderful sight is that first glimpse of the cathedral, with the leaning campanile on one side and the baptistery on the other, green turf below, and a clear, blue sky above! The structure of the campanile is exquisitely light and graceful--tier above tier of small circular arches, supported by delicate, round pillars narrowing gradually in circumference, but very slightly, so that there is no striking difference of size between the base and summit. The campanile is all of white marble, but the cathedral has the bands of black and white, softened in effect by the yellowing which time has given to the white. There is a family likeness among all these structures: they all have the delicate little colonnades and circular arches. But the baptistery has stronger traits of the Gothic style in the pinnacles that crown the encircling colonnade. After some dusty delay outside the railway station we set off back again to Livorno, and forthwith got on board our steamboat again--to awake next morning (being Palm-Sunday) at Civita Vecchia. Much waiting before we were allowed to land; and again much waiting for the clumsy process of "visiting" our luggage. I was amused while sitting at the _Dogana_, where almost every one was cross and busy, to see a dog making his way quietly out with a bone in his mouth. Getting into our railway carriage, our _vis-à-vis_--a stout, amiable, intelligent Livornian, with his wife and son, named Dubreux--exclaimed, "C'en est fini d'un peuple qui n'est pas capable de changer une bêtise comme ça!" George got into pleasant talk with him, and his son, about Edinburgh and the scientific men there--the son having been there for some time in order to go through a course of practical science. The father was a naturalist--an entomologist, I think. It was an interesting journey from Civita Vecchia to Rome: at first, a scene of rough, hilly character, then a vast plain, frequently marshy, crowded with asphodels, inhabited by buffaloes; here and there a falcon or other slow, large-winged bird floating and alighting. At last we came in sight of Rome, but there was nothing imposing to be seen. The chief object was what I afterwards knew to be one of the aqueducts, but which I then, in the vagueness of my conceptions, guessed to be the ruins of baths. The railway station where we alighted looked remote and countrified; only the omnibuses and one family carriage were waiting, so that we were obliged to take our chance in one of the omnibuses--that is, the chance of finding no place left for us in the hotels. And so it was. Every one wanted to go to the Hotel d'Angleterre, and every one was disappointed. We, at last, by help of some fellow-travellers, got a small room _au troisième_ at the Hotel d'Amérique; and as soon as that business was settled we walked out to look at Rome--not without a rather heavy load of disappointment on our minds from the vision we had of it from the omnibus windows. A weary length of dirty, uninteresting streets had brought us within sight of the dome of St. Peter's, which was not impressive, seen in a peeping, makeshift manner, just rising above the houses; and the Castle of St. Angelo seemed but a shabby likeness of the engravings. Not one iota had I seen that corresponded with my preconceptions. Our hotel was in the Strada Babuino, which leads directly from the Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza di Spagna. We went to the latter for our first walk, and arriving opposite the high, broad flights of stone steps which lead up to the Trinità di Monte, stopped for the first time with a sense that here was something not quite common and ugly. But I think we got hardly any farther, that evening, than the tall column at the end of the piazza, which celebrates the final settlement by Pius IX. of the Virgin's Immaculate Conception. Oh, yes; I think we wandered farther among narrow and ugly streets, and came into our hotel again still with some dejection at the probable relation our "Rome visited" was to bear to our "Rome unvisited." Discontented with our little room at an extravagant height of stairs and price, we found and took lodgings the next day in the Corso opposite St. Carlo, with a well-mannered Frenchman named Peureux and his little, dark, Italian wife--and so felt ourselves settled for a month. By this time we were in better spirits; for in the morning we had been to the Capitol (Campidoglio, the modern variant for Capitolium), had ascended the tower, and had driven to the Coliseum. The scene, looking along the Forum to the Arch of Titus, resembled strongly that mixture of ruined grandeur with modern life which I had always had in my imagination at the mention of Rome. The approach to the Capitol from the opposite side is also impressive: on the right hand the broad, steep flight of steps leading up to the Church and Monastery of Ara Coeli, placed, some say, on the site of the Arx; in the front a less steep flight of steps _à cordon_ leading to that lower, flatter portion of the hill which was called the _Intermontium_, and which now forms a sort of piazza, with the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the centre, and on three sides buildings designed, or rather modified, by Michael Angelo--on the left the Museum, on the right the Museo dei Conservatori, and, on the side opposite the steps, the building devoted to public offices (Palazzo dei Senatori), in the centre of which stands the tower. On each hand, at the summit of the steps, are the two Colossi, less celebrated but hardly less imposing in their calm grandeur than the Colossi of the Quirinal. They are strangely streaked and disfigured by the blackening weather; but their large-eyed, mild might gives one a thrill of awe, half like what might have been felt by the men of old who saw the divine twins watering their steeds when they brought the news of victory. Perhaps the world can hardly offer a more interesting outlook than that from the tower of the Capitol. The eye leaps first to the mountains that bound the Campagna--the Sabine and Alban Hills and the solitary Soracte farther on to the left. Then, wandering back across the Campagna, it searches for the Sister Hills, hardly distinguishable now as hills. The Palatine is conspicuous enough, marked by the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, and rising up beyond the extremity of the Forum. And now, once resting on the Forum, the eye will not readily quit the long area that begins with the Clivus Capitolinus and extends to the Coliseum--an area that was once the very focus of the world. The Campo Vaccino, the site probably of the Comitium, was this first morning covered with carts and animals, mingling a simple form of actual life with those signs of the highly artificial life that had been crowded here in ages gone by: the three Corinthian pillars at the extremity of the Forum, said to have belonged to the Temple of Jupiter Stator; the grand temple of Antoninus and Faustina; the white arch of Titus; the Basilica of Constantine; the temple built by Adrian, with its great, broken granite columns scattered around on the green, rising ground; the huge arc of the Coliseum and the arch of Constantine. The scenes of these great relics remained our favorite haunt during our stay at Rome; and one day, near the end of it, we entered the enclosure of the Clivus Capitolinus and the excavated space of the Forum. The ruins on the Clivus--the façade of massive columns on the right, called the temple of Vespasian; the two Corinthian columns, called the temple of Saturn, in the centre; and the arch of Septimius Severus on the left--have their rich color set off by the luxuriant green, clothing the lower masonry, which formed the foundations of the crowded buildings on this narrow space, and, as a background to them all, the rough solidity of the ancient wall forming the back of the central building on the Intermontium, and regarded as one of the few remains of Republican constructions. On either hand, at another angle from the arch, the ancient road forming the double ascent of the Clivus is seen, firm and level, with its great blocks of pavement. The arch of Septimius Severus is particularly rich in color; and the poorly executed bas-reliefs of military groups still look out in the grotesque completeness of attitude and expression, even on the sides exposed to the weather. From the Clivus a passage, underneath the present road, leads into the Forum, whose immense pinkish granite columns lie on the weather-worn white marble pavement. The column of Phocas, with its base no longer "buried," stands at the extreme corner nearest the Clivus; and the three elegant columns of the temple (say some) of Jupiter Stator, mark the opposite extremity; between lie traces, utterly confused to all but erudite eyes, of marble steps and of pedestals stripped of their marble. Let me see what I most delighted in, in Rome. Certainly this drive from the Clivus to the Coliseum was, from first to last, one of the chief things; but there are many objects and many impressions of various kinds which I can reckon up as of almost equal interest: the Coliseum itself, with the view from it; the drive along the Appian Way to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and the view from thence of the Campagna bridged by the aqueduct; the baths of Titus, with the remnants of their arabesques, seen by the light of torches, in the now damp and gloomy spaces; the glimpse of the Tarpeian rock, with its growth of cactus and rough herbage; the grand, bare arch brickwork of the Palace of the Cæsars rising in huge masses on the Palatine; the theatre of Marcellus bursting suddenly into view from among the crowded mean houses of the modern city, and still more the Temple of Minerva and Temple of Nerva, also set in the crowded city of the present; and the exterior of the Pantheon, if it were not marred by the Papal belfries--these are the traces of ancient Rome that have left the strongest image of themselves in my mind. I ought not to leave out Trajan's column, and the forum in which it stands; though the severe cold tint of the gray granite columns, or fragments of columns, gave this forum rather a dreary effect to me. For vastness there is perhaps nothing more impressive in Rome than the Baths of Caracalla, except the Coliseum; and I remember that it was among them that I first noticed the lovely effect of the giant fennel, luxuriant among the crumbling brickwork. Among the ancient sculptures I think I must place on a level the Apollo, the Dying Gladiator, and the Lateran Antinous: they affected me equally in different ways. After these I delighted in the Venus of the Capitol, and the Kissing Children in the same room; the Sophocles at the Lateran Museum; the Nile; the black, laughing Centaur at the Capitol; the Laughing Faun in the Vatican; and the _Sauroktonos_, or Boy with the Lizard, and the sitting statue called Menander. The Faun of Praxiteles, and the old Faun with the infant Bacchus, I had already seen at Munich, else I should have mentioned them among my first favorites. Perhaps the greatest treat we had at the Vatican was the sight of a few statues, including the Apollo, by torchlight--all the more impressive because it was our first sight of the Vatican. Even the mere hurrying along the vast halls, with the fitful torchlight falling on the innumerable statues and busts and bas-reliefs and sarcophagi, would have left a sense of awe at these crowded, silent forms which have the solemnity of suddenly arrested life. Wonderfully grand these halls of the Vatican are; and there is but one complaint to be made against the home provided for this richest collection of antiquities--it is that there is no historical arrangement of them, and no catalogue. The system of classification is based on the history of their collection by the different popes, so that for every other purpose but that of securing to each pope his share of glory, it is a system of helter-skelter. Of Christian Rome, St. Peter's is, of course, the supreme wonder. The piazza, with Bernini's colonnades, and the gradual slope upward to the mighty temple, gave me always a sense of having entered some millennial new Jerusalem, where all small and shabby things were unknown. But the exterior of the cathedral itself is even ugly; it causes a constant irritation by its partial concealment of the dome. The first impression from the interior was, perhaps, at a higher pitch than any subsequent impression, either of its beauty or vastness; but then, on later visits, the lovely marble, which has a tone at once subdued and warm, was half-covered with hideous red drapery. There is hardly any detail one cares to dwell on in St. Peter's. It is interesting, for once, to look at the mosaic altar-pieces, some of which render with marvellous success such famous pictures as the Transfiguration, the Communion of St. Jerome, and the Entombment or Disentombment of St. Petronilla. And some of the monuments are worth looking at more than once, the chief glory of that kind being Canova's Lions. I was pleased one day to watch a group of poor people looking with an admiration that had a half-childish terror in it at the sleeping lion, and with a sort of daring air thrusting their fingers against the teeth of the waking "mane-bearer." We ascended the dome near the end of our stay, but the cloudy horizon was not friendly to our distant view, and Rome itself is ugly to a bird's-eye contemplation. The chief interest of the ascent was the vivid realization it gave of the building's enormous size, and after that the sight of the inner courts and garden of the Vatican. Our most beautiful view of Rome and the Campagna was one we had much earlier in our stay, before the snow had vanished from the mountains; it was from the terrace of the Villa Pamfili Doria. Of smaller churches I remember especially Santa Maria degli Angeli, a church formed by Michael Angelo by additions to the grand hall in the Baths of Diocletian--the only remaining hall of ancient Rome; and the Church of San Clemente, where there is a chapel painted by Masaccio, as well as a perfect specimen of the ancient enclosure near the tribune, called the presbytery, with the _ambones_ or pulpits from which the lessons and gospel were read. Santa Maria Maggiore is an exquisitely beautiful basilica, rich in marbles from a pagan temple; and the reconstructed San Paolo fuori le Mura is a wonder of wealth and beauty, with its lines of white-marble columns--if one could possibly look with pleasure at such a perverted appliance of money and labor as a church built in an unhealthy solitude. After St. Peter's, however, the next great monument of Christian art is the Sistine Chapel; but since I care for the chapel solely for the sake of its ceiling, I ought rather to number it among my favorite paintings than among the most memorable buildings. Certainly this ceiling of Michael Angelo's is the most wonderful fresco in the world. After it come Raphael's School of Athens and Triumph of Galatea, so far as Rome is concerned. Among oil-paintings there I like best the Madonna di Foligno, for the sake of the cherub who is standing and looking upward; the Perugino also, in the Vatican, and the pretty Sassoferrato, with the clouds budding angels; at the Barberini Palace, Beatrice Cenci, and Una Schiava, by Titian; at the Sciarra Palace, the Joueurs de Violon, by Raphael, another of Titian's golden-haired women, and a sweet Madonna and Child with a bird, by Fra Bartolomeo; at the Borghese Palace, Domenichino's Chase, the Entombment, by Raphael, and the Three Ages--a copy of Titian, by Sassoferrato. We should have regretted entirely our efforts to get to Rome during the Holy Week, instead of making Florence our first resting-place, if we had not had the compensation for wearisome, empty ceremonies and closed museums in the wonderful spectacle of the illumination of St. Peter's. That, really, is a thing so wondrous, so magically beautiful, that one can't find in one's heart to say it is not worth doing. I remember well the first glimpse we had as we drove out towards it, of the outline of the dome like a new constellation on the black sky. I thought _that_ was the final illumination, and was regretting our tardy arrival, from the _détour_ we had to make, when, as our carriage stopped in front of the cathedral, the great bell sounded, and in an instant the grand illumination flashed out and turned the outline of stars into a palace of gold. Venus looked out palely. One of the finest positions in Rome is the Monte Cavallo (the Quirinal), the site of the pope's palace, and of the fountain against which are placed the two Colossi--the Castor and Pollux, ascribed, after a lax method of affiliation, to Phidias and Praxiteles. Standing near this fountain one has a real sense of being on a hill; city and distant ridge stretching below. Close by is the Palazzo Rospigliosi, where we went to see Guido's Aurora. Another spot where I was struck with the view of modern Rome (and _that_ happened rarely) was at San Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline, where we went to see Michael Angelo's Moses. Turning round before one enters the church, a palm-tree in the high foreground relieves very picturesquely the view of the lower distance. The Moses did not affect me agreeably; both the attitude and the expression of the face seemed to me, in that one visit, to have an exaggeration that strained after effect without reaching it. The failure seemed to me of this kind: Moses was an angry man trying to frighten the people by his mien, instead of being rapt by his anger, and terrible without self-consciousness. To look at the statue of Christ, after the other works of Michael Angelo at Rome, was a surprise; in this the fault seems to incline slightly to the namby-pamby. The Pietà in St. Peter's has real tenderness in it. The visit to the Farnesina was one of the most interesting among our visits to Roman palaces. It is here that Raphael painted the Triumph of Galatea, and here this wonderful fresco is still bright upon the wall. In the same room is a colossal head, drawn by Michael Angelo with a bit of charcoal, by way of _carte-de-visite_, one day that he called on Daniele di Volterra, who was painting detestably in this room, and happened to be absent. In the entrance-hall, preceding the Galatea room, are the frescoes by Raphael representing the story of Cupid and Psyche; but we did not linger long to look at them, as they disappointed us. We visited only four artists' studios in Rome: Gibson's, the sculptor; Frey's, the landscape painter; Riedel's, genre painter, and Overbeck's. Gibson's was entirely disappointing to me, so far as his own sculptures are concerned; except the Cacciatore, which he sent to the Great Exhibition, I could see nothing but feeble imitations of the antique--no spontaneity and no vigor. Miss Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci is a pleasing and new conception; and her little Puck a bit of humor that one would like to have if one were a grand seigneur. Frey is a very meritorious landscape painter--finished in execution and poetic in feeling. His Egyptian scenes--the Simoon, the Pair in the Light of Sunset, and the Island of Philæ--are memorable pictures; so is the View of Athens, with its blue, island-studded sea. Riedel interested us greatly with his account of the coincidence between the views of light and colors at which he had arrived through his artistic experience, and Goethe's theory of colors, with which he became acquainted only after he had thought of putting his own ideas into shape for publication. He says the majority of painters continue their work when the sun shines from the north--they paint with _blue_ light. But it was our visit to Overbeck that we were most pleased not to have missed. The man himself is more interesting than his pictures: a benevolent calm and quiet conviction breathes from his person and manners. He has a thin, rather high-nosed face, with long gray hair, set off by a maroon velvet cap, and a gray scarf over his shoulders. Some of his cartoons pleased me: one large one of our Saviour passing from the midst of the throng who were going to cast him from the brow of the hill at Capernaum--one foot resting on a cloud borne up by cherubs; and some smaller round cartoons representing the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and applying it to the function of the artist. We drove about a great deal in Rome, but were rather afflicted in our drives by the unending walls that enclose everything like a garden, even outside the city gates. First among our charming drives was that to the Villa Pamfili Doria--a place which has the beauties of an English park and gardens, with views such as no English park can show; not to speak of the columbarium or ancient Roman burying-place, which has been disinterred in the grounds. The compactest of all burying-places must these columbaria be: little pigeon-holes, tier above tier, for the small urns containing the ashes of the dead. In this one traces of peacocks and other figures in fresco, ornamenting the divisions between the rows, are still visible. We sat down in the sunshine by the side of the water, which is made to fall in a cascade in the grounds fronting the house, and then spreads out into a considerable breadth of mirror for the plantation on the slope which runs along one side of it. On the opposite side is a broad, grassy walk, and here we sat on some blocks of stone, watching the little green lizards. Then we walked on up the slope on the other side, and through a grove of weird ilexes, and across a plantation of tall pines, where we saw the mountains in the far distance. A beautiful spot! We ought to have gone there again. Another drive was to the Villa Albani, where, again, the view is grand. The precious sculptures once there are all at Munich now; and the most remarkable remnants of the collection are the bas-relief of Antinous, and the Æsop. The Antinous is the least beautiful of all the representations of that sad loveliness that I have seen--be it said in spite of Winckelmann; attitude and face are strongly Egyptian. In an outside pavilion in the garden were some interesting examples of Greek masks. Our journey to Frascati by railway was fortunate. The day was fine, except, indeed, for the half hour that we were on the heights of Tusculum, and longed for a clear horizon. But the weather was so generally gloomy during our stay in Rome that we were "thankful for small mercies" in the way of sunshine. I enjoyed greatly our excursion up the hill on donkey-back to the ruins of Tusculum--in spite of our loquacious guide, who exasperated George. The sight of the Campagna on one side, and of Mount Algidus, with its snow-capped fellows, and Mount Albano, with Rocca di Papa on its side, and Castel Gandolfo below on the other side, was worth the trouble--to say nothing of the little theatre, which was the most perfect example of an ancient theatre I had then seen in that pre-Pompeian period of my travels. After lunching at Frascati we strolled out to the Villa Aldobrandini, and enjoyed a brighter view of the Campagna in the afternoon sunlight. Then we lingered in a little croft enclosed by plantations, and enjoyed this familiar-looking bit of grass with wild-flowers perhaps more, even, than the greatest novelties. There are fine plantations on the hill behind the villa, and there we wandered till it was time to go back to the railway. A literally grotesque thing in these plantations is the opening of a grotto in the hillside, cut in the form of a huge Greek comic mask. It was a lovely walk from the town downward to the railway station--between the olive-clad slopes looking towards the illimitable plain. Our best view of the aqueducts was on this journey, but it was the tantalizing sort of view one gets from a railway carriage. Our excursion to Tivoli, reserved till nearly the end of our stay, happened on one of those cruel, seductive days that smile upon you at five o'clock in the morning, to become cold and cloudy at eight, and resolutely rainy at ten. And so we ascended the hill through the vast, venerable olive grove, thinking what would be the effect of sunshine among those gray, fantastically twisted trunks and boughs; and paddled along the wet streets under umbrellas to look at the Temple of the Sibyl, and to descend the ravine of the waterfalls. Yet it was enjoyable; for the rain was not dense enough to shroud the near view of rock and foliage. We looked for the first time at a rock of Travertine, with its curious petrified vegetable forms, and lower down at a mighty cavern, under which the smaller cascade rushes--an awful hollow in the midst of huge, rocky masses. But--rain, rain, rain! No possibility of seeing the Villa of Hadrian, chief wonder of Tivoli: and so we had our carriage covered up and turned homeward in despair. The last week of our stay we went for the first time to the picture-gallery of the Capitol, where we saw the famous Guercino--the Entombment of Petronilla--which we had already seen in mosaic at St. Peter's. It is a stupendous piece of painting, about which one's only feeling is that it might as well have been left undone. More interesting is the portrait of Michael Angelo, by himself--a deeply melancholy face. And there is also a picture of a bishop, by Giovanni Bellini, which arrested us a long while. After these, I remember most distinctly Veronese's Europa, superior to that we afterwards saw at Venice; a delicious mythological Poussin, all light and joy; and a Sebastian, by Guido, exceptionally beautiful among the many detestable things of his in this gallery. The Lateran Museum, also, was a sight we had neglected till this last week, though it turned out to be one of the most memorable. In the classical museum are the great Antinous, a Bacchus, and the Sophocles; besides a number of other remains of high interest, especially in the department of architectural decoration. In the museum of Christian antiquities there are, besides sculptures, copies of the frescoes in the Catacombs--invaluable as a record of those perishable remains. If we ever go to Rome again the Lateran Museum will be one of the first places I shall wish to revisit. We saw the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, on the Appian Way--the long, dark passages, with great oblong hollows in the rock for the bodies long since crumbled, and the one or two openings out of the passages into a rather wider space, called chapels, but no indications of paintings or other detail--our monkish guide being an old man, who spoke with an indistinct grunt that would not have enlightened us if we had asked any questions. In the church through which we entered there is a strangely barbarous reclining statue of St. Sebastian, with arrows sticking all over it. A spot that touched me deeply was Shelley's grave. The English cemetery in which he lies is the most attractive burying-place I have seen. It lies against the old city walls, close to the Porta San Paolo and the pyramid of Caius Cestius--one of the quietest spots of old Rome. And there, under the shadow of the old walls on one side, and cypresses on the other, lies the _Cor cordium_, forever at rest from the unloving cavillers of this world, whether or not he may have entered on other purifying struggles in some world unseen by us. The grave of Keats lies far off from Shelley's, unshaded by wall or trees. It is painful to look upon, because of the inscription on the stone, which seems to make him still speak in bitterness from his grave.[11] [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th April, 1860.] A wet day for the first time since we left Paris! That assists our consciences considerably in urging us to write our letters on this fourth day at Rome, for I will not pretend that writing a letter, even to you, can be anything more alluring than a duty when there is a blue sky over the Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine, and all the other marvels of this marvellous place. Since our arrival, in the middle of Sunday, I have been gradually rising from the depth of disappointment to an intoxication of delight; and that makes me wish to do for you what no one ever did for me--warn you that you must expect no grand impression on your first entrance into Rome, at least, if you enter it from Civita Vecchia. My heart sank, as it would if you behaved shabbily to me, when I looked through the windows of the omnibus as it passed through street after street of ugly modern Rome, and in that mood the dome of St. Peter's and the Castle of St. Angelo--the only grand objects on our way--could only look disappointing to me. I believe the impression on entering from the Naples side is quite different; there one must get a glimpse of the broken grandeur and Renaissance splendor that one associates with the word "Rome." So keep up your spirits in the omnibus when your turn comes, and believe that you will mount the Capitol the next morning, as we did, and look out on the Forum and the Coliseum, far on to the Alban mountains, with snowy Apennines behind them, and feel--what I leave you to imagine, because the rain has left off, and my husband commands me to put on my bonnet. (Two hours later.) Can you believe that I have not had a headache since we set out? But I would willingly have endured more than one to be less anxious than I am about Mr. Lewes's health. Now that we are just come in from our walk to the Pantheon he is obliged to lie down with terrible oppression of the head; and since we have been in Rome he has been nearly deaf on one side. That is the dark "crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air" just now; everything else in our circumstances here is perfect. We are glad to have been driven into apartments, instead of remaining at the hotel, as we had intended; for we enjoy the abundance of room and the quiet that belong to this mode of life, and we get our cooking and all other comforts in perfection at little more than a third of the hotel prices. Most of the visitors to Rome this season seem to come only for a short stay; and, as apartments can't be taken for less than a month, the hotels are full and the lodgings are empty. Extremely unpleasant for the people who have lodgings to let, but very convenient for us, since we get excellent rooms in a good situation for a moderate price. We have a good little landlady, who can speak nothing but Italian, so that she serves as a _parlatrice_ for us, and awakens our memory of Italian dialogue--a memory which consists chiefly of recollecting Italian words without knowing their meaning, and English words without knowing the Italian for them. I shall tell you nothing of what we have seen. Have you not a husband who has seen it all, and can tell you much better? Except, perhaps, one sight which might have had some interest for him, namely, Count Cavour, who was waiting with other eminences at the Turin station to receive the Prince de Carignan, the new Viceroy of Tuscany. A really pleasant sight--not the prince, who is a large, stout "mustache," squeezed in at the waist with a gold belt, looking like one of those dressed-up personages who are among the chessmen that the Cavours of the world play their game with. The pleasant sight was Count Cavour, in plainest dress, with a head full of power, mingled with _bonhomie_. We had several fellow-travellers who belonged to Savoy, and were full of chagrin at the prospect of the French annexation. Our most agreeable companion was a Baron de Magliano, a Neapolitan who has married a French wife with a large fortune, and has been living in France for years, but has now left his wife and children behind for the sake of entering the Sardinian army, and, if possible, helping to turn out the Neapolitan Bourbons. I feel some stirrings of the insurrectionary spirit myself when I see the red pantaloons at every turn in the streets of Rome. I suppose Mrs. Browning could explain to me that this is part of the great idea nourished in the soul of the modern saviour, Louis Napoleon, and that for the French to impose a hateful government on the Romans is the only proper sequence to the story of the French Revolution. Oh, the beautiful men and women and children here! Such wonderful babies with wise eyes! such grand-featured mothers nursing them! As one drives along the streets sometimes, one sees a madonna and child at every third or fourth upper window; and on Monday a little crippled girl, seated at the door of a church, looked up at us with a face full of such pathetic sweetness and beauty that I think it can hardly leave me again. Yesterday we went to see dear Shelley's tomb, and it was like a personal consolation to me to see that simple outward sign that he is at rest, where no hatred can ever reach him again. Poor Keats's tombstone, with that despairing, bitter inscription, is almost as painful to think of as Swift's. And what have you been doing, being, or suffering in these long twelve days? While we were standing with weary impatience in the custom-house at Civita Vecchia, Mr. Congreve was delivering his third lecture, and you were listening. And what else? _Friday._--Since I wrote my letter we have not been able to get near the post-office. Yesterday was taken up with seeing ceremonies, or, rather, with waiting for them. I knelt down to receive the pope's blessing, remembering what Pius VII. said to the soldier--that he would never be the worse for the blessing of an old man. But, altogether, these ceremonies are a melancholy, hollow business, and we regret bitterly that the Holy Week has taken up our time from better things. I have a cold and headache this morning, and in other ways am not conscious of improvement from the pope's blessing. I may comfort myself with thinking that the King of Sardinia is none the worse for the pope's curse. It is farcical enough that the excommunication is posted up at the Church of St. John Lateran, out of everybody's way, and yet there are police to guard it. [Sidenote: Italy, 1860.] How much more I have to write about Rome! How I should like to linger over every particular object that has left an image in my memory! But here I am only to give a hasty sketch of what we saw and did at each place at which we paused in our three months' life in Italy. It was on the 29th of April that we left Rome, and on the morning of the 30th we arrived at Naples--under a rainy sky, alas! but not so rainy as to prevent our feeling the beauty of the city and bay, and declaring it to surpass all places we had seen before. The weather cleared up soon after our arrival at the Hotel des Étrangers, and after a few days it became brilliant, showing us the blue sea, the purple mountains, and bright city, in which we had almost disbelieved as we saw them in the pictures. Hardly anything can be more lovely than Naples seen from Posilippo under a blue sky: the irregular outline with which the town meets the sea, jutting out in picturesque masses, then lifted up high on a basis of rock, with the grand Castle of St. Elmo and the monastery on the central height crowning all the rest; the graceful outline of purple Vesuvius rising beyond the Molo, and the line of deeply indented mountains carrying the eye along to the Cape of Sorrento; and, last of all, Capri sleeping between sea and sky in the distance. Crossing the promontory of Posilippo, another wonderful scene presents itself: white Nisida on its island rock; the sweep of bay towards Pozzuoli; beyond that, in fainter colors of farther distance, the Cape of Miseno and the peaks of Ischia. Our first expedition was to Pozzuoli and Miseno, on a bright, warm day, with a slipshod Neapolitan driver, whom I christened Baboon, and who acted as our charioteer throughout our stay at Naples. Beyond picturesque Pozzuoli, jutting out with precipitous piles of building into the sea, lies Baiæ. Here we halted to look at a great circular temple, where there was a wonderful echo that made whispers circulate and become loud on the opposite side to that on which they were uttered. Here, for our amusement, a young maiden and a little old man danced to the sound of a tambourine and fife. On our way to Baiæ we had stopped to see the Lake Avernus, no longer terrible to behold, and the amphitheatre of Cumæ, now grown over with greensward, and fringed with garden stuff. From Baiæ we went to Miseno--the Misenum where Pliny was stationed with the fleet--and looked out from the promontory on the lovely isles of Ischia and Procida. On the approach to this promontory lies the Piscina Mirabilis, one of the most striking remains of Roman building. It is a great reservoir, into which one may now descend dryshod and look up at the lofty arches festooned with delicate plants, while the sunlight shoots aslant through the openings above. It was on this drive, coming back towards Pozzuoli, that we saw the Mesembryanthemum in its greatest luxuriance--a star of amethyst with its golden tassel in the centre. The amphitheatre at Pozzuoli is the most interesting in Italy after the Coliseum. The seats are in excellent preservation, and the subterranean structures for water and for the introduction of wild beasts are unique. The temple of Jupiter Serapis is another remarkable ruin, made more peculiar by the intrusion of the water, which makes the central structure, with its great columns, an island to be approached by a plank bridge. In the views from Capo di Monte--the king's summer residence--and from St. Elmo one enjoys not only the view towards the sea, but the wide, green plain sprinkled with houses and studded with small towns or villages, bounded on the one hand by Vesuvius, and shut in, in every other direction, by the nearer heights close upon Naples, or by the sublimer heights of the distant Apennines. We had the view from St. Elmo on a clear, breezy afternoon, in company with a Frenchman and his wife, come from Rome with his family after a two years' residence there--worth remembering for the pretty bondage the brusque, stern, thin father was under to the tiny, sickly looking boy. It was a grand drive up to Capo di Monte--between rich plantations, with glimpses, as we went up, of the city lying in picturesque irregularity below; and as we went down, in the other direction, views of distant mountain rising above some pretty accident of roof or groups of trees in the foreground. One day we went, from this drive, along the Poggio Reale to the cemetery--the most ambitious burying-place I ever saw, with building after building of elaborate architecture, serving as tombs to various _Arci-confraternità_ as well as to private families, all set in the midst of well-kept gardens. The humblest kind of tombs there were long niches for coffins, in a wall bordering the carriage-road, which are simply built up when the coffin is once in--the inscription being added on this final bit of masonry. The lines of lofty sepulchres suggested to one very vividly the probable appearance of the Appian Way when the old Roman tombs were in all their glory. Our first visit to the Museo Borbonico was devoted to the sculpture, of which there is a precious collection. Of the famous Balbi family, found at Herculaneum, the mother, in grand drapery, wound round her head and body, is the most unforgetable--a really grand woman of fifty, with firm mouth and knitted brow, yet not unbenignant. Farther on in this transverse hall is a Young Faun with the Infant Bacchus--a different conception altogether from the fine Munich statue, but delicious for humor and geniality. Then there is the Aristides--more real and speaking and easy in attitude even than the Sophocles at Rome. Opposite is a lovely Antinous, in no mythological character, but in simple, melancholy beauty. In the centre of the deep recess, in front of which these statues are placed, is the colossal Flora, who holds up her thin dress in too finicking a style for a colossal goddess; and on the floor--to be seen by ascending a platform--is the precious, great mosaic representing the Battle of the Issus, found at Pompeii. It is full of spirit, the _ordonnance_ of the figures is very much after the same style as in the ancient bas-reliefs, and the colors are still vivid enough for us to have a just idea of the effect. In the halls on each side of this central one there are various Bacchuses and Apollos, Atlas groaning under the weight of the Globe, the Farnese Hercules, the Toro Farnese, and, among other things less memorable, a glorious Head of Jupiter. The bronzes here are even more interesting than the marbles. Among them there is Mercury Resting, the Sleeping Faun, the little Dancing Faun, and the Drunken Faun snapping his fingers, of which there is a marble copy at Munich, with the two remarkable Heads of Plato and Seneca. But our greatest treat at the Museo Borbonico could only be enjoyed after our visit to Pompeii, where we went, unhappily, in the company of some Russians whose acquaintance G. had made at the _table d'hôte_. I hope I shall never forget the solemnity of our first entrance into that silent city, and the walk along the street of tombs. After seeing the principal houses we went, as a proper climax, to the Forum, where, among the lines of pedestals and the ruins of temples and tribunal, we could see Vesuvius overlooking us; then to the two theatres, and finally to the amphitheatre. This visit prepared us to enjoy the collection of _piccoli bronzi_, of paintings and mosaics at the Museo. Several of the paintings have considerable positive merit. I remember particularly a large one of Orestes and Pylades, which in composition and general conception might have been a picture of yesterday. But the most impressive collection of remains found at Pompeii and Herculaneum is that of the ornaments, articles of food and domestic utensils, pieces of bread, loaves with the bakers' names on them, fruits, corn, various seeds, paste in the vessel, imperfectly mixed, linen just wrung in washing, eggs, oil consolidated in a glass bottle, wine mixed with the lava, and a piece of asbestos; gold lace, a lens, a lantern with sides of talc, gold ornaments of Etruscan character, patty-pans (!), moulds for cakes; ingenious portable cooking apparatus, urn for hot water, portable candelabrum, to be raised or lowered at will, bells, dice, theatre-checks, and endless objects that tell of our close kinship with those old Pompeians. In one of the rooms of this collection there are the Farnese cameos and engraved gems, some of them--especially of the latter--marvellously beautiful, complicated, and exquisitely minute in workmanship. I remember particularly one splendid yellow stone engraved with an elaborate composition of Apollo and his chariot and horses--a masterpiece of delicate form. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 5th May, 1860.] We left Rome a week ago, almost longing, at last, to come southward in search of sunshine. Every one likes to boast of peculiar experience, and we can boast of having gone to Rome in the very worst spring that has been known for the last twenty years. Here, at Naples, we have had some brilliant days, though the wind is still cold, and rain has often fallen heavily in the night. It is the very best change for us after Rome; there is comparatively little art to see, and there is nature in transcendent beauty. We both think it the most beautiful place in the world, and are sceptical about Constantinople, which has not had the advantage of having been seen by us. That is the fashion of travellers, as you know: for you must have been bored many times in your life by people who have insisted on it that you _must_ go and see the thing _they_ have seen--there is nothing like it. We shall bore you in that way, I dare say--so prepare yourself. Our plan at present is to spend the next week in seeing Pæstum, Amalfi, Castellamare, and Sorrento, and drinking in as much of this Southern beauty, in a quiet way, as our souls are capable of absorbing. The calm blue sea, and the mountains sleeping in the afternoon light, as we have seen them to-day from the height of St. Elmo, make one feel very passive and contemplative, and disinclined to bustle about in search of meaner sights. Yet I confess Pompeii, and the remains of Pompeian art and life in the Museum, have been impressive enough to rival the sea and sky. It is a thing never to be forgotten--that walk through the silent city of the past, and then the sight of utensils and eatables and ornaments and half-washed linen and hundreds of other traces of life so startlingly like our own in its minutest details, suddenly arrested by the fiery deluge. All that you will see some day, and with the advantage of younger eyes than mine. We expect to reach Florence (by steamboat, alas!) on the 17th, so that if you have the charity to write to me again, address to me there. We thought the advance to eighteen in the number of hearers was very satisfactory, and rejoiced over it. The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life--the work at home after the holiday is done--is to help in some small, nibbling way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation, and misery on the face of this beautiful earth. I am writing at night--Mr. Lewes is already asleep, else he would say, "Send my kind regards to them all." We have often talked of you, and the thought of seeing you again makes the South Fields look brighter in our imagination than they could have looked from the dreariest part of the world if you had not been living in them. [Sidenote: Italy, 1860.] The pictures at Naples are worth little: the Marriage of St. Catherine, a small picture by Correggio; a Holy Family, by Raphael, with a singularly fine St. Ann, and Titian's Paul the Third, are the only paintings I have registered very distinctly in all the large collection. The much-praised frescoes of the dome in a chapel of the cathedral, and the oil-paintings over the altars, by Domenichino and Spagnoletto, produced no effect on me. Worth more than all these are Giotto's frescoes in the choir of the little old Church of l'Incoronata, though these are not, I think, in Giotto's ripest manner, for they are inferior to his frescoes in the Santa Croce at Florence--more uniform in the type of face. We went to a Sunday-morning service at the cathedral, and saw a detachment of silver busts of saints ranged around the tribune, Naples being famous for gold and silver sanctities. When we had been a week at Naples we set off in our carriage with Baboon on an expedition to Pæstum, arriving the first evening at Salerno--beautiful Salerno, with a bay as lovely, though in a different way, as the bay of Naples. It has a larger sweep; grander piles of rocky mountain on the north and northeast; then a stretch of low plain, the mountains receding; and, finally, on the south, another line of mountain coast extending to the promontory of Sicosa. From Salerno we started early in the morning for Pæstum, with no alloy to the pleasure of the journey but the dust, which was capable of making a simoon under a high wind. For a long way we passed through a well-cultivated plain, the mountains on our left and the sea on our right; but farther on came a swampy, unenclosed space of great extent, inhabited by buffaloes, who lay in groups, comfortably wallowing in the muddy water, with their grand, stupid heads protruding horizontally. On approaching Pæstum, the first thing one catches sight of is the Temple of Vesta, which is not beautiful either for form or color, so that we began to tremble lest disappointment were to be the harvest of our dusty journey. But the fear was soon displaced by almost rapturous admiration at the sight of the great Temple of Neptune--the finest thing, I verily believe, that we had yet seen in Italy. It has all the requisites to make a building impressive: First, _form_. What perfect satisfaction and repose for the eye in the calm repetition of those columns; in the proportions of height and length, of front and sides; the right thing is _found_--it is not being sought after in uneasy labor of detail or exaggeration. Next, _color_. It is built of Travertine, like the other two temples; but while they have remained, for the most part, a cold gray, this Temple of Neptune has a rich, warm, pinkish brown, that seems to glow and deepen under one's eyes. Lastly, _position_. It stands on the rich plain, covered with long grass and flowers, in sight of the sea on one hand, and the sublime blue mountains on the other. Many plants caress the ruins; the acanthus is there, and I saw it in green life for the first time; but the majority of the plants on the floor, or bossing the architrave, are familiar to me as home flowers--purple mallows, snapdragons, pink hawksweed, etc. On our way back we saw a herd of buffaloes clustered near a pond, and one of them was rolling himself in the water like a gentleman enjoying his bath. The next day we went in the morning from Salerno to Amalfi. It is an unspeakably grand drive round the mighty rocks with the sea below; and Amalfi itself surpasses all imagination of a romantic site for a city that once made itself famous in the world. We stupidly neglected seeing the cathedral, but we saw a macaroni-mill and a paper-mill from among the many that are turned by the rushing stream, which, with its precipitous course down the ravine, creates an immense water-power; and we climbed up endless steps to the Capuchin Monastery, to see nothing but a cavern where there are barbarous images and a small cloister with double Gothic arches. Our way back to La Cava gave us a repetition of the grand drive we had had in the morning by the coast, and beyond that an inland drive of much loveliness, through Claude-like scenes of mountain, trees, and meadows, with picturesque accidents of building, such as single round towers, on the heights. The valley beyond La Cava, in which our hotel lay, is of quite paradisaic beauty; a rich, cultivated spot, with mountains behind and before--those in front varied by ancient buildings that a painter would have chosen to place there; and one of pyramidal shape, steep as an obelisk, is crowned by a monastery, famous for its library of precious MSS. and its archives. We arrived too late for everything except to see the shroud of mist gather and gradually envelop the mountains. In the morning we set off, again in brightest weather, to Sorrento, coasting the opposite side of the promontory to that which we had passed along the day before, and having on our right hand Naples and the distant Posilippo. The coast on this side is less grand than on the Amalfi side, but it is more friendly as a place for residence. The most charming spot on the way to Sorrento, to my thinking, is Vico, which I should even prefer to Sorrento, because there is no town to be traversed before entering the ravine and climbing the mountain in the background. But I will not undervalue Sorrento, with its orange-groves embalming the air, its glorious sunsets over the sea, setting the gray olives aglow on the hills above us, its walks among the groves and vineyards out to the solitary coast. One day of our stay there we took donkeys and crossed the mountains to the opposite side of the promontory, and saw the Siren Isles--very palpable, unmysterious bits of barren rock now. A great delight to me, in all the excursions round about Naples, was the high cultivation of the soil and the sight of the vines, trained from elm to elm, above some other precious crop carpeting the ground below. On our way back to Naples we visited the silent Pompeii again. That place had such a peculiar influence over me that I could not even look towards the point where it lay on the plain below Vesuvius without a certain thrill. Amid much dust we arrived at Naples again on Sunday morning, to start by the steamboat for Leghorn on the following Tuesday. But before I quit Naples I must remember the Grotto of Posilippo, a wonderful monument of ancient labor; Virgil's tomb, which repaid us for a steep ascent only by the view of the city and bay; and a villa on the way to Posilippo, with gardens gradually descending to the margin of the sea, where there is a collection of animals, both stuffed and alive. It was there we saw the flying-fish, with their lovely blue fins. One day and night voyage to Civita Vecchia, and another day and night to Leghorn--wearisome to the flesh that suffers from nausea even on the summer sea! We had another look at dear Pisa under the blue sky, and then on to Florence, which, unlike Rome, looks inviting as one catches sight from the railway of its cupolas and towers and its embosoming hills--the greenest of hills, sprinkled everywhere with white villas. We took up our quarters at the Pension Suisse, and on the first evening we took the most agreeable drive to be had round Florence--the drive to Fiesole. It is in this view that the eye takes in the greatest extent of green, billowy hills, besprinkled with white houses, looking almost like flocks of sheep; the great, silent, uninhabited mountains lie chiefly behind; the plain of the Arno stretches far to the right. I think the view from Fiesole the most beautiful of all; but that from San Miniato, where we went the next evening, has an interest of another kind, because here Florence lies much nearer below, and one can distinguish the various buildings more completely. It is the same with Bellosguardo, in a still more marked degree. What a relief to the eye and the thought, among the huddled roofs of a distant town, to see towers and cupolas rising in abundant variety, as they do at Florence! There is Brunelleschi's mighty dome, and close by it, with its lovely colors not entirely absorbed by distance, Giotto's incomparable Campanile, beautiful as a jewel. Farther on, to the right, is the majestic tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, with the flag waving above it; then the elegant Badia and the Bargello close by; nearer to us the grand Campanile of Santo Spirito and that of Santa Croce; far away, on the left, the cupola of San Lorenzo and the tower of Santa Maria Novella; and, scattered far and near, other cupolas and campaniles of more insignificant shape and history. Even apart from its venerable historical glory, the exterior of the Duomo is pleasant to behold when the wretched, unfinished _façade_ is quite hidden. The soaring pinnacles over the doors are exquisite; so are the forms of the windows in the great semicircle of the apsis; and on the side where Giotto's Campanile is placed, especially, the white marble has taken on so rich and deep a yellow that the black bands cease to be felt as a fault. The entire view on this side, closed in by Giotto's tower, with its delicate pinkish marble, its delicate Gothic windows with twisted columns, and its tall lightness carrying the eye upward, in contrast with the mighty breadth of the dome, is a thing not easily to be forgotten. The Baptistery, with its paradisaic gates, is close by; but, except in those gates, it has no exterior beauty. The interior is almost awful, with its great dome covered with gigantic early mosaics--the pale, large-eyed Christ surrounded by images of paradise and perdition. The interior of the cathedral is comparatively poor and bare; but it has one great beauty--its colored lanceolate windows. Behind the high-altar is a piece of sculpture--the last under Michael Angelo's hand, intended for his own tomb, and left unfinished. It represents Joseph of Arimathea holding the body of Jesus, with Mary, his mother, on one side, and an apparently angelic form on the other. Joseph is a striking and real figure, with a hood over the head. For external architecture it is the palaces, the old palaces of the fifteenth century, that one must look at in the streets of Florence. One of the finest was just opposite our hotel, the Palazzo Strozzi, built by Cronaca; perfect in its massiveness, with its iron cressets and rings, as if it had been built only last year. This is the palace that the Pitti was built to outvie (so tradition falsely pretends), and to have an inner court that would contain it. A wonderful union is that Pitti Palace of cyclopean massiveness with stately regularity. Next to the Pitti, I think, comes the Palazzo Riccardi--the house of the Medici--for size and splendor. Then that unique Laurentian library, designed by Michael Angelo; the books ranged on desks in front of seats, so that the appearance of the library resembles that of a chapel with open pews of dark wood. The precious books are all chained to the desk; and here we saw old manuscripts of exquisite neatness, culminating in the Virgil of the fourth century, and the Pandects, said to have been recovered from oblivion at Amalfi, but falsely so said, according to those who are more learned than tradition. Here, too, is a little chapel covered with remarkable frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Grander still, in another style, is the Palazzo Vecchio, with its unique _cortile_, where the pillars are embossed with arabesque and floral tracery, making a contrast in elaborate ornament with the large simplicity of the exterior building. Here there are precious little works in ivory by Benvenuto Cellini, and other small treasures of art and jewelry, preserved in cabinets in one of the great upper chambers, which are painted all over with frescoes, and have curious inlaid doors showing buildings or figures in wooden mosaic, such as is often seen in great beauty in the stalls of the churches. The great council-chamber is ugly in its ornaments--frescoes and statues in bad taste all round it. Orcagna's Loggia de' Lanzi is disappointing at the first glance, from its sombre, dirty color; but its beauty grew upon me with longer contemplation. The pillars and groins are very graceful and chaste in ornamentation. Among the statues that are placed under it there is not one I could admire, unless it were the dead body of Ajax with the Greek soldier supporting it. Cellini's Perseus is fantastic. The Bargello, where we went to see Giotto's frescoes (in lamentable condition) was under repair, but I got glimpses of a wonderful inner court, with heraldic carvings and stone stairs and gallery. Most of the churches in Florence are hideous on the outside--piles of ribbed brickwork awaiting a coat of stone or stucco--looking like skinned animals. The most remarkable exception is Santa Maria Novella, which has an elaborate facing of black and white marble. Both this church and San Lorenzo were under repair in the interior, unfortunately for us; but we could enter Santa Maria so far as to see Orcagna's frescoes of Paradise and Hell. The Hell has been repainted, but the Paradise has not been maltreated in this way; and it is a splendid example of Orcagna's powers--far superior to his frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa. Some of the female forms on the lowest range are of exquisite grace. The splendid chapel in San Lorenzo, containing the tombs of the Medici, is ugly and heavy, with all its precious marbles; and the world-famous statues of Michael Angelo on the tombs in another smaller chapel--the Notte, the Giorno, and the Crepuscolo--remained to us as affected and exaggerated in the original as in copies and casts. The two churches we frequented most in Florence were Santa Croce and the Carmine. In this last are the great frescoes of Masaccio--chief among them the Raising of the Dead Youth. In the other are Giotto's frescoes revealed from under the whitewash by which they were long covered, like those in the Bargello. Of these the best are the Challenge to Pass through the Fire, in the series representing the history of St. Francis, and the rising of some saint (unknown to me) from his tomb, while Christ extends his arms to receive him above, and wondering venerators look on, on each side. There are large frescoes here of Taddeo Gaddi's also, but they are not good; one sees in him a pupil of Giotto, and nothing more. Besides the frescoes, Santa Croce has its tombs to attract a repeated visit; the tombs of Michael Angelo, Dante, Alfieri, and Machiavelli. Even those tombs of the unknown dead under our feet, with their effigies quite worn down to a mere outline, were not without their interest. I used to feel my heart swell a little at the sight of the inscription on Dante's tomb--"Onorate l'altissimo poeta." In the Church of the Trinità also there are valuable frescoes by the excellent Domenico Ghirlandajo, the master of Michael Angelo. They represent the history of St. Francis, and happily the best of them is in the best light; it is the death of St. Francis, and is full of natural feeling, with well-marked gradations from deepest sorrow to indifferent spectatorship. The frescoes I cared for most in all Florence were the few of Fra Angelico's that a _donna_ was allowed to see, in the Convent of San Marco. In the chapter-house, now used as a guard-room, is a large Crucifixion, with the inimitable group of the fainting mother, upheld by St. John and the younger Mary, and clasped round by the kneeling Magdalene. The group of adoring, sorrowing saints on the right hand are admirable for earnest truthfulness of representation. The Christ in this fresco is not good, but there is a deeply impressive original crucified Christ outside in the cloisters; St. Dominic is clasping the cross and looking upward at the agonized Saviour, whose real, pale, calmly enduring face is quite unlike any other Christ I have seen. I forgot to mention, at Santa Maria Novella, the chapel which is painted with very remarkable frescoes by Simone Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi. The best of these frescoes is the one in which the Dominicans are represented by black and white dogs--_Domini Canes_. The human groups have high merit for conception and lifelikeness; and they are admirable studies of costume. At this church, too, in the sacristy, is the Madonna della Stella,[12] with an altar-step by Fra Angelico--specimens of his minuter painting in oil. The inner part of the frame is surrounded with his lovely angels, with their seraphic joy and flower-garden coloring. Last of all the churches we visited San Michele, which had been one of the most familiar to us on the outside, with its statues in niches, and its elaborate Gothic windows, designed by the genius of Orcagna. The great wonder of the interior is the shrine of white marble made to receive the miracle-working image which first caused the consecration of this mundane building, originally a corn-market. Surely this shrine is the most wonderful of all Orcagna's productions; for the beauty of the reliefs he deserves to be placed along with Nicolo Pisano, and for the exquisite Gothic design of the whole he is a compeer of Giotto. For variety of treasures the Uffizi Gallery is pre-eminent among all public sights in Florence; but the variety is in some degree a cause of comparative unimpressiveness, pictures and statues being crowded together and destroying each other's effect. In statuary it has the great Niobe group; the Venus de Medici; the Wrestlers; the admirable statue of the Knife-Sharpener, supposed to represent the flayer of Marsyas; the Apollino; and the Boy taking a Thorn out of his Foot; with numerous less remarkable antiques. And besides these it has what the Vatican has not--a collection of early Italian sculpture, supreme among which is Giovanni di Bologna's Mercury.[13] Then there is a collection of precious drawings; and there is the cabinet of gems, quite alone in its fantastic, elaborate minuteness of workmanship in rarest materials; and there is another cabinet containing ivory sculptures, cameos, intaglios, and a superlatively fine Niello, as well as Raffaelle porcelain. The pictures here are multitudinous, and among them there is a generous proportion of utterly bad ones. In the entrance gallery, where the early paintings are, is a great Fra Angelico--a Madonna and Child--a triptych, the two side compartments containing very fine figures of saints, and the inner part of the central frame a series of unspeakably lovely angels.[14] Here I always paused with longing, trying to believe that a copyist there could make an imitation angel good enough to be worth buying. Among the other paintings that remain with me, after my visit to the Uffizi, are the portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, by himself; the portrait of Dante, by Filippino Lippi;[15] the Herodias of Luini; Titian's Venus, in the Tribune; Raphael's Madonna and Child with the Bird; and the portrait falsely called the Fornarina; the two remarkable pictures by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo; and the Salutation, by Albertinelli, which hangs opposite; the little prince in pink dress, with two recent teeth, in the next room, by Angelo Bronzino (No. 1155); the small picture of Christ in the Garden, by Lorenzo Credi; Titian's Woman with the Golden Hair, in the Venetian room; Leonardo's Medusa head; and Michael Angelo's ugly Holy Family--these, at least, rise up on a rapid retrospect. Others are in the background; for example, Correggio's Madonna adoring the Infant Christ, in the Tribune. For pictures, however, the Pitti Palace surpasses the Uffizi. Here the paintings are more choice and not less numerous. The Madonna della Sedia leaves me, with all its beauty, impressed only by the grave gaze of the Infant; but besides this there is another Madonna of Raphael--perhaps the most beautiful of all his earlier ones--the Madonna del Gran Duca, which has the sweet grace and gentleness of its sisters without their sheeplike look. Andrea del Sarto is seen here in his highest glory of oil-painting. There are numerous large pictures of his--Assumptions and the like--of great technical merit; but better than all these I remember a Holy Family, with a very fine St. Ann, and the portraits of himself and his fatal, auburn-haired wife. Of Fra Bartolomeo there is a Pietà of memorable expression,[16] a Madonna enthroned with saints, and his great St. Mark. Of Titian, a Marriage of St. Catherine, of supreme beauty; a Magdalen, failing in expression; and an exquisite portrait of the same woman, who is represented as Venus at the Uffizi. There is a remarkable group of portraits by Rubens--himself, his brother, Lipsius, and Grotius--and a large landscape by him. The only picture of Veronese's that I remember here is a portrait of his wife when her beauty was gone. There is a remarkably fine sea-piece by Salvator Rosa; a striking portrait of Aretino, and a portrait of Vesalius, by Titian; one of Inghirami, by Raphael; a delicious, rosy baby--future cardinal--lying in a silken bed;[17] a placid, contemplative young woman, with her finger between the leaves of a book, by Leonardo da Vinci;[18] a memorable portrait of Philip II., by Titian; a splendid Judith, by Bronzino; a portrait of Rembrandt, by himself, etc., etc. Andrea del Sarto is seen to advantage at the Pitti Palace; but his _chef-d'oeuvre_ is a fresco, unhappily much worn--the Madonna del Sacco--in the cloister of the Annunziata. For early Florentine paintings the most interesting collection is that of the Accademia. Here we saw a Cimabue, which gave us the best idea of his superiority over the painters who went before him: it is a colossal Madonna enthroned. And on the same wall there is a colossal Madonna by Giotto, which is not only a demonstration that he surpassed his master, but that he had a clear vision of the noble in art. A delightful picture--very much restored, I fear--of the Adoration of the Magi made me acquainted with Gentile da Fabriano. The head of Joseph in this picture is masterly in the delicate rendering of the expression; the three kings are very beautiful in conception; and the attendant group, or rather crowd, shows a remarkable combination of realism with love of the beautiful and splendid. There is a fine Domenico Ghirlandajo--the Adoration of the Shepherds; a fine Lippo Lippi; and an Assumption, by Perugino, which I like well for its cherubs and angels, and for some of the adoring figures below. In the smaller room there is a lovely Pietà by Fra Angelico; and there is a portrait of Fra Angelico himself by another artist. One of our drives at Florence, which I have not mentioned, was that to Galileo's Tower, which stands conspicuous on one of the hills close about the town. We ascended it for the sake of looking out over the plain from the same spot as the great man looked from, more than two centuries ago. His portrait is in the Pitti Palace--a grave man with an abbreviated nose, not unlike Mr. Thomas Adolphus Trollope. One fine day near the end of our stay we made an expedition to Siena--that fine old town built on an abrupt height overlooking a wide, wide plain. We drove about a couple of hours or more, and saw well the exterior of the place--the peculiar piazza or campo in the shape of a scallop-shell, with its large old Palazzo _publico_, the Porta Ovile and Porta Romana, the archbishop's palace, and the cemetery. Of the churches we saw only the cathedral, the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and San Domenico. The cathedral has a highly elaborate Gothic façade, but the details of the upper part are unsatisfactory--a square window in the centre shocks the eye, and the gables are not slim and aspiring enough. The interior is full of interest: there is the unique pavement in a sort of marble Niello, presenting Raffaellesque designs by Boccafumi, carrying out the example of the older portions, which are very quaint in their drawing; there is a picture of high interest in the history of early art--a picture by Guido of Siena, who was rather earlier than Cimabue; fine carved stalls and screens in dark wood; and in an adjoining chapel a series of frescoes by Pinturicchio, to which Raphael is said to have contributed designs and workmanship, and wonderfully illuminated old choir-books. The Chapel of St. John the Baptist has a remarkable Gothic façade, and a baptismal font inside, with reliefs wrought by Ghiberti and another Florentine artist. To San Domenico we went for the sake of seeing the famous Madonna by Guido da Siena; I think we held it superior to any Cimabue we had seen. There is a considerable collection of the Siennese artists at the Accademia, but the school had no great genius equal to Giotto to lead it. The Three Graces--an antique to which Canova's modern triad bears a strong resemblance in attitude and style--are also at the Accademia. An interesting visit we made at Florence was to Michael Angelo's house--Casa Buonarotti--in the Via Ghibellina. This street is striking and characteristic: the houses are all old, with broad eaves, and in some cases with an open upper story, so that the roof forms a sort of pavilion supported on pillars. This is a feature one sees in many parts of Florence. Michael Angelo's house is preserved with great care by his descendants--only one could wish their care had not been shown in giving it entirely new furniture. However, the rooms are the same as those he occupied, and there are many relics of his presence there--his stick, his sword, and many of his drawings. In one room there is a very fine Titian of small size--the principal figure a woman fainting. The Last Supper--a fresco believed to be by Raphael--is in a room at the Egyptian Museum.[19] The figure of Peter--of which, apparently, there exists various sketches by Raphael's hand--is memorable. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th May, 1860.] Things really look so threatening in the Neapolitan kingdom that we begin to think ourselves fortunate in having got our visit done. Tuscany is in the highest political spirits for the moment, and of course Victor Emanuel stares at us at every turn here, with the most loyal exaggeration of mustache and intelligent meaning. But we are selfishly careless about dynasties just now, caring more for the doings of Giotto and Brunelleschi than for those of Count Cavour. On a first journey to the greatest centres of art one must be excused for letting one's public spirit go to sleep a little. As for me, I am thrown into a state of humiliating passivity by the sight of the great things done in the far past--it seems as if life were not long enough to learn, and as if my own activity were so completely dwarfed by comparison that I should never have courage for more creation of my own. There is only one thing that has an opposite and stimulating effect: it is the comparative rarity, even here, of great and truthful art, and the abundance of wretched imitation and falsity. Every hand is wanted in the world that can do a little genuine, sincere work. We are at the quietest hotel in Florence, having sought it out for the sake of getting clear of the stream of English and Americans, in which one finds one's self in all the main tracks of travel, so that one seems at last to be in a perpetual, noisy picnic, obliged to be civil, though with a strong inclination to be sullen. My philanthropy rises several degrees as soon as we are alone. [Sidenote: Letter to Major Blackwood, 27th May, 1860.] I am much obliged to you for writing at once, and so scattering some clouds which had gathered over my mind in consequence of an indication or two in Mr. John Blackwood's previous letter. The _Times_ article arrived on Sunday. It is written in a generous spirit, and with so high a degree of intelligence that I am rather alarmed lest the misapprehensions it exhibits should be due to my defective presentation, rather than to any failure on the part of the critic. I have certainly fulfilled my intention very badly if I have made the Dodson honesty appear "mean and uninteresting," or made the payment of one's debts appear a contemptible virtue in comparison with any sort of "Bohemian" qualities. So far as my own feeling and intention are concerned, no one class of persons or form of character is held up to reprobation or to exclusive admiration. Tom is painted with as much love and pity as Maggie; and I am so far from hating the Dodsons myself that I am rather aghast to find them ticketed with such very ugly adjectives. We intend to leave this place on Friday (3d), and in four days after that we shall be at Venice, in a few days from that time at Milan, and then, by a route at present uncertain, at Berne, where we take up Mr. Lewes's eldest boy, to bring him home with us. We are particularly happy in our weather, which is unvaryingly fine without excessive heat. There has been a crescendo of enjoyment in our travels; for Florence, from its relation to the history of modern art, has roused a keener interest in us even than Rome, and has stimulated me to entertain rather an ambitious project, which I mean to be a secret from every one but you and Mr. John Blackwood. Any news of "Clerical Scenes" in its third edition? Or has its appearance been deferred? The smallest details are acceptable to ignorant travellers. We are wondering what was the last good article in _Blackwood_, and whether Thackeray has gathered up his slack reins in the _Cornhill_. Literature travels slowly even to this Italian Athens. Hawthorne's book is not to be found here yet in the Tauchnitz edition. [Sidenote: Italy, 1860.] We left Florence on the evening of the 1st of June, by diligence, travelling all night and until eleven the next morning to get to Bologna. I wish we could have made that journey across the Apennines by daylight, though in that case I should have missed certain grand, startling effects that came to me in my occasional wakings. Wonderful heights and depths I saw on each side of us by the fading light of the evening. Then, in the middle of the night, while the lightning was flashing and the sky was heavy with threatening storm-clouds, I waked to find the six horses resolutely refusing or unable to move the diligence--till, at last, two meek oxen were tied to the axle, and their added strength dragged us up the hill. But one of the strangest effects I ever saw was just before dawn, when we seemed to be high up on mighty mountains, which fell precipitously, and showed us the awful, pale horizon far, far below. The first thing we did at Bologna was to go to the Accademia, where I confirmed myself in my utter dislike of the Bolognese school--the Caraccis and Domenichino _et id genus omne_--and felt some disappointment in Raphael's St. Cecilia. The pictures of Francia here, to which I had looked forward as likely to give me a fuller and higher idea of him, were less pleasing to me than the smaller specimens of him that I had seen in the Dresden and other galleries. He seems to me to be more limited even than Perugino; but he is a faithful, painstaking painter, with a religious spirit. Agostino Caracci's Communion of St. Jerome is a remarkable picture, with real feeling in it--an exception among all the great pieces of canvas that hang beside it. Domenichino's figure of St. Jerome is a direct plagiarism from that of Agostino; but in other points the two pictures are quite diverse. The following morning we took a carriage and were diligent in visiting the churches. San Petronio has the melancholy distinction of an exquisite Gothic façade, which is carried up only a little way above the arches of the doorways; the sculptures on these arches are of wonderful beauty. The interior is of lofty, airy, simple Gothic, and it contains some curious old paintings in the various side-chapels--pre-eminent among which are the great frescoes by the so-called Buffalmacco. The Paradise is distinguished in my memory by the fact that the blessed are ranged in seats like the benches of a church or chapel. At Santa Cecilia--now used as a barrack or guard-room--there are two frescoes by Francia, the Marriage and Burial of St. Cecilia, characteristic, but miserably injured. At the great Church of San Domenico the object of chief interest is the tomb of the said saint, by the ever-to-be-honored Nicolo Pisano. I believe this tomb was his first great work, and very remarkable it is; but there is nothing on it equal to the Nativity on the pulpit at Pisa. On this tomb stands a lovely angel, by Michael Angelo. It is small in size, holding a small candle-stick, and is a work of his youth; it shows clearly enough how the feeling for grace and beauty were strong in him, only not strong enough to wrestle with his love of the grandiose and powerful. The ugly, painful leaning towers of Bologna made me desire not to look at them a second time; but there are fine bits of massive palatial building here and there in the colonnaded streets. We trod the court of the once famous university, where the arms of the various scholars ornament the walls above and below an interior gallery. This building is now, as far as I could understand, a communal school, and the university is transported to another part of the town. We left Bologna in the afternoon, rested at Ferrara for the night, and passed the Euganean Mountains on our left hand as we approached Padua in the middle of the next day. After dinner and rest from our dusty journeying we took a carriage and went out to see the town, desiring most of all to see Giotto's Chapel. We paused first, however, at the great Church of San Antonio, which is remarkable both externally and internally. There are two side chapels opposite each other, which are quite unique for contrasted effect. On the one hand is a chapel of oblong form, covered entirely with white marble _relievi_, golden lamps hanging from the roof; while opposite is a chapel of the same form, covered with frescoes by Avanzi, the artist who seems to have been the link of genius between Giotto and Masaccio. Close by, in a separate building, is the Capella di San Giorgio, also covered with Avanzi's frescoes; and here one may study him more completely, because the light is better than in the church. He has quite a Veronese power of combining his human groups with splendid architecture. The Arena Chapel stands apart, and is approached, at present, through a pretty garden. Here one is uninterruptedly with Giotto. The whole chapel was designed and painted by himself alone; and it is said that, while he was at work on it, Dante lodged with him at Padua. The nave of the chapel is in tolerably good preservation, but the apsis has suffered severely from damp. It is in this apsis that the lovely Madonna, with the Infant at her breast, is painted in a niche, now quite hidden by some altar-piece or woodwork, which one has to push by in order to see the tenderest bit of Giotto's painting. This chapel must have been a blessed vision when it was fresh from Giotto's hand--the blue, vaulted roof; the exquisite bands of which he was so fond, representing inlaid marble, uniting roof and walls, and forming the divisions between the various frescoes which cover the upper part of the wall. The glory of Paradise at one end, and the histories of Mary and Jesus on the two sides; and the subdued effect of the series of monochromes representing the Virtues and Vices below. There is a piazza with a plantation and circular public walk, with wildly affected statues of small and great notorieties, which remains with one as a peculiarity of Padua; in general the town is merely old and shabbily Italian, without anything very specific in its aspect. From Padua to Venice! It was about ten o'clock on a moonlight night--the 4th of June--that we found ourselves apparently on a railway in the midst of the sea; we were on the bridge across the Lagoon. Soon we were in a gondola on the Grand Canal, looking out at the moonlit buildings and water. What stillness! What beauty! Looking out from the high window of our hotel on the Grand Canal I felt that it was a pity to go to bed. Venice was more beautiful than romances had feigned. And that was the impression that remained, and even deepened, during our stay of eight days. That quiet which seems the deeper because one hears the delicious dip of the oar (when not disturbed by clamorous church bells) leaves the eye in full liberty and strength to take in the exhaustless loveliness of color and form. We were in our gondola by nine o'clock the next morning, and, of course, the first point we sought was the Piazza di San Marco. I am glad to find Ruskin calling the Palace of the Doges one of the two most perfect buildings in the world; its only defects, to my feeling, are the feebleness or triviality of the frieze or cornice, and the want of length in the Gothic windows with which the upper wall is pierced. This spot is a focus of architectural wonders; but the palace is the crown of them all. The double tier of columns and arches, with the rich sombreness of their finely outlined shadows, contrast satisfactorily with the warmth and light and more continuous surface of the upper part. Even landing on the Piazzetta, one has a sense, not only of being in an entirely novel scene, but one where the ideas of a foreign race have poured themselves in without yet mingling indistinguishably with the pre-existent Italian life. But this is felt yet more strongly when one has passed along the Piazzetta and arrived in front of San Marco, with its low arches and domes and minarets. But perhaps the most striking point to take one's stand on is just in front of the white marble guard-house flanking the great tower--the guard-house with Sansovino's iron gates before it. On the left is San Marco, with the two square pillars from St. Jean d'Acre standing as isolated trophies; on the right the Piazzetta extends between the Doge's Palace and the Palazzo Reale to the tall columns from Constantinople; and in front is the elaborate gateway leading to the white marble Scala di Giganti, in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace. Passing through this gateway and up this staircase, we entered the gallery which surrounds the court on three sides, and looked down at the fine sculptured vase-like wells below. Then into the great Sala, surrounded with the portraits of the doges; the largest oil-painting here--or perhaps anywhere else--is the Gloria del Paradiso, by Tintoretto, now dark and unlovely. But on the ceiling is a great Paul Veronese--the Apotheosis of Venice--which looks as fresh as if it were painted yesterday, and is a miracle of color and composition--a picture full of glory and joy of an earthly, fleshly kind, but without any touch of coarseness or vulgarity. Below the radiant Venice on her clouds is a balcony filled with upward-looking spectators; and below this gallery is a group of human figures with horses. Next to this Apotheosis, I admire another Coronation of Venice on the ceiling of another Sala, where Venice is sitting enthroned above the globe with her lovely face in half shadow--a creature born with an imperial attitude. There are other Tintorettos, Veroneses, and Palmas in the great halls of this palace; but they left me quite indifferent, and have become vague in my memory. From the splendors of the palace we crossed the Bridge of Sighs to the prisons, and saw the horrible, dark, damp cells that would make the saddest life in the free light and air seem bright and desirable. The interior of St. Mark's is full of interest, but not of beauty; it is dark and heavy, and ill-suited to the Catholic worship, from the massive piers that obstruct the view everywhere, shut out the sight of ceremony and procession, as we witnessed at our leisure on the day of the great procession of Corpus Christi. But everywhere there are relics of gone-by art to be studied, from mosaics of the Greeks to mosaics of later artists than the Zuccati; old marble statues, embrowned like a meerschaum pipe; amazing sculptures in wood; Sansovino doors, ambitious to rival Ghiberti's; transparent alabaster columns; an ancient Madonna, hung with jewels, transported from St. Sophia, in Constantinople; and everywhere the venerable pavement, once beautiful with its starry patterns in rich marble, now deadened and sunk to unevenness, like the mud floor of a cabin. Then outside, on the archway of the principal door, there are sculptures of a variety that makes one renounce the study of them in despair at the shortness of one's time--blended fruits and foliage, and human groups and animal forms of all kinds. On our first morning we ascended the great tower, and looked around on the island city and the distant mountains and the distant Adriatic. And on the same day we went to see the Pisani palace--one of the grand old palaces that are going to decay. An Italian artist who resides in one part of this palace interested us by his frank manner, and the glimpse we had of his domesticity with his pretty wife and children. After this we saw the Church of San Sebastiano, where Paul Veronese is buried, with his own paintings around, mingling their color with the light that falls on his tombstone. There is one remarkably fine painting of his here: it represents, I think, some saints going to martyrdom, but, apart from that explanation, is a composition full of vigorous, spirited figures, in which the central ones are two young men leaving some splendid dwelling, on the steps of which stands the mother, pleading and remonstrating--a marvellous figure of an old woman with a bare neck. But supreme among the pictures at Venice is the Death of Peter the Martyr,[20] now happily removed from its original position as an altar-piece, and placed in a good light in the sacristy of San Giovanni and Paolo (or San Zani Polo, as the Venetians conveniently abbreviate it). In this picture, as in that of the Tribute-money at Dresden, Titian seems to have surpassed himself, and to have reached as high a point in expression as in color. In the same sacristy there was a Crucifixion, by Tintoretto, and a remarkable Madonna with Saints, by Giovanni Bellini; but we were unable to look long away from the Titian to these, although we paid it five visits during our stay. It is near this church that the famous equestrian statue stands, by Verocchio. Santa Maria della Salute, built as an _ex voto_ by the Republic on the cessation of the plague, is one of the most conspicuous churches in Venice, lifting its white cupolas close on the Grand Canal, where it widens out towards the Giudecca. Here there are various Tintorettos, but the only one which is not blackened so as to be unintelligible is the _Cena_, which is represented as a bustling supper party, with attendants and sideboard accessories, in thoroughly Dutch fashion! The great scene of Tintoretto's greatness is held to be the Scuola di San Rocco, of which he had the painting entirely to himself, with his pupils; and here one must admire the vigor and freshness of his conceptions, though I saw nothing that delighted me in expression, and much that was preposterous and ugly. The Crucifixion here is certainly a grand work, to which he seems to have given his best powers; and among the smaller designs, in the two larger halls, there were several of thorough originality--for example, the Annunciation, where Mary is seated in a poor house, with a carpenter's shop adjoining; the Nativity, in the upper story of a stable, of which a section is made so as to show the beasts below; and the Flight into Egypt, with a very charming (European) landscape. In this same building of San Rocco there are some exquisite iron gates, a present from Florence, and some singularly painstaking wood-carving, representing, in one compartment of wainscot, above the seats that surrounded the upper hall, a bookcase filled with old books, an inkstand and pen set in front of one shelf _à s'y méprendre_. But of all Tintoretto's paintings the best preserved, and perhaps the most complete in execution, is the Miracle of St. Mark, at the Accademia. We saw it the oftener because we were attracted to the Accademia again and again by Titian's Assumption, which we placed next to Peter the Martyr among the pictures at Venice. For a thoroughly rapt expression I never saw anything equal to the Virgin in this picture; and the expression is the more remarkable because it is not assisted by the usual devices to express spiritual ecstasy, such as delicacy of feature and temperament, or pale meagreness. Then what cherubs and angelic heads bathed in light! The lower part of the picture has no interest; the attitudes are theatrical; and the Almighty above is as unbeseeming as painted Almighties usually are; but the middle group falls short only of the Sistine Madonna. Among the Venetian painters Giovanni Bellini shines with a mild, serious light that gives one an affectionate respect towards him. In the Church of the Scalzi there is an exquisite Madonna by him--probably his _chef-d'oeuvre_--comparable to Raphael's for sweetness. And Palmo Vecchio, too, must be held in grateful reverence for his Santa Barbara, standing in calm, grand beauty above an altar in the Church of Santa Maria Formosa. It is an almost unique presentation of a hero-woman, standing in calm preparation for martyrdom, without the slightest air of pietism, yet with the expression of a mind filled with serious conviction. We made the journey to Chioggia, but with small pleasure, on account of my illness, which continued all day. Otherwise that long floating over the water, with the forts and mountains looking as if they were suspended in the air, would have been very enjoyable. Of all dreamy delights that of floating in a gondola along the canals and out on the Lagoon is surely the greatest. We were out one night on the Lagoon when the sun was setting, and the wide waters were flushed with the reddened light. I should have liked it to last for hours; it is the sort of scene in which I could most readily forget my own existence and feel melted into the general life. Another charm of evening-time was to walk up and down the Piazza of San Marco as the stars were brightening and look at the grand, dim buildings, and the flocks of pigeons flitting about them; or to walk on to the Bridge of La Paglia and look along the dark canal that runs under the Bridge of Sighs--its blackness lit up by a gaslight here and there, and the plash of the oar of blackest gondola slowly advancing. One of our latest visits was to the Palazzo Mamfrini, where there are still the remains of a magnificent collection of pictures--remains still on sale. The young proprietor was walking about transacting business in the rooms as we passed through them--a handsome, refined-looking man. The chief treasure left--the Entombment, by Titian--is perhaps a superior duplicate of the one in the Louvre. After this we went to a private house (once the house of Bianca Capello) to see a picture which the joint proprietors are anxious to prove to be a Leonardo da Vinci. It is a remarkable--an unforgetable--picture. The subject is the Supper at Emmaus; and the Christ, with open, almost tearful eyes, with loving sadness spread over the regular beauty of his features, is a masterpiece. This head is _not_ like the Leonardo sketch at Milan; and the rest of the picture impressed me strongly with the idea that it is of German, not Italian, origin. Again, the head is not like that of Leonardo's Christ in the National Gallery--it is far finer, to my thinking. Farewell, lovely Venice! and away to Verona, across the green plains of Lombardy, which can hardly look tempting to an eye still filled with the dreamy beauty it has left behind. Yet I liked our short stay at Verona extremely. The Amphitheatre had the disadvantage of coming after the Coliseum and the Pozzuoli Amphitheatre, and would bear comparison with neither; but the Church of San Zenone was equal in interest to almost any of the churches we had seen in Italy. It is a beautiful specimen of Lombard architecture, undisguised by any modern barbarisms in the interior; and on the walls--now that they have been freed from their coat of whitewash--there are early frescoes of high historical value, some of them--apparently of the Giotto school--showing a remarkable striving after human expression. More than this, there is in one case an under layer of yet older frescoes, partly laid bare, and showing the lower part of figures in mummy-like degradation of drawing; while above these are the upper portion of the later figures in striking juxtaposition with the dead art from which they had sprung with the vitality of a hidden germ. There is a very fine crypt to the church, where the fragments of some ancient sculptures are built in wrong way upwards. This was the only church we entered at Verona; for we contented ourselves with a general view of the town, driving about to get _coups d'oeil_ of the fine old walls, the river, the bridges, and surrounding hills, and mounting up to a high terrace for the sake of a bird's-eye view; this, with a passing sight of the famous tombs of the Scaligers, was all gathered in our four or five hours at Verona. Heavy rain came on our way to Milan, putting an end to the brilliant weather we had enjoyed ever since our arrival at Naples. The line of road lies through a luxuriant country, and I remember the picturesque appearance of Bergamo--half of it on the level, half of it lifted up on the green hill. In this second visit of mine to Milan my greatest pleasures were the Brera Gallery and the Ambrosian Library, neither of which I had seen before. The cathedral no longer satisfied my eye in its exterior; and though the interior has very grand effects, there are still disturbing elements. At the Ambrosian Library we saw MSS. surpassing in interest any even of those we had seen in the Laurentian Library at Florence--illuminated books, sacred and secular, a little Koran, rolled up something after the fashion of a measuring-tape, private letters of Tasso, Galileo, Lucrezia Borgia, etc., and a book full of Leonardo da Vinci's engineering designs. Then, up-stairs, in the picture-gallery, we saw a delicious Holy Family by Luini, of marvellous perfection in its execution, the Cartoon for Raphael's School of Athens, and a precious collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. Among Leonardo's are amazingly grotesque faces, full of humor; among Michael Angelo's is the sketch of the unfortunate Biagio, who figures with ass's ears, in the lower corner of the Last Judgment. At the Brera, among a host of pictures to which I was indifferent, there were several things that delighted me. Some of Luini's frescoes--especially the burial or transportation of the body of St. Catherine by angels--some single figures of young cherubs, and Joseph and Mary going to their Marriage; the drawing in pastel by Leonardo of the Christ's head, supposed to be a study for the _Cena_; the Luini Madonna among trellises--an exquisite oil-painting; Gentile Bellini's picture of St. Mark preaching at Alexandria; and the Sposalizio by Raphael. At the Church of San Maurizio Maggiore we saw Luini's power tested by an abundant opportunity. The walls are almost covered with frescoes by him; but the only remarkable felicity he has is his female figures, which are eminently graceful. He has not power enough for a composition of any high character. We visited, too, the interesting old Church of San Ambrogio, with its court surrounded by cloisters, its old sculptured pulpit, chair of St. Ambrose, and illuminated choir-books; and we drove to look at the line of old Roman columns, which are almost the solitary remnant of antiquity left in this ancient city--ancient, at least, in its name and site. We left Milan for Como on a fine Sunday morning, and arrived at beautiful Bellagio by steamer in the evening. Here we spent a delicious day--going to the Villa Somma Riva in the morning, and in the evening to the Serbellone Gardens, from the heights of which we saw the mountain-peaks reddened with the last rays of the sun. The next day we reached lovely Chiavenna, at the foot of the Splügen Pass, and spent the evening in company with a glorious mountain torrent, mountain peaks, huge bowlders, with rippling miniature torrents and lovely young flowers among them, and grassy heights with rich Spanish chestnuts shadowing them. Then, the next morning, we set off by post and climbed the almost perpendicular heights of the Pass--chiefly in heavy rain that would hardly let us discern the patches of snow when we reached the table-land of the summit. About five o'clock we reached grassy Splügen and felt that we had left Italy behind us. Already our driver had been German for the last long post, and now we had come to a hotel where host and waiters were German. Swiss houses of dark wood, outside staircases and broad eaves, stood on the steep, green, and flowery slope that led up to the waterfall; and the hotel and other buildings of masonry were thoroughly German in their aspect. In the evening we enjoyed a walk between the mountains, whose lower sides down to the torrent bed were set with tall, dark pines. But the climax of grand--nay, terrible--scenery came the next day as we traversed the Via Mala. After this came open green valleys, dotted with white churches and homesteads. We were in Switzerland, and the mighty wall of the Valtelline Alps shut us out from Italy on the 21st of June. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 23d June, 1860, from Berne.] Your letter to Florence reached me duly, and I feel as if I had been rather unconscionable in asking for another before our return; but to us, who have been seeing new things every day, a month seems so long a space of time that we can't help fancying there must be a great accumulation of news for us at the end of it. We had hoped to be at home by the 25th; but we were so enchanted with Venice that we were seduced into staying there a whole week instead of three or four days, and now we must not rob the boys of their two days' holiday with us. We have had a wonderful journey. From Florence we went to Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, on our way to Venice; and from Venice we have come by Verona, Milan, and Como, and across the Splügen to Zurich, where we spent yesterday, chiefly in the company of Moleschott the physiologist--an interview that has helped to sharpen Mr. Lewes's appetite for a return to his microscope and dissecting-table. We ought to be forever ashamed of ourselves if we don't work the better for this great holiday. We both feel immensely enriched with new ideas and new veins of interest. I don't think I can venture to tell you what my great project is by letter, for I am anxious to keep it secret. It will require a great deal of study and labor, and I am athirst to begin. As for "The Mill," I am in repose about it now I know it has found its way to the great public. Its comparative rank can only be decided after some years have passed, when the judgment upon it is no longer influenced by the recent enthusiasm about "Adam," and by the fact that it has the misfortune to be written by me instead of by Mr. Liggins. I shall like to see Bulwer's criticism, if you will be kind enough to send it me; but I particularly wish _not_ to see any of the newspaper articles. _SUMMARY._ MARCH TO JUNE, 1860.--FIRST JOURNEY TO ITALY. Crossing Mont Cenis by night in diligence--Turin--Sees Count Cavour--Genoa--Leghorn--Pisa--Civita Vecchia--Disappointment with first sight of Rome--Better spirits after visit to Capitol--View from Capitol--Points most struck with in Rome--Sculpture at Capitol--Sculpture at Vatican first seen by torchlight--St. Peter's--Other churches--Sistine Chapel--Paintings--Illumination of St. Peter's--Disappointment with Michael Angelo's Moses--Visits to artists' studios--Riedel and Overbeck--Pamfili Doria Gardens--Frascati--Tivoli--Pictures at Capitol--Lateran Museum--Shelley's and Keats's graves--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Pope's blessing--Easter ceremonies--From Rome to Naples--Description--Museo Borbonico--Visit to Pompeii--Solemnity of street of tombs--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--From Naples to Salerno and Pæstum--Temple of Vesta--Temple of Neptune fulfils expectations--Amalfi--Drive to Sorrento--Back to Naples--By steamer to Leghorn--To Florence--Views from Fiesole and Bellosguardo--The Duomo--Baptistery--Palaces--Churches--Dante's tomb--Frescoes--Pictures at the Uffizi--Pictures at the Pitti--Pictures at the Accademia--Expedition to Siena--Back to Florence--Michael Angelo's house--Letter to Blackwood--Dwarfing effect of the past--Letter to Major Blackwood on _Times'_ criticism of "The Mill on the Floss," and first mention of an Italian novel--Leave Florence for Bologna--Churches and pictures--To Padua by Ferrara--The Arena Chapel--Venice by moonlight--Doge's Palace--St. Mark's--Pictures--Scuola di San Rocco--Accademia--Gondola to Chioggia--From Venice to Verona--Milan--Brera Gallery and Ambrosian Library--Disappointment with cathedral--Bellagio--Over Splügen to Switzerland--Letter to Blackwood--Saw Moleschott at Zurich--Home by Berne and Geneva. FOOTNOTES: [11] "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." [12] Now in cell No. 33 in the Museo di San Marco. [13] Now in the Museo Nazionale. [14] Now in Sala Lorenzo Monaco, Uffizi. [15] The only portraits of Dante in the Uffizi are No. 1207 in the room opening out of the Tribune, by an unknown painter (Scuola Toscana); and No. 553, in the passage to the Pitti--also by an unknown painter. [16] No. 81. Pitti Gallery. [17] No. 49, by Tiberio Titti. Pitti Gallery. [18] No. 140. Pitti Gallery. [19] No. 56 Via de Faenza, Capella di Foligno. [20] Since burned. CHAPTER XI. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _July 1._--We found ourselves at home again, after three months of delightful travel. From Berne we brought our eldest boy Charles, to begin a new period in his life, after four years at Hofwyl. During our absence "The Mill on the Floss" came out (April 4), and achieved a greater success than I had ever hoped for it. The subscription was 3600 (the number originally printed was 4000); and shortly after its appearance, Mudie having demanded a second thousand, Blackwood commenced striking off 2000 more, making 6000. While we were at Florence I had the news that these 6000 were all sold, and that 500 more were being prepared. From all we can gather, the votes are rather on the side of "The Mill" as a better book than "Adam." [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st July, 1860.] We reached home by starlight at one o'clock this morning; and I write in haste, fear, and trembling lest you should already be gone to Surrey. You know what I should like--that you and your husband should come to us the first day possible, naming any hour and conditions. We would arrange meals and everything else as would best suit you. Of course I would willingly go to London to see _you_, if you could not come to me. But I fear lest neither plan should be practicable, and lest this letter should have to be sent after you. It is from your note only that I have learned your loss.[21] It has made me think of you with the sense that there is more than ever a common fund of experience between us. But I will write nothing more now. I am almost ill with fatigue, and have only courage to write at all because of my anxiety not to miss you. Affectionate regards from both of _us_ to both of _you_. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d July, 1860.] I opened your letters and parcel a little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, for that was the unseasonable hour of our return from our long, long journey. Yesterday was almost entirely employed in feeling very weary indeed, but this morning we are attacking the heap of small duties that always lie before one after a long absence. It is pleasant to see your book[22] fairly finished after all delays and anxieties; but I will say nothing to you about _that_ until I have read it. I shall read it the first thing before plunging into a course of study which will take me into a different region of thought. We have had an unspeakably delightful journey--one of those journeys that seem to divide one's life in two, by the new ideas they suggest and the new veins of interest they open. We went to Geneva, and spent two days with my old, kind friends, the d'Alberts--a real pleasure to me, especially as Mr. Lewes was delighted with "Maman," as I used to call Madame d'Albert. She is as bright and upright as ever; the ten years have only whitened her hair--a change which makes her face all the softer in coloring. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 3d July, 1860.] We did not reach home till past midnight on Saturday, when you, I suppose, had already become used to the comfort of having fairly got through your London season. Self-interest, rightly understood of course, prompts us to a few virtuous actions in the way of letter-writing to let the few people we care to hear from know at once of our whereabouts; and you are one of the first among the few. At Berne Mr. Lewes supped with Professors Valentin and Schiff, two highly distinguished physiologists, and I was much delighted to find how much attention and interest they had given to his views in the "Physiology of Common Life." A French translation of "Adam Bede," by a Genevese gentleman[23] well known to me, is now in the press; and the same translator has undertaken "The Mill on the Floss." He appears to have rendered "Adam" with the most scrupulous care. I think these are all the incidents we gathered on our homeward journey that are likely to interest you. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th July, 1860.] I have finished my first rather rapid reading of your book, and now I thank you for it: not merely for the special gift of the volume and inscription, but for that of which many others will share the benefit with me--the "thoughts" themselves. So far as my reading in English books of similar character extends, yours seems to me quite unparalleled in the largeness and insight with which it estimates Christianity as an "organized experience"--a grand advance in the moral development of the race. I especially delight in the passage, p. 105, beginning, "And how can it be otherwise," and ending with, "formal rejection of it."[24] On this and other supremely interesting matters of thought--perhaps I should rather say of experience--your book has shown me that we are much nearer to each other than I had supposed. At p. 174, again, there is a passage beginning, "These sentiments," and ending with "heroes,"[25] which, for me, expresses the one-half of true human piety. That thought is one of my favorite altars where I oftenest go to contemplate, and to seek for invigorating motive. Of the work as a whole I am quite incompetent to judge on a single cursory reading. I admire--I respect--the breadth and industry of mind it exhibits; and I should be obliged to give it a more thorough study than I can afford at present before I should feel warranted to urge, in the light of a criticism, my failure to perceive the logical consistency of your language in some parts with the position you have adopted in others. In many instances your meaning is obscure to me, or at least lies wrapped up in more folds of abstract phraseology than I have the courage or the industry to open for myself. I think you told me that some one had found your treatment of great questions "cold-blooded." I am all the more delighted to find, for my own part, an unusual fulness of sympathy and heart experience breathing throughout your book. The ground for that epithet perhaps lay in a certain professorial tone which could hardly be avoided, in a work filled with criticism of other people's theories, except by the adoption of a simply personal style of presentation, in which you would have seemed to be looking up at the oracles, and trying to reconcile their doctrines for your own behoof, instead of appearing to be seated in a chair above them. But you considered your own plan more thoroughly than any one else can have considered it for you; and I have no doubt you had good reasons for preferring the more impersonal style. Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards, and when Du Bois Reymond's book on Johannes Müller, with other preoccupations of a like thrilling kind, no longer stand in the way, he will open _his_ copy of the "Thoughts in Aid of Faith." He has felt a new interest aroused towards it since he has learned something about it from me and the reviewer in the _Westminster_. Madame Bodichon, who was here the other day, told me that Miss Nightingale and Miss Julia Smith had mentioned their pleasure in your book; but you will hear further news of all that from themselves. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 9th July, 1860.] I return Sir Edward Lytton's critical letter, which I have read with much interest. On two points I recognize the justice of his criticism. First, that Maggie is made to appear too passive in the scene of quarrel in the Red Deeps. If my book were still in MS. I should--now that the defect is suggested to me--alter, or rather expand, that scene. Secondly, that the tragedy is not adequately prepared. This is a defect which I felt even while writing the third volume, and have felt ever since the MS. left me. The _Epische Breite_ into which I was beguiled by love of my subject in the two first volumes, caused a want of proportionate fulness in the treatment of the third, which I shall always regret. The other chief point of criticism--Maggie's position towards Stephen--is too vital a part of my whole conception and purpose for me to be converted to the condemnation of it. If I am wrong there--if I did not really know what my heroine would feel and do under the circumstances in which I deliberately placed her, I ought not to have written this book at all, but quite a different book, if any. If the ethics of art do not admit the truthful presentation of a character essentially noble, but liable to great error--error that is anguish to its own nobleness--then, it seems to me, the ethics of art are too narrow, and must be widened to correspond with a widening psychology. But it is good for me to know how my tendencies as a writer clash with the conclusions of a highly accomplished mind, that I may be warned into examining well whether my discordance with those conclusions may not arise rather from an idiosyncrasy of mine than from a conviction which is argumentatively justifiable. I hope you will thank Sir Edward on my behalf for the trouble he has taken to put his criticism into a form specific enough to be useful. I feel his taking such trouble to be at once a tribute and a kindness. If printed criticisms were usually written with only half the same warrant of knowledge, and with an equal sincerity of intention, I should read them without fear of fruitless annoyance. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 10th July, 1860.] The little envelope with its address of "Marian" was very welcome, and as Mr. Lewes is sending what a Malaproprian friend once called a "missile" to Sara, I feel inclined to slip in a word of gratitude--less for the present than for the past goodness, which came back to me with keener remembrance than ever when we were at Genoa and at Como--the places I first saw with you. How wretched I was then--how peevish, how utterly morbid! And how kind and forbearing you were under the oppression of my company. I should like you now and then to feel happy in the thought that you were always perfectly good to me. That I was not good to you is my own disagreeable affair; the bitter taste of that fact is mine, not yours. Don't you remember Bellagio? It is hardly altered much except in the hotels, which the eleven years have wondrously multiplied and bedizened for the accommodation of the English. But if I begin to recall the things we saw in Italy, I shall write as long a letter as Mr. Lewes's, which, by-the-bye, now I have read it, seems to be something of a "missile" in another sense than the Malaproprian. But Sara is one of the few people to whom candor is acceptable as the highest tribute. And private criticism has more chance of being faithful than public. We must have mercy on critics who are obliged to make a figure in printed pages. They must by all means say striking things. Either we should not read printed criticisms at all (_I don't_), or we should read them with the constant remembrance that they are a fugitive kind of work which, in the present stage of human nature, can rarely engage a very high grade of conscience or ability. The fate of a book, which is not entirely ephemeral, is never decided by journalists or reviewers of any but an exceptional kind. Tell Sara her damnation--if it ever comes to pass--will be quite independent of Nationals and Westminsters. Let half a dozen competent people read her book, and an opinion of it will spread quite apart from either praise or blame in reviews and newspapers. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Tuesday evening, July, 1860.] Our big boy is a great delight to us, and makes our home doubly cheery. It is very sweet as one gets old to have some young life about one. He is quite a passionate musician, and we play Beethoven duets with increasing appetite every evening. The opportunity of hearing some inspiring music is one of the chief benefits we hope for to counterbalance our loss of the wide common and the fields. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th July, 1860.] We shall certainly read the parts you suggest in the "Education of the Feelings,"[26] and I dare say I shall read a good deal more of it, liking to turn over the leaves of a book which I read first in our old drawing-room at Foleshill, and then lent to my sister, who, with a little air of maternal experience, pronounced it "very sensible." There is so much that I want to do every day--I had need cut myself into four women. We have a great extra interest and occupation just now in our big boy Charlie, who is looking forward to a Government examination, and wants much help and sympathy in music and graver things. I think we are quite peculiarly blest in the fact that this eldest lad seems the most entirely lovable human animal of seventeen and a half that I ever met with or heard of: he has a sweetness of disposition which is saved from weakness by a remarkable sense of duty. We are going to let our present house, if possible--that is, get rid of it altogether on account of its inconvenient situation--other projects are still in a floating, unfixed condition. The water did not look quite so green at Como--perhaps, as your remark suggests, because there was a less vivid green to be reflected from my personality as I looked down on it. I am eleven years nearer to the sere and yellow leaf, and my feelings are even more autumnal than my years. I have read no reviews of the "Mill on the Floss" except that in the _Times_ which Blackwood sent me to Florence. I abstain not from superciliousness, but on a calm consideration of the probable proportion of benefit on the one hand, and waste of thought on the other. It was certain that in the notices of my first book, after the removal of my _incognito_, there would be much _ex post facto_ wisdom, which could hardly profit me since _I_ certainly knew who I was beforehand, and knew also that no one else knew who had not been told. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 18th July, 1860.] We are quite uncertain about our plans at present. Our second boy, Thornie, is going to leave Hofwyl, and to be placed in some more expensive position, in order to the carrying on of his education in a more complete way, so that we are thinking of avoiding for the present any final establishment of ourselves, which would necessarily be attended with additional outlay. Besides, these material cares draw rather too severely on my strength and spirits. But until Charlie's career has taken shape we frame no definite projects. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Aug. 1860.] If Cara values the article on Strikes in the _Westminster Review_, she will be interested to know--if she has not heard it already--that the writer is _blind_. I dined with him the other week, and could hardly keep the tears back as I sat at table with him. Yet he is cheerful and animated, accepting with graceful quietness all the minute attentions to his wants that his blindness calls forth. His name is Fawcett, and he is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I am sitting for my portrait--for the last time, I hope--to Lawrence, the artist who drew that chalk-head of Thackeray, which is familiar to you. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Friday, Aug. 1860.] I know you will rejoice with us that Charlie has won his place at the Post-office, having been at the head of the list in the examination. The dear lad is fairly launched in life now. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Saturday evening, Aug. 1860.] I am thoroughly vexed that we didn't go to Lawrence's to-day. We made an effort, but it was raining too hard at the only time that would serve us to reach the train. That comes of our inconvenient situation, so far off the railway; and alas! no one comes to take our house off our hands. We may be forced to stay here after all. One of the things I shall count upon, if we are able to get nearer London, is to see more of your schools and other good works. That would help me to do without the fields for many months of the year. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Aug. 1860.] I am very sorry that anything I have written should have pained you. _That_, certainly, is the result I should seek most to avoid in the very slight communication which we are able to keep up--necessarily under extremely imperfect acquaintance with each other's present self. My first letter to you about your book, after having read it through, was as simple and sincere a statement of the main impressions it had produced on me as I knew how to write in few words. My second letter, in which I unhappily used a formula in order to express to you, in briefest phrase, my difficulty in discerning the justice of your _analogical_ argument, _as I understood it_, was written from no other impulse than the desire to show you that I did not neglect your abstract just sent to me. The said formula was entirely deprived of its application by the statement in your next letter that you used the word "essence" in another sense than the one hitherto received in philosophical writing, on the question as to the nature of our knowledge; and the explanation given of your meaning in your last letter shows me--unless I am plunging into further mistake--that you mean nothing but what I fully believe. My offensive formula was written under the supposition that your conclusion meant something which it apparently did _not_ mean. It is probable enough that I was stupid; but I should be distressed to think that the discipline of life had been of so little use to me as to leave me with a tendency to leap at once to the attitude of a critic, instead of trying first to be a learner from every book written with sincere labor. Will you tell Mr. Bray that we are quitting our present house in order to be _nearer_ town for Charlie's sake, who has an appointment in the Post-office, and our time will be arduously occupied during the next few weeks in arrangements to that end, so that our acceptance of the pleasant proposition to visit Sydenham for a while is impossible. We have advertised for a house near Regent's Park, having just found a gentleman and lady ready to take our present one off our hands. They want to come in on quarter-day, so that we have no time to spare. I have been reading this morning for my spiritual good Emerson's "Man the Reformer," which comes to me with fresh beauty and meaning. My heart goes out with venerating gratitude to that mild face, which I dare say is smiling on some one as beneficently as it one day did on me years and years ago. Do not write again about opinions on large questions, dear Sara. The liability to mutual misconception which attends such correspondence--especially in my case, who can only write with brevity and haste--makes me dread it greatly; and I think there is no benefit derivable to you to compensate for the presence of that dread in me. You do not know me well enough as I _am_ (according to the doctrine of development which you have yourself expounded) to have the materials for interpreting my imperfect expressions. I think you would spare yourself some pain if you would attribute to your friends a larger comprehension of ideas, and a larger acquaintance with them, than you appear to do. I should imagine that many of them, or at least _some_ of them, share with you, much more fully than you seem to suppose, in the interest and hope you derive from the doctrine of development, with its geometrical progression towards fuller and fuller being. Surely it is a part of human piety we should all cultivate, not to form conclusions, on slight and dubious evidence, as to other people's "tone of mind," or to regard particular mistakes as a proof of general moral incapacity to understand us. I suppose such a tendency (to large conclusions about others) is part of the original sin we are all born with, for I have continually to check it in myself. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Aug. 1860.] I think I must tell you the secret, though I am distrusting my power to make it grow into a published fact. When we were in Florence I was rather fired with the idea of writing an historical romance--scene, Florence; period, the close of the fifteenth century, which was marked by Savonarola's career and martyrdom. Mr. Lewes has encouraged me to persevere in the project, saying that I should probably do something in historical romance rather different in character from what has been done before. But I want first to write another English story, and the plan I should like to carry out is this: to publish my next English novel when my Italian one is advanced enough for us to begin its publication a few months afterwards in "Maga." It would appear without a name in the Magazine, and be subsequently reprinted with the name of George Eliot. I need not tell you the wherefore of this plan. You know well enough the received phrases with which a writer is greeted when he does something else than what was expected of him. But just now I am quite without confidence in my future doings, and almost repent of having formed conceptions which will go on lashing me now until I have at least tried to fulfil them. I am going to-day to give my last sitting to Lawrence, and we were counting on the Major's coming to look at the portrait and judge of it. I hope it will be satisfactory, for I am quite set against going through the same process a second time. We are a little distracted just now with the prospect of removal from our present house, which some obliging people have at last come to take off our hands. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Sept. 1860.] My fingers have been itching to write to you for the last week or more, but I have waited and waited, hoping to be able to tell you that we had decided on our future house. This evening, however, I have been reading your description of Algiers, and the desire to thank you for it moves me too strongly to be resisted. It is admirably written, and makes me _see_ the country. I am so glad to think of the deep draughts of life you get from being able to spend half your life in that fresh, grand scenery. It must make London and English green fields all the more enjoyable in their turn. As for us, we are preparing to renounce the delights of roving, and to settle down quietly, as old folks should do, for the benefit of the young ones. We have let our present house. Is it not cheering to have the sunshine on the corn, and the prospect that the poor people will not have to endure the suffering that comes on them from a bad harvest? The fields that were so sadly beaten down a little while ago on the way to town are now standing in fine yellow shocks. I wish you could know how much we felt your kindness to Charley. He is such a dear good fellow that nothing is thrown away upon him. Write me a scrap of news about yourself, and tell me how you and the doctor are enjoying the country. I shall get a breath of it in that way. I think I love the fields and shudder at the streets more and more every month. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _Sept. 27._--To-day is the third day we have spent in our new home here at 10 Harewood Square. It is a furnished house, in which we do not expect to stay longer than six months at the utmost. Since our return from Italy I have written a slight tale, "Mr. David Faux, Confectioner" ("Brother Jacob"), which G. thinks worth printing. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 27th Sept. 1860.] The precious check arrived safely to-day. I am much obliged to you for it, and also for the offer to hasten further payments. I have no present need of that accommodation, as we have given up the idea of buying the house which attracted us, dreading a step that might fetter us to town, or to a more expensive mode of living than might ultimately be desirable. I hope Mr. Lewes will bring us back a good report of Major Blackwood's progress towards re-established health. In default of a visit from him, it was very agreeable to have him represented by his son,[27] who has the happy talent of making a morning call one of the easiest, pleasantest things in the world. I wonder if you know who is the writer of the article in the _North British_, in which I am reviewed along with Hawthorne. Mr. Lewes brought it for me to read this morning, and it is so unmixed in its praise that if I had any friends I should be uneasy lest a friend should have written it. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Oct. 1860.] Since there is no possibility of my turning in to see you on my walk, as in the old days, I cannot feel easy without writing to tell you my regret that I missed you when you came. In changing a clearer sky for a foggy one we have not changed our habits, and we walk after lunch, as usual; but I should like very much to stay indoors any day with the expectation of seeing you, if I could know beforehand of your coming. It is rather sad not to see your face at all from week to week, and I hope you know that I feel it so. But I am always afraid of falling into a disagreeable urgency of invitation, since we have nothing to offer beyond the familiar, well-worn entertainment of our own society. I hope you and Mr. Congreve are quite well now and free from cares. Emily, I suppose, is gone with the sunshine of her face to Coventry. There is sadly little sunshine except that of young faces just now. Still we are flourishing, in spite of damp and dismalness. We were glad to hear that the well-written article in the _Westminster_ on the "Essays and Reviews" was by your friend Mr. Harrison.[28] Though I don't quite agree with his view of the case, I admired the tone and style of the writing greatly. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Oct. 1860.] There is no objection to Wednesday but this--that it is our day for hearing a course of lectures, and the lecture begins at eight. Now, since you can't come often, we want to keep you as long as we can, and we have a faint hope that Mr. Congreve might be able to come from his work and dine with us and take you home. But if that were impossible, could you not stay all night? There is a bed ready for you. Think of all that, and if you can manage to give us the longer visit, choose another day when our evening will be unbroken. I will understand by your silence that you can only come for a shorter time, and that you abide by your plan of coming on Wednesday. I am really quite hungry for the sight of you. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 2d Nov. 1860.] I agree with you in preferring to put simply "New Edition;" and I see, too, that the practice of advertising numbers is made vulgar and worthless by the doubtful veracity of some publishers, and the low character of the books to which they affix this supposed guarantee of popularity. _Magna est veritas_, etc. I can't tell you how much comfort I feel in having publishers who believe that. You have read the hostile article in the _Quarterly_, I dare say. I have not seen it; but Mr. Lewes's report of it made me more cheerful than any review I have heard of since "The Mill" came out. You remember Lord John Russell was once laughed at immensely for saying that he felt confident he was right, because all parties found fault with him. I really find myself taking nearly the same view of my position, with the Freethinkers angry with me on one side and the writer in the _Quarterly_ on the other--_not_ because my representations are untruthful, but because they are impartial--because I don't _load_ my dice so as to make their side win. The parenthetical hint that the classical quotations in my books might be "more correctly printed," is an amusing sample of the grievance that belongs to review-writing in general, since there happens to be only _one_ classical quotation in them all--the Greek one from the Philoctetes in "Amos Barton." By-the-bye, will you see that the readers have not allowed some error to creep into that solitary bit of pedantry? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Nov. 1860.] I understand your paradox of "expecting disappointments," for that is the only form of hope with which I am familiar. I should like, for your sake, that you should rather see us in our _own_ house than in this; for I fear your carrying away a general sense of _yellow_ in connection with us--and I am sure that is enough to set you against the thought of us. There are some staring yellow curtains which you will hardly help blending with your impression of our moral sentiments. In our own drawing-room I mean to have a paradise of greenness. I have lately re-read your "Thoughts," from the beginning of the "Psychical Essence of Christianity" to the end of the "History of Philosophy," and I feel my original impression confirmed--that the "Psychical Essence" and "General Review of the Christian System" are the most valuable portions. I think you once expressed your regret that I did not understand the analogy you traced between Feuerbach's theory and Spencer's. I don't know what gave you that impression, for _I_ never said so. I see your meaning distinctly in that parallel. If you referred to something in Mr. Lewes's letter, let me say, once for all, that you must not impute _my_ opinions to _him_ nor _vice versâ_. The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions. In this respect I know _no_ man so great as he--that difference of opinion rouses no egoistic irritation in him, and that he is ready to admit that another argument is the stronger the moment his intellect recognizes it. I am glad to see Mr. Bray contributing his quota to the exposure of that odious trickery--spirit-rapping. It was not headache that I was suffering from when Mr. Bray called, but extreme languor and unbroken fatigue from morning to night--a state which is always accompanied in me, psychically, by utter self-distrust and despair of ever being equal to the demands of life. We should be very pleased to hear some news of Mr. and Mrs. Call. I feel their removal from town quite a loss to us. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _Nov. 28._--Since I last wrote in this Journal I have suffered much from physical weakness, accompanied with mental depression. The loss of the country has seemed very bitter to me, and my want of health and strength has prevented me from working much--still worse, has made me despair of ever working well again. I am getting better now by the help of tonics, and shall be better still if I could gather more bravery, resignation, and simplicity of striving. In the meantime my cup is full of blessings: my home is bright and warm with love and tenderness, and in more material, vulgar matters we are very fortunate. Last Tuesday--the 20th--we had a pleasant evening. Anthony Trollope dined with us, and made me like him very much by his straightforward, wholesome _Wesen_. Afterwards Mr. Helps came in, and the talk was extremely agreeable. He told me the queen had been speaking to him in great admiration of my books--especially "The Mill on the Floss." It is interesting to know that royalty can be touched by that sort of writing, and I was grateful to Mr. Helps for his wish to tell me of the sympathy given to me in that quarter. To-day I have had a letter from M. d'Albert, saying that at last the French edition of "Adam Bede" is published. He pleases me very much by saying that he finds not a sentence that he can retrench in the first volume of "The Mill." I am engaged now in writing a story--the idea of which came to me after our arrival in this house, and which has thrust itself between me and the other book I was meditating. It is "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe." I am still only at about the 62d page, for I have written slowly and interruptedly. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 7th Dec. 1860.] The sight of sunshine usually brings you to my mind, because you are my latest association with the country; but I think of you much oftener than I see the sunshine, for the weather in London has been more uninterruptedly dismal than ever for the last fortnight. Nevertheless _I_ am brighter; and since I believe your goodness will make that agreeable news to you, I write on purpose to tell it. Quinine and steel have at last made me brave and cheerful, and I really don't mind a journey up-stairs. If you had not repressed our hope of seeing you again until your sister's return, I should have asked you to join us for the Exeter Hall performance of the "Messiah" this evening, which I am looking forward to with delight. The Monday Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall are our easiest and cheapest pleasures. I go in my bonnet; we sit in the shilling places in the body of the hall, and hear to perfection for a shilling! That is agreeable when one hears Beethoven's quartets and sonatas. Pray bear in mind that these things are to be had when you are more at liberty. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _Dec. 17._--We entered to-day our new home--16 Blandford Square--which we have taken for three years, hoping by the end of that time to have so far done our duty by the boys as to be free to live where we list. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Dec. 1860.] Your vision of me as "settled" was painfully in contrast with the fact. The last virtue human beings will attain, I am inclined to think, is scrupulosity in promising and faithfulness in fulfilment. We are still far off our last stadium of development, and so it has come to pass that, though we were in the house on Monday last, our curtains are not up and our oilcloth is not down. Such is life, seen from the furnishing point of view! I can't tell you how hateful this sort of time-frittering work is to me, who every year care less for houses and detest shops more. To crown my sorrows, I have lost my pen--my old, favorite pen, with which I have written for eight years--at least, it is not forth-coming. We have been reading the proof of Mr. Spencer's second part, and I am supremely gratified by it, because he brings his argument to a point which I did not anticipate from him. It is, as he says, a result of his riper thought. After all the bustle of Monday I went to hear Sims Reeves sing "Adelaide"--that _ne plus ultra_ of passionate song--and I wish you had been there for one quarter of an hour, that you might have heard it too. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 26th Dec. 1860.] The bright point in your letter is that you are in a happy state of mind yourself. For the rest, we must wait, and not be impatient with those who have their inward trials, though everything outward seems to smile on them. It seems to those who are differently placed that the time of freedom from strong ties and urgent claims must be very precious for the ends of self-culture and good, helpful work towards the world at large. But it hardly ever is so. As for the forms and ceremonies, I feel no regret that any should turn to them for comfort if they can find comfort in them; sympathetically I enjoy them myself. But I have faith in the working-out of higher possibilities than the Catholic or any other Church has presented; and those who have strength to wait and endure are bound to accept no formula which their whole souls--their intellect as well as their emotions--do not embrace with entire reverence. The "highest calling and election" is to _do without opium_, and live through all our pain with conscious, clear-eyed endurance. We have no sorrow just now, except my constant inward "worrit" of unbelief in any future of good work on my part. Everything I do seems poor and trivial in the doing; and when it is quite gone from me, and seems no longer my own, then I rejoice in it and think it fine. That is the history of my life. I have been wanting to go to your school again, to refresh myself with the young voices there, but I have not been able to do it. My walks have all been taken up with shopping errands of late; but I hope to get more leisure soon. We both beg to offer our affectionate remembrances to the doctor. Get Herbert Spencer's new work--the two first quarterly parts. It is the best thing he has done. [Sidenote: Journal, 1860.] _Dec. 31._--This year has been marked by many blessings, and, above all, by the comfort we have found in having Charles with us. Since we set out on our journey to Italy on 25th March, the time has not been fruitful in work: distractions about our change of residence have run away with many days; and since I have been in London my state of health has been depressing to all effort. May the next year be more fruitful! [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1861.] I am writing a story which came _across_ my other plans by a sudden inspiration. I don't know at present whether it will resolve itself into a book short enough for me to complete before Easter, or whether it will expand beyond that possibility. It seems to me that nobody will take any interest in it but myself, for it is extremely unlike the popular stories going; but Mr. Lewes declares that I am wrong, and says it is as good as anything I have done. It is a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought. I think I get slower and more timid in my writing, but perhaps worry about houses and servants and boys, with want of bodily strength, may have had something to do with that. I hope to be quiet now. [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _Feb. 1._--The first month of the New Year has been passed in much bodily discomfort, making both work and leisure heavy. I have reached page 209 of my story, which is to be in one volume, and I want to get it ready for Easter, but I dare promise myself nothing with this feeble body. The other day I had charming letters from M. and Mme. d'Albert, saying that the French "Adam" goes on very well, and showing an appreciation of "The Mill" which pleases me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Feb. 1861.] I was feeling so ill on Friday and Saturday that I had not spirit to write and thank you for the basket of eggs--an invaluable present. I was particularly grateful this morning at breakfast, when a fine large one fell to my share. On Saturday afternoon we were both so utterly incapable that Mr. Lewes insisted on our setting off forthwith into the country. But we only got as far as Dorking, and came back yesterday. I felt a new creature as soon as I was in the country; and we had two brilliant days for rambling and driving about that lovely Surrey. I suppose we must keep soul and body together by occasional flights of this sort; and don't you think an occasional flight to town will be good for you? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 8th Feb. 1861.] I have destroyed almost all my friends' letters to me, because they were only intended for my eyes, and could only fall into the hands of persons who knew little of the writers, if I allowed them to remain till after my death. In proportion as I love every form of piety--which is venerating love--I hate hard curiosity; and, unhappily, my experience has impressed me with the sense that hard curiosity is the more common temper of mind. But enough of that. The reminders I am getting from time to time of Coventry distress have made me think very often yearningly and painfully of the friends who are more immediately affected by it, and I often wonder if more definite information would increase or lessen my anxiety for them. Send me what word you can from time to time, that there may be some reality in my image of things round your hearth. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Feb. 1861.] I send you by post to-day about two hundred and thirty pages of MS. I send it because, in my experience, printing and its preliminaries have always been rather a slow business; and as the story--if published at Easter at all--should be ready by Easter week, there is no time to lose. We are reading "Carlyle's Memoirs" with much interest; but, so far as we have gone, he certainly does seem to me something of a "Sadducee"--a very handsome one, judging from the portrait. What a memory and what an experience for a novelist! But, somehow, experience and finished faculty rarely go together. Dearly beloved Scott had the greatest combination of experience and faculty, yet even he never made the most of his treasures, at least in his _mode_ of presentation. Send us better news of Major Blackwood, if you can. We feel so old and rickety ourselves that we have a peculiar interest in invalids. Mr. Lewes is going to lecture for the Post-office this evening, by Mr. Trollope's request. I am rather uneasy about it, and wish he were well through the unusual excitement. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Feb. 1861.] I have been much relieved by Mr. Lewes having got through his lecture at the Post-office[29] with perfect ease and success, for I had feared the unusual excitement for him. _I_ am better. I have not been working much lately; indeed, this year has been a comparatively idle one. I think my _malaise_ is chiefly owing to the depressing influence of town air and town scenes. The Zoological Gardens are my one outdoor pleasure now, and we can take it several times a week, for Mr. Lewes has become a fellow. My love is often visiting you. Entertain it well. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Feb. 1861.] I am glad to hear that Mr. Maurice impressed you agreeably. If I had strength to be adventurous on Sunday I should go to hear him preach as well as others. But I am unequal to the least exertion or irregularity. My only pleasure away from our own hearth is going to the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Lewes is a fellow, so we turn in there several times a week; and I find the birds and beasts there most congenial to my spirit. There is a Shoebill, a great bird of grotesque ugliness, whose topknot looks brushed up to a point with an exemplary deference to the demands of society, but who, I am sure, has no idea that he looks the handsomer for it. I cherish an unrequited attachment to him. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Feb. 1861.] If you are in London this morning, in this fine, dun-colored fog, you know how to pity me. But I feel myself wicked for implying that I have any grievances. Only last week we had a circular from the clergyman at Attleboro, where there is a considerable population entirely dependent on the ribbon-trade, telling us how the poor weavers are suffering from the effects of the Coventry strike. And these less-known, undramatic tales of want win no wide help, such as has been given in the case of the Hartley colliery accident. Your letter was a contribution towards a more cheerful view of things, for whatever may be the minor evils you hint at, I know that Mr. Congreve's better health, and the satisfaction you have in his doing effective work, will outweigh them. We have had a Dr. Wyatt here lately, an Oxford physician, who was much interested in hearing of Mr. Congreve again, not only on the ground of Oxford remembrances, but from having read his writings. I was much pleased with the affectionate respect that was expressed in all the notices of Mr. Clough[30] that I happened to see in the newspapers. They were an indication that there must be a great deal of private sympathy to soothe poor Mrs. Clough, if any soothing is possible in such cases. That little poem of his which was quoted in the _Spectator_ about parted friendships touched me deeply. You may be sure we are ailing, but I am ashamed of dwelling on a subject that offers so little variety. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1861.] I don't wonder at your finding my story, as far as you have read it, rather sombre; indeed, I should not have believed that any one would have been interested in it but myself (since Wordsworth is dead) if Mr. Lewes had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope you will not find it at all a sad story, as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural human relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal play of humor. It came to me first of all quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment. My chief reason for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my writings to appear in the order in which they are written, because they belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification with them which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I generally like them better at that distance, but then I feel as if they might just as well have been written by somebody else. It would have been a great pleasure to me if Major Blackwood could have read my story. I am very glad to have the first part tested by the reading of your nephew and Mr. Simpson, and to find that it can interest them at all. [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _March 10._--Finished "Silas Marner," and sent off the last thirty pages to Edinburgh. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 19th Mch. 1861, from Hastings.] Your letter came to me just as we were preparing to start in search of fresh air and the fresh thoughts that come with it. I hope you never doubt that I feel a deep interest in knowing all facts that touch you nearly. I should like to think that it was some small comfort to Cara and you to know that, wherever I am, there is one among that number of your friends--necessarily decreasing with increasing years--who enter into your present experience with the light of memories; for kind feeling can never replace fully the sympathy that comes from memory. My disposition is so faultily anxious and foreboding that I am not likely to forget anything of a saddening sort. Tell Sara we saw Mr. William Smith, author of "Thorndale," a short time ago, and he spoke of her and her book with interest; he thought her book "suggestive." He called on us during a visit to London, made for the sake of getting married. The lady is, or rather was, a Miss Cumming, daughter of a blind physician of Edinburgh. He said they had talked to each other for some time of the "impossibility" of marrying, because they were both too poor. "But," he said, "it is dangerous, Lewes, to talk even of the impossibility." The difficulties gradually dwindled, and the advantages magnified themselves. She is a nice person, we hear; and I was particularly pleased with _him_--he is modest to diffidence, yet bright and keenly awake. I am just come in from our first good blow on the beach, and have that delicious sort of numbness in arms and legs that comes from walking hard in a fresh wind. "Silas Marner" is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Mch. 1861.] The latest number I had heard of was three thousand three hundred, so that your letter brought me agreeable information. I am particularly gratified, because this spirited subscription must rest on my character as a writer generally, and not simply on the popularity of "Adam Bede." There is an article on "The Mill" in _Macmillan's Magazine_ which is worth reading. I cannot, of course, agree with the writer in all his regrets; if I could have done so I should not have written the book I did write, but quite another. Still, it is a comfort to me to read any criticism which recognizes the high responsibilities of literature that undertakes to represent life. The ordinary tone about art is that the artist may do what he will, provided he pleases the public. I am very glad to be told--whenever you can tell me--that the major is not suffering heavily. I know so well the preciousness of those smiles that tell one the mind is not held out of all reach of soothing. We are wavering whether we shall go to Florence this spring or wait till the year and other things are more advanced. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st April, 1861.] It gave me pleasure to have your letter, not only because of the kind expressions of sympathy it contains, but also because it gives me an opportunity of telling you, after the lapse of years, that I remember gratefully how you wrote to me with generous consideration and belief at a time when most persons who knew anything of me were disposed (naturally enough) to judge me rather severely. Only a woman of rare qualities would have written to me as you did on the strength of the brief intercourse that had passed between us. It was never a trial to me to have been cut off from what is called the world, and I think I love none of my fellow-creatures the less for it; still, I must always retain a peculiar regard for those who showed me any kindness in word or deed at that time, when there was the least evidence in my favor. The list of those who did so is a short one, so that I can often and easily recall it. For the last six years I have ceased to be "Miss Evans" for any one who has personal relations with me--having held myself under all the responsibilities of a married woman. I wish this to be distinctly understood; and when I tell you that we have a great boy of eighteen at home, who calls me "mother," as well as two other boys, almost as tall, who write to me under the same name, you will understand that the point is not one of mere egoism or personal dignity, when I request that any one who has a regard for me will cease to speak of me by my maiden name. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th April, 1861.] I am much obliged to you for your punctuality in sending me my precious check. I prize the money fruit of my labor very highly as the means of saving us dependence, or the degradation of writing when we are no longer able to write well, or to write what we have not written before. Mr. Langford brought us word that he thought the total subscription (including Scotland and Ireland) would mount to five thousand five hundred. That is really very great. And letters drop in from time to time, giving me words of strong encouragement, especially about "The Mill;" so that I have reason to be cheerful, and to believe that where one has a large public, one's words must hit their mark. If it were not for that, special cases of misinterpretation might paralyze me. For example, pray notice how one critic attributes to me a disdain for Tom; as if it were not _my_ respect for Tom which infused itself into my reader; as if he could have respected Tom if I had not painted him with respect; the exhibition of the right on both sides being the very soul of my intention in the story. However, I ought to be satisfied if I have roused the feeling that does justice to both sides. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th April, 1861.] I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr. Lewes felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the wish to see us at your house; namely, that I have found it a necessity of my London life to make the rule of _never_ paying visits. Without a carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use of my days; and I am obliged to give up the _few_ visits which would be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the _many_ visits which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind--only by renouncing all social intercourse but such as comes to our own fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of my life. I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid, all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at all beyond our own homes; and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting my stay-at-home rule into churlishness. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th April, 1861.] We went to hear Beethoven's "Mass in D" last night, and on Wednesday to hear Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Nacht" and Beethoven's "Symphony in B," so that we have had two musical treats this week; but the enjoyment of such things is much diminished by the gas and bad air. Indeed, our long addiction to a quiet life, in which our daily walk among the still grass and trees was a _fête_ to us, has unfitted us for the sacrifices that London demands. Don't think about reading "Silas Marner" just because it is come out. I hate _obligato_ reading and _obligato_ talk about my books. _I never send them to any one_, and never wish to be spoken to about them, except by an unpremeditated, spontaneous prompting. They are written out of my deepest belief, and, as well as I can, for the great public, and every sincere, strong word will find its mark in that public. Perhaps the annoyance I suffered (referring to the Liggins' affair) has made me rather morbid on such points; but, apart from my own weaknesses, I think the less an author hears about himself the better. Don't mistake me: I am writing a general explanation, _not_ anything applicable to you. [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _April 19._--We set off on our second journey to Florence, through France and by the Cornice Road. Our weather was delicious, a little rain, and we suffered neither from heat nor from dust. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 25th April, 1861.] We have had a paradisaic journey hitherto. It does one good to look at the Provençals--men and women. They are quite a different race from the Northern French--large, round-featured, full-eyed, with an expression of _bonhomie_, calm and suave. They are very much like the pleasantest Italians. The women at Arles and Toulon are remarkably handsome. On Tuesday morning we set out about ten on our way to Nice, hiring a carriage and taking post-horses. The sky was gray, and after an hour or so we had rain; nevertheless our journey to Vidauban, about half-way to Nice, was enchanting. Everywhere a delicious plain, covered with bright green corn, sprouting vines, mulberry-trees, olives, and here and there meadows sprinkled with buttercups, made the nearer landscapes, and, in the distance, mountains of varying outline. _Mutter_ felt herself in a state of perfect bliss from only looking at this peaceful, generous nature; and you often came across the green blades of corn, and made her love it all the better. We had meant to go on to Fréjus that night, but no horses were to be had; so we made up our minds to rest at Vidauban, and went out to have a stroll before our six-o'clock dinner. Such a stroll! The sun had kindly come out for us, and we enjoyed it all the more for the grayness of the morning. There is a crystally clear river flowing by Vidauban, called the Argent: it rushes along between a fringe of aspens and willows; and the sunlight lay under the boughs, and fell on the eddying water, making Pater and me very happy as we wandered. The next morning we set off early, to be sure of horses before they had been used up by other travellers. The country was not quite so lovely, but we had the sunlight to compensate until we got past Fréjus, where we had our first view of the sea since Toulon, and where the scenery changes to the entirely mountainous, the road winding above gorges of pine-clad masses for a long way. To heighten the contrast, a heavy storm came, which thoroughly laid the dust for us, if it had no other advantage. The sun came out gloriously again before we reached Cannes, and lit up the yellow broom, which is now in all its splendor, and clothes vast slopes by which our road wound. We had still a four-hours' journey to Nice, where we arrived at six o'clock, with headaches that made us glad of the luxuries to be found in a great hotel. [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _May 5._--Dear Florence was lovelier than ever on this second view, and ill-health was the only deduction from perfect enjoyment. We had comfortable quarters in the Albergo della Vittoria, on the Arno; we had the best news from England about the success of "Silas Marner;" and we had long letters from our dear boy to make us feel easy about home. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 5th May, 1861.] Your pleasant news had been ripening at the post-office several days before we enjoyed the receipt of it; for our journey lasted us longer than we expected, and we didn't reach this place till yesterday evening. We have come with _vetturino_ from Toulon--the most delightful (and the most expensive) journey we have ever had. I dare say you know the Cornice; if not, _do_ know it some time, and bring Mrs. Blackwood that way into Italy. Meanwhile I am glad to think that you are having a less fatiguing change to places where you can "carry the comforts o' the Saut Market" with you, which is not quite the case with travellers along the Mediterranean coast. I hope I shall soon hear that you are thoroughly set up by fresh air and fresh circumstances, along with pleasant companionship. Except a thunderstorm, which gave a grand variety to the mountains, and a little gentle rain, the first day from Toulon, which made the green corn all the fresher, we have had unbroken sunshine, without heat and without dust. I suppose this season and late autumn must be the perfect moments for taking this supremely beautiful journey. We must be forever ashamed of ourselves if we don't work the better for it. It was very good of you to write to me in the midst of your hurry, that I might have good news to greet me. It really did lighten our weariness, and make the noisy streets that prevented sleep more endurable. I was amused with your detail about Professor Aytoun's sovereigns. There can be no great paintings of misers under the present system of paper money--checks, bills, scrip, and the like--nobody can handle that dull property as men handled the glittering gold. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 17th May, 1861.] The Florentine winds, being of a grave and earnest disposition, have naturally a disgust for trivial _dilettanti_ foreigners, and seize on the peculiarly feeble and worthless with much virulence. In consequence we had a sad history for nearly a week--Pater doing little else than nurse me, and I doing little else but feel eminently uncomfortable, for which, as you know, I have a faculty "second to none." I feel very full of thankfulness for all the creatures I have got to love--all the beautiful and great things that are given me to know; and I feel, too, much younger and more hopeful, as if a great deal of life and work were still before me. Pater and I have had great satisfaction in finding our impressions of admiration more than renewed in returning to Florence; the things we cared about when we were here before seem even more worthy than they did in our memories. We have had delightful weather since the cold winds abated; and the evening lights on the Arno, the bridges, and the quaint houses, are a treat that we think of beforehand. Your letters, too, are thought of beforehand. We long for them, and when they come they don't disappoint us: they tell us everything, and make us feel at home with you after a fashion. I confess to some dread of Blandford Square in the abstract. I fear London will seem more odious to me than ever; but I think I shall bear it with more fortitude. After all, that is the best place to live in where one has a strong reason for living. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 19th May, 1861.] We have been industriously foraging in old streets and old books. I feel very brave just now, and enjoy the thought of work--but don't set your mind on my doing just what I have dreamed. It may turn out that I can't work freely and fully enough in the medium I have chosen, and in that case I must give it up; for I will never write anything to which my whole heart, mind, and conscience don't consent, so that I may feel that it was something--however small--which wanted to be done in this world, and that I am just the organ for that small bit of work. I am very much cheered by the way in which "Silas" is received. I hope it has made some slight pleasure for you too, in the midst of incomparably deeper feelings of sadness.[31] Your quiet tour among the lakes was the best possible thing for you. What place is not better "out of the season"?--although I feel I am almost wicked in my hatred of being where there are many other people enjoying themselves. I am very far behind Mr. Buckle's millennial prospect, which is, that men will be more and more congregated in cities and occupied with human affairs, so as to be less and less under the influence of Nature--_i.e._, the sky, the hills, and the plains; whereby superstition will vanish and statistics will reign for ever and ever. Mr. Lewes is kept in continual distraction by having to attend to my wants--going with me to the Magliabecchian Library, and poking about everywhere on my behalf--I having very little self-help about me of the pushing and inquiring kind. I look forward with keen anxiety to the next outbreak of war--longing for some turn of affairs that will save poor Venice from being bombarded by those terrible Austrian forts. Thanks for your letters: we both say, "More--give us more." [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 27th May, 1861.] Florence is getting hot, and I am the less sorry to leave it because it has agreed very ill with the dear Paterculus. This evening we have been mounting to the top of Giotto's tower--a very sublime getting up-stairs, indeed--and our muscles are much astonished at the unusual exercise; so you must not be shocked if my letter seems to be written with dim faculties as well as with a dim light. We have seen no one but Mrs. Trollope and her pretty little girl Beatrice, who is a musical genius. She is a delicate fairy, about ten years old, but sings with a grace and expression that make it a thrilling delight to hear her. We have had glorious sunsets, shedding crimson and golden lights under the dark bridges across the Arno. All Florence turns out at eventide, but we avoid the slow crowds on the Lung' Arno, and take our way "up all manner of streets." [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _May_ and _June_.--At the end of May Mr. T. Trollope came back and persuaded us to stay long enough to make the expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia in his company. We arrived at Florence on the 4th May, and left it on the 7th June--thirty-four days of precious time spent there. Will it be all in vain? Our morning hours were spent in looking at streets, buildings, and pictures, in hunting up old books at shops or stalls, or in reading at the Magliabecchian Library. Alas! I could have done much more if I had been well; but that regret applies to most years of my life. Returned by Lago Maggiore and the St. Gothard; reached home June 14. Blackwood having waited in town to see us, came to lunch with us, and asked me if I would go to dine at Greenwich on the following Monday, to which I said "Yes," by way of exception to my resolve that I will go nowhere for the rest of this year. He drove us there with Colonel Stewart, and we had a pleasant evening--the sight of a game at golf in the park, and a hazy view of the distant shipping, with the Hospital finely broken by trees in the foreground. At dinner Colonel Hamley and Mr. Skene joined us; Delane, who had been invited, was unable to come. The chat was agreeable enough, but the sight of the gliding ships darkening against the dying sunlight made me feel chat rather importunate. _June 16._--This morning, for the first time, I feel myself quietly settled at home. I am in excellent health, and long to work steadily and effectively. If it were possible that I should produce _better_ work than I have yet done! At least there is a possibility that I may make greater efforts against indolence and the despondency that comes from too egoistic a dread of failure. _June 19._--This is the last entry I mean to make in my old book, in which I wrote for the first time at Geneva in 1849. What moments of despair I passed through after that--despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity; and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th June, 1861.] Some of one's first thoughts on coming home after an absence of much length are about the friends one had left behind--what has happened to them in the meantime, and how are they now? And yet, though we came home last Friday evening, I have not had the quiet moment for writing these thoughts until this morning. I know I need put no questions to you, who always divine what I want to be told. We have had a perfect journey except as regards health--a large, large exception. The cold winds alternating with the hot sun, or some other cause, laid very unkind hold on Mr. Lewes early after our arrival at Florence, and he was ailing with sore throat and cough continually, so that he has come back looking thin and delicate, though the ailments seem to be nearly passed away. I wish you could have shared the pleasures of our last expedition from Florence--to the Monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia; I think it was just the sort of thing you would have entered into with thorough zest. Imagine the Franciscans of La Vernia, which is perched upon an abrupt rock rising sheer on the summit of a mountain, turning out at midnight (and when there is deep snow for their feet to plunge in), and chanting their slow way up to the little chapel perched at a lofty distance above their already lofty monastery! This they do every night throughout the year, in all weathers. Give my loving greeting to Cara and Mr. Bray, and then sit down and write me one of your charming letters, making a little picture of everybody and everything about you. God bless you! is the old-fashioned summing up of sincere affection, without the least smirk of studied civility. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th July, 1861.] Your letter gave me a pleasant vision of Sunday sunshine on the flowers, and you among them, with your eyes brightened by busy and enjoyable thoughts. Yes, I hope we are well out of that phase in which the most philosophic view of the past was held to be a smiling survey of human folly, and when the wisest man was supposed to be one who could sympathize with no age but the age to come. When I received your Monday packet I was fresh from six quarto volumes on the history of the monastic orders, and had just begun a less formidable modern book on the same subject--Montalembert's "Monks of the West." Our reading, you see, lay in very different quarters, but I fancy our thoughts sometimes touched the same ground. I am rather puzzled and shocked, however, by your high admiration of the articles on the "Study of History," in the _Cornhill_. I should speak with the reserve due to the fact that I have only read the second article; and this, I confess, did not impress me as exhibiting any mastery of the question, while its tone towards much abler thinkers than the writer himself is to me extremely repulsive. Such writing as, "We should not be called upon to believe that every crotchet which tickled the insane vanity of a conceited Frenchman was an eternal and self-evident truth," is to me simply disgusting, though it were directed against the father of lies. It represents no fact except the writer's own desire to be bitter, and is worthily finished by the dull and irreverent antithesis of "the eternal truth and infernal lie." I quite agree with you--so far as I am able to form a judgment--in regarding Positivism as one-sided; but Comte was a great thinker, nevertheless, and ought to be treated with reverence by all smaller fry. I have just been reading the "Survey of the Middle Ages" contained in the fifth volume of the "Philosophie Positive," and to my apprehension few chapters can be fuller of luminous ideas. I am thankful to learn from it. There may be more profundity in the _Cornhill's_ exposition than I am able to penetrate, or, possibly, the first article may contain weightier matter than the second. Mrs. Bodichon is near us now, and one always gets good from contact with her healthy, practical life. Mr. Lewes is gone to see Mrs. Congreve and carry his net to the Wimbledon ponds. I hope he will get a little strength as well as grist for his microscope. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th July, 1861.] The English "Imitation" I told you of, which is used by the Catholics, is Challoner's. I have looked into it again since I saw you, and I think, if you want to give the book away, this translation is as good as any you are likely to get among current editions. If it were for yourself, an old bookstall would be more likely to furnish what you want. Don't ever think of me as valuing either you or Mr. Congreve less instead of more. You naughtily implied something of that kind just when you were running away from me. How could any goodness become less precious to me unless my life had ceased to be a growth, and had become mere shrinking and degeneracy? I always imagine that if I were near you now I should profit more by the gift of your presence--just as one feels about all past sunlight. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _July 24._--Walked with George over Primrose Hill. We talked of Plato and Aristotle. _July 26._--In the evening went to see Fechter as Hamlet, and sat next to Mrs. Carlyle. _July 30._--Read little this morning--my mind dwelling with much depression on the probability or improbability of my achieving the work I wish to do. I struck out two or three thoughts towards an English novel. I am much afflicted with hopelessness and melancholy just now, and yet I feel the value of my blessings. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th July, 1861.] Thornie, our second boy, is at home from Edinburgh for his holidays, and I am apt to give more thought than is necessary to any little change in our routine. We had a treat the other night which I wished you could have shared with us. We saw Fechter in Hamlet. His conception of the part is very nearly that indicated by the critical observations in "Wilhelm Meister," and the result is deeply interesting--the naturalness and sensibility of the _Wesen_ overcoming in most cases the defective intonation. And even the intonation is occasionally admirable; for example, "And for my soul, what can he do to that?" etc., is given by Fechter with perfect simplicity, whereas the herd of English actors imagine themselves in a pulpit when they are saying it. _À propos_ of the pulpit, I had another failure in my search for edification last Sunday. Mme. Bodichon and I went to Little Portland Street Chapel, and lo! instead of James Martineau there was a respectable old Unitarian gentleman preaching about the dangers of ignorance and the satisfaction of a good conscience, in a tone of amiable propriety which seemed to belong to a period when brains were untroubled by difficulties, and the lacteals of all good Christians were in perfect order. I enjoyed the fine selection of collects he read from the Liturgy. What an age of earnest faith, grasping a noble conception of life and determined to bring all things into harmony with it, has recorded itself in the simple, pregnant, rhythmical English of those collects and of the Bible! The contrast when the good man got into the pulpit and began to pray in a borrowed, washy lingo--extempore in more senses than one! [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Aug. 1._--Struggling constantly with depression. _Aug. 2._--Read Boccaccio's capital story of Fra Cipolla--one of his few good stories--and the Little Hunchback in the "Arabian Nights," which is still better. _Aug. 10._--Walked with G. We talked of my Italian novel. In the evening, Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford. _Aug. 12._--Got into a state of so much wretchedness in attempting to concentrate my thoughts on the construction of my story that I became desperate, and suddenly burst my bonds, saying, I will not think of writing! [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1861.] That doctrine which we accept rather loftily as a commonplace when we are quite young--namely, that our happiness lies entirely within, in our own mental and bodily state, which determines for us the influence of everything outward--becomes a daily lesson to be learned, and learned with much stumbling, as we get older. And until we know our friends' private thoughts and emotions we hardly know what to grieve or rejoice over for them. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Aug. 17._--Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, who gave us some music. _Aug. 20._--This morning I conceived the plot of my novel with new distinctness. _Aug. 24._--Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, and we had music. These have been placid, ineffective days, my mind being clouded and depressed. _Aug. 26._--Went with Barbara to her school, and spent the afternoon there. _Aug. 31._--In the evening came Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford, and we had some music. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 11th Sept. 1861, from Malvern.] Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the check, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether, we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist. We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people, we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves, that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility--whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral. I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so lovable an aspect. On the southeastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands, well nestled in fine trees--chiefly "sounding sycamores"--and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low, faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedge-rows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood; it is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look on--_freundlich_, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide southeastern valley from our sitting-room window. Our landlady is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick;" and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply baked mortals. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Sept. 11._--Yesterday we returned from Malvern (having gone there on 4th). During our stay I read Mrs. Jameson's book on the "Legends of the Monastic Orders," corrected the first volume of "Adam Bede" for the new edition, and began Marchese's "Storia di San Marco." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Sept. 1861.] I enter into your and Cara's furniture-adjusting labors and your enjoyment of church and chapel afterwards. One wants a temple besides the outdoor temple--a place where human beings do not ramble apart, but _meet_ with a common impulse. I hope you have some agreeable lens through which you can look at circumstances--good health, at least. And really I begin to think people who are robust are in a position to pity all the rest of the world--except, indeed, that there are certain secrets taught only by pain, which are, perhaps, worth the purchase. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Sept. 23._--I have been unwell ever since we returned from Malvern, and have been disturbed, from various causes, in my work, so that I have scarcely done anything except correct my own books for a new edition. To-day I am much better, and hope to begin a more effective life to-morrow. _Sept. 28._--In the evening Mr. Spencer, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford came. We talked with Mr. Spencer about his chapter on the "Direction of Force"--_i.e._, line of least resistance. _Sept. 29_ (Sunday).--Finished correcting "Silas Marner." I have thus corrected all my books for a new and cheaper edition, and feel my mind free for other work. Walked to the Zoo with the boys. _Oct. 3._--To-day our new grand piano came--a great addition to our pleasures. _Oct. 4._--My mind still worried about my plot--and without any confidence in my ability to do what I want. _Oct. 5._--In the evening Mr. Redford and Mr. Spencer came, and we had much music. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Oct. 1861.] We are enjoying a great pleasure, a new grand piano, and last evening we had a Beethoven night. We are looking out for a violinist: we have our violoncello, who is full of sensibility, but with no negative in him--_i.e._, no obstinate sense of time--a man who is all assent and perpetual _rallentando_. We can enjoy the pleasure the more because Mr. Lewes's health is promising. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Oct. 7._--Began the first chapter of my novel ("Romola"). _Oct. 9._--Read Nerli. _Oct. 11._--Nardi's "History of Florence." In the afternoon walked with Barbara, and talked with her from lunch till dinner-time. _Oct. 12._--In the evening we had our usual Saturday mixture of visitors, talk, and music; an agreeable addition being Dr. M'Donnell of Dublin. _Oct. 14._--Went with Barbara to her school to hear the children sing. _Oct. 18._--Walked with G. and Mr. Spencer to Hampstead, and continued walking for more than five hours. In the evening we had music. Mrs. Bodichon and Miss Parkes were our additional visitors. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Oct. 1861.] I am rather jealous of the friends who get so much of you--especially when they are so unmeritorious as to be evangelical and spoil your rest. But I will not grumble. I am in the happiest, most contented mood, and have only good news to tell you. I have hardly any trouble nearer to me than the American War and the prospects of poor cotton weavers. While you were shivering at Boulogne we were walking fast to avoid shivering at Malvern, and looking slightly blue after our sitz baths. Nevertheless that discipline answered admirably, and Mr. Lewes's health has been steadily improving since our Malvern expedition. As for me, imagine what I must be to have walked for five hours the other day! Or, better still, imagine me always cheerful, and infer the altered condition of my mucous membrane. The difference must be there; for it is not in my moral sentiments or in my circumstances, unless, indeed, a new grand piano, which tempts me to play more than I have done for years before, may be reckoned an item important enough to have contributed to the change. We talk of you very often, and the image of you is awakened in my mind still oftener. You are associated by many subtile, indescribable ties with some of my most precious and most silent thoughts. I am so glad you have the comfort of feeling that Mr. Congreve is prepared for his work again. I am hoping to hear, when we see you, that the work will be less and less fagging, now the introductory years are past. Charley is going to Switzerland for his holiday next month. We shall enjoy our dual solitude; yet the dear boy is more and more precious to us from the singular rectitude and tenderness of his nature. Make signs to us as often as you can. You know how entirely Mr. Lewes shares my delight in seeing you and hearing from you. [Sidenote: Diary, 1861.] _Oct. 28_ and _30_.--Not very well. Utterly desponding about my book. _Oct. 31._--Still with an incapable head--trying to write, trying to construct, and unable. _Nov. 6._--So utterly dejected that, in walking with G. in the Park, I almost resolved to give up my Italian novel. _Nov. 10_ (Sunday).--New sense of things to be done in my novel, and more brightness in my thoughts. Yesterday I was occupied with ideas about my next English novel; but this morning the Italian scenes returned upon me with fresh attraction. In the evening read "Monteil." A marvellous book; crammed with erudition, yet not dull or tiresome. _Nov. 14._--Went to the British Museum reading-room for the first time--looking over costumes. _Nov. 20._--Mrs. Congreve, Miss Bury, and Mr. Spencer to lunch. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1861.] Your loving words of remembrance find a very full answer in my heart--fuller than I can write. The years seem to _rush_ by now, and I think of death as a fast-approaching end of a journey--double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day. We went to see Fechter's Othello the other night. It is lamentably bad. He has not weight and passion enough for deep tragedy; and, to my feeling, the play is so degraded by his representation that it is positively demoralizing--as, indeed, all tragedy must be when it fails to move pity and terror. In this case it seems to move only titters among the smart and vulgar people who always make the bulk of a theatre audience. We had a visit from our dear friend Mrs. Congreve on Wednesday--a very infrequent pleasure now; for between our own absences from home and hers, and the fatigue of London journeying, it is difficult for us to manage meetings. Mr. Congreve is, as usual, working hard in his medical studies--toiling backward and forward daily. What courage and patience are wanted for every life that aims to produce anything! [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _Nov. 30._--In the evening we had Wilkie Collins, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Spencer, and talked without any music. _Dec. 3-7._--I continued very unwell until Saturday, when I felt a little better. In the evening Dr. Baetcke, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Dec. 1861.] Miss Marshall came to see us yesterday. That is always a pleasure to me, not only from the sense I have of her goodness, but because she stirs so many remembrances. The first time I saw her was at Rufa's[32] wedding; and don't you remember the evening we spent at Mrs. Dobson's? How young we all were then--how old now! She says you are all under the impression that Mr. Lewes is still very ailing. Thank all good influences it is not so. He has been mending ever since we went to Malvern, and is enjoying life and work more than he has done before for nearly a year. He has long had it in his mind to write a history of science--a great, great undertaking, which it is happiness to both of us to contemplate as possible for him. And now he is busy with Aristotle, and works with all the zest that belongs to fresh ideas. Strangely enough, after all the ages of writing about Aristotle, there exists no fair appreciation of his position in natural science. I am particularly grumbling and disagreeable to myself just now, and I think no one bears physical pain so ill as I do, or is so thoroughly upset by it mentally. Bulwer has behaved very nicely to me, and I have a great respect for the energetic industry with which he has made the most of his powers. He has been writing diligently in very various departments for more than thirty years, constantly improving his position, and profiting by the lessons of public opinion and of other writers. I'm sorry you feel any degeneracy in Mr. George Dawson. There was something very winning about him in old days, and even what was not winning, but the reverse, affected me with a sort of kindly pity. With such a gift of tongue as he had, it was inevitable that speech should outrun feeling and experience, and I could well imagine that his present self might look back on that self of 21-27 with a sort of disgust. It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow. It would interest me a good deal to know just how Mr. Dawson preaches now. I am writing on my knees with my feet on the fender, and in that attitude I always write very small--but I hope your sight is not teased by small writing. Give my best love to Cara, and sympathy with her in the pleasure of grasping an old friend by the hand, and having long talks after the distance of years. I know Mr. Bray will enjoy this too--and the new house will seem more like the old one for this warming. [Sidenote: Journal, 1861.] _Dec. 8_ (Sunday).--G. had a headache, so we walked out in the morning sunshine. I told him my conception of my story, and he expressed great delight. Shall I ever be able to carry out my ideas? Flashes of hope are succeeded by long intervals of dim distrust. Finished the eighth volume of Lastri and began the ninth chapter of Varchi, in which he gives an accurate account of Florence. _Dec. 12._--Finished writing my plot, of which I must make several other draughts before I begin to write my book. _Dec. 13._--Read Poggiana. In the afternoon walked to Molini's and brought back Savonarola's "Dialogus de Veritate Prophetica," and "Compendium Revelationum," for £4! _Dec. 14._--In the evening came Mr. Huxley, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford. _Dec. 17._--Studied the topography of Florence. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 31st Dec. 1861.] It was pleasant to have a greeting from you at this season, when all signs of human kindness have a double emphasis. As one gets older epochs have necessarily some sadness, even for those who have, as I have, much family joy. The past, that one would like to mend, spreads behind one so lengthily, and the years of retrieval keep shrinking--the terrible _peau de chagrin_ whose outline narrows and narrows with our ebbing life. I hardly know whether it would be agreeable to you, or worth your while, ever to come to us on a Saturday evening, when we are always at home to any friend who may be kind enough to come to us. It would be very pleasant to us if it were pleasant to you. During the latter half of 1861, I find the following among the books read: "Histoire des Ordres Religieux," Sacchetti's "Novelle," Sismondi's "History of the Italian Republics," "Osservatore Fiorentino," Tennemann's "History of Philosophy," T. A. Trollope's "Beata," Sismondi's "Le Moyen Age Illustré," "The Monks of the West," "Introduction to Savonarola's Poems," by Audin de Réans, Renan's "Études d'Histoire Religieuse," Virgil's "Eclogues," Buhle's "History of Modern Philosophy," Hallam on the "Study of Roman Law in the Middle Ages," Gibbon on the "Revival of Greek Learning," Nardi, Bulwer's "Rienzi," Burlamacchi's "Life of Savonarola," Pulci, Villari's "Life of Savonarola," Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred and Legendary Art," "Hymni and Epigrammati" of Marullus, Politian's "Epistles," Marchese's Works, Tiraboschi, Rock's "Hierurgia," Pettigrew "On Medical Superstition," Manni's "Life of Burchiello," Machiavelli's Works, Ginguené, Muratori "On Proper Names," Cicero "De Officiis," Petrarch's Letters, Craik's "History of English Literature," "Conti Carnivaleschi," Letters of Filelfo, Lastri, and Varchi, Heeren on the Fifteenth Century. _SUMMARY._ JULY, 1860, TO DECEMBER, 1861. Return from Italy to Wandsworth, accompanied by Charles Lewes--"Mill on the Floss" success--6000 sold--Letter to John Blackwood--French translation of "Adam Bede," by M. d'Albert of Geneva--Letter to Miss Hennell on her "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"--Letter to John Blackwood on Sir Edward Lytton's criticism of "The Mill on the Floss"--Letter to Mrs. Bray, recalling feelings on journey to Italy in 1849--Letter to Miss Sara Hennell--Article on Strikes, by Henry Fawcett, in _Westminster_--Sitting to Lawrence for portrait--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Interest in her schools--Letter to Miss Hennell, explaining criticism of "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"--Reading Emerson's "Man the Reformer"--Deprecates writing about opinions on large questions in letters--Letter to John Blackwood--Italian novel project--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Love of the country--Removal to 10 Harewood Square--"Brother Jacob" written--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Frederic Harrison's article in _Westminster_ on "Essays and Reviews"--Letter to John Blackwood--Religious party standpoint--Classical quotations--Letter to Miss Hennell on re-reading "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"--Tribute to Mr. Lewes's dispassionate judgment--Suffering from loss of the country--Independence secured--Anthony Trollope and Arthur Helps--Queen's admiration of "Mill on the Floss"--Writing "Silas Marner" a sudden inspiration--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Monday Popular Concerts--Moved to 16 Blandford Square--Waste of time in furnishing--Letter to Madame Bodichon--On religious forms and ceremonies--Herbert Spencer's new work, the best thing he has done--Letter to John Blackwood--"Silas Marner"--Letters to Mrs. Congreve--Zoological Gardens--Visit to Dorking--Letter to John Blackwood--Scott--Letters to Miss Hennell--Private correspondence--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Arthur Clough's death--Letter to John Blackwood--"Silas Marner"--Books belong to successive mental phases--"Silas Marner" finished--Visit to Hastings--Letter to Charles Bray--Marriage of Mr. William Smith--Letter to John Blackwood--Subscription to "Silas Marner" 3300--Article in _Macmillan_ on "The Mill"--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Position--Letter to John Blackwood--Total Subscription to "Silas Marner" 5500--Criticism on "The Mill"--Letter to Mrs. P. Taylor--Never pays visits--Letter to Miss Hennell--Hearing Beethoven and Mendelssohn music--Start on second journey to Italy--Letter to Charles Lewes, describing drive from Toulon to Nice--Arrival at Florence--Letter to John Blackwood--No painting of misers with paper money--Letter to Charles Lewes--Feels hopeful about future work--Letter to John Blackwood--Italian novel simmering--Letter to Charles Lewes--Beatrice Trollope--Expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia with Mr. T. A. Trollope--Return home by Lago Maggiore and St. Gothard--Dinner at Greenwich with John Blackwood, Colonel Hamley, etc.--Reflections on waste of youth--Letters to Miss Hennell describing La Vernia--Improvement in general philosophic attitude--Articles on "Study of History" in the _Cornhill_--Positivism one-sided--Admiration of Comte--Letter to Miss Hennell--Fechter in Hamlet--The Liturgy of the English Church--Depression--Musical Evenings with Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford--Trip to Malvern--Letter to Miss Hennell--New grand piano--Began "Romola"--Saturday visitors--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Better spirits--Renewed depression--Letter to Miss Hennell--Time flying--Fechter as Othello--Letter to Miss Hennell--Lewes busy with Aristotle--Bulwer--George Dawson--Reading towards "Romola"--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on the Past--Books read. FOOTNOTES: [21] Death of Madame Bodichon's father. [22] "Thoughts in Aid of Faith." [23] M. d'Albert. [24] "And how can it be otherwise than real to us, this belief that has nourished the souls of us all, and seems to have moulded actually anew their internal constitution, as well as stored them up with its infinite variety of external interests and associations! What other than a very real thing has it been in the life of the world--sprung out of, and again causing to spring forth, such volumes of human emotion--making a current, as it were, of feeling, that has drawn within its own sphere all the moral vitality of so many ages! In all this reality of influence there is indeed the testimony of Christianity having truly formed an integral portion of the organic life of humanity. The regarding it as a mere excrescence, the product of morbid, fanatical humors, is a reaction of judgment, that, it is to be hoped, will soon be seen on all hands to be in no way implied of necessity in the formal rejection of it."--_Thoughts in Aid of Faith_, p. 105. [25] "These sentiments, which are born within us, slumbering as it were in our nature, ready to be awakened into action immediately they are roused by hint of corresponding circumstances, are drawn out of the whole of previous human existence. They constitute our treasured inheritance out of all the life that has been lived before us, to which no age, no human being who has trod the earth and laid himself to rest, with all his mortal burden upon her maternal bosom, has failed to add his contribution. No generation has had its engrossing conflict, sorely battling out the triumphs of mind over material force, and through forms of monstrous abortions concurrent with its birth, too hideous for us now to bear in contemplation, moulding the early intelligence by every struggle, and winning its gradual powers--no single soul has borne itself through its personal trial--without bequeathing to us of its fruit. There is not a religious thought that we take to ourselves for secret comfort in our time of grief, that has not been distilled out of the multiplicity of the hallowed tears of mankind; not an animating idea is there for our fainting courage that has not gathered its inspiration from the bravery of the myriad armies of the world's heroes."--_Thoughts in Aid of Faith_, p. 174. [26] "Education of the Feelings." By Charles Bray. Published 1839. [27] Mr. William Blackwood. [28] Mr. Frederic Harrison, the now well-known writer, and a member of the Positivist body. [29] Lecture on Cell Forms. [30] Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet. [31] The death of Major Blackwood. [32] Mrs. Charles Hennell (now Mrs. Call). CHAPTER XII. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _January 1._--Mr. Blackwood sent me a note enclosing a letter from Montalembert about "Silas Marner." _I began again my novel of "Romola."_ [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 7th Jan. 1862.] It is not unlikely that our thoughts and wishes met about New-year's Day, for I was only prevented from writing to you in that week by the fear of saying decidedly that we could _not_ go to you, and yet finding afterwards that a clear sky, happening to coincide with an absence of other hinderances, would have made that pleasure possible for us. I think we believe in each other's thorough affection, and need not dread misunderstanding. But you must not write again, as you did in one note, a sort of apology for coming to us when you were tired, as if we didn't like to see you anyhow and at any time! And we especially like to think that our house can be a rest to you. For the first winter in my life I am hardly ever free from cold. As soon as one has departed with the usual final stage of stuffiness, another presents itself with the usual introduction of sore throat. And Mr. Lewes just now is a little ailing. But we have nothing serious to complain of. You seemed to me so bright and brave the last time I saw you, that I have had cheerful thoughts of you ever since. Write to me always when anything happens to you, either pleasant or sad, that there is no reason for my not knowing, so that we may not spend long weeks in wondering how all things are with you. And do come to us whenever you can, without caring about my going to you, for this is too difficult for me in chill and doubtful weather. Are you not looking anxiously for the news from America? [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 13th Jan. 1862.] As for the brain being useless after fifty, that is no general rule; witness the good and hard work that has been done in plenty after that age. I wish I could be inspired with just the knowledge that would enable me to be of some good to you. I feel so ignorant and helpless. The year _is_ opening happily for us, except--alas! the exception is a great one--in the way of health. Mr. Lewes is constantly ailing, like a delicate headachy woman. But we have abundant blessings. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Jan. 1862.] I hope you are able to enjoy Max Müller's great and delightful book during your imprisonment. It tempts me away from other things. I have read most of the numbers of "Orley Farm," and admire it very much, with the exception of such parts as I have read about Moulder & Co. Anthony Trollope is admirable in the presentation of even average life and character, and he is so thoroughly wholesome-minded that one delights in seeing his books lie about to be read. Have you read "Beata" yet--the first novel written by his brother at Florence, who is our especial favorite? Do read it when you can, if the opportunity has not already come. I am going to be taken to a pantomime in the daytime, like a good child, for a Christmas treat, not having had my fair share of pantomime in the world. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Jan. 18_ (Saturday).--We had an agreeable evening. Mr. Burton[33] and Mr. Clark[34] of Cambridge made an acceptable variety in our party. _Jan. 19-20._--Head very bad--producing terrible depression. _Jan. 23._--Wrote again, feeling in brighter spirits. Mr. Smith the publisher called and had an interview with G. He asked if I were open to "a magnificent offer." This made me think about money--but it is better for me not to be rich. _Jan. 26_ (Sunday).--Detained from writing by the necessity of gathering particulars: 1st, about Lorenzo de Medici's death; 2d, about the possible retardation of Easter; 3d, about Corpus Christi day; 4th, about Savonarola's preaching in the Quaresima of 1492. Finished "La Mandragola"--second time reading for the sake of Florentine expressions--and began "La Calandra." _Jan. 31._--Have been reading some entries in my note-book of past times in which I recorded my _malaise_ and despair. But it is impossible to me to believe that I have ever been in so unpromising and despairing a state as I now feel. After writing these words I read to G. the Proem and opening scene of my novel, and he expressed great delight in them. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Feb. 1862.] I was taken to see my pantomime. How pretty it is to see the theatre full of children! Ah, what I should have felt in my real child days to have been let into the further history of Mother Hubbard and her Dog! George Stephenson is one of my great heroes--has he not a dear old face? [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 3d Feb. 1862.] I think yours is the instinct of all delicate natures--not to speak to authors about their writings. It is better for us all to hear as little about ourselves as possible; to do our work faithfully, and be satisfied with the certainty that if it touches many minds, it cannot touch them in a way quite aloof from our intention and hope. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Feb. 7._--A week of February already gone! I have been obliged to be very moderate in work from feebleness of head and body; but I have rewritten, with additions, the first chapter of my book. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 8th Feb. 1862.] I am wondering whether you could spare me, _for a few weeks_, the Tempest music, and any other vocal music of that or of a kindred species? I don't want to buy it until our singers have experimented upon it. Don't think of sending me anything that you are using at all, but if said music be lying idle, I should be grateful for the loan. We have several operas--Don Giovanni, Figaro, the Barbiere, Flauto Magico, and also the music of Macbeth; but I think that is all our stock of concerted vocal music. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Feb. 11._--We set off to Dorking. The day was lovely, and we walked through Mr. Hope's park to Betchworth. In the evening I read aloud Sybel's "Lectures on the Crusades." _Feb. 12._--The day was gray, but the air was fresh and pleasant. We walked to Wootton Park--Evelyn's Wootton--lunched at a little roadside inn there, and returned to Dorking to dine. During stay at Dorking finished the first twelve cantos of Pulci. _Feb. 13._--Returned home. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th Feb. 1862.] I think it is a reasonable law that the one who takes wing should be the first to write--not the bird that stays in the old cage, and may be supposed to be eating the usual seed and groundsel, and looking at the same slice of the world through the same wires. I think the highest and best thing is rather to suffer with real suffering than to be happy in the imagination of an unreal good. I would rather know that the beings I love are in some trouble, and suffer because of it, even though I can't help them, than be fancying them happy when they are not so, and making myself comfortable on the strength of that false belief. And so I am impatient of all ignorance and concealment. I don't say "that is wise," but simply "that is my nature." I can enter into what you have felt, for serious illness, such as seems to bring death near, makes one feel the simple human brother and sisterhood so strongly that those we were apt to think almost indifferent to us before, touch the very quick of our hearts. I suppose if we happened only to hold the hand of a hospital patient when she was dying, her face, and all the memories along with it, would seem to lie deeper in our experience than all we knew of many old friends and blood relations. We have had no troubles but the public troubles--anxiety about the war with America and sympathy with the poor Queen. My best consolation is that an example on so tremendous a scale (as the war) of the need for the education of mankind through the affections and sentiments, as a basis for true development, will have a strong influence on all thinkers, and be a check to the arid, narrow antagonism which, in some quarters, is held to be the only form of liberal thought. George has fairly begun what we have long contemplated as a happiness for him--a History of Science, and has written so thorough an analysis and investigation of Aristotle's Natural Science that he feels it will make an epoch for the men who are interested at once in the progress of modern science and in the question how far Aristotle went both in the observation of facts and in their theoretic combination--a question never yet cleared up after all these ages. This work makes him "very jolly," but his dear face looks very pale and narrow. Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love. God bless you--that is not a false word, however many false ideas may have been hidden under it. No--not false ideas, but temporary ones--caterpillars and chrysalids of future ideas. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Feb. 17._--I have written only the two first chapters of my novel besides the Proem, and I have an oppressive sense of the far-stretching task before me, health being feeble just now. I have lately read again with great delight Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows." It contains, amongst other admirable things, a very noble expression of what I believe to be the true relation of the religious mind to the past. _Feb. 26._--I have been very ailing all this last week, and have worked under impeding discouragement. I have a distrust in myself, in my work, in others' loving acceptance of it, which robs my otherwise happy life of all joy. I ask myself, without being able to answer, whether I have ever before felt so chilled and oppressed. I have written now about sixty pages of my romance. Will it ever be finished? Ever be worth anything? _Feb. 27._--George Smith, the publisher, brought the proof of G.'s book, "Animal Studies," and laid before him a proposition to give me £10,000 for my new novel--_i.e._, for its appearance in the _Cornhill_, and the entire copyright at home and abroad. _March 1._--The idea of my novel appearing in the _Cornhill_ is given up, as G. Smith wishes to have it commenced in May, and I cannot consent to begin publication until I have seen nearly to the end of the work. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 10th March, 1862, from Englefield Green.] We had agreeable weather until yesterday, which was wet and blustering, so that we could only snatch two short walks. Pater is better, I think; and I, as usual, am impudently flourishing in country air and idleness. On Friday Mr. Bone, our landlord, drove us out in his pony carriage to see the "meet" of the stag-hounds, and on Saturday ditto to see the fox-hunters; so you perceive we have been leading rather a grand life. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _March 11._--On Wednesday last, the 5th, G. and I set off to Englefield Green, where we have spent a delightful week at the Barley Mow Inn. I have finished Pulci there, and read aloud the "Château d'If." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th March, 1862.] We returned from our flight into the country yesterday, not without a sigh at parting with the pure air and the notes of the blackbirds for the usual canopy of smoke and the sound of cab-wheels. I am not going out again, and our life will have its old routine--lunch at half-past one, walk till four, dinner at five. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _March 24._--After enjoying our week at Egham, I returned to protracted headache. Last Saturday we received as usual, and our party was joined by Mr. and Mrs. Noel. I have begun the fourth chapter of my novel, but have been working under a weight. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th March, 1862.] I congratulate you on being out of London, which is more like a pandemonium than usual. The fog and rain have been the more oppressive because I have seen them through Mr. Lewes's almost constant discomfort. I think he has had at least five days of sick headache since you saw him. But then he is better tempered and more cheerful _with_ headache than most people are without it; and in that way he lightens his burden. Have you noticed in the _Times_ Mr. Peabody's magnificent deed?--the gift of £150,000 for the amelioration (body and soul, I suppose) of the poorer classes in London. That is a pleasant association to have with an American name. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _April 1._--Much headache this last week. _April 2._--Better this morning; writing with enjoyment. At the seventy-seventh page. Read Juvenal this morning and Nisard. _April 16._--As I had been ailing for a fortnight or more, we resolved to go to Dorking, and set off to-day. _May 6._--We returned from Dorking after a stay of three weeks, during which we have had delicious weather. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, May, 1862.] Our life is the old accustomed duet this month. We enjoy an interval of our double solitude. Doesn't the spring look lovelier every year to eyes that want more and more light? It was rather saddening to leave the larks and all the fresh leaves to come back to the rolling of cabs and "the blacks;" but in compensation we have all our conveniences about us. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _May 23._--Since I wrote last, very important decisions have been made. I am to publish my novel of "Romola" in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for £7000, paid in twelve monthly payments. There has been the regret of leaving Blackwood, who has written me a letter in the most perfect spirit of gentlemanliness and good-feeling. _May 27._--Mr. Helps, Mr. Burton, and Mr. T. A. Trollope dined with us. _May 31._--Finished the second part, extending to page 183. _June 30._--I have at present written only the scene between Romola and her brother in San Marco towards Part IV. This morning I had a delightful, generous letter from Mr. Anthony Trollope about "Romola." _July 6._--The past week has been unfruitful from various causes. The consequence is that I am no further on in my MS., and have lost the excellent start my early completion of the third part had given me. _July 10._--A dreadful palsy has beset me for the last few days. I have scarcely made any progress. Yet I have been very well in body. I have been reading a book often referred to by Hallam--Meiners's "Lives of Mirandula and Politian." They are excellent. They have German industry, and are succinctly and clearly written. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Sept. 1862, from Littlehampton.] Imagine me--not fuming in imperfect resignation under London smoke, but--with the wide sky of the coast above me, and every comfort positive and negative around me, even to the absence of staring eyes and crinolines. Worthing was so full that it rejected us, and, to our great good-fortune, sent us here. We were pleased to hear that you had seen Mr. Spencer. We always feel him particularly welcome when he comes back to town; there is no one like him for talking to about certain things. You will come and dine or walk with us whenever you have nothing better to do in your visit to town. I take that for granted. We lie, you know, on the way _between_ the Exhibition and Mr. Noel's. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Sept. 23._--Returned from our stay in the country, first at the Beach Hotel, Littlehampton, and for the last three days at Dorking. _Sept. 26._--At page 62, Part VI. Yesterday a letter came from Mr. T. A. Trollope, full of encouragement for me. _Ebenezer._ _Oct. 2._--At page 85. Scene between Tito and Romola. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 2d Oct. 1862.] Welcome to your letter, and welcome to the hope of seeing you again! I have an engagement on Monday from lunch till dinner. Apart from that, I know of nothing that will take us farther than for our daily walk, which, you know, begins at two. But we will alter the order of any day for the sake of seeing you. Mr. Lewes's absence of a fortnight at Spa was a great success. He has been quite brilliant ever since. Ten days ago we returned from a stay of three weeks in the country--chiefly at Littlehampton, and we are both very well. Everything is prosperous with us; and we are so far from griefs that if we had a wonderful emerald ring we should perhaps be wise to throw it away as a propitiation of the envious gods. So much in immediate reply to your kind anxiety. Everything else when we meet. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Oct. 31._--Finished Part VII., having determined to end at the point where Romola has left Florence. _Nov. 14._--Finished reading "Boccaccio" through for the second time. _Nov. 17._--Read the "Orfeo and Stanze" of Poliziano. The latter are wonderfully fine for a youth of sixteen. They contain a description of a Palace of Venus, which seems the suggestion of Tennyson's Palace of Art in many points. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Nov. 1862.] I wish I knew that this birthday has found you happier than any that went before. There are so many things--best things--that only come when youth is past that it may well happen to many of us to find ourselves happier and happier to the last. We have been to a Monday Pop. this week to hear Beethoven's Septett, and an amazing thing of Bach's, played by the amazing Joachim. But there is too much "Pop." for the thorough enjoyment of the chamber music they give. You will be interested to know that there is a new muster of scientific and philosophic men lately established, for the sake of bringing people who care to know and speak the truth, as well as they can, into regular communication. Mr. Lewes was at the first meeting at Clunn's Hotel on Friday last. The plan is to meet and dine moderately and cheaply, and no one is to be admitted who is not "thorough" in the sense of being free from the suspicion of temporizing and professing opinions on official grounds. The plan was started at Cambridge. Mr. Huxley is president and Charles Kingsley is vice. If they are sufficiently rigid about admissions, the club may come to good--bringing together men who think variously, but have more hearty feelings in common than they give each other credit for. Mr. Robert Chambers (who lives in London now) is very warm about the matter. Mr. Spencer, too, is a member. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 26th Nov. 1862.] Pray don't ever ask me again not to rob a man of his religious belief, as if you thought my mind tended to such robbery. I have too profound a conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative propagandism in me. In fact I have very little sympathy with Freethinkers as a class, and have lost all interest in mere antagonism to religious doctrines. I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now. That speech of Carlyle's,[35] which sounds so odious, must, I think, have been provoked by something in the _manner_ of the statement to which it came as an answer--else it would hurt me very much that he should have uttered it. You left a handkerchief at our house. I will take care of it till next summer. I look forward with some longing to that time when I shall have lightened my soul of one chief thing I wanted to do, and be freer to think and feel about other people's work. We shall see you oftener, I hope, and have a great deal more talk than ever we have had before to make amends for our stinted enjoyment of you this summer. God bless you, dear Barbara. You are very precious to us. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Nov. 30_ (Sunday).--Finished Part VIII. Mr. Burton came. _Dec. 16._--In the evening Browning paid us a visit for the first time. _Dec. 17._--At page 22 only. I am extremely spiritless, dead, and hopeless about my writing. The long state of headache has left me in depression and incapacity. The constantly heavy-clouded and often wet weather tend to increase the depression. I am inwardly irritable, and unvisited by good thoughts. Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola. After this record I read aloud what I had written of Part IX. to George, and he, to my surprise, entirely approved of it. _Dec. 24._--Mrs. F. Malleson brought me a beautiful plant as a Christmas offering. In the evening we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's Theatre. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 24th Dec. 1862.] I am very sensitive to words and looks and all signs of sympathy, so you may be sure that your kind wishes are not lost upon me. As you will have your house full, the wish for a "Merry Christmas" may be literally fulfilled for you. We shall be quieter, with none but our family trio, but that is always a happy one. We are going to usher in the day by hearing the Messiah to-night at Her Majesty's. Evening will be a pleasanter time for a little genial talk than "calling hours;" and if you will come to us without ceremony, you will hardly run the risk of not finding us. We go nowhere except to concerts. We are longing to run away from London, but I dare say we shall not do so before March. Winter is probably yet to come, and one would not like to be caught by frost and snow away from one's own hearth. Always believe, without my saying it, that it gladdens me to know when anything I do has value for you. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1862.] It is very sweet to me to have any proof of loving remembrance. That would have made the book-marker precious even if it had been ugly. But it is perfectly beautiful--in color, words, and symbols. Hitherto I have been discontented with the Coventry book-marks; for at the shop where we habitually see them they have all got--"Let the people praise Thee, O God," on them, and nothing else. But I can think of no motto better than those three words. I suppose no wisdom the world will ever find out will make Paul's words obsolete--"Now abide, etc., but the greatest of these is Charity." Our Christmas, too, has been quiet. Mr. Lewes, who talks much less about goodness than I do, but is always readier to do the right thing, thinks it rather wicked for us to eat our turkey and plum-pudding without asking some forlorn person to eat it with us. But I'm afraid we were glad, after all, to find ourselves alone with "the boy." On Christmas-eve a sweet woman, remembering me as you have done, left a beautiful plant at the door, and after that we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's. We felt a considerable _minus_ from the absence of the organ, contrary to advertisement: nevertheless it was good to be there. What pitiable people those are who feel no poetry in Christianity! Surely the acme of poetry hitherto is the conception of the suffering Messiah and the final triumph, "He shall reign for ever and for ever." The Prometheus is a very imperfect fore-shadowing of that symbol wrought out in the long history of the Jewish and Christian ages. Mr. Lewes and I have both been in miserable health during all this month. I have had a fortnight's incessant _malaise_ and feebleness; but as I had had many months of tolerable health, it was my turn to be uncomfortable. If my book-marker were just a little longer, I should keep it in my beautiful Bible in large print, which Mr. Lewes bought for me in prevision for my old age. He is not fond of reading the Bible himself, but "sees no harm" in my reading it. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 29th Dec. 1862.] I am not quite sure what you mean by "charity" when you call it humbug. If you mean that attitude of mind which says "I forgive my fellow-men for not being as good as I am," I agree with you in hoping that it will vanish, as also the circumstantial form of alms-giving. But if you are alluding to anything in my letter, I meant what charity meant in the elder English, and what the translators of the Bible meant in their rendering of the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians--_Caritas_, the highest love or fellowship, which I am happy to believe that no philosophy will expel from the world. [Sidenote: Journal, 1862.] _Dec. 31_ (Last day of the kind old year).--Clear and pleasantly mild. Yesterday a pleasant message from Mr. Hannay about "Romola." We have had many blessings this year. Opportunities which have enabled us to acquire an abundant independence; the satisfactory progress of our two eldest boys; various grounds of happiness in our work; and ever-growing happiness in each other. I hope with trembling that the coming year may be as comforting a retrospect--with trembling because my work is not yet done. Besides the finishing of "Romola," we have to think of Thornie's passing his final examination, and, in case of success, his going out to India; of Bertie's leaving Hofwyl, and of our finding a new residence. I have had more than my average amount of comfortable health until this last month, in which I have been constantly ailing, and my work has suffered proportionately. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Feb. 1863.] The letter with the one word in it, like a whisper of sympathy, lay on my plate when I went down to lunch this morning. The generous movement that made you send it has gladdened me all day. I have had a great deal of pretty encouragement from immense big-wigs--some of them saying "Romola" is the finest book they ever read; but the opinion of big-wigs has one sort of value, and the fellow-feeling of a long known friend has another. One can't do quite well without both. _En revanche_, I am a feeble wretch, with eyes that threaten to get bloodshot on the slightest provocation. We made a rush to Dorking for a day or two, and the quiet and fresh air seemed to make a new creature of me; but when we get back to town, town sensations return. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th March, 1863.] That scheme of a sort of Philosophical Club that I told you of went to pieces before it was finished, like a house of cards. So it will be to the end, I fancy, with all attempts at combinations that are not based either on material interests or on opinions that are not merely opinions but _religion_. Doubtless you have been interested in the Colenso correspondence, and perhaps in Miss Cobbe's rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe's remonstrating answer to the women of England. I was glad to see how free the answer was from all tartness or conceit. Miss Cobbe's introduction to the new edition of Theodore Parker is also very honorable to her--a little too metaphorical here and there, but with real thought and good feeling. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th April, 1863.] It is a comfort to hear of you again, and to know that there is no serious trouble to mar the spring weather for you. I must carry that thought as my consolation for not seeing you on Tuesday--not quite a sufficient consolation, for my eyes desire you very much after these long months of almost total separation. The reason I cannot have that pleasure on Tuesday is that, according to a long arranged plan, I am going on Monday to Dorking again for a fortnight. I should be still more vexed to miss you if I were in better condition, but at present I am rather like a shell-less lobster, and inclined to creep out of sight. I shall write to you, or try to see you, as soon as I can after my return. I wish you could have told me of a more decided return to ordinary health in Mr. Congreve, but I am inclined to hope that the lecturing may rather benefit than injure him, by being a moral tonic. How much there is for us to talk about! But only to look at dear faces that one has seen so little of for a long while seems reason enough for wanting to meet. Mr. Lewes is better than usual just now, and you must not suppose that there is anything worse the matter with me than you have been used to seeing in me. Please give my highest regards to Mr. Congreve, and love to Emily, who, I hope, has quite got back the roses which had somewhat paled. My pen straggles as if it had a stronger will than I. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 28th April, 1863, from Dorking.] Glad you enjoyed "Esmond." It is a fine book. Since you have been interested in the historical suggestions, I recommend you to read Thackeray's "Lectures on the English Humorists," which are all about the men of the same period. There is a more exaggerated estimate of Swift and Addison than is implied in "Esmond;" and the excessive laudation of men who are considerably below the tip-top of human nature, both in their lives and genius, rather vitiates the Lectures, which are otherwise admirable, and are delightful reading. The wind is high and cold, making the sunshine seem hard and unsympathetic. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _May 6._--We have just returned from Dorking, whither I went a fortnight ago to have solitude while George took his journey to Hofwyl to see Bertie. The weather was severely cold for several days of my stay, and I was often ailing. That has been the way with me for a month and more, and in consequence I am backward with my July number of "Romola"--the last part but one. I remember my wife telling me, at Witley, how cruelly she had suffered at Dorking from working under a leaden weight at this time. The writing of "Romola" ploughed into her more than any of her other books. She told me she could put her finger on it as marking a well-defined transition in her life. In her own words, "I began it a young woman--I finished it an old woman." [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 12th May, 1863.] Yes! we shall be in town in June. Your coming would be reason good enough, but we have others--chiefly, that we are up to the ears in boydom and imperious parental duties. All is as happy and prosperous with us as heart can lawfully desire, except my health. I have been a mere wretch for several months past. You will come to me like the morning sunlight, and make me a little less of a flaccid cabbage-plant. It is a very pretty life you are leading at Hastings, with your painting all morning, and fair mothers and children to look at the rest of the day. I am terribly frightened about Mrs. ----. She wrote to me, telling me that we were sure to suit each other, neither of us holding the opinions of the _Moutons de Panurge_. Nothing could have been more decisive of the opposite prospect to me. If there is one attitude more odious to me than any other of the many attitudes of "knowingness," it is that air of lofty superiority to the vulgar. However, she will soon find out that I am a very commonplace woman. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _May 16._--Finished Part XIII. Killed Tito in great excitement. _May 18._--Began Part XIV.--the last! Yesterday George saw Count Arrivabene, who wishes to translate "Romola," and says the Italians are indebted to me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1st June, 1863.] Health seems, to those who want it, enough to make daylight a gladness. But the explanation of evils is never consoling except to the explainer. We are just as we were, thinking about the questionable house (The Priory), and wondering what would be the right thing to do; hardly liking to lock up any money in land and bricks, and yet frightened lest we should not get a quiet place just when we want it. But I dare say we shall have it after all. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _June 6._--We had a little evening party with music, intended to celebrate the completion of "Romola," which, however, is not absolutely completed, for I have still to alter the epilogue. _June 9._--Put the last stroke to "Romola." _Ebenezer!_ Went in the evening to hear La Gazza Ladra. The manuscript of "Romola" bears the following inscription: "To the Husband whose perfect love has been the best source of her insight and strength, this manuscript is given by his devoted wife, the writer." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th June, 1863.] How impossible it is for strong, healthy people to understand the way in which bodily _malaise_ and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true--the religion that is strength to the healthy--is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _June 16._--George and I set off to-day to the Isle of Wight, where we had a delightful holiday. On Friday, the 19th, we settled for a week at Niton, which, I think, is the prettiest place in all the island. On the following Friday we went on to Freshwater, and failed, from threatening rain, in an attempt to walk to Alum Bay, so that we rather repented of our choice. The consolation was that we shall know better than to go to Freshwater another time. On the Saturday morning we drove to Ryde, and remained there until Monday the 29th. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st June, 1863.] Your letter was a welcome addition to our sunshine this Sabbath morning. For in this particular we seem to have been more fortunate than you, having had almost constant sunshine since we arrived at Sandown, on Tuesday evening. This place is perfect, reminding me of Jersey, in its combination of luxuriant greenth with the delights of a sandy beach. At the _end_ of our week, if the weather is warmer, we shall go on to Freshwater for our remaining few days. But the wind at present is a little colder than one desires it, when the object is to get rid of a cough, and unless it gets milder we shall go back to Shanklin. I am enjoying the hedge-row grasses and flowers with something like a released prisoner's feeling--it is so long since I had a bit of real English country. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st June, 1863.] I am very happy in my holiday, finding quite a fresh charm in the hedge-row grasses and flowers after my long banishment from them. We have a flower-garden just round us, and then a sheltered grassy walk, on which the sun shines through the best part of the day; and then a wide meadow, and beyond that trees and the sea. Moreover, our landlady has cows, and we get the quintessence of cream--excellent bread and butter also, and a young lady, with a large crinoline, to wait upon us--all for 25_s._ per week; or, rather, we get the apartment in which we enjoy those primitive and modern blessings for that moderate sum. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _July 4._--Went to see Ristori in Adrienne Lecouvreur and did not like it. I have had hemicrania for several days, and have been almost idle since my return home. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th July, 1863.] Constant languor from the new heat has made me shirk all exertion not imperative. And just now there are not only those excitements of the season, which even we quiet people get our share of, but there is an additional boy to be cared for--Thornie, who is this week passing his momentous examination. A pretty thing has happened to an acquaintance of mine, which is quite a tonic to one's hope. She has all her life been working hard in various ways, as house-keeper, governess, and several et ceteras that I can't think of at this moment--a dear little dot, about four feet eleven in height; pleasant to look at, and clever; a working-woman, without any of those epicene queernesses that belong to the class. Her life has been a history of family troubles, and she has that susceptible nature which makes such troubles hard to bear. More than once she has told me that courage quite forsook her. She felt as if there were no good in living and striving; it was difficult to discern or believe in any results for others, and there seemed none worth having for herself. Well! a man of fortune and accomplishments has just fallen in love with her, now she is thirty-three. It is the prettiest story of a swift decided passion, and made me cry for joy. Madame Bodichon and I went with her to buy her wedding-clothes. The future husband is also thirty-three--old enough to make his selection an honor. Fond of travelling and science and other good things, such as a man deserves to be fond of who chooses a poor woman in the teeth of grand relatives: brought up a Unitarian, just turned Catholic. If you will only imagine everything I have not said, you will think this a very charming fairy tale. We are going this evening to see the French actress in Juliet (Stella Colas), who is astonishing the town. Last week we saw Ristori, the other night heard the Faust, and next week we are going to hear the Elisir d'Amore and Faust again! So you see we are trying to get some compensation for the necessity of living among bricks in this sweet summer time. I can bear the opera better than any other evening entertainment, because the house is airy and the stalls are comfortable. The opera is a great, great product--pity we can't always have fine _Weltgeschichtliche_ dramatic motives wedded with fine music, instead of trivialities or hideousnesses. Perhaps this last is too strong a word for anything except the Traviata. Rigoletto is unpleasant, but it is a superlatively fine tragedy in the Nemesis. I think I don't know a finer. We are really going to buy the Priory after all. You would think it very pretty if you saw it now, with the roses blooming about it. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _July 12._--I am now in the middle of G.'s "Aristotle," which gives me great delight. _July 23._--Reading Mommsen and Story's "Roba di Roma;" also Liddell's "Rome," for a narrative to accompany Mommsen's analysis. _July 29._--In the evening we went to Covent Garden to hear Faust for the third time. On our return we found a letter from Frederick Maurice--the greatest, most generous tribute ever given to me in my life.[36] [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 30th July, 1863.] I have wanted for several days to make some feeble sign in writing that I think of your trouble. But one claim after another has arisen as a hinderance. Conceive us, please, with three boys at home, all bigger than their father! It is a congestion of youthfulness on our mature brains that disturbs the course of our lives a little, and makes us think of most things as good to be deferred till the boys are settled again. I tell you so much to make you understand that "omission" is not with me equivalent to "neglect," and that I _do_ care for what happens to you. Renan is a favorite with me. I feel more kinship with his mind than with that of any other living French author. But I think I shall not do more than look through the Introduction to his "Vie de Jésus"--unless I happen to be more fascinated by the constructive part than I expect to be from the specimens I have seen. For minds acquainted with the European culture of this last half-century, Renan's book can furnish no new result; and they are likely to set little store by the too facile construction of a life from materials of which the biographical significance becomes more dubious as they are more closely examined. It seems to me the soul of Christianity lies not at all in the facts of an individual life, but in the ideas of which that life was the meeting-point and the new starting-point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ either in its historical influence or its great symbolic meanings. Still, such books as Renan's have their value in helping the popular imagination to feel that the sacred past is, of one woof with that human present, which ought to be sacred too. You mention Renan in your note, and the mention has sent me off into rather gratuitous remarks, you perceive. But such scrappy talk about great subjects may have a better excuse than usual, if it just serves to divert your mind from the sad things that must be importuning you now. [Sidenote: Letter to R. H. Hutton, 8th Aug. 1863.] After reading your article on "Romola," with careful reference to the questions you put to me in your letter, I can answer sincerely that I find nothing fanciful in your interpretation. On the contrary, I am confirmed in the satisfaction I felt, when I first listened to the article, at finding that certain chief elements of my intention have impressed themselves so strongly on your mind, notwithstanding the imperfect degree in which I have been able to give form to my ideas. Of course, if I had been called on to expound my own book, there are other things that I should want to say, or things that I should say somewhat otherwise; but I can point to nothing in your exposition of which my consciousness tells me that it is erroneous, in the sense of saying something which I neither thought nor felt. You have seized with a fulness which I had hardly hoped that my book could suggest, what it was my effort to express in the presentation of Bardo and Baldasarre; and also the relation of the Florentine political life to the development of Tito's nature. Perhaps even a judge so discerning as yourself could not infer from the imperfect result how strict a self-control and selection were exercised in the presentation of details. I believe there is scarcely a phrase, an incident, an allusion, that did not gather its value to me from its supposed subservience to my main artistic objects. But it is likely enough that my mental constitution would always render the issue of my labor something excessive--wanting due proportion. It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given, are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in "Silas Marner," or the "Dodson" life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie. But you have correctly pointed out the reason why my tendency to excess in this effort after artistic vision makes the impression of a fault in "Romola" much more perceptibly than in my previous books. And I am not surprised at your dissatisfaction with Romola herself. I can well believe that the many difficulties belonging to the treatment of such a character have not been overcome, and that I have failed to bring out my conception with adequate fulness. I am sorry she has attracted you so little; for the great problem of her life, which essentially coincides with a chief problem in Savonarola's, is one that readers need helping to understand. But with regard to that and to my whole book, my predominant feeling is--not that I have achieved anything, but--that great, great facts have struggled to find a voice through me, and have only been able to speak brokenly. That consciousness makes me cherish the more any proof that my work has been seen to have some true significance by minds prepared not simply by instruction, but by that religious and moral sympathy with the historical life of man which is the larger half of culture. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _Aug. 10._--Went to Worthing. A sweet letter from Mrs. Hare, wife of Julius Hare, and Maurice's sister. _Aug. 18._--Returned home much invigorated by the week of change, but my spirits seem to droop as usual now I am in London again. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 19th Aug. 1863.] I was at Worthing when your letter came, spending all my daylight hours out-of-doors, and trying with all my might to get health and cheerfulness. I will tell you the true reason why I did not go to Hastings. I thought you would be all the better for not having that solicitation of your kindness that the fact of my presence there might have caused. What you needed was precisely to get away from people to whom you would inevitably want to be doing something friendly, instead of giving yourself up to passive enjoyment. Else, of course, I should have liked everything you write about and invite me to. We only got home last night, and I suppose we shall hardly be able to leave town again till after the two younger boys have left us, and after we have moved into the new house. Since I saw you I have had some sweet woman's tenderness shown me by Mrs. Hare, the widow of Archdeacon Hare, and the sister of Frederick Maurice. I _know_ how you are enjoying the country. I have just been having the joy myself. The wide sky, the _not_ London, makes a new creature of me in half an hour. I wonder, then, why I am ever depressed--why I am so shaken by agitations. I come back to London, and again the air is full of demons. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray and Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Sept. 1863.] I think I get a little freshness from the breeze that blows on you--a little lifting of heart from your wide sky and Welsh mountains. And the edge of autumn on the morning air makes even London a place in which one can believe in beauty and delight. Delicate scent of dried rose-leaves and the coming on of the autumnal airs are two things that make me feel happy before I know why. The Priory is all scaffolding and paint; and we are still in a nightmare of uncertainty about our boys. But then I have by my side a dear companion, who is a perpetual fountain of courage and cheerfulness, and of considerate tenderness for my lack of those virtues. And besides that I have Roman history! Perhaps that sounds like a bitter joke to you, who are looking at the sea and sky and not thinking of Roman history at all. But this too, read aright, has its gospel and revelation. I read it much as I used to read a chapter in the Acts or Epistles. Mommsen's "History of Rome" is so fine that I count all minds graceless who read it without the deepest stirrings. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Oct. 1863.] I cannot be quite easy without sending this little sign of love and good wishes on the eve of your journey. I shall think of you with all the more delight, because I shall imagine you winding along the Riviera and then settling in sight of beautiful things not quite unknown to me. I hope your life will be enriched very much by these coming months; but above all, I hope that Mr. Congreve will come back strong. Tell him I have been greatly moved by the "Discours Préliminaire."[37] [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Oct. 1863.] If I wait to write until I have anything very profitable to say, you will have time to think that I have forgotten you or else to forget me--and both consequences would be unpleasant to me. Well, our poor boy Thornie parted from us to-day and set out on his voyage to Natal. I say "poor," as one does about all beings that are gone away from us for a long while. But he went away in excellent spirits, with a large packet of recommendatory letters to all sorts of people, and with what he cares much more for, a first-rate rifle and revolver--and already with a smattering of Dutch Zulu, picked up from his grammars and dictionaries. What are you working at, I wonder? Cara says you are writing; and, though I desire not to ask prying questions, I should feel much joy in your being able to tell me that you are at work on something which gives you a life apart from circumstantial things. I am taking a deep bath of other people's thoughts, and all doings of my own seem a long way off me. But my bath will be sorely interrupted soon by the miserable details of removal from one house to another. Happily Mr. Owen Jones has undertaken the ornamentation of the drawing-room, and will prescribe all about chairs, etc. I think, after all, I like a clean kitchen better than any other room. We are far on in correcting the proofs of the new edition of "Goethe," and are about to begin the printing of the "Aristotle," which is to appear at Christmas or Easter. [Sidenote: Journal, 1863.] _Nov. 5._--We moved into our new house--The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park. _Nov. 14._--We are now nearly in order, only wanting a few details of furniture to finish our equipment for a new stage in our life's journey. I long very much to have done thinking of upholstery, and to get again a consciousness that there are better things than that to reconcile one with life. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th Nov. 1863.] At last we are in our new home, with only a few details still left to arrange. Such fringing away of precious life, in thinking of carpets and tables, is an affliction to me, and seems like a nightmare from which I shall find it bliss to awake into my old world of care for things quite apart from upholstery. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th Nov. 1863.] I have kissed your letter in sign of my joy at getting it. But the cold draughts of your Florentine room came across my joy rather harshly. I know you have good reasons for what you do, yet I cannot help saying, Why do you stay at Florence, the city of draughts rather than of flowers? Mr. Congreve's suffering during the journey and your suffering in watching him saddens me as I think of it. For a long while to come I suppose human energy will be greatly taken up with resignation rather than action. I wish my feeling for you could travel by some helpful vibrations good for pains. For ourselves, we have enough ease now to be able to give some of it away. But our removal into our new home on the 5th of November was not so easy as it might have been, seeing that I was only half recovered from a severe attack of influenza, which had caused me more terrible pains in the head and throat than I have known for years. However, the crisis is past now, and we think our little home altogether charming and comfortable. Mr. Owen Jones has been unwearied in taking trouble that everything about us may be pretty. He stayed two nights till after twelve o'clock, that he might see every engraving hung in the right place; and as you know I care even more about the fact of kindness than its effects, you will understand that I enjoy being grateful for all this friendliness on our behalf. But so tardy a business is furnishing, that it was not until Monday last that we had got everything in its place in preparation for the next day--Charlie's twenty-first birthday--which made our house-warming a doubly interesting epoch. I wish your sweet presence could have adorned our drawing-room and made it look still more agreeable in the eyes of all beholders. You would have liked to hear Jansa play on his violin, and you would perhaps have been amused to see an affectionate but dowdy friend of yours splendid in a gray moire antique--the consequence of a severe lecture from Owen Jones on her general neglect of personal adornment. I am glad to have got over this crisis of maternal and house-keeping duty. My soul never flourishes on attention to details which others can manage quite gracefully without any conscious loss of power for wider thoughts and cares. Before we began to move I was swimming in Comte and Euripides and Latin Christianity: _now_ I am sitting among puddles, and can get sight of no deep water. _Now_ I have a mind made up of old carpets fitted in new places, and new carpets suffering from accidents; chairs, tables, and prices; muslin curtains and down draughts in cold chimneys. I have made a vow never to think of my own furniture again, but only of other people's. [Illustration: Drawing-room at the Priory.] [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Dec. 1863.] The book[38] is come, with its precious inscription, and I have read a great piece of it already (11 A.M.), besides looking through it to get an idea of its general plan. See how fascination shifts its quarter as our life goes on! I cannot be induced to lay aside my regular books for half an hour to read "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," but I pounce on a book like yours, which tries to tell me as much as it can in brief space of the "natural order," and am seduced into making it my after-breakfast reading instead of the work I had prescribed for myself in that pleasant quiet time. I read so slowly and read so few books that this small fact among my small habits seems a great matter to me. I thank you, dear Cara, not simply for giving me the book, but for having put so much faithful labor in a worthy direction, and created a lasting benefit which I can share with others. Whether the circulation of a book be large or small, there is always this supreme satisfaction about solid honest work, that as far as it goes its effect must be good, and as all effects spread immeasurably, what we have to care for is _kind_ and not quantity. I am a shabby correspondent, being in ardent practice of the piano just now, which makes my days shorter than usual. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 4th Dec. 1863.] I am rather ashamed to hear of any one trying to be useful just now, for I am doing nothing but indulging myself--enjoying being petted very much, enjoying great books, enjoying our new, pretty, quiet home, and the study of Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin, with the mild-faced old Jansa, and not being at all unhappy as you imagine me. I sit taking deep draughts of reading--"Politique Positive," Euripides, Latin Christianity, and so forth, and remaining in glorious ignorance of "the current literature." Such is our life; and you perceive that instead of being miserable, I am rather following a wicked example, and saying to my soul, "Soul, take thine ease." I am sorry to think of you without any artistic society to help you and feed your faith. It is hard to believe long together that anything is "worth while," unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind. I fancy that to do without that guarantee one must be rather insane--one must be a bad poet, or a spinner of impossible theories, or an inventor of impossible machinery. However, it is but brief space either of time or distance that divides you from those who thoroughly share your cares and joys--always excepting that portion which is the hidden private lot of every human being. In the most entire confidence even of husband and wife there is always the unspoken residue--the _undivined_ residue--perhaps of what is most sinful, perhaps of what is most exalted and unselfish. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1863.] I get less and less inclined to write any but the briefest letters. My books seem to get so far off me when once I have written them, that I should be afraid of looking into "The Mill;" but it was written faithfully and with intense feeling when it was written, so I will hope that it will do no mortal any harm. I am indulging myself frightfully; reading everything except the "current literature," and getting more and more out of _rapport_ with the public taste. I have read Renan's book, however, which has proved to be eminently _in_ the public taste. It will have a good influence on the whole, I imagine; but this "Vie de Jésus," and still more, Renan's "Letter to Berthelot" in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, have compelled me to give up the high estimate I had formed of his mind. Judging from the indications in some other writings of his, I had reckoned him among the finest thinkers of the time. Still, his "Life of Jesus" has so much artistic merit that it will do a great deal towards the culture of ordinary minds, by giving them a sense of unity between that far off past and our present. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th Dec. 1863.] We are enjoying our new house--enjoying its quiet and freedom from perpetual stair-mounting--enjoying also the prettiness of coloring and arrangement; all of which we owe to our dear good friend, Mr. Owen Jones. He has determined every detail, so that we can have the pleasure of admiring what is our own without vanity. And another magnificent friend has given me the most splendid reclining chair conceivable, so that I am in danger of being envied by the gods, especially as my health is thoroughly good withal. I should like to be sure that you are just as comfortable externally and internally. I dare say you are, being less of a cormorant in your demands on life than I am; and it is _that_ difference which chiefly distinguishes human lots when once the absolute needs are satisfied. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 28th Dec. 1863.] Your affectionate greeting comes as one of the many blessings that are brightening this happy Christmas. We have been giving our evenings up to parental duties--_i.e._, to games and music for the amusement of the youngsters. I am wonderfully well in body, but rather in a self-indulgent state mentally, saying, "Soul, take thine ease," after a dangerous example. Of course I shall be glad to see your fair face whenever it can shine upon me; but I can well imagine, with your multitudinous connections, Christmas and the New Year are times when all _unappointed_ visits must be impossible to you. All good to you and yours through the coming year! and amongst the good may you continue to feel some love for me; for love is one of the conditions in which it is even better to give than to receive. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Jan. 1864.] According to your plans you must be in Rome. I have been in good spirits about you ever since I last heard from you, and the foggy twilight which, for the last week, has followed the severe frost, has made me rejoice the more that you are in a better climate and amongst lovelier scenes than we are groping in. I please myself with thinking that you will all come back with stores of strength and delightful memories. Only, if this were the best of all possible worlds, Mr. Lewes and I should be able to meet you in some beautiful place before you turn your backs on Italy. As it is, there is no hope of such a meeting. March is Charlie's holiday month, and when he goes out we like to stay at home for the sake of recovering for that short time our unbroken _tête-à-tête_. We have every reason to be cheerful if the fog would let us. Last night I finished reading the last proofs of the "Aristotle," which makes an octavo volume of rather less than 400 pages. I think it is a book which will be interesting and valuable to the few, but perhaps _only_ to the few. However, George's happiness in writing his books makes him less dependent than most authors on the audience they find. He felt that a thorough account of Aristotle's science was a bit of work which needed doing, and he has given his utmost pains to do it worthily. These are the two most important conditions of authorship; all the rest belong to the "less modifiable" order of things. I have been playing energetically on the piano lately, and taking lessons in accompanying the violin from Herr Jansa, one of the old Beethoven Quartette players. It has given me a fresh kind of muscular exercise, as well as nervous stimulus, and, I think, has done its part towards making my health better. In fact I am very well physically. I wish I could be as clever and active as you about our garden, which might be made much prettier this spring if I had judgment and industry enough to do the right thing. But it is a native vice of mine to like all such matters attended to by some one else, and to fold my arms and enjoy the result. Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough. But pray make a point of liking me in spite of my deficiencies. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 21st Jan. 1864.] I comfort myself with the belief that your nature is less rebellious under trouble than mine--less craving and discontented. Resignation to trial, which can never have a _personal_ compensation, is a part of our life task which has been too much obscured for us by unveracious attempts at universal consolation. I think we should be more tender to each other while we live, if that wretched falsity which makes men quite comfortable about their fellows' troubles were thoroughly got rid of. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Jan. 1864.] I often imagine you, not without a little longing, turning out into the fields whenever you list, as we used to do in the old days at Rosehill. That power of turning out into the fields is a great possession in life--worth many luxuries. Here is a bit of news not, I think, too insignificant for you to tell Cara. The other day Mr. Spencer, senior (Herbert Spencer's father), called on us, and knowing that he has been engaged in education all his life, that he is a man of extensive and accurate knowledge, and that, on his son's showing, he is a very able teacher, I showed him Cara's "British Empire." Yesterday Herbert Spencer came, and on my inquiring told me that his father was pleased with Cara's book, and thought highly of it. Such testimonies as this, given apart from personal influence and by a practised judge, are, I should think, more gratifying than any other sort of praise to all faithful writers. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _Jan. 30._--We had Browning, Dallas, and Burton to dine with us, and in the evening a gentlemen's party. _Feb. 14._--Mr. Burton dined with us, and asked me to let him take my portrait. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 3d March, 1864.] It was pleasant to have news of you through the fog, which reduces my faith in all good and lovely things to its lowest ebb. I hope you are less abjectly under the control of the skyey influences than I am. The soul's calm sunshine in me is half made up of the outer sunshine. However, we are going on Friday to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and Handel's music always brings me a revival. I have had a great personal loss lately in the death of a sweet woman,[39] to whom I have sometimes gone, and hoped to go again, for a little moral strength. She had long been confined to her room by consumption, which has now taken her quite out of reach except to memory, which makes all dear human beings undying to us as long as we ourselves live. I am glad to know that you have been interested in "David Gray."[40] It is good for us all that these true stories should be well told. Even those to whom the power of helping rarely comes, have their imaginations instructed so as to be more just and tender in their thoughts about the lot of their fellows. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th March, 1864.] I felt it long since I had had news from you, but my days go by, each seeming too short for what I must do, and I don't like to molest you with mere questions. I have been spoiled for correspondence by Mr. Lewes's goodness in always writing letters for me where a proxy is admissible. And so it has come to be a great affair with me to write even a note, while people who keep up a large correspondence, and set apart their hour for it, find it easy to cover reams of paper with talk from the end of the pen. You say nothing of yourself, which is rather unkind. We are enjoying a perfect _tête à tête_. On Friday we are going to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and try if possible to be stirred to something heroic by "Sound an alarm." I was more sorry than it is usually possible to be about the death of a person utterly unknown to me, when I read of Maria Martineau's death. She was a person whose office in life seemed so thoroughly defined and so valuable. For an invalid like Harriet Martineau to be deprived of a beloved nurse and companion, is a sorrow that makes one ashamed of one's small grumblings. But, oh dear, oh dear! when _will_ people leave off their foolish talk about all human lots being equal; as if anybody with a sound stomach ever knew misery comparable to the misery of a dyspeptic. Farewell, dear Sara; be generous, and don't always wait an age in silence because I don't write. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 8th March, 1864.] If you were anybody but yourself I should dislike you, because I have to write letters to you. As it is, your qualities triumph even over the vice of being in Italy (too far off for a note of three lines), and expecting to hear from me, though I fear I should be graceless enough to let you expect in vain if I did not care very much to hear from _you_, and did not find myself getting uneasy when many weeks have been passed in ignorance about you. I do hope to hear that you got your fortnight of sight-seeing before leaving Rome--at least, you would surely go well over the great galleries. If not, I shall be vexed with you, and I shall only be consoled for your not going to Venice by the chance of the Austrians being driven or bought out of it--on no slighter grounds. For I suppose you will not go to Italy again for a long, long while, so as to leave any prospect of the omission being made up for by-and-by. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th March, 1864.] We run off to Scotland for the Easter week, setting out on Sunday evening; so if the spring runs away again, I hope it will run northward. We shall return on Monday, the 4th April. Some news of your inwards and outwards would be acceptable; but don't write unless you really _like_ to write. You see Strauss has come out with a _popular_ "Life of Jesus." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 25th March, 1864.] Fog, east wind, and headache: there is my week's history. But this morning, when your letter came to me, I had got up well and was reading the sorrows of the aged Hecuba with great enjoyment. I wish an immortal drama could be got out of _my_ sorrows, that people might be the better for them two thousand years hence. But fog, east wind, and headache are not great dramatic motives. Your letter was a reinforcement of the delicious sense of _bien être_ that comes with the departure of bodily pain; and I am glad, retrospectively, that beyond our fog lay your moonlight and your view of the glorious sea. It is not difficult to me to believe that you look a new creature already. Mr. Lewes tells me the country air has always a magical effect on me, even in the first hour; but it is not the air alone, is it? It is the wide sky, and the hills, and the wild-flowers which are linked with all calming thoughts, just as every object in town has its perturbing associations. I share your joy in the Federal successes--with that check that attends all joy in a war not absolutely ended. But you have worked and earned more joy than those who have been merely passives. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _April 6._--Mr. Spencer called for the first time after a long correspondence on the subject of his relation to Comte. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th April, 1864.] Yes! I am come back from Scotland--came back last Saturday night. I was much pleased to see Cara so wonderfully well and cheerful. She seems to me ten times more cheerful than in the old days. I am interested to know more about your work which is filling your life now, but I suppose I shall know nothing until it is in print--and perhaps that is the only form in which one can do any one's work full justice. It is very disappointing to me to hear that Cara has at present so little promise of monetary results from her conscientious labor. I fear the fatal system of half profits is working against her as against others. We are going to the opera to-night to hear the Favorita. It was the first opera I ever _saw_ (with you I saw it!), and I have never seen it since--that is the reason I was anxious to go to-night. This afternoon we go to see Mulready's pictures--so the day will be a full one. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _April 18._--We went to the Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th April, 1864.] Only think! next Wednesday morning we start for Italy. The move is quite a sudden one. We need a good shake for our bodies and minds, and must take the spring-time, before the weather becomes too hot. We shall not be away more than a month or six weeks at the utmost. Our friend Mr. Burton, the artist, will be our companion for at least part of the time. He has just painted a divine picture, which is now to be seen at the old Water-Color Exhibition. The subject is from a Norse legend; but that is no matter--the picture tells its story. A knight in mailed armor and surcoat has met the fair, tall woman he (secretly) loves, on a turret stair. By an uncontrollable movement he has seized her arm and is kissing it. She, amazed, has dropped the flowers she held in her other hand. The subject might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world--the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion. The kiss is on the fur-lined _sleeve_ that covers the arm, and the face of the knight is the face of a man to whom the kiss is a sacrament. How I should like a good long talk with you! From what you say of your book that is to come, I expect to be very much interested in it. I think I hardly ever read a book of the kind you describe without getting some help from it. It is to this strong influence that is felt in all personal statements of inward experience that we must perhaps refer the excessive publication of religious journals. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _May 4._--We started for Italy with Mr. Burton. _June 20._--Arrived at our pretty home again after an absence of seven weeks. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th June, 1864.] Your letter has affected me deeply. Thank you very much for writing it. It seems as if a close view of almost every human lot would disclose some suffering that makes life a doubtful good--except perhaps at certain epochs of fresh love, fresh creative activity, or unusual power of helping others. One such epoch we are witnessing in a young life that is very near to us. Our "boy" Charles has just become engaged, and it is very pretty to see the happiness of a pure first love, full at present of nothing but promise. It will interest you to know that the young lady who has won his heart, and seems to have given him her own with equal ardor and entireness, is the grand-daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, whom he adopted when she was three years old, and brought up under his own eye. She is very handsome, and has a splendid contralto voice. Altogether Pater and I rejoice--for though the engagement has taken place earlier than we expected, or should perhaps have chosen, there are counterbalancing advantages. I always hoped Charlie would be able to choose or rather find the other half of himself by the time he was twenty-three; the event has only come a year and a half sooner. This is the news that greeted us on our return! We had seen before we went that the acquaintance, which was first made eighteen months or more ago, had become supremely interesting to Charlie. Altogether we rejoice. Our journey was delightful in spite of Mr. Lewes's frequent _malaise_; for his cheerful nature is rarely subdued even by bodily discomfort. We saw only one place that we had not seen before--namely, Brescia; but all the rest seemed more glorious to us than they had seemed four years ago. Our course was to Venice, where we stayed a fortnight, pausing only at Paris, Turin and Milan on our way thither, and taking Padua, Verona, Brescia, and again Milan, as points of rest on our way back. Our friend Mr. Burton's company was very stimulating, from his great knowledge, not of pictures only, but of almost all other subjects. He has had the advantage of living in Germany for five or six years, and has gained those large, serious views of history which are a special product of German culture, and this was his first visit to Italy, so you may imagine his eager enjoyment in finding it beautiful beyond his hopes. We crossed the Alps by the St. Gothard, and stayed a day or two at Lucerne; and this, again, was a first sight of Switzerland to him. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, July, 1864.] Looking at my little mats this morning while I was dressing, I felt very grateful for them, and remembered that I had not shown my gratitude when you gave them to me. If I were a "conceited" poet, I should say your presence was the sun, and the mats were the tapers; but now you are away, I delight in the tapers. How pretty the pattern is--and your brain counted it out! They will never be worn quite away while I live, or my little purse for coppers either. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _July 17._--Horrible scepticism about all things paralyzing my mind. Shall I ever be good for anything again? Ever do anything again? _July 19._--Reading Gibbon, Vol. I., in connection with Mosheim, also Gieseler on the condition of the world at the appearance of Christianity. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Aug. 1864.] I am distressed to find that I have let a week pass without writing in answer to your letter, which made me very glad when I got it. Remembering you just a minute ago, I started up from Max Müller's new volume, with which I was consoling myself under a sore throat, and rushed to the desk that I might not risk any further delay. It was just what I wanted to hear about you that you were having some change, and I think the freshness of the companionship must help other good influences, not to speak of the "Apologia," which breathed much life into me when I read it. Pray mark that beautiful passage in which he thanks his friend Ambrose St. John. I know hardly anything that delights me more than such evidences of sweet brotherly love being a reality in the world. I envy you your opportunity of seeing and hearing Newman, and should like to make an expedition to Birmingham for that sole end. My trouble now is George's delicate health. He gets thinner and thinner. He is going to try what horseback will do, and I am looking forward to that with some hope. Our boy's love-story runs smoothly, and seems to promise nothing but good. His attraction to Hampstead gives George and me more of our dear old _tête-à-tête_, which we can't help being glad to recover. Dear Cara and Mr. Bray! I wish they too had joy instead of sadness from the young life they have been caring for these many years. When you write to Cara, or see her, assure her that she is remembered in my most affectionate thoughts, and that I often bring her present experience before my mind--more or less truly--for we can but blunder about each other, we poor mortals. Write to me whenever you can, dear Sara; I should have answered immediately but for sickness, visitors, business, etc. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _Sept. 6.--I am reading about Spain, and trying a drama on a subject that has fascinated me--have written the prologue, and am beginning the First Act. But I have little hope of making anything satisfactory._ _Sept. 13_ to _30_.--Went to Harrogate and Scarborough, seeing York Minster and Peterborough. [Illustration: Fac-simile of George Eliot's hand-writing.] [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Sept. 1864, from Harrogate.] We journeyed hither on Tuesday, and found the place quite as pretty as we expected. The great merit of Harrogate is that one is everywhere close to lovely open walks. Your "plan" has been a delightful reference for Mr. Lewes, who takes it out of his pocket every time we walk. At present, of course, there is not much improvement in health to be boasted of, but we hope that the delicious bracing air, and also the chalybeate waters, which have not yet been tried, will not be without good effect. The journey was long. How hideous those towns of Holbeach and Wakefield are! It is difficult to keep up one's faith in a millennium within sight of this modern civilization which consists in "development of industries." Egypt and her big calm gods seems quite as good. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Sept. 1864, from Scarborough.] We migrated on Friday last from delightful Harrogate, pausing at York to see the glorious Cathedral. The weather is perfect, the sea blue as a sapphire, so that we see to utmost advantage the fine line of coast here and the magnificent breadth of sand. Even the Tenby sands are not so fine as these. Better than all, Mr. Lewes, in spite of a sad check of a few days, is strengthened beyond our most hopeful expectations by this brief trial of fresh conditions. He is wonderful for the rapidity with which he "picks up" after looking alarmingly feeble and even wasted. We paid a visit to Knaresborough the very last day of our stay at Harrogate, and were rejoiced that we had not missed the sight of that pretty characteristic northern town. There is a ruined castle here too, standing just where one's eyes would desire it on a grand line of cliff; but perhaps you know the place. Its only defect is that it is too large, and therefore a little too smoky; but except in Wales or Devonshire I have seen no sea-place on our English coast that has greater natural advantages. I don't know quite why I should write you this note all about ourselves--except that your goodness having helped us to the benefit we have got, I like you to know of the said benefit. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Sunday, Oct. (?) 1864.] The wished-for opportunity is coming very soon. Next Saturday Charlie will go to Hastings, and will not return till Sunday evening. Will you--can you--arrange to come to us on Saturday to lunch or dinner, and stay with us till Sunday evening? We shall be very proud and happy if you will consent to put up with such travelling quarters as we can give you. You will be rejoicing our hearts by coming, and I know that for the sake of cheering others you would endure even large privations as well as small ones. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Monday-week following.] What a pure delight it was to have you with us! I feel the better for it in spite of a cold which I caught yesterday--perhaps owing to the loss of your sunny presence all of a sudden. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Oct. 1864.] It makes me very, very happy to see George so much better, and to return with that chief satisfaction to the quiet comforts of home. We register Harrogate among the places to be revisited. I have had a fit of Spanish history lately, and have been learning Spanish grammar--the easiest of all the Romance grammars--since we have been away. Mr. Lewes has been rubbing up his Spanish by reading Don Quixote in these weeks of _idlesse_; and I have read aloud and translated to him, like a good child. I find it so much easier to learn anything than to feel that I have anything worth teaching. All is perfectly well with us, now the "little Pater" is stronger, and we are especially thankful for Charlie's prospect of marriage. We could not have desired anything more suited to his character and more likely to make his life a good one. But this blessing which has befallen us only makes me feel the more acutely the cutting off of a like satisfaction from the friends I chiefly love. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _Oct. 5._--Finished the first draught of the First Act of my drama, and read it to George. _Oct. 15._--Went to the Maestro (Burton) for a sitting. _Nov. 4._--Read my Second Act to George. It is written in verse--my first serious attempt at blank verse. G. praises and encourages me. _Nov. 10._--I have been at a very low ebb, body and mind, for the last few days, sticking in the mud continually in the construction of my 3d, 4th, and 5th Acts. Yesterday Browning came to tell us of a bust of Savonarola in terra-cotta, just discovered at Florence. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d Nov. 1864.] I believe I have thought of you every day for the last fortnight, and I remembered the birthday--and "everything." But I was a little cross, because I had heard nothing of you since Mr. Bray's visit. And I said to myself, "If she wanted to write she _would_ write." I confess I was a little ashamed when I saw the outside of your letter ten minutes ago, feeling that I should read within it the proof that you were as thoughtful and mindful as ever. Yes, I do heartily give my greeting--_had_ given it already. And I desire very much that the work which is absorbing you may give you some happiness besides that which belongs to the activity of production. It is very kind of you to remember Charlie's date too. He is as happy as the day is long, and very good--one of those creatures to whom goodness comes naturally--not any exalted goodness, but every-day serviceable goodness, such as wears through life. Whereas exalted goodness comes in brief inspirations, and requires a man to die lest he should spoil his work. I have been ill, but now am pretty well, with much to occupy and interest me, and with no trouble except those bodily ailments. I could chat a long while with you--but I restrain myself, because I must not carry on my letter-writing into the "solid day." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Christmas-day, 1864.] Your precious letter _did_ come last night, and crowned the day's enjoyment. Our family party went off very well, entirely by dint of George's exertions. I wish you had seen him acting charades, and heard him make an after-supper speech. You would have understood all the self-forgetful goodness that lay under the assumption of boyish animal spirits. A horrible German whom I have been obliged to see has been talking for two hours, with the hardest eyes, blind to all possibilities that he was boring us, and so I have been robbed of all the time I wanted for writing to you. I can only say now that I bore you on my heart--you and all yours known to me--even before I had had your letter yesterday. Indeed you are not apart from any delight I have in life: I long always that you should share it, if not otherwise, at least by knowing of it, which to you is a sort of sharing. Our double loves and best wishes for all of you--Rough being included, as I trust you include Ben. Are they not idlers with us? Also a title to regard as well as being _collaborateurs_. [Sidenote: Journal, 1864.] _Dec. 24._--A family party in the evening. _Dec. 25._--I read the Third Act of my drama to George, who praised it highly. We spent a perfectly quiet evening, intending to have our Christmas-day's jollity on Tuesday when the boys are at home. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Jan. 1._--The last year has been unmarked by any trouble except bad health. The bright spots in the year have been the publication of "Aristotle" and our journey to Venice. With me the year has not been fruitful. I have written three Acts of my drama, and am now in a condition of body and mind to make me hope for better things in the coming year. The last quarter has made an epoch for me, by the fact that, for the first time in my serious authorship I have written verse. In each other we are happier than ever. I am more grateful to my dear husband for his perfect love, which helps me in all good and checks me in all evil--more conscious that in him I have the greatest of blessings. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d Jan. 1865.] I hope the wish that this New Year may be a happy one to you does not seem to be made a mockery by any troubles or anxieties pressing on you. I enclose a check, which I shall be obliged if you will offer to Mr. Congreve, as I know he prefers that payments should be made at the beginning of the year. I shall think of you on the nineteenth. I wonder how many there really were in that "small upper room" 1866 years ago. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Jan. 8._--Mrs. Congreve staying with us for a couple of nights. Yesterday we went to Mr. Burton's to see my portrait, with which she was much pleased. Since last Monday I have been writing a poem, the matter of which was written in prose three or four years ago--"My Vegetarian Friend." _Jan. 15_ to _25_.--Visit to Paris. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Friday (?), 27th Jan. 1865.] Are we not happy to have reached home on Wednesday before this real winter came? We enjoyed our visit to Paris greatly, in spite of bad weather, going to the theatre or opera nearly every night, and seeing sights all day long. I think the most interesting sight we saw was Comte's dwelling. Such places, that knew the great dead, always move me deeply; and I had an unexpected sight of interest in the photograph taken at the very last. M. Thomas was very friendly, and pleasant to talk to because of his simple manners. We gave your remembrances to him, and promised to assure you of his pleasure in hearing of you. I wish some truer representation of Mr. Congreve hung up in the Salon instead of that (to me) exasperating photograph. We thought the apartment very _freundlich_, and I flattered myself that I could have written better in the little study there than in my own. Such self-flattery is usually the most amiable phase of discontent with one's own inferiority. I am really stronger for the change. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Jan. 28._--Finished my poem on "Utopias." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Feb. 1865.] I suspect you have come to dislike letters, but until you say so, I must write now and then to gratify myself. I want to send my love, lest all the old messages shall have lost their scent, like old lavender bags. Since I wrote to you last we have actually been to Paris! A little business was an excuse for getting a great deal of pleasure; and I, for whom change of air and scene is always the best tonic, am much brightened by our wintry expedition, which ended just in time for us to escape the heavy fall of snow. We are very happy, having almost recovered our old _tête-à-tête_, of which I am so selfishly fond that I am beginning to feel it an heroic effort when I make up my mind to invite half a dozen visitors. But it is necessary to strive against this unsocial disposition, so we are going to have some open evenings. There is great talk of a new periodical--a fortnightly apparition, partly on the plan of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Mr. Lewes has consented to become its editor, if the preliminaries are settled so as to satisfy him. _Ecco!_ I have told you a little of our news, not daring to ask you anything about yourself, since you evidently don't want to tell me anything. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Feb. 1865.] The party was a "mull." The weather was bad. Some of the invited were ill and sent regrets, others were not ardent enough to brave the damp evening--in fine, only twelve came. We had a charade, which, like our neighbors, was no better than it should have been, and some rather languid music, our best musicians half failing us--so ill is merit rewarded in this world! If the severest sense of fulfilling a duty could make one's parties pleasant, who so deserving as I? I turn my inward shudders into outward smiles, and talk fast, with a sense of lead on my tongue. However, Mr. Pigott made a woman's part in the charade so irresistibly comic that I tittered at it at intervals in my sleepless hours. I am rather uncomfortable about you, because you seemed so much less well and strong the other day than your average. Let me hear before long how you and Mr. Congreve are. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Feb. 21._--Ill and very miserable. George has taken my drama away from me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th Feb. 1865.] The sun shone through my window on your letter as I read it, adding to its cheeriness. It was good of you to write it. I was ill last week, and had mental troubles besides--happily such as are unconnected with any one's experience except my own. I am still ailing, but striving hard "not to mind," and not to diffuse my inward trouble, according to Madame de Vaux's excellent maxim. I shall not, I fear, be able to get to you till near the end of next week--towards the 11th. I think of you very often, and especially when my own _malaise_ reminds me how much of your time is spent in the same sort of endurance. Mr. Spencer told us yesterday that Dr. Ransom said he had cured himself of dyspepsia by leaving off stimulants--the full benefit manifesting itself after two or three months of abstinence. I am going to try. All best regards to Mr. Congreve and tenderest sisterly love to yourself. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _March 1._--I wrote an article for the _Pall Mall Gazette_--"A Word for the Germans." _March 12._--Went to Wandsworth, to spend the Sunday and Monday with Mr. and Mrs. Congreve. Feeling very ailing; in constant dull pain, which makes all effort burdensome. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th March, 1865.] I did not promise, like Mr. Collins, that you should receive a letter of thanks for your kind entertainment of me; but I feel the need of writing a word or two to break the change from your presence to my complete absence from you. It was really an enjoyment to be with you, in spite of the bodily uneasiness which robbed me of half my mind. One thing only I regret--that in my talk with you I think I was rather merciless to other people. Whatever vices I have seem to be exaggerated by my _malaise_--such "chastening" not answering the purpose of purification in my case. Pray set down any unpleasant notions I have suggested about others to my account--_i.e._, as being _my_ unpleasantness, and not theirs. When one is bilious, other people's complexions look yellow, and one of their eyes higher than the other--all the fault of one's own evil interior. I long to hear from you that you are better, and if you are not better, still to hear from you before too long an interval. Mr. Congreve's condition is really cheering, and he goes about with me as a pleasant picture--like that Raphael the Tuscan duke chose always to carry with him. I got worse after I left you; but to-day I am better, and begin to think there is nothing serious the matter with me except the "weather," which every one else is alleging as the cause of their symptoms. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 18th March, 1865.] I believe you are one of the few who can understand that in certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy. If I could have been with you in bodily presence, I should have sat silent, thinking silence a sign of feeling that speech, trying to be wise, must always spoil. The truest things one can say about great Death are the oldest, simplest things that everybody knows by rote, but that no one knows really till death has come very close. And when that inward teaching is going on, it seems pitiful presumption for those who are outside to be saying anything. There is no such thing as consolation when we have made the lot of another our own. I don't know whether you strongly share, as I do, the old belief that made men say the gods loved those who died young. It seems to me truer than ever, now life has become more complex, and more and more difficult problems have to be worked out. Life, though a good to men on the whole, is a doubtful good to many, and to some not a good at all. To my thought it is a source of constant mental distortion to make the denial of this a part of religion--to go on pretending things are better than they are. To me early death takes the aspect of salvation; though I feel, too, that those who live and suffer may sometimes have the greater blessedness of _being_ a salvation. But I will not write of judgments and opinions. What I want my letter to tell you is that I love you truly, gratefully, unchangeably. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _March 25._--I am in deep depression, feeling powerless. I have written nothing but beginnings since I finished a little article for the _Pall Mall_, on the Logic of Servants. Dear George is all activity, yet is in very frail health. How I worship his good humor, his good sense, his affectionate care for every one who has claims on him! That worship is my best life. _March 29._--Sent a letter on "Futile Lying," from Saccharissa to the _Pall Mall_. I have begun a novel ("Felix Holt"). [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 11th April, 1865.] We are wondering if, by any coincidence or condition of things, you could come to us on Thursday, when we have our last evening party--wondering how you are--wondering everything about you, and knowing nothing. Could you resolve some of our wonderings into cheering knowledge? It is ages since you made any sign to us. Are _we_ to be blamed or you? I hope you are not unfavorably affected by the sudden warmth which comes with the beautiful sunshine. Some word of you, in pity! [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d April, 1865.] If the sun goes on shining in this glorious way, I shall think of your journey with pleasure. The sight of the country _must_ be a good when the trees are bursting into leaf. But I will remember your warning to Emily, and not insist too much on the advantages of paying visits. Let us hear of you sometimes, and think of us as very busy and very happy, but always including you in our world, and getting uneasy when we are left too much to our imaginations about you. Tell Emily that Ben and I are the better for having seen her. He has added to his store of memories, and will recognize her when she comes again. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _May 4._--Sent an article on Lecky's "History of Rationalism" for the _Fortnightly_. For nearly a fortnight I have been ill, one way or other. _May 10._--Finished a letter of Saccharissa for the _Pall Mall_. Reading Æschylus, "Theatre of the Greeks," Klein's "History of the Drama," etc. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 11th May, 1865.] This note will greet you on your return, and tell you that we were glad to hear of you in your absence, even though the news was not of the brightest. Next week we are going away--I don't yet know exactly where; but it is firmly settled that we start on Monday. It will be good for the carpets, and it will be still better for us, who need a wholesome shaking, even more than the carpets do. The first number of the _Review_ was done with last Monday, and will be out on the 15th. You will be glad to hear that Mr. Harrison's article is excellent, but the "mull" which George declares to be the fatality with all first numbers is so far incurred with regard to this very article that, from overwhelming alarm at its length, George put it (perhaps too hastily) into the smaller type. I hope the importance of the subject and the excellence of the treatment will overcome that disadvantage. Nurse all pleasant thoughts in your solitude, and count our affection among them. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th May, 1865.] We have just returned from a five days' holiday at the coast, and are much invigorated by the tonic breezes. We have nothing to do with the _Fortnightly_ as a money speculation. Mr. Lewes has simply accepted the post of editor, and it was seemly that I should write a little in it. But do not suppose that I am going into periodical writing. And your friendship is not required to read one syllable for our sakes. On the contrary, you have my full sympathy in abstaining. Rest in peace, dear Sara, and finish your work, that you may have the sense of having spoken out what was within you. That is really a good--I mean, when it is done in all seriousness and sincerity. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _May 28._--Finished Bamford's "Passages from the Life of a Radical." Have just begun again Mill's "Political Economy," and Comte's "Social Science," in Miss Martineau's edition. _June 7._--Finished _Annual Register_ for 1832. Reading Blackstone. Mill's second article on "Comte," to appear in the _Westminster_, lent me by Mr. Spencer. My health has been better of late. _June 15._--Read again Aristotle's "Poetics" with fresh admiration. _June 20._--Read the opening of my novel to G. Yesterday we drove to Wandsworth. Walked together on Wimbledon Common, in outer and inner sunshine, as of old; then dined with Mr. and Mrs. Congreve, and had much pleasant talk. _June 25._--Reading English History, reign of George III.; Shakespeare's "King John." Yesterday G. dined at Greenwich with the multitude of so-called writers for the _Saturday_. He heard much commendation of the _Fortnightly_, especially of Bagehot's articles, which last is reassuring after Mr. Trollope's strong objections. _July 3._--Went to hear the "Faust" at Covent Garden: Mario, Lucca, and Graziani. I was much thrilled by the great symbolical situations, and by the music--more, I think, than I had ever been before. _July 9_ (Sunday).--We had Browning, Huxley, Mr. Warren, Mr. Bagehot, and Mr. Crompton, and talk was pleasant. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, Sunday, 10th July, 1865.] Success to the canvassing! It is "very meet and right and your bounden duty" to be with Mr. Taylor in this time of hard work, and I am glad that your health has made no impediment. I should have liked to be present when you were cheered. The expression of a common feeling by a large mass of men, when the feeling is one of good-will, moves me like music. A public tribute to any man who has done the world a service with brain or hand has on me the effect of a great religious rite, with pealing organ and full-voiced choir. I agree with you in your feeling about Mill. Some of his works have been frequently my companions of late, and I have been going through many _actions de grâce_ towards him. I am not anxious that he should be in Parliament: thinkers can do more outside than inside the House. But it would have been a fine precedent, and would have made an epoch, for such a man to have been asked for and elected solely on the ground of his mental eminence. As it is, I suppose it is pretty certain that he will _not_ be elected. I am glad you have been interested in Mr. Lewes's article. His great anxiety about the _Fortnightly_ is to make it the vehicle for sincere writing--real contributions of opinion on important topics. But it is more difficult than the inexperienced could imagine to get the sort of writing which will correspond to that desire of his. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _July 16._--Madame Bohn, niece of Professor Scherer, called. She said certain things about "Romola" which showed that she had felt what I meant my readers to feel. She said she knew the book had produced the same effect on many others. I wish I could be encouraged by this. _July 22._--Sat for my portrait--I suppose for the last time. _July 23._--I am going doggedly to work at my novel, seeing what determination can do in the face of despair. Reading Neale's "History of the Puritans." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st Aug. 1865.] I received yesterday the circular about the Mazzini Fund. Mr. Lewes and I would have liked to subscribe to a tribute to Mazzini, or to a fund for his use, of which the application was defined and guaranteed by his own word. As it is, the application of the desired fund is only intimated in the vaguest manner by the Florentine committee. The reflection is inevitable that the application may ultimately be the promotion of conspiracy, the precise character of which is necessarily unknown to subscribers. Now, though I believe there are cases in which conspiracy may be a sacred, necessary struggle against organized wrong, there are also cases in which it is hopeless, and can produce nothing but misery; or needless, because it is not the best means attainable of reaching the desired end; or unjustifiable, because it resorts to acts which are more unsocial in their character than the very wrong they are directed to extinguish; and in these three supposable cases it seems to me that it would be a social crime to further conspiracy even by the impulse of a little finger, to which one may well compare a small money subscription. I think many persons to whom the circular might be sent would take something like this view, and would grieve, as we do, that a proposition intended to honor Mazzini should come in a form to which they cannot conscientiously subscribe. I trouble you and Mr. Taylor with this explanation, because both Mr. Lewes and I have a real reverence for Mazzini, and could not therefore be content to give a silent negative. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 1st Aug. 1865.] I fear that my languor on Saturday prevented me from fairly showing you how sweet and precious your presence was to me then, as at all times. We have almost made up our minds to start some time in this month for a run in Normandy and Brittany. We both need the change, though when I receive, as I did yesterday, a letter from some friend, telling me of cares and trials from which I am quite free, I am ashamed of wanting anything. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Aug. 2._--Finished the "Agamemnon" second time. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Aug. 1865.] When I wrote to you last I quite hoped that I should see you and Emily before we left home, but now it is settled that we start on Thursday morning, and I have so many little things to remember and to do that I dare not set apart any of the intervening time for the quiet enjoyment of a visit from you. It is not quite so cheerful a picture as I should like to carry with me, that of you and Emily so long alone, with Mr. Congreve working at Bradford. But your friends are sure to think of you, and want to see you. I hope you did not suffer so severely as we did from the arctic cold that rushed in after the oppressive heat. Mr. T. Trollope came from Italy just when it began. He says it is always the same when he comes to England, people always say it has just been very hot, and he believes that means they had a few days in which they were not obliged to blow on their fingers. When you write to Mr. Congreve pray tell him that we were very grateful for his Itinerary, which is likely useful to us--indeed, has already been useful in determining our route. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Sept. 7._--We returned home after an expedition into Brittany. Our course was from Boulogne to St. Valéry, Dieppe, Rouen, Caen, Bayeux, St. Lô, Vire, Avranches, Dol, St. Malo, Rennes, Avray, and Carnac--back by Nantes, Tours, Le Mans, Chartres, Paris, Rouen, Dieppe, Abbeville, and so again to Boulogne. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Sept. 1865.] We came home again on Thursday night--this day week--after a month's absence in Normandy and Brittany. I have been thinking of you very often since, but believed that you did not care to have the interruption of letters just now, and would rather defer correspondence till your mind was freer. If I had _suspected_ that you would feel any want satisfied by a letter I should certainly have written. I had not heard of Miss Bonham Carter's death, else I should have conceived something of your state of mind. I think you and I are alike in this, that we can get no good out of pretended comforts, which are the devices of self-love, but would rather, in spite of pain, grow into the endurance of all "naked truths." So I say no word about your great loss, except that I love you, and sorrow with you. The circumstances of life--the changes that take place in ourselves--hem in the expression of affections and memories that live within us, and enter almost into every day, and long separations often make intercourse difficult when the opportunity comes. But the delight I had in you, and in the hours we spent together, and in all your acts of friendship to me, is really part of my life, and can never die out of me. I see distinctly how much poorer I should have been if I had never known you. If you had seen more of me in late years, you would not have such almost cruel thoughts as that the book into which you have faithfully put your experience and best convictions could make you "repugnant" to me. Whatever else my growth may have been, it has not been towards irreverence and ready rejection of what other minds can give me. You once unhappily mistook my feeling and point of view in something I wrote _à propos_ of an argument in your "Aids to Faith," and _that_ made me think it better that we should not write on large and difficult subjects in hasty letters. But it has often been painful to me--I should say, it has constantly been painful to me--that you have ever since inferred me to be in a hard and unsympathetic state about your views and your writing. But I am habitually disposed myself to the same unbelief in the sympathy that is given me, and am the last person who should be allowed to complain of such unbelief in another. And it is very likely that I may have been faulty and disagreeable in my expressions. Excuse all my many mistakes, dear Sara, and never believe otherwise than that I have a glow of joy when you write to me, as if my existence were some good to you. I know that I am, and can be, very little practically; but to have the least value for your thought is what I care much to be assured of. Perhaps, in the cooler part of the autumn, when your book is out of your hands, you will like to move from home a little and see your London friends? Our travelling in Brittany was a good deal marred and obstructed by the emperor's _fête_, which sent all the world on our track towards Cherbourg and Brest. But the Norman churches, the great cathedrals at Le Mans, Tours, and Chartres, with their marvellous painted glass, were worth much scrambling to see. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Oct. 1865.] I have read Mr. Masson's book on "Recent Philosophy." The earlier part is a useful and creditable survey, and the classification ingenious. The later part I thought poor. If, by what he says of Positivism, you mean what he says at p. 246, I should answer it is simply "stuff"--he might as well have written a dozen lines of jargon. There are a few observations about Comte, scattered here and there, which are true and just enough. But it seems to me much better to read a man's own writing than to read what others say about him, especially when the man is first-rate and the "others" are third-rate. As Goethe said long ago about Spinoza, "Ich zog immer vor von dem Menschen zu erfahren _wie er dachte_ als von einem anderen zu hören _wie er hätte denken sollen_."[41] However, I am not fond of expressing criticism or disapprobation. The difficulty is to digest and live upon any valuable truth one's self. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Nov. 15._--During the last three weeks George has been very poorly, but now he is better. I have been reading Fawcett's "Economic Condition of the Working Classes," Mill's "Liberty," looking into Strauss's second "Life of Jesus," and reading Neale's "History of the Puritans," of which I have reached the fourth volume. Yesterday the news came of Mrs. Gaskell's death. She died suddenly, while reading aloud to her daughter. _Nov. 16._--Writing Mr. Lyon's story, which I have determined to insert as a narrative. Reading the Bible. _Nov. 24._--Finished Neale's "History of the Puritans." Began Hallam's "Middle Ages." _Dec. 4._--Finished second volume of Hallam. The other day read to the end of chapter nine of my novel to George, who was much pleased and found no fault. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th Dec. 1865.] We send to-day "Orley Farm," "The Small House at Allington," and the "Story of Elizabeth." The "Small House" is rather lighter than "Orley Farm." "The Story of Elizabeth" is by Miss Thackeray. It is not so cheerful as Trollope, but is charmingly written. You can taste it and reject it if it is too melancholy. I think more of you than you are likely to imagine, and I believe we talk of you all more than of any other mortals. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th Dec. 1865.] It is worth your while to send for the last _Fortnightly_ to read an article of Professor Tyndall's "On the Constitution of the Universe." It is a splendid piece of writing on the higher physics, which I know will interest you. _À propos_ of the feminine intellect, I had a bit of experience with a superior woman the other day, which reminded me of Sydney Smith's story about his sermon on the Being of a God. He says, that after he had delivered his painstaking argument, an old parishioner said to him, "I don't agree wi' you, Mr. Smith; _I think there be a God_." [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Dec. 11._--For the last three days I have been foundering from a miserable state of head. I have written chapter ten. This evening read again Macaulay's Introduction. _Dec. 15._--To-day is the first for nearly a week on which I have been able to write anything fresh. I am reading Macaulay and Blackstone. This evening we went to hear "The Messiah" at Exeter Hall. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Dec. 1865.] "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" is a sort of hieroglyph for I love you and wish you well all the year round. Christmas to me is like a great many other pleasures, which I am glad to imagine as enjoyed by others, but have no delight in myself. Berried holly and smiling faces and snap-dragon, grandmamma and the children, turkey and plum-pudding--they are all precious things, and I would not have the world without them; but they tire me a little. I enjoy the common days of the year more. But for the sake of those who are stronger I rejoice in Christmas. [Sidenote: Journal, 1865.] _Dec. 24._--For two days I have been sticking in the mud from doubt about my construction. I have just consulted G., and he confirms my choice of incidents. _Dec. 31._--The last day of 1865. I will say nothing but that I trust--I will strive--to add more ardent effort towards a good result from all the outward good that is given to me. My health is at a lower ebb than usual, and so is George's. Bertie is spending his holidays with us, and shows hopeful characteristics. Charles is happy. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1862, TO DECEMBER, 1865. Begins "Romola" again--Letter to Miss Hennell--Max Müller's book--"Orley Farm"--Anthony Trollope--T. A. Trollope's "Beata"--Acquaintance with Mr. Burton and Mr. W. G. Clark--George Smith, publisher, suggests a "magnificent offer"--Depression about "Romola"--Letter to Mrs. Bray asking for loan of music--Pantomime--First visit to Dorking--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Impatience of concealment--Anxiety about war with America--Sympathy with queen--Mr. Lewes begins "History of Science"--Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows"--Depression--George Smith offers £10,000 for "Romola" for the _Cornhill_--Idea given up--Visit to Englefield Green--Working under a weight--Second visit to Dorking for three weeks--Delight in spring--Accepts £7000 for "Romola" in _Cornhill_--Regret at leaving Blackwood--Palsy in writing--Visit to Littlehampton and to Dorking third time--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mr. Lewes at Spa--George Eliot in better spirits--Letter to Miss Hennell--Joachim's playing--New Literary Club--Reading Poliziano--Suggestion of Tennyson's "Palace of Art"--Visit from Browning--Depression--Letter to Madame Bodichon--No negative propaganda--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--"The Messiah" on Christmas day--Letter to Miss Hennell--St. Paul's "Charity"--The Poetry of Christianity--The Bible--Adieu to year 1862--Letter to Miss Hennell--Encouragement about "Romola"--Literary Club dissolves--Miss Cobbe--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Depression--Fourth visit to Dorking for fortnight--Letter to Charles Lewes on Thackeray's Lectures--The effect of writing "Romola"--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Odiousness of intellectual superciliousness--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Thinking of the Priory--"Romola" finished--Inscription--Visit to Isle of Wight--Ristori--Letter to Miss Hennell--Thornton Lewes--London amusements--Opera--Reading Mommsen, Liddell's "Rome," and "Roba di Roma"--Letter from Frederick Maurice referred to as most generous tribute ever given--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Renan's "Vie de Jésus"--Visit to Worthing--Mrs. Hare--Return to London--Depression--Letter to R. H. Hutton on "Romola"--The importance of the medium in which characters move--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Effect of London on health--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Delight in autumn--Mommsen's History--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--The "Discours Préliminaire"--Removal to the Priory--Mr. Owen Jones decorates the house--Jansa the violinist--Letter to Mrs. Bray--"Physiology for Schools"--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Enjoying rest, and music with Jansa--Letter to Miss Hennell--Renan--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Enjoyment of Priory--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mr. Lewes's "Aristotle" finished--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Compensation--Letter to Mrs. P. A. Taylor--Effect of sunshine--Death of Mrs. Hare--"David Gray"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Dislike of note-writing--Visit to Glasgow--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Joy in Federal successes--Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi--Mr. Burton's picture of a Legendary Knight in Armor--Third visit to Italy with Mr. Burton for seven weeks--Return to London--Charles Lewes's engagement to Miss Gertrude Hill--Pleasure in Mr. Burton's companionship in travel--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Present of mats--Depression--Reading Gibbon--Gieseler--Letter to Miss Hennell--Reading Max Müller--Reference to the "Apologia"--Newman--Reading about Spain--Trying a drama--Letter to Miss Hennell--Harrogate--Development of Industries--Scarborough--Letters to Mrs. Congreve--Pleasure in her visit--Letter to Miss Hennell--Learning Spanish--Two acts of drama written--Sticking in construction of remainder--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Christmas greeting--Retrospect of year 1864--Letter to Mrs. Congreve, first payment to Positivist Fund--Comparison with "small upper room" 1866 years ago--Mrs. Congreve staying at the Priory--Poem "My Vegetarian Friend" written--Visit to Paris--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Visit to Comte's apartment in Paris--Finished poem on "Utopias"--Letter to Miss Sara Hennell--Delight in dual solitude--_Fortnightly Review_--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Charades--Depression--Mr. Lewes takes away drama--Article for the _Pall Mall_, "A Word for the Germans"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Visit to Wandsworth--Depression--Letter to Mrs. Congreve after visit--Letter to Mrs. Bray on a young friend's death--Deep depression--Admiration of Mr. Lewes's good spirits--"Felix Holt" begun--Article on Lecky's "History of Rationalism" in _Fortnightly_--Reading Æschylus, "Theatre of the Greeks"--Klein's "History of the Drama"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--First number of the _Fortnightly_--Frederic Harrison's article--Reading Mill, Comte, and Blackstone--Aristotle's "Poetics"--Dine with Congreves at Wandsworth--"Faust" at Covent Garden--Sunday reception--Browning, Huxley, and Bagehot--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on J. S. Mill--The _Fortnightly Review_--Mr. Burton's portrait finished--Mazzini subscription--Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve--Expedition to Brittany for month--Letter to Miss Hennell--"Pretended comforts"--Recollection of early feelings--Delight in her friendship--Masson's "Recent Philosophy"--Comte--Goethe on Spinoza--Reading Fawcett's "Economic Condition of Working Classes"--Mill's "Liberty"--Strauss's second "Life of Jesus"--Neale's "History of the Puritans"--Hallam's "Middle Ages"--Letter to Miss Hennell on Tyndall's article on "The Constitution of the Universe"--View of Christmas day--Retrospect of 1865. FOOTNOTES: [33] Now Sir Frederic Burton, Director of the National Gallery, to whom we are indebted for the drawing of George Eliot now in the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington, and who was a very intimate and valued friend of Mr. and Mrs. Lewes. [34] Mr. W. G. Clark, late Public Orator at Cambridge, well known as a scholar, and for his edition of Shakspeare in conjunction with Mr. Aldis Wright. [35] Some general remark of Carlyle's--Madame Bodichon cannot remember exactly what it was. [36] I regret that I have not been able to find this letter. [37] Auguste Comte's. [38] "Physiology for Schools." By Mrs. Bray. [39] Mrs. Julius Hare, who gave her Maurice's book on the Lord's Prayer. [40] A story by Mr. Robert Buchanan in the _Cornhill_, Feb. 1864. [41] "I always preferred to learn from the man himself what _he_ thought, rather than to hear from some one else what _he ought to have thought_." CHAPTER XIII. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 5th Jan. 1866.] I have had it in my mind to write to you for many days, wanting to tell you, yet feeling there might be some impertinence in doing so, of the delight and gratitude I felt in reading your article on "Industrial Co-operation." Certain points admirably brought out in that article would, I think, be worth the labor of a life if one could help in winning them thorough recognition. I don't mean that my thinking so is of any consequence, but simply that it is of consequence to me when I find your energetic writing confirm my own faith. It would be fortunate for us if you had nothing better to do than look in on us on Tuesday evening. Professor Huxley will be with us, and one or two others whom you know, and your presence would make us all the brighter. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Jan. 9._--Professors Huxley and Beesley, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Spencer dined with us. Mr. Harrison in the evening. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 12th Jan. 1866.] The ample and clear statement you have sent me with kind promptness has put me in high spirits--as high spirits as can belong to an unhopeful author. Your hypothetical case of a settlement suits my needs surprisingly well. I shall be thankful to let Sugden alone, and throw myself entirely on your goodness, especially as what I want is simply a basis of legal possibilities and not any command of details. I want to be sure that my chords will not offend a critic accomplished in thorough bass--not at all to present an exercise in thorough bass. I was going to write you a long story, but, on consideration, it seems to me that I should tax your time less, and arrive more readily at a resolution of my doubts on various points not yet mentioned to you, if you could let me speak instead of writing to you. On Wednesday afternoons I am always at home; but on any day when I could be sure of your coming I would set everything aside for the sake of a consultation so valuable to me. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Jan. 20._--For the last fortnight I have been unusually disabled by ill-health. I have been consulting Mr. Harrison about the law in my book, with satisfactory result. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 22d Jan. 1866.] I had not any opportunity, or not enough presence of mind, to tell you yesterday how much I felt your kindness in writing me that last little note of sympathy. In proportion as compliments (always beside the mark) are discouraging and nauseating, at least to a writer who has any serious aims, genuine words from one capable of understanding one's conceptions are precious and strengthening. Yet I have no confidence that the book will ever be worthily written. And now I have something else to ask. It is that if anything strikes you as untrue in cases where my drama has a bearing on momentous questions, especially of a public nature, you will do me the great kindness to tell me of your doubts. On a few moral points, which have been made clear to me by my experience, I feel sufficiently confident--without such confidence I could not write at all. But in every other direction I am so much in need of fuller instruction as to be constantly under the sense that I am more likely to be wrong than right. Hitherto I have read my MS. (I mean of my previous books) to Mr. Lewes, by forty or fifty pages at a time, and he has told me if he felt an objection to anything. No one else has had any knowledge of my writings before their publication. (I except, of course, the publishers.) But now that you are good enough to incur the trouble of reading my MS., I am anxious to get the full benefit of your participation. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th Jan. 1866.] We arrived here on Tuesday, and have been walking about four hours each day, and the walks are so various that each time we have turned out we have found a new one. George is already much the better for the perfect rest, quiet, and fresh air. Will you give my thanks to Mr. Congreve for the "Synthèse" which I have brought with me and am reading? I expect to understand three chapters well enough to get some edification. George had talked of our taking the train to Dover to pay you a "morning call." He observes that it would have been a "dreadful sell" if we had done so. Your letter, therefore, was providential--and without doubt it came from a dear little Providence of mine that sits in your heart. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 31st Jan. 1866.] I have received both your precious letters--the second edition of the case, and the subsequent note. The story is sufficiently in the track of ordinary probability; and the careful trouble you have so generously given to it has enabled me to feel a satisfaction in my plot which beforehand I had sighed for as unattainable. There is still a question or two which I shall want to ask you, but I am afraid of taxing your time and patience in an unconscionable manner. So, since we expect to return to town at the end of next week, I think I will reserve my questions until I have the pleasure and advantage of an interview with you, in which _pros_ and _cons_ can be more rapidly determined than by letter. It seems to me that you have fitted my phenomena with a _rationale_ quite beautifully. If there is any one who could have done it better, I am sure I know of no man who _would_. Please to put your help of me among your good deeds for this year of 1866. To-day we have resolute rain, for the first time since we came down. You don't yet know what it is to be a sickly wretch, dependent on these skyey influences. But Heine says illness "spiritualizes the members." It had need do some good in return for one's misery. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Feb. 1866.] Thanks for your kind letter. Alas! we had chiefly bad weather in the country. George was a little benefited, but only a little. He is too far "run down" to be wound up in a very short time. We enjoyed our return to our comfortable house, and, perhaps, that freshness of home was the chief gain from our absence. You see, to counterbalance all the great and good things that life has given us beyond what our fellows have, we hardly know now what it is to be free from bodily _malaise_. After the notion I have given you of my health you will not wonder if I say that I don't know when anything of mine will appear. I can never reckon on myself. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _March 7._--I am reading Mill's "Logic" again. Theocritus still, and English History and Law. _March 17._--To St. James's Hall hearing Joachim, Piatti, and Hallé in glorious Beethoven music. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th April, 1866.] Don't think any evil of me for not writing. Just now the days are short, and art is long to artists with feeble bodies. If people don't say expressly that they want anything from me, I easily conclude that they will do better without me, and have a good weight of idleness, or, rather, bodily fatigue, which puts itself into the scale of modesty. I torment myself less with fruitless regrets that my particular life has not been more perfect. The young things are growing, and to me it is not melancholy but joyous that the world will be brighter after I am gone than it has been in the brief time of my existence. You see my pen runs into very old reflections. The fact is, I have no details to tell that would much interest you. It is true that I am going to bring out another book, but just _when_ is not certain. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 10th April, 1866.] The happiness in your letter was delightful to me, as you guessed it would be. See how much better things may turn out for all mankind, since they mend for single mortals even in this confused state of the bodies social and politic. As soon as we can leave we shall go away, probably to Germany, for six weeks or so. But that will not be till June. I am finishing a book which has been growing slowly, like a sickly child, because of my own ailments; but now I am in the later acts of it I can't move till it is done. You know all the news, public and private--all about the sad cattle plague, and the reform bill, and who is going to be married and who is dead--so I need tell you nothing. You will find the English world extremely like what it was when you left it--conversation more or less trivial and insincere, literature just now not much better, and politics worse than either. Bring some sincerity and energy to make a little draught of pure air in your particular world. I shall expect you to be a heroine in the best sense, now you are happier after a time of suffering. See what a talent I have for telling other people to be good! We are getting patriarchal, and think of old age and death as journeys not far off. All knowledge, all thought, all achievement seems more precious and enjoyable to me than it ever was before in life. But as soon as one has found the key of life, "it opes the gates of death." Youth has not learned the _art_ of living, and we go on bungling till our experience can only serve us for a very brief space. That is the "external order" we must submit to. I am too busy to write except when I am tired, and don't know very well what to say, so you must not be surprised if I write in a dreamy way. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _April 21._--Sent MS. of two volumes to Blackwood. _April 25._--Blackwood has written to offer me £5000 for "Felix Holt." I have been ailing, and uncertain in my strokes, and yesterday got no further than p. 52 of Vol. III. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th April, 1866.] It is a great pleasure to me to be writing to you again, as in the old days. After your kind letters, I am chiefly anxious that the publication of "Felix Holt" may be a satisfaction to you from beginning to end. Mr. Lewes writes about other business matters, so I will only say that I am desirous to have the proofs as soon and as rapidly as will be practicable. They will require correcting with great care, and there are large spaces in the day when I am unable to write, in which I could be attending to my proofs. I think I ought to tell you that I have consulted a legal friend about my law, to guard against errors. The friend is a Chancery barrister, who "ought to know." After I had written the first volume, I applied to him, and he has since read through my MS. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 27th April, 1866.] How very good it was of you to write me a letter which is a guarantee to me of the pleasantest kind that I have made myself understood. The tone of the prevalent literature just now is not encouraging to a writer who at least wishes to be serious and sincere; and, owing to my want of health, a great deal of this book has been written under so much depression as to its practical effectiveness that I have sometimes been ready to give it up. Your letter has made me feel, more strongly than any other testimony, that it would have been a pity if I had listened to the tempter Despondency. I took a great deal of pains to get a true idea of the period. My own recollections of it are childish, and of course disjointed, but they help to illuminate my reading. I went through the _Times_ of 1832-33 at the British Museum, to be sure of as many details as I could. It is amazing what strong language was used in those days, especially about the Church. "Bloated pluralists," "Stall-fed dignitaries," etc., are the sort of phrases conspicuous. There is one passage of prophecy which I longed to quote, but I thought it wiser to abstain. "Now, the beauty of the Reform Bill is that, under its mature operation, the people must and will become free agents"--a prophecy which I hope is true, only the maturity of the operation has not arrived yet. Mr. Lewes is well satisfied with the portion of the third volume already written; and, as I am better in health just now, I hope to go on with spirit, especially with the help of your cordial sympathy. I trust you will see, when it comes, that the third volume is the natural issue prepared for by the first and second. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 27th April, 1866.] A thousand thanks for your note. Do not worry yourself so much about those two questions that you will be forced to hate me. On Tuesday next we are to go to Dorking for probably a fortnight. I wished you to read the first hundred pages of my third volume; but I fear now that I must be content to wait and send you a duplicate proof of a chapter or two that are likely to make a lawyer shudder by their poetic license. Please to be in great distress sometime for want of my advice, and tease me considerably to get it, that I may prove my grateful memory of these days. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th April, 1866.] To-morrow we go--Mr. Lewes's bad health driving us--to Dorking, where everything will reach me as quickly as in London. I am in a horrible fidget about certain points which I want to be sure of in correcting my proofs. They are chiefly two questions. I wish to know, 1. Whether, in Napoleon's war with England, after the breaking-up of the Treaty of Amiens, the seizure and imprisonment of civilians was exceptional, or whether it was continued throughout the war? 2. Whether, in 1833, in the case of transportation to one of the colonies, when the sentence did not involve hard labor, the sentenced person might be at large on his arrival in the colony? It is possible you may have some one near at hand who will answer these questions. I am sure you will help me if you can, and will sympathize in my anxiety not to have even an allusion that involves practical impossibilities. One can never be perfectly accurate, even with one's best effort, but the effort must be made. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _May 31._--Finished "Felix Holt." The manuscript bears the following inscription: "From George Eliot to her dear Husband, this thirteenth year of their united life, in which the deepening sense of her own imperfectness has the consolation of their deepening love." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 5th June, 1866.] My last hope of seeing you before we start has vanished. I find that the things urged upon me to be done in addition to my own small matters of preparation will leave me no time to enjoy anything that I should have chosen if I had been at leisure. Last Thursday only I finished writing, in a state of nervous excitement that had been making my head throb and my heart palpitate all the week before. As soon as I had finished I felt well. You know how we had counted on a parting sight of you; and I should have particularly liked to see Emily and witness the good effect of Derbyshire. But send us a word or two if you can, just to say how you _all three_ are. We start on Thursday evening for Brussels. Then to Antwerp, the Hague, and Amsterdam. Out of Holland we are to find our way to Schwalbach. Let your love go with us, as mine will hover about you and all yours--that group of three which the word "Wandsworth" always means for us. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th June, 1866.] I finished writing ("Felix Holt") on the last day of May, after days and nights of throbbing and palpitation--chiefly, I suppose, from a nervous excitement which I was not strong enough to support well. As soon as I had done I felt better, and have been a new creature ever since, though a little overdone with visits from friends and attention (_miserabile dictu!_) to petticoats, etc. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 6th June, 1866.] I can't help being a little vexed that the course of things hinders my having the great delight of seeing you again, during this visit to town. Now that my mind is quite free, I don't know anything I should have chosen sooner than to have a long, long quiet day with you. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _June 7._--Set off on our journey to Holland. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 25th June, 1866, from Schwalbach.] I wish you could know how idle I feel, how utterly disinclined to anything but mere self-indulgence; because that knowledge would enable you to estimate the affection and anxiety which prompt me to write in spite of disinclination. June is so far gone, that by the time you get this letter you will surely have some result of the examination to tell me of; and I can't bear to deprive myself of that news by not letting you know where we are. "In Paradise," George says; but the Paradise is in the fields and woods of beech and fir, where we walk in uninterrupted solitude in spite of the excellent roads and delightful resting-places, which seem to have been prepared for visitors in general. The promenade, where the ladies--chiefly Russian and German, with only a small sprinkling of English and Americans--display their ornamental petticoats and various hats, is only the outskirt of Paradise; but we amuse ourselves there for an hour or so in the early morning and evening, listening to the music and learning the faces of our neighbors. There is a deficiency of men, children, and dogs, otherwise the winding walks, the luxuriant trees and grass, and the abundant seats of the promenade have every charm one can expect at a German bath. We arrived here last Thursday, after a fortnight spent in Belgium and Holland; and we still fall to interjections of delight whenever we walk out--first at the beauty of the place, and next at our own happiness in not having been frightened away from it by the predictions of travellers and hotel-keepers, that we should find no one here--that the Prussians would break up the railways, etc., etc.--Nassau being one of the majority of small states who are against Prussia. I fear we are a little in danger of becoming like the Bürger in "Faust," and making it too much the entertainment of our holiday to have a "Gespräch von Krieg und Kriegsgeschrei Wenn hinten, weit, in der Türkei, Die Völker auf einander schlagen." Idle people are so eager for newspapers that tell them of other people's energetic enthusiasm! A few soldiers are quartered here, and we see them wisely using their leisure to drink at the Brunnen. They are the only suggestion of war that meets our eyes among these woody hills. Already we feel great benefit from our quiet journeying and repose. George is looking remarkably well, and seems to have nothing the matter with him. You know how magically quick his recoveries seem. I am too refined to say anything about our excellent quarters and good meals; but one detail, I know, will touch your sympathy. We dine in our own room! It would have marred the _Kur_ for me if I had had every day to undergo a _table d'hôte_ where almost all the guests are English, presided over by the British chaplain. Please don't suspect me of being scornful towards my fellow countrymen or women: the fault is all mine that I am miserably _gênée_ by the glances of strange eyes. We want news from you to complete our satisfaction, and no one can give it but yourself. Send us as many matter-of-fact details as you have the patience to write. We shall not be here after the 4th, but at Schlangenbad. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d Aug. 1866.] We got home last night, after a rough passage from Ostend. You have been so continually a recurrent thought to me ever since I had your letter at Schwalbach, that it is only natural I should write to you as soon as I am at my old desk again. The news of Mr. Congreve's examination being over made me feel for several days that something had happened which caused me unusual lightness of heart. I would not dwell on the possibility of your having to leave Wandsworth, which, I know, would cause you many sacrifices. I clung solely to the great, cheering fact that a load of anxiety had been lifted from Mr. Congreve's mind. May we not put in a petition for some of his time now? And will he not come with you and Emily to dine with us next week, on any day except Wednesday and Friday? The dinner-hour seems more propitious for talk and enjoyment than lunch-time; but in all respects choose what will best suit your health and habits--only let us see you. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 4th Aug. 1866.] We returned from our health-seeking journey on Thursday evening, and your letter was the most delightful thing that awaited me at home. Be sure it will be much read and meditated; and may I not take it as an earnest that your help, which has already done so much for me, will be continued? I mean, that you will help me by your thoughts and your sympathy--not that you will be teased with my proofs. I meant to write you a long letter about the æsthetic problem; but Mr. Lewes, who is still tormented with headachy effects from our rough passage, comes and asks me to walk to Hampstead with him, so I send these hasty lines. Come and see us soon. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Aug. 1866.] We got home on Thursday evening, and are still feeling some unpleasant effects from our very rough passage--an inconvenience which we had waited some days at Ostend to avoid. But the wind took no notice of us, and went on blowing. I was much pleased with the handsome appearance of the three volumes which were lying ready for me. My hatred of bad paper and bad print, and my love of their opposites, naturally get stronger as my eyes get weaker; and certainly that taste could hardly be better gratified than it is by Messrs. Blackwood & Sons. Colonel Hamley's volume is another example of that fact. It lies now on my revolving desk as one of the books I mean first to read. I am really grateful to have such a medium of knowledge, and I expect it to make some pages of history much less dim to me. My impression of Colonel Hamley, when we had that pleasant dinner at Greenwich, and afterwards when he called in Blandford Square, was quite in keeping with the high opinion you express. Mr. Lewes liked the article on "Felix" in the Magazine very much. He read it the first thing yesterday morning, and told me it was written in a nice spirit, and the extracts judiciously made. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Aug. 1866.] I have had a delightful holiday, and find my double self very much the better for it. We made a great round in our journeying. From Antwerp to Rotterdam, the Hague, Leyden, Amsterdam, Cologne; then up the Rhine to Coblentz, and thence to Schwalbach, where we stayed a fortnight. From Schwalbach to Schlangenbad, where we stayed till we feared the boats would cease to go to and fro; and, in fact, only left just in time to get down the Rhine to Bonn by the Dutch steamer. From Bonn, after two days, we went to Aix; then to dear old Liége, where we had been together thirteen years before; and, to avoid the King of the Belgians, ten minutes backwards to the baths of pretty Chaudfontaine, where we remained three days. Then to Louvain, Ghent, and Bruges; and, last of all, to Ostend, where we waited for a fine day and calm sea, until we secured--a very rough passage indeed. Ought we not to be a great deal wiser and more efficient personages, or else to be ashamed of ourselves? Unhappily, this last alternative is not a compensation for wisdom. I thought of you--to mention one occasion among many--when we had the good fortune, at Antwerp, to see a placard announcing that the company from the Ober-Ammergau, Bavaria, would represent, that Sunday evening, the _Lebensgeschichte_ of our Saviour Christ, at the Théatre des Variétés. I remembered that you had seen the representation with deep interest--and these actors are doubtless the successors of those you saw. Of course we went to the theatre. And the Christ was, without exaggeration, beautiful. All the rest was inferior, and might even have had a painful approach to the ludicrous; but both the person and the action of the Jesus were fine enough to overpower all meaner impressions. Mr. Lewes, who, you know, is keenly alive to everything "stagey" in physiognomy and gesture, felt what I am saying quite as much as I did, and was much moved. Rotterdam, with the grand approach to it by the broad river; the rich red brick of the houses; the canals, uniformly planted with trees, and crowded with the bright brown masts of the Dutch boats--is far finer than Amsterdam. The color of Amsterdam is ugly; the houses are of a chocolate color, almost black (an artificial tinge given to the bricks), and the woodwork on them screams out in ugly patches of cream-color; the canals have no trees along their sides, and the boats are infrequent. We looked about for the very Portuguese synagogue where Spinoza was nearly assassinated as he came from worship. But it no longer exists. There are no less than three Portuguese synagogues now--very large and handsome. And in the evening we went to see the worship there. Not a woman was present, but of devout men not a few--a curious reversal of what one sees in other temples. The chanting and the swaying about of the bodies--almost a wriggling--are not beautiful to the sense; but I fairly cried at witnessing this faint symbolism of a religion of sublime, far-off memories. The skulls of St. Ursula's eleven thousand virgins seem a modern suggestion compared with the Jewish Synagogue. At Schwalbach and Schlangenbad our life was led chiefly in the beech woods, which we had all to ourselves, the guests usually confining themselves to the nearer promenades. The guests, of course, were few in that serious time; and between war and cholera we felt our position as health--and pleasure--seekers somewhat contemptible. There is no end to what one could say, if one did not feel that long letters cut pieces not to be spared out of the solid day. I think I have earned that you should write me one of those perfect letters in which you make me see everything you like about yourself and others. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Aug. 30._--I have taken up the idea of my drama, "The Spanish Gypsy," again, and am reading on Spanish subjects--Bouterwek, Sismondi, Depping, Llorante, etc. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 15th Aug. 1866.] I have read several times your letter of the 19th, which I found awaiting me on my return, and I shall read it many times again. Pray do not even say, or inwardly suspect, that anything you take the trouble to write to me will not be valued. On the contrary, please to imagine as well as you can the experience of a mind morbidly desponding, of a consciousness tending more and more to consist in memories of error and imperfection rather than in a strengthening sense of achievement--and then consider how such a mind must need the support of sympathy and approval from those who are capable of understanding its aims. I assure you your letter is an evidence of a fuller understanding than I have ever had expressed to me before. And if I needed to give emphasis to this simple statement, I should suggest to you all the miseries one's obstinate egoism endures from the fact of being a writer of novels--books which the dullest and silliest reader thinks himself competent to deliver an opinion on. But I despise myself for feeling any annoyance at these trivial things. That is a tremendously difficult problem which you have laid before me; and I think you see its difficulties, though they can hardly press upon you as they do on me, who have gone through again and again the severe effort of trying to make certain ideas thoroughly incarnate, as if they had revealed themselves to me first in the flesh and not in the spirit. I think æsthetic teaching is the highest of all teaching, because it deals with life in its highest complexity. But if it ceases to be purely æsthetic--if it lapses anywhere from the picture to the diagram--it becomes the most offensive of all teaching. Avowed Utopias are not offensive, because they are understood to have a scientific and expository character: they do not pretend to work on the emotions, or couldn't do it if they did pretend. I am sure, from your own statement, that you see this quite clearly. Well, then, consider the sort of agonizing labor to an English-fed imagination to make out a sufficiently real background for the desired picture--to get breathing, individual forms, and group them in the needful relations, so that the presentation will lay hold on the emotions as human experience--will, as you say, "flash" conviction on the world by means of aroused sympathy. I took unspeakable pains in preparing to write "Romola"--neglecting nothing I could find that would help me to what I may call the "idiom" of Florence, in the largest sense one could stretch the word to; and then I was only trying to give _some_ out of the normal relations. I felt that the necessary idealization could only be attained by adopting the clothing of the past. And again, it is my way (rather too much so, perhaps) to urge the human sanctities through tragedy--through pity and terror, as well as admiration and delight. I only say all this to show the tenfold arduousness of such a work as the one your problem demands. On the other hand, my whole soul goes with your desire that it should be done; and I shall at least keep the great possibility (or impossibility) perpetually in my mind, as something towards which I must strive, though it may be that I can do so only in a fragmentary way. At present I am going to take up again a work which I laid down before writing "Felix." It is--_but, please, let this be a secret between ourselves_--an attempt at a drama, which I put aside at Mr. Lewes's request, after writing four acts, precisely because it was in that stage of creation--or _Werden_--in which the idea of the characters predominates over the incarnation. Now I read it again, I find it impossible to abandon it; the conceptions move me deeply, and they have never been wrought out before. There is not a thought or symbol that I do not long to use: but the whole requires recasting; and, as I never recast anything before, I think of the issue very doubtfully. When one has to work out the dramatic action for one's self, under the inspiration of an idea, instead of having a grand myth or an Italian novel ready to one's hand, one feels anything but omnipotent. Not that I should have done any better if I had had the myth or the novel, for I am not a good user of opportunities. I think I have the right _locus_ and historic conditions, but much else is wanting. I have not, of course, said half what I meant to say; but I hope opportunities of exchanging thoughts will not be wanting between us. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Sept. 1866.] It is so long since we exchanged letters, that I feel inclined to break the silence by telling you that I have been reading with much interest the "Operations of War," which you enriched me with. Also that I have had a pretty note, in aged handwriting, from Dean Ramsay, with a present of his "Reminiscences of Scottish Life." I suppose you know him quite well, but I never heard you mention him. Also--what will amuse you--that my readers take quite a tender care of my text, writing to me to tell me of a misprint, or of "one phrase" which they entreat to have altered, that no blemish may disfigure "Felix." Dr. Althaus has sent me word of a misprint which I am glad to know of--or, rather, of a word slipped out in the third volume. "She _saw_ streaks of light, etc. ... _and_ sounds." It must be corrected when the opportunity comes. We are very well, and I am swimming in Spanish history and literature. I feel as if I were molesting you with a letter without any good excuse, but you are not bound to write again until a wet day makes golf impossible, and creates a dreariness in which even letter-writing seems like a recreation. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 11th Sept. 1866.] I am glad to know that Dean Ramsay is a friend of yours. His sympathy was worth having, and I at once wrote to thank him. Another wonderfully lively old man--Sir Henry Holland--came to see me about two Sundays ago, to bid me good-bye before going on an excursion to--North America!--and to tell me that he had just been re-reading "Adam Bede" for the fourth time. "I often read in it, you know, besides. But this is the fourth time quite through." I, of course, with the mother's egoism on behalf of the youngest born, was jealous for "Felix." Is there any possibility of satisfying an author? But one or two things that George read out to me from an article in _Macmillan's Magazine_, by Mr. Mozley, did satisfy me. And yet I sicken again with despondency under the sense that the most carefully written books lie, both outside and inside people's minds, deep undermost in a heap of trash. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Sept. 15._--Finished Depping's "Juifs au Moyen Âge." Reading Chaucer, to study English. Also reading on Acoustics, Musical Instruments, etc. _Oct. 15._--Recommenced "The Spanish Gypsy," intending to give it a new form. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1866.] For a wonder I remembered the day of the month, and felt a delightful confidence that I should have a letter from her who always remembers such things at the right moment. You will hardly believe in my imbecility. I can never be quite sure whether your birthday is the 21st or the 23d. I know every one must think the worse of me for this want of retentiveness that seems a part of affection; and it is only justice that they should. Nevertheless I am not quite destitute of lovingness and gratitude, and perhaps the consciousness of my own defect makes me feel your goodness the more keenly. I shall reckon it part of the next year's happiness for me if it brings a great deal of happiness to you. That will depend somewhat--perhaps chiefly--on the satisfaction you have in giving shape to your ideas. But you say nothing on that subject. We knew about Faraday's preaching, but not of his loss of faculty. I begin to think of such things as very near to me--I mean, decay of power and health. But I find age has its fresh elements of cheerfulness. Bless you, dear Sara, for all the kindness of many years, and for the newest kindness that comes to me this morning. I am very well now, and able to enjoy my happiness. One has happiness sometimes without being able to enjoy it. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Nov. 22._--Reading Renan's "Histoire des Langues Sémitiques"--Ticknor's "Spanish Literature." _Dec. 6._--We returned from Tunbridge Wells, where we have been for a week. I have been reading Cornewall Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients," Ockley's "History of the Saracens," "Astronomical Geography," and Spanish ballads on Bernardo del Carpio. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th Dec. 1866.] We have been to Tunbridge Wells for a week, hoping to get plenty of fresh air, and walking in that sandy, undulating country. But for three days it rained incessantly. No; I don't feel as if my faculties were failing me. On the contrary, I enjoy all subjects--all study--more than I ever did in my life before. But that very fact makes me more in need of resignation to the certain approach of age and death. Science, history, poetry--I don't know which draws me most, and there is little time left me for any one of them. I learned Spanish last year but one, and see new vistas everywhere. That makes me think of time thrown away when I was young--time that I should be so glad of now. I could enjoy everything, from arithmetic to antiquarianism, if I had large spaces of life before me. But instead of that I have a very small space. Unfeigned, unselfish, cheerful resignation is difficult. But I strive to get it. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Dec. 11._--Ill ever since I came home, so that the days seem to have made a muddy flood, sweeping away all labor and all growth. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Dec. 1866.] Just before we received Dr. Congreve's letter we had changed our plans. George's increasing weakness and the more and more frequent intervals in which he became unable to work, made me at last urge him to give up the idea of "finishing," which often besets us vainly. It will really be better for the work as well as for himself that he should let it wait. However, I care about nothing just now except that he should be doing all he can to get better. So we start next Thursday for Bordeaux, staying two days in Paris on our way. Madame Mohl writes us word that she hears from friends of the delicious weather--mild, sunny weather--to be had now on the French southwestern and southeastern coast. You will all wish us well on our journey, I know. But _I_ wish I could carry a happier thought about you than that of your being an invalid. I shall write to you when we are at Biarritz or some other place that suits us, and when I have something good to tell. No; in any case I shall write, because I shall want to hear all about you. Tell Dr. Congreve we carry the "Politique" with us. Mr. Lewes gets more and more impressed by it, and also by what he is able to understand of the "Synthèse." I am writing in the dark. Farewell. With best love to Emily, and dutiful regards to Dr. Congreve. [Sidenote: Journal, 1866.] _Dec. 27._--Set off in the evening on our journey to the south. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1866, TO DECEMBER, 1866. Letters to Frederic Harrison on Industrial Co-operation--Consults him about law in "Felix Holt"--Asks his opinion on other questions--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Visit to Tunbridge Wells--Reading Comte's "Synthèse"--Letter to F. Harrison on "case" for "Felix Holt"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Joy in the world getting better--Letter to Madame Bodichon--"Felix Holt" growing like a sickly child--Want of sincerity in England--Desire for knowledge increases--Blackwood offers £5000 for "Felix Holt"--Letters to John Blackwood renewing correspondence--Thanks for encouragement--Painstaking with "Felix Holt"--Letter to F. Harrison on legal points--The book finished--Inscription--Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Excitement of finishing "Felix Holt"--Journey to Holland and Germany--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Schwalbach--Return to the Priory--Letter to F. Harrison asking for sympathy--Letter to John Blackwood--Colonel Hamley--Letter to Miss Hennell describing German trip--Miracle play at Antwerp--Amsterdam synagogue--Takes up drama "The Spanish Gypsy" again--Reading on Spanish subjects--Letter to F. Harrison--Need of sympathy--Æsthetic teaching--Tells him of the proposed drama--Letters to John Blackwood--Dean Ramsay--Sir Henry Holland--Article on "Felix Holt" in _Macmillan's Magazine_--"The Spanish Gypsy" recommenced--Reading Renan's "Histoire des Langues Sémitiques" and Ticknor's "Spanish Literature"--Visit to Tunbridge Wells for a week--Reading Cornewall Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients"--Ockley's "History of the Saracens," and Spanish Ballads--Letter to Miss Hennell--Enjoyment of study--Depression--Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve--Set off on journey to Spain. END OF VOL. II. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious typographical errors were repaired. Duplicate sidenotes (repeated at the top of continuation pages) were deleted. Latin-1 file: _underscores_ enclose italicized content. Sidenote at the bottom of p. 215, and repeated on continuation p. 216, "Letter to Miss Sara Hennell"--p. 215 sidenote (retained) shows "18th April," but continuation sidenote on p. 216 (deleted) shows "13th April." Sidenote p. 227, "Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1861"--original reads "1860." 
43045	----	Transcriber's Note: This is Volume III 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. III.--SUNSET "OUR FINEST HOPE IS FINEST MEMORY" [Illustration: No. 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.] 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 III 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. III. CHAPTER XIV. JANUARY, 1867, TO DECEMBER, 1867. Tour in Spain Page 1 CHAPTER XV. JANUARY, 1868, TO DECEMBER, 1868. "The Spanish Gypsy" 24 CHAPTER XVI. JANUARY, 1869, TO DECEMBER, 1872. Poems--"Middlemarch" 55 CHAPTER XVII. JANUARY, 1873, TO DECEMBER, 1875. "Brewing," "Deronda" 138 CHAPTER XVIII. MARCH, 1876, TO NOVEMBER, 1878. "Daniel Deronda"--Illness and Death of Mr. Lewes 197 CHAPTER XIX. JANUARY, 1879, TO 22D DECEMBER, 1880. "Theophrastus Such"--Marriage with Mr. Cross--Death 249 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. III. NO. 4 CHEYNE WALK, CHELSEA _Frontispiece._ THE HEIGHTS, WITLEY. From a Sketch by Mrs. Allingham _To face p. 216._ GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. CHAPTER XIV. The new year of 1867 opens with the description of the journey to Spain. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Jan. 1867, from Bordeaux.] We prolonged our stay in Paris in order to see Madame Mohl, who was very good to us; invited the Scherers and other interesting people to meet us at dinner on the 29th, and tempted us to stay and breakfast with her on the 31st, by promising to invite Renan, which she did successfully, and so procured us a bit of experience that we were glad to have, over and above the pleasure of seeing a little more of herself and M. Mohl. I like them both, and wish there were a chance of knowing them better. We paid for our pleasure by being obliged to walk in the rain (from the impossibility of getting a carriage) all the way from the Rue de Rivoli--where a charitable German printer, who had taken us up in his _fiacre_, was obliged to set us down--to the Hôtel du Helder, through streets literally jammed with carriages and omnibuses, carrying people who were doing the severe social duties of the last day in the year. The rain it raineth every day, with the exception of yesterday; we can't travel away from it, apparently. But we start in desperation for Bayonne in half an hour. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Jan. 1867, from Biarritz.] Snow on the ground here, too--more, we are told, than has been seen here for fifteen years before. But it has been obliging enough to fall in the night, and the sky is glorious this morning, as it was yesterday. Sunday was the one exception since the 6th, when we arrived here to a state of weather which has allowed us to be out of doors the greater part of our daylight. We think it curious that, among the many persons who have talked to us about Biarritz, the Brownings alone have ever spoken of its natural beauties; yet these are transcendent. We agree that the sea never seemed so magnificent to us before, though we have seen the Atlantic breaking on the rocks at Ilfracombe and on the great granite walls of the Scilly Isles. In the southern division of the bay we see the sun set over the Pyrenees; and in the northern we have two splendid stretches of sand, one with huge fragments of dark rock scattered about for the waves to leap over, the other an unbroken level, firm to the feet, where the hindmost line of wave sends up its spray on the horizon like a suddenly rising cloud. This part of the bay is worthily called the Chambre de l'Amour; and we have its beauties all to ourselves, which, alas! in this stage of the world, one can't help feeling to be an advantage. The few families and bachelors who are here (chiefly English) scarcely ever come across our path. The days pass so rapidly, we can hardly believe in their number when we come to count them. After breakfast we both read the "Politique"--George one volume and I another--interrupting each other continually with questions and remarks. That morning study keeps me in a state of enthusiasm through the day--a moral glow, which is a sort of _milieu subjectif_ for the sublime sea and sky. Mr. Lewes is converted to the warmest admiration of the chapter on language in the third volume, which about three years ago he thought slightly of. I think the first chapter of the fourth volume is among the finest of all, and the most finely written. My gratitude increases continually for the illumination Comte has contributed to my life. But we both of us study with a sense of having still much to learn and to understand. About ten or half-past ten we go out for our morning walk; and then, while we plunge about in the sand or march along the cliff, George draws out a book and tries my paces in Spanish, demanding a quick-as-light translation of nouns and phrases. Presently I retort upon him, and prove that it is easier to ask than to answer. We find this system of _vivâ-voce_ mutual instruction so successful that we are disgusted with ourselves for not having used it before through all our many years of companionship; and we are making projects for giving new interest to Regent's Park by pursuing all sorts of studies in the same way there. We seldom come indoors till one o'clock, and we turn out again at three, often remaining to see the sunset. One other thing I have been reading here which I must tell you of. It is a series of three papers by Saveney, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of last year, on "La Physique Moderne," an excellent summary, giving a glimpse of the great vista opened in that region. I think you would like to read them when you are strong enough for that sort of exertion. We stayed three days in Paris, and passed our time very agreeably. The first day we dined with Madame Mohl, who had kindly invited Professor Scherer and his wife, Jules Simon, Lomenie, Lavergne, "and others" to meet us. That was on the Saturday, and she tempted us to stay the following Monday by saying she would invite Renan to breakfast with us. Renan's appearance is something between the Catholic priest and the dissenting minister. His manners are very amiable, his talk pleasant, but not distinguished. We are entertaining great projects as to our further journeying. It will be best for you to address _Poste Restante_, Barcelona. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d Feb. 1867.] Are you astonished to see our whereabouts? We left Biarritz for San Sebastian, where we stayed three days; and both there and all our way to Barcelona our life has been a succession of delights. We have had perfect weather, blue skies, and a warm sun. We travelled from San Sebastian to Saragossa, where we passed two nights; then to Lerida for one night, and yesterday to Barcelona. You know the scenery from San Sebastian to Alsasua, through the lower Pyrenees, because it lies on the way to Burgos and Madrid. At Alsasua we turned off through Navarre into Aragon, seeing famous Pampeluna, looking as beautiful as it did ages ago among the grand hills. At Saragossa the scene was thoroughly changed; all through Aragon, as far as we could see, I should think the country resembles the highlands of Central Spain. There is the most striking effect of hills, flanking the plain of Saragossa, I ever saw. They are of palish clay, washed by the rains into undulating forms, and some slight herbage upon them makes the shadows of an exquisite blue. These hills accompanied us in the distance all the way through Aragon, the snowy mountains topping them in the far distance. The land is all pale brown, the numerous towns and villages just match the land, and so do the sheepfolds, built of mud or stone. The herbage is all of an ashy green. Perhaps if I had been in Africa I should say, as you do, that the country reminded me of Africa; as it is, I think of all I have read about the East. The men who look on while others work at Saragossa also seem to belong to the East, with a great striped blanket wrapped grandly round them, and a kerchief tied about their hair. But though Aragon was held by the Moors longer than any part of Northern Spain, the features and skins of the people seem to me to bear less traces of the mixture there must have been than one would fairly expect. Saragossa has a grand character still, in spite of the stucco with which the people have daubed the beautiful small brick of which the houses are built. Here and there one sees a house left undesecrated by stucco; and all of them have the fluted tiles and the broad eaves beautifully ornamented. Again, one side of the old cathedral still shows the exquisite inlaid work which, in the _façade_, has been overlaid hideously. Gradually, as we left Aragon and entered Catalonia, the face of the country changed, and we had almost every sort of beauty in succession; last of all, between Monserrat and Barcelona, a perfect garden, with the richest red soil--blossoms on the plum and cherry trees, aloes thick in the hedges. At present we are waiting for the Spanish hardships to begin. Even at Lerida, a place scarcely at all affected by foreign travellers, we were perfectly comfortable--and such sights! The people scattered on the brown slopes of rough earth round the fortress--the women knitting, etc., the men playing at cards, one wonderful, gaudily dressed group; another of handsome gypsies. We are actually going by steam-boat to Alicante, and from Alicante to Malaga. Then we mean to see Granada, Cordova, and Seville. We shall only stay here a few days--if this weather continues. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 18th Feb. 1867, from Granada.] Your kind letter, written on the 5th, reached me here this morning. I had not heard of the criticism in the _Edinburgh_. Mr. Lewes read the article, but did not tell me of the reviewer's legal wisdom, thinking that it would only vex me to no purpose. However, I had felt sure that something of that sort must have appeared in one review article or another. I am heartily glad and grateful that you have helped justice in general, as well as justice to me in particular, by getting the vindication written for the _Pall Mall_. It was the best possible measure to adopt. Since we left Barcelona, a fortnight ago, we have seen no English papers, so that we have been in the dark as to English news. Were you not surprised to hear that we had come so far? The journey from San Sebastian by Saragossa and Lerida turned out to be so easy and delightful that we ceased to tremble, and determined to carry out our project of going by steamer to Alicante and Malaga. You cannot do better than follow our example; I mean, so far as coming to Spain is concerned. Believe none of the fictions that bookmakers get printed about the horrors of Spanish hotels and cookery, or the hardships of Spanish travel--still less about the rudeness of Spaniards. It is true that we have not yet endured the long railway journeys through Central Spain, but wherever we have been hitherto we have found nothing formidable, even for our rickety bodies. We came hither from Malaga in the _berlina (coupé)_ of the diligence, and have assured ourselves that Mr. Blackburne's description of a supposed hen-roost, overturned in the Alameda at Malaga, which proved to be the Granada diligence, is an invention. The vehicle is comfortable enough, and the road is perfect; and at the end of it we have found ourselves in one of the loveliest scenes on earth. We shall remain here till the 23d, and then go to Cordova first, to Seville next, and finally to Madrid, making our way homeward from thence by easy stages. We expect to be in the smoky haze of London again soon after the middle of March, if not before. I wish I could believe that you were all having anything like the clear skies and warm sun which have cheered our journeying for the last month. At Alicante we walked among the palm-trees with their golden fruit hanging in rich clusters, and felt a more delightful warmth than that of an English summer. Last night we walked out and saw the towers of the Alhambra, the wide Vega, and the snowy mountains, by the brilliant moonlight. You see, we are getting a great deal of pleasure, but we are not working, as you seem charitably to imagine. We tire ourselves, but only with seeing or going to see unforgetable things. You will say that we ought to work to better purpose when we get home. Amen. But just now we read nothing but Spanish novels--and not much of those. We said good-bye to philosophy and science when we packed up our trunks at Biarritz. Please keep some friendship warm for us, that we may not be too much chilled by the English weather when we get back. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1867.] We are both heartily rejoiced that we came to Spain. It was a great longing of mine, for, three years ago, I began to interest myself in Spanish history and literature, and have had a work lying by me, partly written, the subject of which is connected with Spain. Whether I shall ever bring it to maturity so as to satisfy myself sufficiently to print it is a question not settled; but it is a work very near my heart. We have had perfect weather ever since the 27th of January--magnificent skies and a summer sun. At Alicante, walking among the palm-trees, with the bare brown rocks and brown houses in the background, we fancied ourselves in the tropics; and a gentleman who travelled with us assured us that the aspect of the country closely resembled Aden, on the Red Sea. Here, at Granada, of course, it is much colder, but the sun shines uninterruptedly; and in the middle of the day, to stand in the sunshine against a wall, reminds me of my sensations at Florence in the beginning of June. The aspect of Granada as we first approached it was a slight disappointment to me, but the beauty of its position can hardly be surpassed. To stand on one of the towers of the Alhambra and see the sun set behind the dark mountains of Loja, and send its after-glow on the white summits of the Sierra Nevada, while the lovely Vega spreads below, ready to yield all things pleasant to the eye and good for food, is worth a very long, long journey. We shall start to-morrow evening for Cordova; then we shall go to Seville, back to Cordova, and on to Madrid. During our short stay in Paris we went a little into society, and saw, among other people who interested us, Professor Scherer, of whom you know something. He charmed me greatly. He is a Genevese, you know, and does not talk in ready-made epigrams, like a clever Frenchman, but with well-chosen, moderate words, intended to express what he really thinks and feels. He is highly cultivated; and his wife, who was with him, is an Englishwoman of refined, simple manners. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 10th Mch. 1867, from Biarritz.] At Biarritz again, you see, after our long, delightful journey, in which we have made a great loop all round the east and through the centre of Spain. Mr. Lewes says he thinks he never enjoyed a journey so much, and you will see him so changed--so much plumper and ruddier--that if pity has entered much into your regard for him he will be in danger of losing something by his bodily prosperity. We crowned our pleasures in Spain with the sight of the pictures in the Madrid gallery. The skies were as blue at Madrid as they had been through the previous part of our journeying, but the air was bitterly cold; and naughty officials receive money for warming the museum, but find other uses for the money. I caught a severe cold the last day of our visit, and, after an uncomfortable day and night's railway journey, arrived at Biarritz, only fit for bed and coddling. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _March 16._--This evening we got home after a journey to the south of Spain. I go to my poem and the construction of two prose works--if possible. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Mch. 1867.] We got home on Saturday evening, after as fine a passage from Calais to Dover as we ever had, even in summer. Your letter was among the pleasant things that smiled at me on my return, and helped to reconcile me to the rather rude transition from summer to winter which we have made in our journey from Biarritz. This morning it is snowing hard and the wind is roaring--a sufficiently sharp contrast to the hot sun, the dust, and the mosquitoes of Seville. We have had a glorious journey. The skies alone, both night and day, were worth travelling all the way to see. We went to Cordova and Seville, but we feared the cold of the central lands in the north, and resisted the temptation to see Toledo, or anything else than the Madrid pictures, which are transcendent. Among the letters awaiting me was one from an American travelling in Europe, who gives me the history of a copy of "Felix Holt," which, he says, has been read by no end of people, and is now on its way through Ireland, "where he found many friends anxious but unable to get it." It seems people nowadays economize in nothing but books. I found also the letter of a "Conveyancer" in the _Pall Mall_, justifying the law of "Felix Holt" in answer to the _Edinburgh_ reviewer. I did not know, before I was told of this letter in reply, that the _Edinburgh_ reviewer had found fault with my law. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _March 21._--Received from Blackwood a check for £2166 13_s._ 4_d._, being the second instalment of £1666 13_s._ 4_d._ towards the £5000 for "Felix Holt," together with £500 as the first instalment of £1000 for ten years' copyright of the cheap edition of my novels. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Mch. 1867.] Your letters, with the valuable enclosure of a check for £2166 13_s._ 4_d._, have come to me this morning, and I am much obliged to you for your punctual attention. I long to see a specimen of the cheap edition of the novels. As to the illustrations, I have adjusted my hopes so as to save myself from any great shock. When I remember my own childish happiness in a frightfully illustrated copy of the "Vicar of Wakefield," I can believe that illustration may be a great good relatively, and that my own present liking has no weight in the question. I fancy that the placarding at railway stations is an effective measure, for Ruskin was never more mistaken than in asserting that people have no spare time to observe anything in such places. I am a very poor reader of advertisements, but even I am forced to get them unpleasantly by heart at the stations. It is rather a vexatious kind of tribute when people write, as my American correspondent did, to tell me of one paper-covered American copy of "Felix Holt" brought to Europe and serving for so many readers that it was in danger of being worn away under their hands. He, good man, finds it easy "to urge greater circulation by means of cheap sale," having "found so many friends in Ireland anxious but unable to obtain the book." I suppose putting it in a yellow cover with figures on it, reminding one of the outside of a show, and charging a shilling for it, is what we are expected to do for the good of mankind. Even then I fear it would hardly bear the rivalry of "The Pretty Milliner," or of "The Horrible Secret." The work connected with Spain is not a romance. It is--prepare your fortitude--it is--a poem. I conceived the plot, and wrote nearly the whole as a drama in 1864. Mr. Lewes advised me to put it by for a time and take it up again, with a view to recasting it. He thinks hopefully of it. I need not tell you that I am _not_ hopeful, but I am quite sure the subject is fine. It is not historic, but has merely historic connections. The plot was wrought out entirely as an incorporation of my own ideas. Of course, if it is ever finished to my satisfaction, it is not a work for us to get money by, but Mr. Lewes urges and insists that it shall be done. I have also my private projects about an English novel, but I am afraid of speaking as if I could depend on myself; at present I am rather dizzy, and not settled down to home habits of regular occupation. I understand that the conveyancer who wrote to the _Pall Mall_ is an excellent lawyer in his department, and the lecturer on Real Property at the Law Institution. If a reviewer ever checked himself by considering that a writer whom he thinks worth praising would take some pains to know the truth about a matter which is the very hinge of said writer's story, review articles would cut a shrunken figure. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _May 5._--We went to Bouverie Street to hear the first of a course of lectures on Positivism, delivered by Dr. Congreve. There were present seventy-five people, chiefly men. _May 11._--We had Mr. and Mrs. Call to dine with us, and an evening party afterwards. _May 12._--We went to hear Dr. Congreve's second lecture. The morning was thoroughly wet; the audience smaller, but still good. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th May, 1867.] Yesterday we went to the second of a course of lectures which Dr. Congreve is delivering on Positivism in Bouverie Street. At the first lecture on the 5th there was a considerable audience--about seventy-five, chiefly men--of various ranks, from lords and M.P.'s downwards, or upwards, for what is called social distinction seems to be in a shifting condition just now. Yesterday the wet weather doubtless helped to reduce the audience; still it was good. Curiosity brings some, interest in the subject others, and the rest go with the wish to express adhesion more or less thorough. I am afraid you have ceased to care much about pictures, else I should wish that you could see the Exhibition of Historical Portraits at Kensington. It is really worth a little fatigue to see the English of past generations in their habit as they lived--especially when Gainsborough and Sir Joshua are the painters. But even Sir Godfrey Kneller delights me occasionally with a finely conceived portrait carefully painted. There is an unforgetable portrait of Newton by him. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _May 27._--Went with G. to the Academy Exhibition. _May 29._--Went to the Exhibition of French Pictures--very agreeable and interesting. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 30th May, 1867.] I do sympathize with you most emphatically in the desire to see women socially elevated--educated equally with men, and secured as far as possible, along with every other breathing creature, from suffering the exercise of any unrighteous power. That is a broader ground of sympathy than agreement as to the amount and kind of result that may be hoped for from a particular measure. But on this special point I am far from thinking myself an oracle, and on the whole I am inclined to hope for much good from the serious presentation of women's claims before Parliament. I thought Mill's speech sober and judicious from his point of view--Karslake's an abomination. _À propos_ of what you say about Mr. Congreve, I think you have mistaken his, or rather Comte's, position. There is no denial of an unknown cause, but only a denial that such a conception is the proper basis of a practical religion. It seems to me pre-eminently desirable that we should learn not to make our personal comfort a standard of truth. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _June 1_ (Saturday).--Wrote up to the moment when Fedalma appears in the Plaça. _June 5._--Blackwood dined with us, and I read to him my poem down to page 56. He showed great delight. _June 26._--We went to Niton for a fortnight, returning July 10. _July 16._--Received £2166 13_s._ 4_d._ from Blackwood, being the final instalment for "Felix Holt," and (£500) copyright for ten years. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th July, 1867.] Again we take flight! To North Germany this time, and chiefly to Dresden, where we shall be accessible through the _Poste Restante_. I am ashamed of saying anything about our health--we are both "objects" for compassion or contempt, according to the disposition of the subject who may contemplate us. Mr. Beesley (I think it was he) sent us Dr. Congreve's pamphlet last night, and I read it aloud to George. We both felt a cordial satisfaction in it. We have been a good deal beset by little engagements with friends and acquaintances lately, and these, with the preparations for our journey, have been rather too much for me. Mr. Lewes is acting on the advice of Sir Henry Holland in giving up zoologizing for the present, because it obliges him to hang down his head. That is the reason we go inland, and not to the coast, as I think I hinted to you that we expected to do. You are sympathetic enough to be glad to hear that we have had thoroughly cheerful and satisfactory letters from both our boys in Natal. They are established in their purchased farm, and are very happy together in their work. Impossible for mortals to have less trouble than we. I should have written to you earlier this week--for we start to-morrow--but that I have been laid prostrate with crushing headache one half of my time, and always going out or seeing some one the other half. Farewell, dear. Don't write unless you have a real desire to gossip with me a little about yourself and our mutual friends. You know I always like to have news of you, but I shall not think it unkind--I shall only think you have other things to do--if you are silent. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _July 29._--We went to Dover this evening as the start on a journey into Germany (North). _Oct. 1._--We returned home after revisiting the scenes of cherished memories--Ilmenau, Dresden, and Berlin. Of new places we have seen Wetzlar, Cassel, Eisenach, and Hanover. At Ilmenau I wrote Fedalma's soliloquy after her scene with Silva, and the following dialogue between her and Juan. At Dresden I rewrote the whole scene between her and Zarca. _Oct. 9._--Reading "Los Judios en Espâna," Percy's "Reliques," "Isis," occasionally aloud. _Oct. 10._--Reading the "Iliad," Book III. Finished "Los Judios en Espâna," a wretchedly poor book. _Oct. 11._--Began again Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella." _Oct. 19._--George returned last evening from a walking expedition in Surrey with Mr. Spencer. This entry is an interesting one to me, as it fixes the date of the first acquaintance with my family. Mr. Herbert Spencer was an old friend of ours, and in the course of their walk he and Mr. Lewes happened to pass through Weybridge, where my mother at that time lived. They came to dinner. Mr. Lewes, with his wonderful social powers, charmed all, and they passed a delightful evening. I was myself in America at the time, where I was in business as a banker at New York. My eldest sister had just then published a little volume of poems,[1] which was kindly received by the press. On the invitation of Mr. Lewes she went shortly afterwards to see George Eliot, then in the zenith of her fame; nor did she ever forget the affectionate manner in which the great author greeted her. This was the beginning of a close friendship between the families, which lasted, and increased in intimacy, to the end. Mr. Spencer, in writing to tell me that it was he who first made Mr. Lewes acquainted with George Eliot, adds, "You will perhaps be struck by the curious coincidence that it was also by me that Lewes was introduced to your family at Weybridge and remoter issues entailed." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Oct. 1867.] Before I got your letter I was about to write to you and direct your attention to an article in the forthcoming (October) number of the _Quarterly Review_, on the Talmud. You really must go out of your way to read it. It is written by one of the greatest Oriental scholars, the man among living men who probably knows the most about the Talmud; and you will appreciate the pregnancy of the article. There are also beautiful, soul-cheering things selected for quotation. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _Oct. 31._--I have now inserted all that I think of for the first part of the "Spanish Gypsy." On Monday I wrote three new Lyrics. I have also rewritten the first scenes in the gypsy camp, to the end of the dialogue between Juan and Fedalma. But I have determined to make the commencement of the second part continue the picture of what goes forward in Bedmar. _Nov. 1._--Began this morning Part II. "Silva was marching homeward," etc. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 9th Nov. 1867.] About putting Fedalma in type. There would be advantages, but also disadvantages; and on these latter I wish to consult you. I have more than three thousand lines ready in the order I wish them to stand in, and it would be good to have them in print to read them critically. Defects reveal themselves more fully in type, and emendations might be more conveniently made on proofs, since I have given up the idea of copying the MS. as a whole. On the other hand, _could the thing be kept private when it had once been in the printing-office_? And I particularly wish not to have it set afloat, for various reasons. Among others, I want to keep myself free from all inducements to premature publication; I mean, publication before I have given my work as much revision as I can hope to give it while my mind is still nursing it. Beyond this, delay would be useless. The theory of laying by poems for nine years may be a fine one, but it could not answer for me to apply it. I could no more live through one of my books a second time than I can live through last year again. But I like to keep checks on myself, and not to create external temptations to do what I should think foolish in another. If you thought it possible to secure us against the oozing out of proofs and gossip, the other objections would be less important. One difficulty is, that in my MS. I have frequently two readings of the same passage, and, being uncertain which of them is preferable, I wish them both to stand for future decision. But perhaps this might be managed in proof. The length of the poem is at present uncertain, but I feel so strongly what Mr. Lewes insists on, namely, the evil of making it too long, that I shall set it before me as a duty not to make it more than nine thousand lines, and shall be glad if it turns out a little shorter. Will you think over the whole question? I am sure your mind will supply any prudential considerations that I may have omitted. I am vexed by the non-success of the serial edition of the works. It is not, Heaven knows, that I read my own books or am puffed up about them, but I have been of late quite astonished by the strengthening testimonies that have happened to come to me of people who care about every one of my books, and continue to read them--especially young men, who are just the class I care most to influence. But what sort of data can one safely go upon with regard to the success of editions? "Felix Holt" is immensely tempted by your suggestion,[2] but George Eliot is severely admonished by his domestic critic not to scatter his energies. Mr. Lewes sends his best regards. He is in high spirits about the poem. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _Nov. 22._--Began an "Address to the Working Men, by Felix Holt," at Blackwood's repeated request. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1867.] Yes, indeed--when I do _not_ reciprocate "chaos is come again." I was quite sure your letter would come, and was grateful beforehand. There is a scheme on foot for a Woman's College, or, rather, University, to be built between London and Cambridge, and to be in connection with the Cambridge University, sharing its professors, examinations, and degrees! _Si muove._ [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st Dec. (?) 1867.] I have written to Miss Davies to ask her to come to see me on Tuesday. I am much occupied just now, but the better education of women is one of the objects about which I have _no doubt_, and shall rejoice if this idea of a college can be carried out. I see Miss Julia Smith's beautiful handwriting, and am glad to think of her as your guardian angel. The author of the glorious article on the Talmud _is_ "that bright little man" Mr. Deutsch--a very dear, delightful creature. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _Dec. 4._--Sent off the MS. of the "Address" to Edinburgh. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 7th Dec. 1867.] I agree with you about the phrase "Masters of the country."[3] I wrote that part twice, and originally I distinctly said that the epithet was false. Afterwards I left that out, preferring to make a stronger _argumentum ad hominem_, in case any workman believed himself a future master. I think it will be better for you to write a preliminary note, washing your hands of any over-trenchant statements on the part of the well-meaning Radical. I much prefer that you should do so. Whatever you agree with will have the advantage of not coming from one who can be suspected of being a special pleader. What you say about Fedalma is very cheering. But I am chiefly anxious about the road still untravelled--the road I have still _zurück zu legen_. Mr. Lewes has to request several proofs of Fedalma, to facilitate revision. But I will leave him to say how many. We shall keep them strictly to ourselves, you may be sure, so that three or four will be enough--one for him, one for me, and one for the resolution of our differences. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood 12th Dec. 1867.] I am very grateful to you for your generous words about my work. That you not only feel so much sympathy, but are moved to express it so fully, is a real help to me. I am very glad to have had the revise of the "Address." I feel the danger of not being understood. Perhaps, by a good deal longer consideration and gradual shaping, I might have put the ideas into a more concrete, easy form. Mr. Lewes read the proof of the poem all through to himself for the first time last night, and expressed great satisfaction in the impression it produced. Your suggestion of having it put into type is a benefit for which we have reason to be obliged to you. I cannot help saying again that it is a strong cordial to me to have such letters as yours, and to know that I have such a _first reader_ as you. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _Dec. 21._--Finished reading "Averroës and Averroisme" and "Les Médicins Juifs." Reading "First Principles." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Dec. 1867.] Our Christmas will be very quiet. On the 27th Mr. Lewes means to start on a solitary journey to Bonn, and perhaps to Würzburg, for anatomical purposes. I don't mean that he is going to offer himself as an anatomical subject, but that he wants to get answers to some questions bearing on the functions of the nerves. It is a bad time for him to travel in, but he hopes to be at home again in ten days or a fortnight, and _I_ hope the run will do him good rather than harm. [Sidenote: Journal, 1867.] _Dec. 25._--George and I dined happily alone; he better for weeks than he has been all the summer before; I more ailing than usual, but with much mental consolation, part of it being the delight he expresses in my poem, of which the first part is now in print. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1867.] Thanks for the pretty remembrance. You were not unthought of before it came. Now, however, I rouse all my courage under the thick fog to tell you my inward wish--which is that the new year, as it travels on towards its old age, may bring you many satisfactions undisturbed by bodily ailment. Mr. Lewes is going to-morrow on an unprecedented expedition--a rapid run to Bonn, to make some anatomical researches with Professor Schutze there. If he needs more than he can get at Bonn, he may go to Heidelberg and Würzburg. But in any case he will not take more than a fortnight. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Dec. 1867.] Public questions which, by a sad process of reduction, become piteous private questions, hang cloudily over all prospects. The state of Europe, the threat of a general war, the starvation of multitudes--one can't help thinking of these things at one's breakfast. Nevertheless, there is much enjoyment going on, and abundance of rosy children's parties. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 30th Dec. 1867.] It is very good and sweet of you to propose to come round for me on Sunday, and I shall cherish particularly the remembrance of that kindness. But, on our reading your letter, Mr. Lewes objected, on grounds which I think just, to my going to any public manifestation without him, since his absence could not be divined by outsiders. I am companioned by dyspepsia, and feel life a struggle under the leaden sky. Mme. Bodichon writes that in Sussex the air is cold and clear, and the woods and lanes dressed in wintry loveliness of fresh, grassy patches, mingled with the soft grays and browns of the trees and hedges. Mr. Harrison shed the agreeable light of his kind eyes on me yesterday for a brief space; but I hope I was more endurable to my visitors than to myself, else I think they will not come again. I object strongly to myself, as a bundle of unpleasant sensations with a palpitating heart and awkward manners. Impossible to imagine the large charity I have for people who detest me. But don't you be one of them. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Dec. 1867.] I am much obliged to you for your handsome check, and still more gratified that the "Address" has been a satisfaction to you. I am very glad to hear of your projected visit to town, and shall hope to have a good batch of MS. for you to carry back. Mr. Lewes is in an unprecedented state of delight with the poem, now that he is reading it with close care. He says he is astonished that he can't find more faults. He is especially pleased with the sense of variety it gives; and this testimony is worth the more because he urged me to put the poem by (in 1865) on the ground of monotony. He is really exultant about it now, and after what you have said to me I know this will please you. Hearty wishes that the coming year may bring you much good, and that the "Spanish Gypsy" may contribute a little to that end. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1867, TO DECEMBER, 1867. Letter to Madame Bodichon from Bordeaux--Madame Mohl--Scherer--Renan--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Biarritz--Delight in Comte's "Politique"--Gratitude to him for illumination--Learning Spanish--Papers in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Saveney--Letter to Madame Bodichon from Barcelona--Description of scenery--Pampeluna--Saragossa--Lerida--Letter to F. Harrison from Granada--The vindication of the _law_ in "Felix Holt"--Spanish travelling--Letter to John Blackwood from Granada--Alicante--Granada--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Biarritz--Delight of the journey--Madrid pictures--Return to the Priory--Letter to John Blackwood--"Felix Holt"--Cheap edition of novels--"Spanish Gypsy"--Dr. Congreve's Lectures on Positivism--Letter to Miss Hennell--Historical Portraits at South Kensington--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Women's claims--Comte's position--Fortnight's Visit to the Isle of Wight--Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve--Two months' visit to North Germany--Return to England--Reading on Spanish subjects--Mr. Lewes and Mr. Spencer at Weybridge--Acquaintance with Mrs. Cross and family--Letter to Miss Hennell--Deutsch's article on the Talmud--Letter to Blackwood about putting "Spanish Gypsy" in type--"Address to Workingmen, by Felix Holt"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Girton College--Letter to Madame Bodichon--The higher education of women--Letter to John Blackwood on the "Address"--Christmas day at the Priory--Letter to Miss Hennell--Visit of Mr. Lewes to Bonn--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Depression--Letter to John Blackwood--Mr. Lewes on "Spanish Gypsy." FOOTNOTES: [1] "An Old Story and Other Poems," by Elizabeth D. Cross. [2] "Address to the Working Men." [3] In the "Address to the Working Men." CHAPTER XV. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 9th Jan. 1868.] There is a good genius presiding over your gifts--they are so felicitous. You always give me something of which I have felt the want beforehand, and can use continually. It is eminently so with my pretty mittens; there was no little appendage I wanted more; and they are just as warm at the wrist as I could have wished them to be--warming, too, as a mark of affection at a time when all cheering things are doubly welcome. Mr. Lewes came home last night, and you may imagine that I am glad. Between the bad weather, bad health, and solitude, I have been so far unlike the wicked that I have not flourished like the green bay-tree. To make amends, he--Mr. Lewes, not the wicked--has had a brilliant time, gained great instruction, and seen some admirable men, who have received him warmly. I go out of doors very little, but I shall open the drawer and look at my mittens on the days when I don't put them on. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _Jan._--Engaged in writing Part III. of "Spanish Gypsy." _Feb. 27._--Returned last evening from a very pleasant visit to Cambridge.[4] I am still only at p. 5 of Part IV., having had a wretched month of _malaise_. _March 1._--Finished Guillemin on the "Heavens," and the 4th Book of the "Iliad." I shall now read Grote. _March 6._--Reading Lubbock's "Prehistoric Ages." _March 8._--Saturday concert. Joachim and Piatti, with Schubert's Ottett. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 17th Mch. 1868.] We go to-morrow morning to Torquay for a month, and I can't bear to go without saying a word of farewell to you. How sadly little we have seen each other this winter! It will not be so any more, I hope, will it? We are both much in need of the change, for Mr. Lewes has got rather out of sorts again lately. When we come back I shall ask you to come and look at us before the bloom is off. I should like to know how you all are; but you have been so little inspired for note-writing lately that I am afraid to ask you to send me a line to the post-office at Torquay. I really deserve nothing of my friends at present. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Mch. 1868.] I don't know whether you have ever seen Torquay. It is pretty, but not comparable to Ilfracombe; and, like all other easily accessible sea-places, it is sadly spoiled by wealth and fashion, which leave no secluded walks, and tattoo all the hills with ugly patterns of roads and villa gardens. Our selfishness does not adapt itself well to these on-comings of the millennium. I am reading about savages and semi-savages, and think that our religious oracles would do well to study savage ideas by a method of comparison with their own. Also, I am studying that semi-savage poem, the "Iliad." How enviable it is to be a classic. When a verse in the "Iliad" bears six different meanings, and nobody knows which is the right, a commentator finds this equivocalness in itself admirable! [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, end of Mch. 1868.] Mr. Lewes quite agrees with you, that it is desirable to announce the poem. His suggestion is, that it should be simply announced as "a poem" first, and then a little later as "The Spanish Gypsy," in order to give a new detail for observation in the second announcement. I chose the title, "The Spanish Gypsy," a long time ago, because it is a little in the fashion of the elder dramatists, with whom I have perhaps more cousinship than with recent poets. Fedalma might be mistaken for an Italian name, which would create a definite expectation of a mistaken kind, and is, on other grounds, less to my taste than "The Spanish Gypsy." This place is becoming a little London, or London suburb. Everywhere houses and streets are being built, and Babbacombe will soon be joined to Torquay. I almost envy you the excitement of golf, which helps the fresh air to exhilarate, and gives variety of exercise. Walking can never be so good as a game--if one loves the game. But when a friend of Mr. Lewes's urges him angrily to play rackets for his health, the prospect seems dreary. We are afraid of being entangled in excursion trains, or crowds of Easter holiday-makers, in Easter week, and may possibly be driven back next Wednesday. But we are loath to have our stay so curtailed. Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards, and pities all of us who are less interested in ganglionic cells. He is in a state of beatitude about the poem. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th April, 1868.] We find a few retired walks, and are the less discontented because the weather is perfect. I hope you are sharing the delights of sunshine and moonlight. There are no waves here, as you know; but under such skies as we are having, sameness is so beautiful that we find no fault, and there is a particular hill at Babbacombe of the richest Spanish red. On the whole, we are glad we came here, having avoided all trouble in journeying and settling. But we should not come again without special call, for in a few years all the hills will be parts of a London suburb. How glorious this weather is for the hard workers who are looking forward to their Easter holiday! But for ourselves, we are rather afraid of the railway stations in holiday time. Certainly, we are ill prepared for what Tennyson calls the "To-be," and it is good that we shall soon pass from this objective existence. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 6th April, 1868.] I think Ruskin has not been encouraged about women by his many and persistent attempts to teach them. He seems to have found them wanting in real scientific interest--bent on sentimentalizing in everything. What I should like to be sure of, as a result of higher education for women--a result that will come to pass over my grave--is their recognition of the great amount of social unproductive labor which needs to be done by women, and which is now either not done at all or done wretchedly. No good can come to women, more than to any class of male mortals, while each aims at doing the highest kind of work, which ought rather to be held in sanctity as what only the few can do well. I believe, and I want it to be well shown, that a more thorough education will tend to do away with the odious vulgarity of our notions about functions and employment, and to propagate the true gospel, that the deepest disgrace is to insist on doing work for which we are unfit--to do work of any sort badly. There are many points of this kind that want being urged, but they do not come well from me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 17th April, 1868.] Your letter came just at the right time to greet us. Thanks for that pretty remembrance. We are glad to be at home again with our home comforts around us, though we became deeply in love with Torquay in the daily heightening of spring beauties, and the glory of perpetual blue skies. The eight hours' journey (one hour more than we paid for) was rather disturbing; and, I think, Mr. Lewes has got more zoological experience than health from our month's delight--but a delight it really has been to us to have perfect quiet with the red hills, the sunshine, and the sea. I shall be absorbed for the next fortnight, so that I cannot allow myself the sort of pleasure you kindly project for us; and when May begins, I want you to come and stay a night with us. I shall be ready by and by for such holiday-making, and you must be good to me. Will you give Dr. Congreve my thanks for his pamphlet, which I read at Torquay with great interest? All protests tell, however slowly and imperceptibly, and a protest against the doctrine that England is to keep Ireland under all conditions was what I had wished to be made. But in this matter he will have much more important concurrence than mine. I am bearing much in mind the great task of the translation. When it is completed we shall be able and glad to do what we were not able to do in the case of the "Discours Préliminaire," namely, to take our share, if we may, in the expenses of publication. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _April 16._--Returned home, bringing Book IV. finished. _April 18._--Went with Mr. Pigott to see Holman Hunt's great picture, Isabella and the Pot of Basil. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st April, 1868.] I send you by to-day's post the MS. of Book IV., that it may be at hand whenever there is opportunity for getting it into print, and letting me have it in that form for correction. It is desirable to get as forward as we can, in case of the Americans asking for delay after their reception of the sheets--if they venture to make any arrangement. I shall send the MS. of Book V. (the last) as soon as headache will permit, but that is an uncertain limit. We returned from Torquay on the 16th, leaving the glorious weather behind us. We were more in love with the place on a better acquaintance: the weather, and the spring buds, and the choirs of birds, made it seem more of a paradise to us every day. The poem will be less tragic than I threatened: Mr. Lewes has prevailed on me to return to my original conception, and give up the additional development, which I determined on subsequently. The poem is rather shorter in consequence. Don't you think that my artistic deference and pliability deserve that it should also be better in consequence? I now end it as I determined to end it when I first conceived the story. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _April 25._--Finished the last dialogue between Silva and Fedalma. Mr. and Mrs. Burne Jones dined with us. _April 29._--Finished "The Spanish Gypsy." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 29th Aug. 1868.] I send you by to-day's post the conclusion of the poem in MS., and the eighteen sheets of revise. The last book is brief, but I may truly use the old epigram--that it would have taken less time to make it longer. It is a great bore that the name of my heroine is wrongly spelled in all the earlier sheets. It is a fresh proof of the fallibility of our impressions as to our own doings, that I would have confidently affirmed the name to be spelled Fedalma (as it ought to be) in my manuscript. Yet I suppose I should have affirmed falsely, for the _i_ occurs in the slips constantly. As I shall not see these paged sheets again, will you charitably assure me that the alterations are safely made? Among my wife's papers were four or five pages of MS. headed, "Notes on the Spanish Gypsy and Tragedy in General." There is no evidence as to the date at which this fragment was written, and it seems to have been left unfinished. But there was evidently some care to preserve it; and as I think she would not have objected to its presentation, I give it here exactly as it stands. It completes the history of the poem. [Sidenote: Notes on "The Spanish Gypsy."] The subject of "The Spanish Gypsy" was originally suggested to me by a picture which hangs in the Scuola di' San Rocco at Venice, over the door of the large Sala containing Tintoretto's frescoes. It is an Annunciation, said to be by Titian. Of course I had seen numerous pictures of this subject before; and the subject had always attracted me. But in this my second visit to the Scuola di' San Rocco, this small picture of Titian's, pointed out to me for the first time, brought a new train of thought. It occurred to me that here was a great dramatic motive of the same class as those used by the Greek dramatists, yet specifically differing from them. A young maiden, believing herself to be on the eve of the chief event of her life--marriage--about to share in the ordinary lot of womanhood, full of young hope, has suddenly announced to her that she is chosen to fulfil a great destiny, entailing a terribly different experience from that of ordinary womanhood. She is chosen, not by any momentary arbitrariness, but as a result of foregoing hereditary conditions: she obeys. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." Here, I thought, is a subject grander than that of Iphigenia, and it has never been used. I came home with this in my mind, meaning to give the motive a clothing in some suitable set of historical and local conditions. My reflections brought me nothing that would serve me except that moment in Spanish history when the struggle with the Moors was attaining its climax, and when there was the gypsy race present under such conditions as would enable me to get my heroine and the hereditary claim on her among the gypsies. I required the opposition of race to give the need for renouncing the expectation of marriage. I could not use the Jews or the Moors, because the facts of their history were too conspicuously opposed to the working-out of my catastrophe. Meanwhile the subject had become more and more pregnant to me. I saw it might be taken as a symbol of the part which is played in the general human lot by hereditary conditions in the largest sense, and of the fact that what we call duty is entirely made up of such conditions; for even in cases of just antagonism to the narrow view of hereditary claims, the whole background of the particular struggle is made up of our inherited nature. Suppose for a moment that our conduct at great epochs was determined entirely by reflection, without the immediate intervention of feeling, which supersedes reflection, our determination as to the right would consist in an adjustment of our individual needs to the dire necessities of our lot, partly as to our natural constitution, partly as sharers of life with our fellow-beings. Tragedy consists in the terrible difficulty of this adjustment-- "The dire strife of poor Humanity's afflicted will, Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." Looking at individual lots, I seemed to see in each the same story, wrought out with more or less of tragedy, and I determined the elements of my drama under the influence of these ideas. In order to judge properly of the dramatic structure it must not be considered first in the light of doctrinal symbolism, but in the light of a tragedy representing some grand collision in the human lot. And it must be judged accordingly. A good tragic subject must represent a possible, sufficiently probable, not a common, action; and to be really tragic, it must represent irreparable collision between the individual and the general (in differing degrees of generality). It is the individual with whom we sympathize, and the general of which we recognize the irresistible power. The truth of this test will be seen by applying it to the greatest tragedies. The collision of Greek tragedy is often that between hereditary, entailed Nemesis and the peculiar individual lot, awakening our sympathy, of the particular man or woman whom the Nemesis is shown to grasp with terrific force. Sometimes, as in the Oresteia, there is the clashing of two irreconcilable requirements, two duties, as we should say in these times. The murder of the father must be avenged by the murder of the mother, which must again be avenged. These two tragic relations of the individual and general, and of two irreconcilable "oughts," may be--will be--seen to be almost always combined. The Greeks were not taking an artificial, entirely erroneous standpoint in their art--a standpoint which disappeared altogether with their religion and their art. They had the same essential elements of life presented to them as we have, and their art symbolized these in grand schematic forms. The Prometheus represents the ineffectual struggle to redeem the small and miserable race of man, against the stronger adverse ordinances that govern the frame of things with a triumphant power. Coming to modern tragedies, what is it that makes Othello a great tragic subject? A story simply of a jealous husband is elevated into a most pathetic tragedy by the hereditary conditions of Othello's lot, which give him a subjective ground for distrust. Faust, Rigoletto (Le Roi s'Amuse), Brutus. It might be a reasonable ground of objection against the whole structure of "The Spanish Gypsy" if it were shown that the action is outrageously improbable--lying outside all that can be congruously conceived of human actions. It is _not_ a reasonable ground of objection that they would have done better to act otherwise, any more than it is a reasonable objection against the Iphigenia that Agamemnon would have done better not to sacrifice his daughter. As renunciations coming under the same great class, take the renunciation of marriage, where marriage cannot take place without entailing misery on the children. A tragedy has not to expound why the individual must give way to the general; it has to show that it is compelled to give way; the tragedy consisting in the struggle involved, and often in the entirely calamitous issue in spite of a grand submission. Silva presents the tragedy of entire rebellion; Fedalma of a grand submission, which is rendered vain by the effects of Silva's rebellion. Zarca, the struggle for a great end, rendered vain by the surrounding conditions of life. Now, what is the fact about our individual lots? A woman, say, finds herself on the earth with an inherited organization; she may be lame, she may inherit a disease, or what is tantamount to a disease; she may be a negress, or have other marks of race repulsive in the community where she is born, etc. One may go on for a long while without reaching the limits of the commonest inherited misfortunes. It is almost a mockery to say to such human beings, "Seek your own happiness." The utmost approach to well-being that can be made in such a case is through large resignation and acceptance of the inevitable, with as much effort to overcome any disadvantage as good sense will show to be attended with a likelihood of success. Any one may say, that is the dictate of mere rational reflection. But calm can, in hardly any human organism, be attained by rational reflection. Happily, we are not left to that. Love, pity, constituting sympathy, and generous joy with regard to the lot of our fellow-men comes in--has been growing since the beginning--enormously enhanced by wider vision of results, by an imagination actively interested in the lot of mankind generally; and these feelings become piety--_i.e._, loving, willing submission and heroic Promethean effort towards high possibilities, which may result from our individual life. There is really no moral "sanction" but this inward impulse. The will of God is the same thing as the will of other men, compelling us to work and avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from any perceived good, the divine will is simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which compel obedience at our peril. Any other notion comes from the supposition of arbitrary revelation. That favorite view, expressed so often in Clough's poems, of doing duty in blindness as to the result, is likely to deepen the substitution of egoistic yearnings for really moral impulses. We cannot be utterly blind to the results of duty, since that cannot be duty which is not already judged to be for human good. To say the contrary is to say that mankind have reached no inductions as to what is for their good or evil. The art which leaves the soul in despair is laming to the soul, and is denounced by the healthy sentiment of an active community. The consolatory elements in "The Spanish Gypsy" are derived from two convictions or sentiments which so conspicuously pervade it that they may be said to be its very warp, on which the whole action is woven. These are: (1) The importance of individual deeds. (2) The all-sufficiency of the soul's passions in determining sympathetic action. In Silva is presented the claim of fidelity to social pledges. In Fedalma the claim constituted by an hereditary lot less consciously shared. With regard to the supremacy of love: if it were a fact without exception that man or woman never did renounce the joys of love, there could never have sprung up a notion that such renunciation could present itself as a duty. If no parents had ever cared for their children, how could parental affection have been reckoned among the elements of life? But what are the facts in relation to this matter? Will any one say that faithfulness to the marriage tie has never been regarded as a duty, in spite of the presence of the profoundest passion experienced after marriage? Is Guinivere's conduct the type of duty? [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 7th May, 1868.] Yes, I am at rest now--only a few pages of revise to look at more. My chief excitement and pleasure in the work are over: for when I have once written anything, and it is gone out of my power, I think of it as little as possible. Next to the doing of the thing, of course, Mr. Lewes's delight in it is the cream of all sympathy, though I care enough about the sympathy of others to be very grateful for any they give me. Don't you imagine how the people who consider writing simply as a money-getting profession will despise me for choosing a work by which I could only get hundreds, where for a novel I could get thousands? I cannot help asking you to admire what my husband is, compared with many possible husbands--I mean, in urging me to produce a poem rather than anything in a worldly sense more profitable. I expect a good deal of disgust to be felt towards me in many quarters for doing what was not looked for from me, and becoming unreadable to many who have hitherto found me readable and debatable. Religion and novels every ignorant person feels competent to give an opinion upon, but _en fait de poésie_, a large number of them "only read Shakespeare." But enough of that. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 25th May, 1868.] Before we set off to Germany I want to tell you that a copy of "The Spanish Gypsy" will be sent to you. If there had been time before our going away I should have written on the fly-leaf that it was offered by the author "in grateful remembrance." For I especially desire that you should understand my reasons for asking you to accept the book to be retrospective and not prospective. And I am going out of reach of all letters, so that you are free from any need to write to me, and may let the book lie till you like to open it. I give away my books only by exception, and in venturing to make you an exceptional person in this matter, I am urged by the strong wish to express my value for the help and sympathy you gave me two years ago. The manuscript of "The Spanish Gypsy" bears the following inscription: "To my dear--every day dearer--Husband." [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 26th (?) May, 1868.] Yes, indeed, I not only remember your letter, but have always kept it at hand, and have read it many times. Within these latter months I have seemed to see in the distance a possible poem shaped on your idea. But it would be better for you to encourage the growth towards realization in your own mind, rather than trust to transplantation. My own faint conception is that of a frankly Utopian construction, freeing the poet from all local embarrassments. Great epics have always been more or less of this character--only the construction has been of the past, not of the future. Write to me _Poste Restante_, Baden-Baden, within the next fortnight. My head will have got clearer then. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _May 26._--We set out this evening on our journey to Baden, spending the night at Dover. Our route was by Tournay, Liége, Bonn, and Frankfort, to Baden, where we stayed nine days; then to Petersthal, where we stayed three weeks; then to Freiburg, St. Märgen, Basle, Thun, and Interlaken. From Interlaken we came by Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Dijon, to Paris and Folkestone. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 7th July, 1868.] We got your letter yesterday here among the peaceful mountain-tops. After ascending gradually (in a carriage) for nearly four hours, we found ourselves in a region of grass, corn, and pine woods, so beautifully varied that we seem to be walking in a great park laid out for our special delight. The monks, as usual, found out the friendly solitude, and this place of St. Märgen was originally nothing but an Augustinian monastery. About three miles off is another place of like origin, called St. Peter's, formerly a Benedictine monastery, and still used as a place of preparation for the Catholic priesthood. The monks have all vanished, but the people are devout Catholics. At every half-mile by the roadside is a carefully kept crucifix; and last night, as we were having our supper in the common room of the inn, we suddenly heard sounds that seemed to me like those of an accordion. "Is that a zittern?" said Mr. Lewes to the German lady by his side. "No--it is prayer." The servants, by themselves--the host and hostess were in the same room with us--were saying their evening prayers, men's and women's voices blending in unusually correct harmony. The same loud prayer is heard at morning, noon, and evening, from the shepherds and workers in the fields. We suppose that the believers in Mr. Home and in Madame Rachel would pronounce these people "grossly superstitious." The land is cultivated by rich peasant proprietors, and the people here, as in Petersthal, look healthy and contented. This really adds to one's pleasure in seeing natural beauties. In North Germany, at Ilmenau, we were constantly pained by meeting peasants who looked underfed and miserable. Unhappily, the weather is too cold and damp, and our accommodations are too scanty, under such circumstances, for us to remain here and enjoy the endless walks and the sunsets that would make up for other negatives in fine, warm weather. We return to Freiburg to-morrow, and from thence we shall go on by easy stages through Switzerland, by Thun and Vevay to Geneva, where I want to see my old friends once more. We shall be so constantly on the move that it might be a vain trouble on your part to shoot another letter after such flying birds. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _July 23._--Arrived at home (from Baden journey). [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th July, 1868.] We got home last night--sooner than we expected, because we gave up the round by Geneva, as too long and exciting. I dare say the three weeks since we heard from you seem very short to you, passed amid your usual occupations. To us they seem long, for we have been constantly changing our scene. Our two months have been spent delightfully in seeing fresh natural beauties, and with the occasional cheering influence of kind people. But I think we were hardly ever, except in Spain, so long ignorant of home sayings and doings, for we have been chiefly in regions innocent even of _Galignani_. The weather with us has never been oppressively hot; and storms or quiet rains have been frequent. But our bit of burned-up lawn is significant of the dryness here. I believe I did not thank you for the offer of "Kinglake," which we gratefully accept. And will you kindly order a copy of the poem to be sent to Gerald Massey, Hemel-Hempstead. A friendly gentleman at Belfast sends me a list of emendations for some of my verses, which are very characteristic and amusing. I hope you have kept well through the heat. We are come back in great force, for such feeble wretches. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th July, 1868.] As to the reviews, we expected them to be written by omniscient personages, but we did _not_ expect so bad a review as that Mr. Lewes found in the _Pall Mall_. I have read no notice except that in the _Spectator_, which was modest in tone. A very silly gentleman, Mr. Lewes says, undertakes to admonish me in the _Westminster_; and he thinks the best _literary_ notice of the poem that has come before him is in the _Athenæum_. After all, I think there would have been good reason to doubt that the poem had either novelty or any other considerable intrinsic reason to justify its being written, if the periodicals had cried out "Hosanna!" I am sure you appreciate all the conditions better than I can, after your long experience of the relations between authors and critics. I am serene, because I only expected the unfavorable. To-day the heat is so great that it is hardly possible even to read a book that requires any thought. London is a bad exchange for the mountains. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th July, 1868.] I enclose a list of corrections for the reprint. I am indebted to my friendly correspondent from Belfast for pointing out several oversights, which I am ashamed of, after all the proof-reading. But, among the well-established truths of which I never doubt, the fallibility of my own brain stands first. I suppose Mudie and the other librarians will not part with their copies of the poems quite as soon as they would part with their more abundant copies of a novel. And this supposition, if warranted, would be an encouragement to reprint another moderate edition at the same price. Perhaps, before a cheaper edition is prepared, I may add to the corrections, but at present my mind resists strongly the effort to go back on its old work. I think I never mentioned to you that the occasional use of irregular verses, and especially verses of twelve syllables, has been a principle with me, and is found in all the finest writers of blank verse. I mention it now because, as you have a certain _solidarité_ with my poetical doings, I would not have your soul vexed by the detective wisdom of critics. Do you happen to remember that saying of Balzac's, "When I want the world to praise my novels I write a drama; when I want them to praise my drama I write a novel"? On the whole, however, I should think I have more to be grateful for than to grumble at. Mr. Lewes read me out last night some very generous passages from the _St. Paul's Magazine_. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _August._--Reading 1st book of Lucretius, 6th book of the "Iliad," "Samson Agonistes," Warton's "History of English Poetry," Grote, 2d volume, "Marcus Aurelius," "Vita Nuova," vol. iv. chap. i. of the "Politique Positive," Guest on "English Rhythms," Maurice's "Lectures on Casuistry." _Sept. 19._--We returned from a visit to Yorkshire. On Monday we went to Leeds, and were received by Dr. Clifford Allbut, with whom we stayed till the middle of the day on Wednesday. Then we went by train to Ilkley, and from thence took a carriage to Bolton. The weather had been gray for two days, but on this evening the sun shone out, and we had a delightful stroll before dinner, getting our first view of the Priory. On Thursday we spent the whole day in rambling through the woods to Barden Tower and back. Our comfortable little inn was the Red Lion, and we were tempted to lengthen our stay. But on Friday morning the sky was threatening, so we started for Newark, which we had visited in old days on our expedition to Gainsborough. At Newark we found our old inn, the Ram, opposite the ruins of the castle, and then we went for a stroll along the banks of the Trent, seeing some charming, quiet landscapes. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 20th Sept. 1868.] This note comes to greet you on your return home, but it cannot greet you so sweetly as your letter did me on our arrival from Leeds last night. I think it gave me a deeper pleasure than any I have had for a long while. I am very grateful to you for it. We went to Leeds on Monday, and stayed two days with Dr. Allbut. Dr. Bridges dined with us one day, and we had a great deal of delightful chat. But I will tell you everything when we see you. Let that be soon--will you not? We shall be glad of any arrangement that will give us the pleasure of seeing you, Dr. Congreve, and Emily, either separately or all together. Please forgive me if I seem very fussy about your all coming. I want you to understand that we shall feel it the greatest kindness in you if you will all choose to come, and also choose _how_ to come--either to lunch or dinner, and either apart or together. I hope to find that you are much the better for your journey--better both in body and soul. One has immense need of encouragement, but it seems to come more easily from the dead than from the living. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Sept. 1868.] Your letter gave an additional gusto to my tea and toast this morning. The greater confidence of the trade in subscribing for the second edition is, on several grounds, a satisfactory indication; but, as you observe, we shall be still better pleased to know that the copies are not slumbering on the counters, but having an active life in the hands of readers. I am now going carefully through the poem for the sake of correction. I have read it through once, and have at present found some ten or twelve _small_ alterations to be added to those already made. But I shall go through it again more than once, for I wish to be able to put "revised" to the third edition, and to leave nothing that my conscience is not ready to swear by. I think it will be desirable for me to see proofs. It is possible, in many closely consecutive readings, not to see errors which strike one immediately on taking up the pages after a good long interval. We are feeling much obliged for a copy of "Kinglake," which I am reading aloud to Mr. Lewes as a part of our evening's entertainment and edification, beginning again from the beginning. This week we have had perfect autumnal days, though last week, when we were in Yorkshire, we also thought that the time of outside chills and inside fires was beginning. We do not often see a place which is a good foil for London, but certainly Leeds is in a lower circle of the great town--_Inferno_. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 25th Sept. 1868.] I can imagine how delicious your country home has been under the glorious skies we have been having--glorious even in London. Yesterday we had Dr. and Mrs. Congreve, and went with them to the Zoological Gardens, and on our return, about 5 o'clock, I could not help pausing and exclaiming at the exquisite beauty of the light on Regent's Park, exalting it into something that the young Turner would have wanted to paint. We went to Leeds last week--saw your favorite, David Cox, and thought of you the while. Certainly there was nothing finer there in landscape than that Welsh funeral. Among the figure-painters, Watts and old Philip are supreme. We went on from Leeds to Bolton, and spent a day in wandering through the grand woods on the banks of the Wharfe. Altogether, our visit to Yorkshire was extremely agreeable. Our host, Dr. Allbut, is a good, clever, graceful man, enough to enable one to be cheerful under the horrible smoke of ugly Leeds; and the fine hospital, which, he says, is admirably fitted for its purpose, is another mitigation. You would like to see the tasteful, subdued ornamentation in the rooms which are to be sick wards. Each physician is accumulating ornamental objects for his own ward--chromo-lithographs, etc.--such as will soothe sick eyes. It was quite cold in that northerly region. Your picture keeps a memory of sunshine on my wall even on this dark morning. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Oct. 1868.] I have gone through the poem twice for the sake of revision, and have a crop of small corrections--only in one case extending to the insertion of a new line. But I wish to see the proof-sheets, so that "Revised by the Author" may be put in the advertisement and on the title-page. Unhappily, my health has been unusually bad since we returned from abroad, so that the time has been a good deal wasted on the endurance of _malaise_; but I am brooding over many things, and hope that coming months will not be barren. As to the criticisms, I suppose that better poets than I have gone through worse receptions. In spite of my reason and of my low expectations, I am too susceptible to all discouragement not to have been depressingly affected by some few things in the shape of criticism which I have been obliged to know. Yet I am ashamed of caring about anything that cannot be taken as strict evidence against the value of my book. So far as I have been able to understand, there is a striking disagreement among the reviewers as to what is best and what is worst; and the weight of agreement, even on the latter point, is considerably diminished by the reflection that three different reviews may be three different phases of the same gentleman, taking the opportunity of earning as many guineas as he can by making easy remarks on George Eliot. But, as dear Scott's characters say, "Let that fly stick in the wa'--when the dirt's dry, it'll rub out." I shall look at "Doubles and Quits," as you recommend. I read the two first numbers of "Madame Amelia," and thought them promising. I sympathize with your melancholy at the prospect of quitting the country; though, compared with London, beautiful Edinburgh is country. Perhaps some good, thick mists will come to reconcile you with the migration. We have been using the fine autumn days for flights into Kent between Sundays. The rich woods about Sevenoaks and Chislehurst are a delight to the eyes, and the stillness is a rest to every nerve. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _Oct. 22._--Received a letter from Blackwood, saying that "The Spanish Gypsy" must soon go into a third edition. I sent my corrections for it. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th Oct. 1868.] At last I have spirit enough in me to thank you for your valuable gift, which Emily kindly brought me in her hand. I am grateful for it--not only because the medallion[5] is a possession which I shall always hold precious, but also because you thought of me among those whom you would choose to be its owners. I hope you are able to enjoy some walking in these sunshiny mornings. We had a long drive round by Hendon and Finchley yesterday morning, and drank so much clear air and joy from the sight of trees and fields that I am quite a new-old creature. I think you will not be sorry to hear that the "Spanish Gypsy" is so nearly out of print again that the publishers are preparing a new, cheaper edition. The second edition was all bought up (subscribed for) by the booksellers the first day. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 30th Oct. 1868.] Your pretty letter is irresistible. May we then be with you on Tuesday somewhere about twelve, and return home on Wednesday by afternoon daylight? If the weather should be very cold or wet on Tuesday we must renounce or defer our pleasure, because we are both too rickety to run the risk of taking cold. So you see we are very much in need of such sweet friendliness as yours gives us faith in, to keep us cheerful under the burden of the flesh. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _Nov. 3._--Went to dine and sleep at the Congreves, at Wandsworth. _Nov. 4._--We set off for Sheffield, where we went over a great iron and steel factory under the guidance of Mr. Benzon. On Saturday, the 7th, we went to Matlock and stayed till Tuesday. I recognized the objects which I had seen with my father nearly thirty years before--the turn of the road at Cromford, the Arkwrights' house, and the cottages with the stone floors chalked in patterns. The landscape was still rich with autumn leaves. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Thursday evening, 12th Nov. 1868.] We got home last night after delicious days spent at Matlock. I was so renovated that my head was clearer, and I was more unconscious of my body than at the best of times for many months. But it seemed suddenly colder when we were in London, and old uneasy sensations are revisiting us both to-day. I wonder whether you will soon want to come to town, and will send me word that you will come and take shelter with us for the night? The bed is no softer and no broader; but will you not be tempted by a new carpet and a new bit of matting for your bath?--perhaps there will even be a new fender? If you want to shop, I will take you in the brougham. I think you will be just able to make out this note, written by a sudden impulse on my knee over the fire. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 16th Nov. 1868.] No oracle would dare to predict what will be our next migration. Don't be surprised if we go to the borders of the White Sea, to escape the fitful fast and loose, hot and cold, of the London climate. We enjoyed our journey to the north. It was a great experience to me to see the stupendous iron-works at Sheffield; and then, for a variety, we went to the quiet and beauty of Matlock, and I recognized all the spots I had carried in my memory for more than five-and-twenty years. I drove through that region with my father when I was a young grig--not very full of hope about my woman's future. I am one of those perhaps exceptional people whose early, childish dreams were much less happy than the real outcome of life. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Nov. 1868.] I think your birthday comes after mine; but I am determined to write beforehand to prove to you that I bear you in my thoughts without any external reminder. I suppose we are both getting too old to care about being wished _many_ happy returns of the day. We shall be content to wish each other as many more years as can carry with them some joy and calm satisfaction in the sense of living. But there is one definite prospect for you which I may fairly hope for, as I do most tenderly--the prospect that this time next year you will be looking back on your achieved work as a good seed-sowing. Some sadness there must always be in saying good-bye to a work which is done with love; but there may--I trust there _will_--be a compensating good in feeling that the thing you yearned to do is gone safely out of reach of casualties that might have cut it short. We have been to Sheffield at the seducing invitation of a friend, who showed us the miraculous iron-works there; and afterwards we turned aside to beautiful Matlock, where I found again the spots, the turns of road, the rows of stone cottages, the rushing river Derwent, and the Arkwright mills--among which I drove with my father when I was in my teens. We had glorious weather, and I was quite regenerated by the bracing air. Our friend Mr. Spencer is growing younger with the years. He really looks brighter and more enjoying than he ever did before, since he was in the really young, happy time of fresh discussion and inquiry. His is a friendship which wears well, because of his truthfulness. He always asks with sympathetic interest how you are going on. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _Nov. 22._--The return of this St. Cecilia's Day finds me in better health than has been usual with me in these last six months. But I am not yet engaged in any work that makes a higher life for me--a life that is young and grows, though in my other life I am getting old and decaying. It is a day for resolves and determinations. I am meditating the subject of Timoleon. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 30th Nov. 1868.] I like to think of you painting the physiological charts, although they tire your eyes a little; for you must be sure that the good of such work is of a kind that goes deep into young lives. "Fearfully and wonderfully made" are words quite unshaken by any theory as to the making; and I think a great awe in the contemplation of man's delicate structure, freighted with terrible destinies, is one of the most important parts of education. A much-writing acquaintance of ours one day expressed his alarm for "the masses" at the departure of a religion which had _terror_ in it. Surely terror is provided for sufficiently in this life of ours--if only the dread could be directed towards the really dreadful. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 12th Dec. 1868.] We have been having a little company, and are rejoicing to think that our duties of this sort are done for the present. We like our studies and our dual solitude too well to feel company desirable more than one day a-week. I wish our affection may be with you as some little cheering influence through the dark months. We hardly estimate enough the difference of feeling that would come to us if we did not imagine friendly souls scattered here and there in places that make the chief part of the world so far as we have known it. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Dec. 1868.] Tell Dr. Congreve that the "mass of positivism," in the shape of "The Spanish Gypsy," is so rapidly finding acceptance with the public that the second edition, being all sold, the third, just published, has already been demanded to above 700. Do not think that I am becoming an egotistical author. The news concerns the doctrine, not the writer. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 19th Dec. 1868.] I am moved to congratulate you on writing against the ballot with such admirably good sense--having just read your "slip" at the breakfast-table. It has been a source of amazement to me that men acquainted with practical life can believe in the suppression of bribery by the ballot, as if bribery in all its Protean forms could ever disappear by means of a single external arrangement. They might as well say that our female vanity would disappear at an order that women should wear felt hats and cloth dresses. It seems to me that you have put the main unanswerable arguments against the ballot with vigorous brevity. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 29th Dec. 1868.] Thanks for letting me know about the meeting. I shall not be able to join it bodily, but I am glad always to have the possibility of being with you in thought. I have a twofold sympathy on the occasion, for I cannot help entering specially into your own wifely anxieties, and I shall be glad to be assured that Dr. Congreve has borne the excitement without being afterwards conscious of an excessive strain. [Sidenote: Journal, 1868.] _Dec. 30._--I make to-day the last record that I shall enter of the old year 1868. It has been as rich in blessings as any preceding year of our double life, and I enjoy a more and more even cheerfulness and continually increasing power of dwelling on the good that is given to me and dismissing the thought of small evils. The chief event of the year to us has been the publication and friendly reception by the public of "The Spanish Gypsy." The greatest happiness (after our growing love) which has sprung and flowed onward during the latter part of the year is George's interest in his psychological inquiries. I have, perhaps, gained a little higher ground and firmer footing in some studies, notwithstanding the yearly loss of retentive power. We have made some new friendships that cheer us with the sense of new admiration of actual living beings whom we know in the flesh, and who are kindly disposed towards us. And we have had no real trouble. I wish we were not in a minority of our fellow-men! I desire no added blessing for the coming year but this--that I may do some good, lasting work, and make both my outward and inward habits less imperfect--that is, more directly tending to the best uses of life. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 31st Dec. 1868.] Many thanks for the check, which I received yesterday afternoon. Mr. Lewes is eminently satisfied with the sales; and, indeed, it does appear from authoritative testimony that the number sold is unusually large even for what is called a successful poem. The cheap edition of the novels is so exceptionally attractive in print, paper, and binding, for 3_s._ 6_d._, that I cannot help fretting a little at its not getting a more rapid sale. The fact rather puzzles me, too, in presence of the various proofs that the books really are liked. I suppose there is some mystery of reduced prices accounting for the abundant presentation of certain works and series on the bookstalls at the railways, and the absence of others, else surely those pretty volumes would have a good chance of being bought by the travellers whose taste shrinks from the diabolical red-and-yellow-pictured series. I am sure you must often be in a state of wonderment as to how the business of the world gets done so as not to ruin two thirds of the people concerned in it; for, judging from the silly propositions and requests sometimes made to me by bald-headed, experienced men, there must be a very thin allowance of wisdom to the majority of their transactions. Mr. Lewes is attracted by the biographical studies of George the Second's time; but last night, after he had done reading about Berkeley, I heard him laughing over "Doubles and Quits." It is agreeable to think that I have that bit of cheerful reading in store. Our first snow fell yesterday, and melted immediately. This morning the sun is warm on me as I write. The doctors say that the season has been horribly unhealthy, and that they have been afraid to perform some operations from the low state of vitality in the patients, due to the atmospheric conditions. This looks like very wise writing, and worthy of Molière's "Médecin." Mr. Lewes joins me in sincere good wishes to Mr. William Blackwood, as well as yourself, for the coming year--wishes for general happiness. The chief, particular wish would be that we should all in common look back next Christmas on something achieved in which we share each other's satisfaction. [Sidenote: Letter to Hon. Robert Lytton (now Lord Lytton). No date. Probably in 1868.] I am much obliged to you for mentioning, in your letter to Mr. Lewes, the two cases of inaccuracy (I fear there may be more) which you remembered in the "Spanish Gypsy." How I came to write Zincálo instead of Zíncalo is an instance which may be added to many sadder examples of that mental infirmity which makes our senses of little use to us in the presence of a strong prepossession. As soon as I had conceived my story with its gypsy element, I tried to learn all I could about the names by which the gypsies called themselves, feeling that I should occasionally need a musical name, remote from the vulgar English associations which cling to "gypsy." I rejected Gitana, because I found that the gypsies themselves held the name to be opprobrious; and Zíncalo--which, with a fine capacity for being wrong, I at once got into my head as Zincálo--seemed to be, both in sound and meaning, just what I wanted. Among the books from which I made notes was "Pott, die Zigeuner," etc.; and in these notes I find that I have copied the sign of the tonic accent in Romanó, while in the very same sentence I have not copied it in Zíncalo, though a renewed reference to Pott shows it in the one word as well as the other. But "my eyes were held"--by a demon prepossession--"so that I should not see it." Behold the fallibility of the human brain, and especially of George Eliot's. I have been questioned about my use of Andalus for Andalusia, but I had a sufficient authority for that in the "Mohammedan Dynasties," translated by Gayangos. It may interest you, who are familiar with Spanish literature, to know that after the first sketch of my book was written I read Cervantes' novel "La Gitanélla," where the hero turns gypsy for love. The novel promises well in the earlier part, but falls into sad commonplace towards the end. I have written my explanation partly to show how much I value your kind help towards correcting my error, and partly to prove that I was not careless, but simply stupid. For in authorship I hold carelessness to be a mortal sin. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1868, TO DECEMBER, 1868. Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mr. Lewes's return from Bonn--First visit to Cambridge--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Month's visit to Torquay--Letter to Miss Hennell--Reading the "Iliad"--Letter to John Blackwood--Title of "Spanish Gypsy"--Letter to Madame Bodichon--Women's work--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--England and Ireland--Translation of the "Politique"--Return to London from Torquay--Letter to John Blackwood--Ending of "Spanish Gypsy"--The poem finished--George Eliot's "Notes on the Spanish Gypsy and Tragedy in general"--Suggestion of the poem an Annunciation by Titian, at Venice--Motive--Hereditary conditions--Gypsy race--Determination of conduct--Nature of tragedy--Collision between the individual and the general--Greek tragedy--Hereditary misfortunes--Growth of human sympathy--Moral sanction is obedience to facts--Duty what tends to human good--Letter to Mrs. Bray on the writing of poetry instead of novels--Letter to F. Harrison presenting copy of "Spanish Gypsy"--Inscription on MS. of "Spanish Gypsy"--Letter to F. Harrison on suggestion of a poem--Six weeks' journey to Baden, etc.--Letter to John Blackwood from St. Märgen--Catholic worship--Return to London--Letters to John Blackwood--_Pall Mall_ review of "Spanish Gypsy"--Saying of Balzac--Letter to William Blackwood--Versification--Reading Lucretius, Homer, Milton, Warton, Marcus Aurelius, Dante, Comte, Guest, Maurice--Visit to Dr. Clifford Allbut at Leeds--Visit to Newark--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Letters to John Blackwood--Second edition of "Spanish Gypsy"--"Kinglake"--Criticisms on "Spanish Gypsy"--Visit to the Congreves--Visit to Sheffield with Mr. Benzon--Matlock--Letters to Madame Bodichon and Miss Hennell on Sheffield journey--Herbert Spencer--Meditating subject of Timoleon--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Physiological charts--Letter to Madame Bodichon on influence of friends--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Positivism in "Spanish Gypsy"--Letter to Charles Bray on vote by ballot--Retrospect of 1868--Letter to John Blackwood--The cheap edition of novels--Letter to the Hon. Robert Lytton--Pronunciation in "Spanish Gypsy"--Cervantes' "La Gitanélla." FOOTNOTES: [4] Visit to Mr. W. G. Clark. [5] Of Comte. CHAPTER XVI. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _Jan. 1._--I have set myself many tasks for the year--I wonder how many will be accomplished?--a novel called "Middlemarch," a long poem on Timoleon, and several minor poems. _Jan. 23._--Since I wrote last I have finished a little poem on old Agatha. But the last week or two I have been so disturbed in health that no work prospers. I have made a little way in constructing my new tale; have been reading a little on philology; have finished the 24th Book of the "Iliad," the 1st Book of the "Faery Queene," Clough's poems, and a little about Etruscan things, in Mrs. Grey and Dennis. Aloud to G. I have been reading some Italian, Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" and "Volpone," and Bright's speeches, which I am still reading, besides the first four cantos of "Don Juan." But the last two or three days I have seemed to live under a leaden pressure--all movement, mental or bodily, is grievous to me. In the evening read aloud Bright's fourth speech on India, and a story in Italian. In the _Spectator_ some interesting facts about loss of memory and "double life." In the _Revue des Cours_, a lecture by Sir W. Thomson, of Edinburgh, on the retardation of the earth's motion round its axis. _Jan. 27._--The last two days I have been writing a rhymed poem on Boccaccio's story of "Lisa." Aloud I have read Bright's speeches, and "I Promessi Sposi." To myself I have read Mommsen's "Rome." _Feb. 6._--We went to the third concert. Madame Schumann played finely in Mendelssohn's quintet, and a trio of Beethoven's. As a solo she played the sonata in D minor. In the evening I read aloud a short speech of Bright's on Ireland, delivered twenty years ago, in which he insists that nothing will be a remedy for the woes of that country unless the Church Establishment be annulled: after the lapse of twenty years the measure is going to be adopted. Then I read aloud a bit of the "Promessi Sposi," and afterwards the _Spectator_, in which there is a deservedly high appreciation of Lowell's poems. _Feb. 14._--Finished the poem from Boccaccio. We had rather a numerous gathering of friends to-day, and among the rest came Browning, who talked and quoted admirably _à propos_ of versification. The Rector of Lincoln thinks the French have the most perfect system of versification in these modern times! _Feb. 15._--I prepared and sent off "How Lisa Loved the King" to Edinburgh. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Feb. 1869.] I have looked back to the verses in Browning's poem about Elisha, and I find no mystery in them. The foregoing context for three pages describes that function of genius which revivifies the past. Man, says Browning (I am writing from recollection of his general meaning), cannot create, but he can restore: the poet gives forth of his own spirit, and reanimates the forms that lie breathless. His use of Elisha's story is manifestly symbolical, as his mention of Faust is--the illustration which he abandons the moment before to take up that of the Hebrew seer. I presume you did not read the context yourself, but only had the two concluding verses pointed out or quoted to you by your friends. It is one of the afflictions of authorship to know that the brains which should be used in understanding a book are wasted in discussing the hastiest misconceptions about it; and I am sure you will sympathize enough in this affliction to set any one right, when you can, about this quotation from Browning. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _Feb. 20._--A glorious concert: Hallé, Joachim, and Piatti winding up with Schubert's trio. _Feb. 21._--Mr. Deutsch and Mrs. Pattison lunched with us--he in farewell before going to the East. A rather pleasant gathering of friends afterwards. _Feb. 24._--I am reading about plants, and Helmholtz on music. A new idea of a poem came to me yesterday. _March 3._--We started on our fourth visit to Italy, viâ France and the Cornice. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1869, from Paris.] I found your letter at Florence on our arrival there (on the 23d); but until now bodily ease and leisure enough to write to you have never happened to me in the same moments. Our long journey since we left home on the 3d March, seen from a point of view which, happily, no one shares with me, has been a history of ailments. In shunning the English March, we found one quite as disagreeable, without the mitigation of home comforts; and though we went even as far as Naples in search of warmth, we never found it until we settled in Rome, at the beginning of April. Here we had many days of unbroken sunshine, and enjoyed what we were never able to enjoy during our month's stay in 1860--the many glorious views of the city and the mountains. The chief novelty to us in our long route has been the sight of Assisi and Ravenna; the rest has been a revisiting of scenes already in our memories; and to most of them we have probably said our last good-bye. Enough of us and our travels. The only remarkable thing people can tell of their doings in these days is that they have stayed at home. The _Fortnightly_ lay uncut at Mr. Trollope's, and Mr. Lewes had nothing more pressing to do than to cut it open at the reply to Professor Huxley.[6] He presently came to me, and said it was excellent. It delighted him the more because he had just before, at Rome, alighted on the _Pall Mall_ account of the article, which falsely represented it as entirely apologetic. At the first spare moment I plunged into an easy-chair, and read, with thorough satisfaction in the admirable temper and the force of the reply. We intend to start for Calais this evening; and as the rain prevents us from doing anything agreeable out of doors, I have nothing to hinder me from sitting, with my knees up to my chin, and scribbling, now that I am become a little sounder in head and in body generally than beautiful Italy allowed me to be. As beautiful as ever--more beautiful--it has looked to me on this last visit; and it is the fault of my _physique_ if it did not agree with me. Pray offer my warmest sympathy to Dr. Congreve in the anxieties of his difficult task. What hard work it seems to go on living sometimes! Blessed are the dead. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _May 5._--We reached home after our nine weeks' absence. In that time we have been through France to Marseilles, along the Cornice to Spezia, then to Pisa, Florence, Naples, Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Florence again, Ravenna, Bologna, Verona; across the Brenner Pass to Munich; then to Paris _viâ_ Strasburg. In such a journey there was necessarily much interest both in renewing old memories and recording new; but I never had such continuous bad health in travelling as I have had during these nine weeks. On our arrival at home I found a delightful letter from Mrs. H. B. Stowe, whom I have never seen, addressing me as her "dear friend." It was during this journey that I, for the first time, saw my future wife, at Rome. My eldest sister had married Mr. W. H. Bullock (now Mr. W. H. Hall), of Six-Mile-Bottom, Cambridgeshire, and they were on their wedding journey at Rome when they happened to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lewes by chance in the Pamfili Doria Gardens. They saw a good deal of one another, and when I arrived, with my mother and another sister, we went by invitation to call at the Hôtel Minerva, where Mr. Lewes had found rooms on their first arrival in Rome. I have a very vivid recollection of George Eliot sitting on a sofa with my mother by her side, entirely engrossed with her. Mr. Lewes entertained my sister and me on the other side of the room. But I was very anxious to hear also the conversation on the sofa, as I was better acquainted with George Eliot's books than with any other literature. And through the dimness of these fifteen years, and all that has happened in them, I still seem to hear, as I first heard them, the low, earnest, deep, musical tones of her voice; I still seem to see the fine brows, with the abundant auburn-brown hair framing them, the long head, broadening at the back, the gray-blue eyes, constantly changing in expression, but always with a very loving, almost deprecating, look at my mother, the finely-formed, thin, transparent hands, and a whole _Wesen_ that seemed in complete harmony with everything one expected to find in the author of "Romola." The next day Mr. and Mrs. Lewes went on to Assisi and we to Naples, and we did not meet again till the following August at Weybridge. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th May, 1869.] I value very highly the warrant to call you friend which your letter has given me. It lay awaiting me on our return, the other night, from a nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost wish that you could have a momentary vision of the discouragement--nay, paralyzing despondency--in which many days of my writing life have been passed, in order that you might fully understand the good I find in such sympathy as yours--in such an assurance as you give me that my work has been worth doing. But I will not dwell on any mental sickness of mine. The best joy your words give me is the sense of that sweet, generous feeling in you which dictated them, and I shall always be the richer because you have in this way made me know you better. I must tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman came through a letter of yours, and charmed me very much. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Follen; and one morning when I called on her in London (how many years ago![7]) she was kind enough to read it to me because it contained a little history of your life, and a sketch of your domestic circumstances. I remember thinking that it was very kind of you to write that long letter in reply to the inquiries of one who was personally unknown to you; and looking back with my present experience I think it was still kinder than it then appeared. For at that time you must have been much oppressed with the immediate results of your fame. I remember, too, that you wrote of your husband as one who was richer in Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as the ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar interest to me, I have rarely had your image in my mind without the accompanying image (more or less erroneous) of such a scholar by your side. I shall welcome the fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes. In the meantime let me assure you that whoever else gave you that description of my husband's "History of Philosophy"--namely, "that it was to solve and settle all things"--he himself never saw it in that light. The work has been greatly altered, as well as enlarged, in three successive editions; and his mind is so far from being a captive to his own written words that he is now engaged in physiological and psychological researches which are leading him to issues at variance in some important respects with the views expressed in some of his published works. He is one of the few human beings I have known who will often, in the heat of an argument, see, and straightway confess, that he is in the wrong, instead of trying to shift his ground or use any other device of vanity. I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as to the obstacles your new book may find here from its thorough American character. Most readers who are likely to be really influenced by writing above the common order will find that special aspect an added reason for interest and study, and I dare say you have long seen, as I am beginning to see with new clearness, that if a book which has any sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular, widely circulated book, its power over the social mind for any good is, after all, due to its reception by a few appreciative natures, and is the slow result of radiation from that narrow circle. I mean, that you can affect a few souls, and that each of these in turn may affect a few more, but that no exquisite book tells properly and directly on a multitude, however largely it may be spread by type and paper. Witness the things the multitude will say about it, if one is so unhappy as to be obliged to hear their sayings. I do not write this cynically, but in pure sadness and pity. Both travelling abroad, and staying at home among our English sights and sports, one must continually feel how slowly the centuries work towards the moral good of men. And that thought lies very close to what you say as to your wonder or conjecture concerning my religious point of view. I believe that religion, too, has to be modified--"developed," according to the dominant phrase--and that a religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must express less care for personal consolation, and a more deeply-awing sense of responsibility to man, springing from sympathy with that which of all things is most certainly known to us, the difficulty of the human lot. I do not find my temple in Pantheism, which, whatever might be its value speculatively, could not yield a practical religion, since it is an attempt to look at the universe from the outside of our relations to it (that universe) as human beings. As healthy, sane human beings, we must love and hate--love what is good for mankind, hate what is evil for mankind. For years of my youth I dwelt in dreams of a pantheistic sort, falsely supposing that I was enlarging my sympathy. But I have travelled far away from that time. Letters are necessarily narrow and fragmentary, and, when one writes on wide subjects, are liable to create more misunderstanding than illumination. But I have little anxiety of that kind in writing to you, dear friend and fellow-laborer, for you have had longer experience than I as a writer, and fuller experience as a woman, since you have borne children and known the mother's history from the beginning. I trust your quick and long-taught mind as an interpreter little liable to mistake me. When you say, "We live in an orange grove and are planting many more," and when I think that you must have abundant family love to cheer you, it seems to me that you must have a paradise about you. But no list of circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless, I must believe that the joyous, tender humor of your books clings about your more immediate life, and makes some of that sunshine for yourself which you have given to us. I see the advertisement of "Old Town Folk," and shall eagerly expect it. That and every other new link between us will be reverentially valued. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _May 8_ (Saturday).--Poor Thornie arrived from Natal, sadly wasted by suffering. _May 24._--Sold "Agatha" to Fields & Osgood, for the _Atlantic Monthly_, for £300. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 26th May, 1869.] That "disturbance" in my favorite work, with which you and Dr. Congreve are good enough to sympathize, is unhappily greater now than it has been for years before. Our poor Thornie came back to us about seventeen days ago. We can never rejoice enough that we were already at home, seeing that we held it impossible for him to set out on his voyage until at least six weeks later than he did. Since he arrived our lives have been chiefly absorbed by cares for him; and though we now have a nurse to attend on him constantly, we spend several hours of the day by his side. There is joy in the midst of our trouble, from the tenderness towards the sufferer being altogether unchecked by anything unlovable in him. Thornie's disposition seems to have become sweeter than ever with the added six years; and there is nothing that we discern in his character or habits to cause us grief. Enough of our troubles. I gather from your welcome letter, received this morning, that there is a good deal of enjoyment for you in your temporary home, in spite of bad weather and faceache, which I hope will have passed away when you read this. Mr. Beesley[8] wrote to me to tell me of his engagement, and on Sunday we had the pleasure of shaking him by the hand and seeing him look very happy. His is one of a group of prospective marriages which we have had announced to us since we came home. Besides Mr. Harrison's, there is Dr. Allbut's, our charming friend at Leeds. I told Mr. Beesley that I thought myself magnanimous in really rejoicing at the engagements of men friends, because, of course, they will be comparatively indifferent to their old intimates. Dear Madame Bodichon is a precious help to us. She comes twice a week to sit with Thornie, and she is wonderfully clever in talking to young people. One finds out those who have real practical sympathy in times of trouble. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 9th June, 1869.] Your letter has fulfilled two wishes of mine. It shows me that you keep me in your kind thoughts, and that you are very happy. I had been told by our friends, the Nortons, of your engagement, but I knew nothing more than that bare fact, and your letter gives me more of a picture. A very pretty picture--for I like to think of your love having grown imperceptibly along with sweet family affections. I do heartily share in your happiness, for however space and time may keep us asunder, you will never to my mind be lost in the distance, but will hold a place of marked and valued interest quite apart from those more public hopes about you which I shall not cease to cherish. Both Mr. Lewes and I shall be delighted to see you any evening. I imagine that when you are obliged to stay in town the evening will be the easiest time for you to get out to us. Any time after eight you will find us thoroughly glad to shake hands with you. Do come when you can. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _July 3._--Finished my reading in Lucretius. Reading Victor Hugo's "L'homme qui rit;" also the Frau von Hillern's novel, "Ein Arzt der Seele." This week G. and I have been to Sevenoaks, but were driven home again by the cold winds and cloudy skies. "Sonnets on Childhood"--five--finished. _July 10._--I wrote to Mrs. Stowe, in answer to a second letter of hers, accompanied by one from her husband. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 11th July, 1869.] I hoped before this to have seen our friend, Mrs. Fields, on her return from Scotland, and to have begged her to send you word of a domestic affliction which has prevented me from writing to you since I received your and your husband's valued letters. Immediately on our return from Italy, Mr. Lewes's second son, a fine young man of five-and-twenty, returned to us from Natal, wasted by suffering from a long-standing spinal injury. This was on the 8th of May, and since then we have both been absorbed in our duties to this poor child, and have felt our own health and nervous energy insufficient for our needful activity of body and mind. He is at present no better, and we look forward to a long trial. Nothing but a trouble so great as this would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I have received and read "Old Town Folks." I think few of your many readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root--one, in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father and mother, with their relations; the other is, my experimental acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own, except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which, I can see, has been a labor of love. Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the indications which the Professor gives of his peculiar psychological experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in every way distinguished mind. He will, I am sure, accept the brief thanks which I can give in this letter, for all that he has generously written to me. He says, "I have had no connection with any of the modern movements, except as father confessor;" and I can well believe that he must be peculiarly sensitive to the repulsive aspects which those movements present. Your view as to the cause of that "great wave of spiritualism" which is rushing over America--namely, that it is a sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement towards the invisible existence of the loved ones, is deeply affecting. But so far as "spiritualism" (by which I mean, of course, spirit-communication, by rapping, guidance of the pencil, etc.) has come within reach of my judgment on our side of the water, it has appeared to me either as degrading folly, imbecile in the estimate of evidence, or else as impudent imposture. So far as my observation and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured methods of studying the open secret of the universe any large amount of attention to alleged manifestations which are so defiled by low adventurers and their palpable trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the doubtfulness of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed, which testimonies are no more true objectively because they are honest subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is true because it seemed to Tycho Brahé a better explanation of the heavenly movements than the Copernican. This is a brief statement of my position on the subject, which your letter shows me to have an aspect much more compulsory on serious attention in America than I can perceive it to have in England. I should not be as simply truthful as my deep respect for you demands, if I did not tell you exactly what is my mental attitude in relation to the phenomena in question. But whatever you print on the subject and will send me I shall read with attention, and the idea you give me of the hold which spiritualism has gained on the public mind in the United States is already a fact of historic importance. Forgive me, dear friend, if I write in the scantiest manner, unworthily responding to letters which have touched me profoundly. You have known so much of life, both in its more external trials and in the peculiar struggles of a nature which is made twofold in its demands by the yearnings of the author as well as of the woman, that I can count on your indulgence and power of understanding my present inability to correspond by letter. May I add my kind remembrances to your daughter to the high regard which I offer to your husband? [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _July 14._--Returned from Hatfield, after two days' stay. _July 15._--Began Nisard's "History of French Literature"--Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Christine de Pisan, Philippe de Comines, Villers. _July 16._--Read the articles Phoenicia and Carthage in "Ancient Geography." Looked into Jewitt's "Universal History" again for Carthaginian religion. Looked into Sismondi's "Littérature du Midi" for Roman de la Rose; and ran through the first chapter about the formation of the Romance languages. Read about _Thallogens_ and _Acrogens_ in the "Vegetable World." Read Drayton's "Nymphidia"--a charming poem--a few pages of his "Polyolbion." Re-read Grote, v.-vii., on Sicilian affairs, down to rise of Dionysius. _July 18._--Miss Nannie Smith came, after a long absence from England; Professor Masson and Dr. Bastian, Madame Bodichon, and Dr. Payne. Some conversation about Saint-Simonism, _à propos_ of the meeting on Woman's Suffrage the day before, M. Arles Dufour being uneasy because Mill did not in his speech recognize what women owed to Saint-Simonism. _July 19._--Writing an introduction to "Middlemarch." I have just re-read the 15th Idyll of Theocritus, and have written three more sonnets. My head uneasy. We went in the afternoon to the old water-colors, finding that the exhibition was to close at the end of the week. Burne-Jones's Circe and St. George affected me, by their colors, more than any of the other pictures--they are poems. In the evening read Nisard on Rabelais and Marot. _July 22._--Read Reybaud's book on "Les Réformateurs Modernes." In the afternoon Mrs. P. Taylor came and saw Thornie, who has been more uneasy this week, and unwilling to move or come out on the lawn. _July 23._--Read Theocritus, Id. 16. Meditated characters for "Middlemarch." Mrs. F. Malleson came. _July 24._--Still not quite well and clear-headed, so that little progress is made. I read aloud Fourier and Owen, and thought of writing something about Utopists. _July 25._--Read Plato's "Republic" in various parts. After lunch Miss Nannie Smith, Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Deutsch. In the evening I read Nisard, and Littré on Comte. _Aug. 1._--Since last Sunday I have had an uncomfortable week from mental and bodily disturbance. I have finished eleven sonnets on "Brother and Sister," read Littré, Nisard, part of 22d Idyll of Theocritus, Sainte-Beuve, aloud to G. two evenings. Monday evening looked through Dickson's "Fallacies of the Faculty." On Tuesday afternoon we went to the British Museum to see a new bronze, and I was enchanted with some fragments of glass in the Slade collection, with dyes of sunset in them. Yesterday, sitting in Thornie's room, I read through all Shakespeare's "Sonnets." Poor Thornie has had a miserably unsatisfactory week, making no progress. After lunch came Miss N. Smith and Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones, and Mr. Sanderson. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 1st Aug. 1869.] My last words to you might appear to imply something laughably opposed to my real meaning. "Think of me only as an example" meant--an example to be avoided. It was an allusion in my mind to the servant-girl who, being arrested for theft, said to her fellow-servant, "Take example by me, Sally." With the usual caprice of language, we say. "Make an example of her," in that sense of holding up for a warning, which the poor girl and I intended. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _Aug. 2._--Began "Middlemarch" (the Vincy and Featherstone parts). _Aug. 5._--Thornie during the last two or three days gives much more hopeful signs: has been much more lively, with more regular appetite and quieter nights. This morning I finished the first chapter of "Middlemarch." I am reading Renouard's "History of Medicine." _Aug. 31._--We went to Weybridge, walked on St. George's Hill, and lunched with Mrs. Cross and her family. This visit to Weybridge is a very memorable one to me, because there my own first intimacy with George Eliot began, and the bonds with my family were knitted very much closer. Mr. and Mrs. Bullock were staying with us; and my sister, who had some gift for music, had set one or two of the songs from the "Spanish Gypsy." She sang one of them--"On through the woods, the pillared pines"--and it affected George Eliot deeply. She moved quickly to the piano, and kissed Mrs. Bullock very warmly, in her tears. Mr. and Mrs. Lewes were in deep trouble owing to the illness of Thornton Lewes; we were also in much anxiety as to the approaching confinement of my sister with her first child; and I was on the eve of departure for America. Sympathetic feelings were strong enough to overleap the barrier (often hard to pass) which separates acquaintanceship from friendship. A day did the work of years. Our visitors had come to the house as acquaintances, they left it as lifelong friends. And the sequel of that day greatly intensified the intimacy. For within a month my sister had died in childbirth, and her death called forth one of the most beautiful of George Eliot's letters. A month later Thornton Lewes died. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _Sept. 1._--I meditated characters and conditions for "Middlemarch," which stands still in the beginning of chapter iii. _Sept. 2._--We spent the morning in Hatfield Park, arriving at home again at half-past three. _Sept. 10._--I have achieved little during the last week, except reading on medical subjects--Encyclopædia about the "Medical Colleges," "Cullen's Life," Russell's "Heroes of Medicine," etc. I have also read Aristophanes' "Ecclesiazusoe," and "Macbeth." _Sept. 11._--I do not feel very confident that I can make anything satisfactory of "Middlemarch." I have need to remember that other things which have been accomplished by me were begun under the same cloud. G. has been reading "Romola" again, and expresses profound admiration. This is encouraging. _Sept. 15._--George and I went to Sevenoaks for a couple of nights, and had some delicious walks. _Sept. 21._--Finished studying again Bekker's "Charikles." I am reading Mandeville's Travels. As to my work, _im Stiche gerathen_. Mrs. Congreve and Miss Bury came; and I asked Mrs. Congreve to get me some information about provincial hospitals, which is necessary to my imagining the conditions of my hero. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1869.] As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poetry, I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most _vulgar-minded_ genius that ever produced a great effect in literature. [Sidenote: Journal, 1869.] _Sept. 22._--We went down to Watford for a change. _Sept. 24._--Returned home this morning because of the unpromising weather. It is worth while to record my great depression of spirits, that I may remember one more resurrection from the pit of melancholy. And yet what love is given to me! What abundance of good I possess! All my circumstances are blessed; and the defect is only in my own organism. Courage and effort! _Oct. 5._--Ever since the 28th I have been good for little, ailing in body and disabled in mind. On Sunday an interesting Russian pair came to see us--M. and Mme. Kovilevsky: she, a pretty creature, with charming modest voice and speech, who is studying mathematics (by allowance, through the aid of Kirchhoff) at Heidelberg; he, amiable and intelligent, studying the concrete sciences apparently--especially geology; and about to go to Vienna for six months for this purpose, leaving his wife at Heidelberg! I have begun a long-meditated poem, "The Legend of Jubal," but have not written more than twenty or thirty verses. _Oct. 13._--Yesterday Mr. W. G. Clark of Cambridge came to see us, and told of his intention to give up his oratorship and renounce his connection with the Church. I have read rapidly through Max Müller's "History of Sanskrit Literature," and am now reading Lecky's "History of Morals." I have also finished Herbert Spencer's last number of his "Psychology." My head has been sadly feeble, and my whole body ailing of late. I have written about one hundred verses of my poem. Poor Thornie seems to us in a state of growing weakness. _Oct. 19._--This evening at half-past six our dear Thornie died. He went quite peacefully. For three days he was not more than fitfully and imperfectly conscious of the things around him. He went to Natal on the 17th October, 1863, and came back to us ill on the 8th May, 1869. Through the six months of his illness his frank, impulsive mind disclosed no trace of evil feeling. He was a sweet-natured boy--still a boy, though he had lived for twenty-five years and a half. On the 9th of August he had an attack of paraplegia, and although he partially recovered from it, it made a marked change in him. After that he lost a great deal of his vivacity, but he suffered less pain. This death seems to me the beginning of our own. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1869.] The day after our dear boy's funeral we went into the quietest and most beautiful part of Surrey, four miles and a half from any railway station. I was very much shaken in mind and body, and nothing but the deep calm of fields and woods would have had a beneficent effect on me. We both of us felt, more than ever before, the blessedness of being in the country, and we are come back much restored. It will interest you, I think, to know that a friend of ours, Mr. W. G. Clark, the public orator at Cambridge, laid down his oratorship as a preparatory step to writing a letter to his bishop renouncing, or, rather, claiming to be free from, his clerical status, because he no longer believes what it presupposes him to believe. Two other men whom we know are about to renounce Cambridge fellowships on the same ground. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 31st Dec. 1869.] We shall be delighted to have you on Monday. I hope you will get your business done early enough to be by a good fire in our drawing-room before lunch. Mr. Doyle is coming to dine with us, but you will not mind that. He is a dear man, a good Catholic, full of varied sympathies and picturesque knowledge. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 15th Jan. 1870.] I am moved to write to you rather by the inclination to remind you of me than by the sense of having anything to say. On reading "The Positivist Problem"[9] a second time, I gained a stronger impression of its general value, and I also felt less jarred by the more personal part at the close. Mr. Lewes would tell you that I have an unreasonable aversion to personal statements, and when I come to like them it is usually by a hard process of _con_-version. But my second reading gave me a new and very strong sense that the last two or three pages have the air of an appendix, added at some distance of time from the original writing of the article. Some more thoroughly explanatory account of your non-adhesion seems requisite as a nexus--since the statement of your non-adhesion had to be mentioned after an argument for the system against the outer Gentile world. However, it is more important for me to say that I felt the thorough justice of your words, when, in conversation with me, you said, "I don't see why there should be any mystification; having come to a resolution after much inward debate, it is better to state the resolution." Something like that you said, and I give a hearty "Amen," praying that I may not be too apt myself to prefer the haze to the clearness. But the fact is, I shrink from decided "deliverances" on momentous subjects from the dread of coming to swear by my own "deliverances," and sinking into an insistent echo of myself. That is a horrible destiny--and one cannot help seeing that many of the most powerful men fall into it. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Mch. 1870.] Cara has told me about your republication of the "Inquiry," and I have a longing to write--not intrusively, I hope--just to say "thank you" for the good it does me to know of your being engaged in that act of piety to your brother's memory. I delight in the act itself, and in the satisfaction which I know you have in performing it. When I remember my own obligation to the book, I must believe that among the many new readers a cheap edition will reach there must be minds to whom it will bring welcome light in studying the New Testament--sober, serious help towards a conception of the past, instead of stage-lights and make-ups. And this value is, I think, independent of the opinions that might be held as to the different degrees of success in the construction of probabilities or in particular interpretations. Throughout there is the presence of grave sincerity. I would gladly have a word or two directly from yourself when you can scribble a note without feeling me a bore for wanting it. People who write many letters without being forced to do so are fathomless wonders to me, but you have a special faculty for writing such letters as one cares to read, so it is a pity that the accomplishment should lie quite unused. I wonder if you have read Emerson's new essays. I like them very much. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d April, 1870.] We shall leave Berlin on Tuesday, so that I must ask you to send me the much-desired news of you to Vienna, addressed to the Hon. Robert Lytton, British Embassy. We do not yet know the name of the hotel where rooms have been taken for us. Our journey has not been unfortunate hitherto. The weather has been cold and cheerless, but we expected this, and on the 1st of April the sun began to shine. As for my _Wenigkeit_, it has never known a day of real bodily comfort since we got to Berlin: headache, sore throat, and _Schnupfen_ have been alternately my companions, and have made my enjoyment very languid. But think of this as all past when you get my letter; for this morning I have a clearer head, the sun is shining, and the better time seems to be come for me. Mr. Lewes has had a good deal of satisfaction in his visits to laboratories and to the _Charité_, where he is just now gone for the third time to see more varieties of mad people, and hear more about Psychiatrie from Dr. Westphal, a quiet, unpretending little man, who seems to have been delighted with George's sympathetic interest in this (to me) hideous branch of practice. I speak with all reverence: the world can't do without hideous studies. People have been very kind to us, and have overwhelmed us with attentions, but we have felt a little weary in the midst of our gratitude, and since my cold has become worse we have been obliged to cut off further invitations. We have seen many and various men and women, but except Mommsen, Bunsen, and Du Bois Reymond, hardly any whose names would be known to you. If I had been in good health I should probably have continued to be more amused than tired of sitting on a sofa and having one person after another brought up to bow to me, and pay me the same compliment. Even as it was, I felt my heart go out to some good women who seemed really to have an affectionate feeling towards me for the sake of my books. But the sick animal longs for quiet and darkness. The other night, at Dr. Westphal's, I saw a young English lady marvellously like Emily in face, figure, and voice. I made advances to her on the strength of that external resemblance, and found it carried out in the quickness of her remarks. But new gentlemen to be introduced soon divided us. Another elegant, pretty woman there was old Boeckh's daughter. One enters on all subjects by turns in these evening parties, which are something like reading the Conversations-Lexicon in a nightmare. Among lighter entertainments we have been four times to the opera, being tempted at the very beginning of our stay by Gluck, Mozart, and an opportunity of hearing Tannhäuser for the second time. Also we have enjoyed some fine orchestral concerts, which are to be had for sixpence! Berlin has been growing very fast since our former stay here, and luxury in all forms has increased so much that one only here and there gets a glimpse of the old-fashioned German housekeeping. But though later hours are becoming fashionable, the members of the Reichstag who have other business than politics complain of having to begin their sitting at eleven, ending, instead of beginning, at four, when the solid day is almost gone. We went to the Reichstag one morning, and were so fortunate as to hear Bismarck speak. But the question was one of currency, and his speech was merely a brief winding-up. Now I shall think that I have earned a letter telling me all about you. May there be nothing but good to tell of! Pray give my best love to Emily, and my earnest wishes to Dr. Congreve, that he may have satisfaction in new work. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th May, 1870.] I gladly and gratefully keep the portrait.[10] For my own part, I should have said, without hesitation, "Prefix it to the 'Inquiry.'" One must not be unreasonable about portraits. How can a thing which is always the same be an adequate representation of a living being who is always varying--especially of a living being who is sensitive, bright, many-sided, as your brother was? But I think the impression which this portrait gives excites interest. I am often sorry for people who lose half their possible good in the world by being more alive to deficiencies than to positive merits. I like to know that you have felt in common with me while you read "Jubal." Curiously enough, Mr. Lewes, when I first read it to him, made just the remark you make about the scene of Jubal coming with the lyre. We laughed at Mr. Bray's sharp criticism. Tell him it is not the fashion for authors ever to be in the wrong. They have always justifying reasons. But also it is the fashion for critics to know everything, so that the authors don't think it needful to tell their reasons. [Sidenote: Journal, 1870.] _May 20._--I am fond of my little old book in which I have recorded so many changes, and shall take to writing in it again. It will perhaps last me all through the life that is left to me. Since I wrote in it last, the day after Thornie's death, the chief epochs have been our stay at Limpsfield, in Surrey, till near the beginning of December; my writing of "Jubal," which I finished on the 13th of January; the publication of the poem in the May number of _Macmillan's Magazine_; and our journey to Berlin and Vienna, from which we returned on the 6th of this month, after an absence of eight weeks. This is a fortnight ago, and little has been done by me in the interim. My health is in an uncomfortable state, and I seem to be all the weaker for the continual depression produced by cold and sore throat, which stretched itself all through our long journey. These small bodily grievances make life less desirable to me, though every one of my best blessings--my one perfect love, and the sympathy shown towards me for the sake of my works, and the personal regard of a few friends--have become much intensified in these latter days. I am not hopeful about future work. I am languid, and my novel languishes too. But to-morrow may be better than to-day. _May 25._--We started for Oxford, where we were to stay with the Rector of Lincoln and his wife. After luncheon G. and I walked alone through the town, which, on this first view, was rather disappointing to me. Presently we turned through Christ Church into the meadows, and walked along by the river. This was beautiful to my heart's content. The buttercups and hawthorns were in their glory, the chestnuts still in sufficiently untarnished bloom, and the grand elms made a border towards the town. After tea we went with Mrs. Pattison and the rector to the croquet-ground near the Museum. On our way we saw Sir Benjamin Brodie, and on the ground Professor Rawlinson, the "narrow-headed man;" Mrs. Thursfield and her son, who is a Fellow (I think, of Corpus); Miss Arnold, daughter of Mr. Thomas Arnold, and Professor Phillips, the geologist. At supper we had Mr. Bywater and Miss Arnold, and in chat with them the evening was passed. _May 26._--G. and I went to the Museum, and had an interesting morning with Dr. Rolleston, who dissected a brain for me. After lunch we went again to the Museum, and spent the afternoon with Sir Benjamin Brodie, seeing various objects in his laboratories; among others, the method by which weighing has been superseded in delicate matters by _measuring_ in a graduated glass tube. Afterwards Mrs. Pattison took me a drive in her little pony carriage round by their country refuge, the Firs, Haddington, and by Littlemore, where I saw J. H. Newman's little conventual dwelling. Returning, we had a fine view of the Oxford towers. To supper came Sir Benjamin and Lady Brodie. _May 27._--In the morning we walked to see the two Martyrs' Memorial, and then to Sir Benjamin Brodie's pretty place near the river and bridge. Close by their grounds is the original ford whence the place took its name. The Miss Gaskells were staying with them, and, after chatting some time, we two walked with Sir Benjamin to New College, where we saw the gardens surrounded by the old city wall; the chapel where William of Wykeham's crosier is kept; and the cloisters, which are fine, but gloomy, and less beautiful than those of Magdalen, which we saw in our walk on Thursday before going to the Museum. After lunch we went to the Bodleian, and then to the Sheldonian Theatre, where there was a meeting _à propos_ of Palestine Exploration. Captain Warren, conductor of the Exploration at Jerusalem, read a paper, and then Mr. Deutsch gave an account of the interpretation, as hitherto arrived at, of the Moabite Stone. I saw squeezes of this stone for the first time, with photographs taken from the squeezes. After tea Mrs. Thursfield kindly took us to see a boat-race. We saw it from the Oriel barge, under the escort of Mr. Crichton, Fellow of Merton, who, on our return, took us through the lovely gardens of his college. At supper were Mr. Jowett, Professor Henry Smith, and Miss Smith, his sister, Mr. Fowler, author of "Deductive Logic," etc. _May 28._--After a walk to St. John's College we started by the train for London, and arrived at home about two o'clock. _May 29._--Mr. Spencer, Mrs. Burne-Jones, and Mr. Crompton came. I read aloud No. 3 of "Edwin Drood." _May 30._--We went to see the autotypes of Michael Angelo's frescoes, at 36 Rathbone Place. I began Grove on the "Correlation of the Physical Forces"--needing to read it again--with new interest, after the lapse of years. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th June, 1870.] Dr. Reynolds advises Mr. Lewes to leave London again, and go to the bracing air of the Yorkshire coast. I said that we should be here till the beginning of August, but the internal order proposes and the external order disposes--if we are to be so priggish as to alter all our old proverbs into agreement with new formulas! Dickens's death came as a great shock to us. He lunched with us just before we went abroad, and was telling us a story of President Lincoln having told the Council, on the day he was shot, that something remarkable would happen, because he had just dreamt, for the third time, a dream which twice before had preceded events momentous to the nation. The dream was, that he was in a boat on a great river, all alone, and he ended with the words, "I drift--I drift--I drift." Dickens told this very finely. I thought him looking dreadfully shattered then. It is probable that he never recovered from the effect of the terrible railway accident. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 23d June, 1870, from Cromer.] We have been driven away from home again by the state of Mr. Lewes's health. Dr. Reynolds recommended the Yorkshire coast; but we wanted to know Cromer, and so we came here first, for the sake of variety. To me the most desirable thing just now seems to be to have one home, and stay there till death comes to take me away. I get more and more disinclined to the perpetual makeshifts of a migratory life, and care more and more for the order and habitual objects of home. However, there are many in the world whose whole existence is a makeshift, and perhaps the formula which would fit the largest number of lives is "a doing without, more or less patiently." The air just now is not very invigorating anywhere, I imagine, and one begins to be very anxious about the nation generally, on account of the threatening drought. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton (now Lady Lytton), 8th July, 1870, from Harrogate.] I did not like to write to you[11] until Mr. Lytton sent word that I might do so, because I had not the intimate knowledge that would have enabled me to measure your trouble; and one dreads, of all things, to speak or write a wrong or unseasonable word when words are the only signs of interest and sympathy that one has to give. I know now, from what your dear husband has told us, that your loss is very keenly felt by you, that it has first made you acquainted with acute grief, and this makes me think of you very much. For learning to love any one is like an increase of property--it increases care, and brings many new fears lest precious things should come to harm. I find myself often thinking of you with that sort of proprietor's anxiety, wanting you to have gentle weather all through your life, so that your face may never look worn and storm-beaten, and wanting your husband to be and do the very best, lest anything short of that should be disappointment to you. At present the thought of you is all the more with me because your trouble has been brought by death; and for nearly a year death seems to me my most intimate daily companion. I mingle the thought of it with every other, not sadly, but as one mingles the thought of some one who is nearest in love and duty with all one's motives. I try to delight in the sunshine that will be when I shall never see it any more. And I think it is possible for this sort of impersonal life to attain great intensity--possible for us to gain much more independence than is usually believed of the small bundle of facts that make our own personality. I don't know why I should say this to you, except that my pen is chatting as my tongue would if you were here. We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections, and though our affections are, perhaps, the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life--some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed; because all their teaching has been that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this sort of defence against passionate affliction even more than men. Just under the pressure of grief, I do not believe there is any consolation. The word seems to me to be drapery for falsities. Sorrow must be sorrow, ill must be ill, till duty and love towards all who remain recover their rightful predominance. Your life is so full of those claims that you will not have time for brooding over the unchangeable. Do not spend any of your valuable time now in writing to me, but be satisfied with sending me news of you through Mr. Lytton when he has occasion to write to Mr. Lewes. I have lately finished reading aloud Mendelssohn's "Letters," which we had often resolved and failed to read before. They have been quite cheering to us from the sense they give of communion with an eminently pure, refined nature, with the most rigorous conscience in art. In the evening we have always a concert to listen to--a concert of modest pretensions, but well conducted enough to be agreeable. I hope this letter of chit-chat will not reach you at a wrong moment. In any case, forgive all mistakes on the part of one who is always yours sincerely and affectionately. [Sidenote: Journal, 1870.] _Aug. 4._--Two months have been spent since the last record! Their result is not rich, for we have been sent wandering again by G.'s want of health. On the 15th June we went to Cromer, on the 30th to Harrogate, and on the 18th July to Whitby, where Mrs. Burne-Jones also arrived on the same day. On Monday, August 1, we came home again for a week only, having arranged to go to Limpsfield next Monday. To-day, under much depression, I begin a little dramatic poem,[12] the subject of which engaged my interest at Harrogate. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1870.] We, too, you see, have come back to a well-tried refuge--the same place that soothed us in our troubles last October--and we especially delight in this deep country after the fuss which belongs even to quiet watering-places, such as Cromer, Harrogate, and Whitby, which are, after all, "alleys where the gentle folks live." We are excited, even among the still woods and fields, by the vicissitudes of the war, and chiefly concerned because we cannot succeed in getting the day's _Times_. We have entered into the period which will be marked in future historical charts as "The period of German ascendency." But how saddening to think of the iniquities that the great harvest-moon is looking down on! I am less grieved for the bloodshed than for the hateful trust in lies which is continually disclosed. Meanwhile Jowett's "Translation of Plato" is being prepared for publication, and he has kindly sent us the sheets of one volume. So I pass from discussions of French lying and the Nemesis that awaits it to discussions about rhetorical lying at Athens in the fourth century before Christ. The translations and introductions to the "Dialogues" seem to be charmingly done. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 25th Aug. 1870.] We shall return to town on Monday, various small reasons concurring to make us resolve on quitting this earthly paradise. I am very sorry for the sufferings of the French nation; but I think these sufferings are better for the moral welfare of the people than victory would have been. The war has been drawn down on them by an iniquitous government; but in a great proportion of the French people there has been nourished a wicked glorification of selfish pride, which, like all other conceit, is a sort of stupidity, excluding any true conception of what lies outside their own vain wishes. The Germans, it seems, were expected to stand like toy-soldiers for the French to knock them down. It is quite true that the war is in some respects the conflict of two differing forms of civilization. But whatever charm we may see in the southern Latin races, this ought not to blind us to the great contributions which the German energies have made in all sorts of ways to the common treasure of mankind. And who that has any spirit of justice can help sympathizing with them in their grand repulse of the French project to invade and divide them? If I were a Frenchwoman, much as I might wail over French sufferings, I cannot help believing that I should detest the French talk about the "Prussians." They wanted to throttle the electric eel for their own purposes. But I imagine that you and the doctor would not find us in much disagreement with you in these matters. One thing that is pleasant to think of is the effort made everywhere to help the wounded. [Sidenote: Journal, 1870.] _Oct. 27._--On Monday the 8th August we went to our favorite Surrey retreat--Limpsfield--and enjoyed three weeks there reading and walking together. The weather was perfect, and the place seemed more lovely to us than before. Aloud I read the concluding part of Walter Scott's Life, which we had begun at Harrogate; two volumes of Froude's "History of England," and Comte's "Correspondence with Valat." We returned on Monday the 29th. During our stay at Limpsfield I wrote the greater part of "Armgart," and finished it at intervals during September. Since then I have been continually suffering from headache and depression, with almost total despair of future work. I look into this little book now to assure myself that this is not unprecedented. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Nov. 1870.] Yesterday, for the first time, we went to hear A. (a popular preacher). I remembered what you had said about his vulgar, false emphasis; but there remained the fact of his celebrity. I was glad of the opportunity. But my impressions fell below the lowest judgment I ever heard passed upon him. He has the gift of a fine voice, very flexible and various; he is admirably fluent and clear in his language, and every now and then his enunciation is effective. But I never heard any pulpit reading and speaking which in its level tone was more utterly common and empty of guiding intelligence or emotion; it was as if the words had been learned by heart and uttered without comprehension by a man who had no instinct of rhythm or music in his soul. And the doctrine! It was a libel on Calvinism that it should be presented in such a form. I never heard any attempt to exhibit the soul's experience that was more destitute of insight. The sermon was against fear, in the elect Christian, as being a distrust of God; but never once did he touch the true ground of fear--the doubt whether the signs of God's choice are present in the soul. We had plenty of anecdotes, but they were all poor and pointless--Tract Society anecdotes of the feeblest kind. It was the most superficial grocer's-back-parlor view of Calvinistic Christianity; and I was shocked to find how low the mental pitch of our society must be, judged by the standard of this man's celebrity. Mr. Lewes was struck with some of his tones as good actor's tones, and was not so wroth as I was. But just now, with all Europe stirred by events that make every conscience tremble after some great principle as a consolation and guide, it was too exasperating to sit and listen to doctrine that seemed to look no further than the retail Christian's tea and muffins. He said "Let us approach the throne of God" very much as he might have invited you to take a chair; and then followed this fine touch--"We feel no love to God because he hears the prayers of others; it is because he hears my prayer that I love him." You see I am relieving myself by pouring out my disgust to you. Oh, how short life--how near death--seems to me! But this is not an uncheerful thought. The only great dread is the protraction of life into imbecility or the visitation of lingering pain. That seems to me the insurmountable calamity, though there is an ignorant affectation in many people of underrating what they call bodily suffering. I systematically abstain from correspondence, yet the number of acquaintances and consequent little appeals so constantly increases that I often find myself inwardly rebelling against the amount of note-writing that I cannot avoid. Have the great events of these months interfered with your freedom of spirit in writing? One has to dwell continually on the permanent, growing influence of ideas in spite of temporary reactions, however violent, in order to get courage and perseverance for any work which lies aloof from the immediate wants of society. You remember Goethe's contempt for the Revolution of '30 compared with the researches on the Vertebrate Structure of the Skull? "My good friend, I was not thinking of those people." But the changes we are seeing cannot be doffed aside in that way. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Nov. 1870.] Lying awake early in the morning, according to a bad practice of mine, I was visited with much compunction and self-disgust that I had ever said a word to you about the faults of a friend whose good qualities are made the more sacred by the endurance his lot has in many ways demanded. I think you may fairly set down a full half of any alleged grievances to my own susceptibility, and other faults of mine which necessarily call forth less agreeable manifestations from others than as many virtues would do, if I had them. I trust to your good sense to have judged well in spite of my errors in the presentation of any matter. But I wish to protest against myself, that I may, as much as possible, cut off the temptation to what I should like utterly to purify myself from for the few remaining years of my life--the disposition to dwell for a moment on the faults of a friend. Tell the flower and fern giver, whoever it may be, that some strength comes to me this morning from the pretty proof of sympathy. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 2d Dec. 1870.] I have it on my conscience that I may not have given you a clear impression of my wishes about the poor pensioner who was in question between us to-day, so I write at once to secure us both against a possible misunderstanding. I would rather not apply any more money in that direction, because I know of other channels[13]--especially a plan which is being energetically carried out for helping a considerable group of people without almsgiving, and solely by inducing them to work--into which I shall be glad to pour a little more aid. The repugnance to have relief from the parish was a feeling which it was good to encourage in the old days of contra-encouragement to sturdy pauperism; but I question whether one ought now to indulge it, and not rather point out the reasons why, in a case of real helplessness, there is no indignity in receiving from a public fund. After you had left me, it rang in my ears that I had spoken of my greater cheerfulness as due to a reduced anxiety about myself and my doings, and had not seemed to recognize that the deficit or evil in other lives could be a cause of depression. I was not really so ludicrously selfish while dressing myself up in the costume of unselfishness. But my strong egoism has caused me so much melancholy, which is traceable simply to a fastidious yet hungry ambition, that I am relieved by the comparative quietude of personal craving which age is bringing. That is the utmost I have to boast of, and, really, to be cheerful in these times could only be a virtue in the sense in which it was felt to be so by the old Romans when they thanked their general for not despairing of the republic. I have been reading aloud to Mr. Lewes this evening Mr. Harrison's article on "Bismarckism," which made me cry--it is in some passages movingly eloquent. [Sidenote: Journal, 1870.] _Dec. 2._--I am experimenting in a story ("Miss Brooke") which I began without any very serious intention of carrying it out lengthily. It is a subject which has been recorded among my possible themes ever since I began to write fiction, but will probably take new shapes in the development. I am to-day at p. 44. I am reading Wolf's "Prolegomena to Homer." In the evening, aloud, "Wilhelm Meister" again! _Dec. 12._--George's mother died this morning quite peacefully as she sat in her chair. _Dec. 17._--Reading "Quintus Fixlein" aloud to G. in the evening. Grote on Sicilian history. _Dec. 31._--On Wednesday the 21st we went to Ryde to see Madame Bodichon at Swanmore Parsonage, a house which she had taken for two months. We had a pleasant and healthy visit, walking much in the frosty air. On Christmas Day I went with her to the Ritualist Church which is attached to the parsonage, and heard some excellent intoning by the delicate-faced, tenor-voiced clergyman. On Wednesday last, the 28th, Barbara came up to town with us. We found the cold here more severe than at Ryde; and the papers tell us of still harder weather about Paris, where our fellow-men are suffering and inflicting horrors. Here is the last day of 1870. I have written only one hundred pages--good printed pages--of a story which I began about the opening of November, and at present mean to call "Miss Brooke." Poetry halts just now. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Jan. 1871.] We spent our Christmas in the Isle of Wight, and on Christmas Day I went to a Ritualist church and heard some fine intoning of the service by a clear, strong, tenor voice, sweet singing from boys' throats, and all sorts of Catholic ceremonial in a miniature way. It is good to see what our neighbors are doing. To live in seclusion with one's own thoughts is apt to give one very false notions as to the possibilities of the present time in the matter of conversion either to superstition or anti-superstition. In this cruel time, I no sooner hear of an affliction than I see it multiplied in some one of the endless forms of suffering created by this hellish war. In the beginning I could feel entirely with the Germans, and could say of that calamity called "victory," I am glad. But now I can be glad of nothing. No people can carry on a long, fierce war without being brutalized by it, more or less, and it pains me that the educated voices have not a higher moral tone about national and international duties and prospects. But, like every one else, I feel that the war is too much with me, and am rather anxious to avoid unwise speech about it than to utter what may seem to me to be wisdom. The pain is that one can _do_ so little. I have not read "Sir Harry Hotspur," but as to your general question, I reply that there certainly are some women who love in that way, but "their sex as well as I may chide them for it." Men are very fond of glorifying that sort of dog-like attachment. It is one thing to love because you falsely imagine goodness--that belongs to the finest natures--and another to go on loving when you have found out your mistake. But married constancy is a different affair. I have seen a grandly heroic woman who, out of her view as to the responsibilities of the married relation, condoned everything, took her drunken husband to her home again, and at last nursed and watched him into penitence and decency. But there may be two opinions even about this sort of endurance--_i.e._, about its ultimate tendency, not about the beauty of nature which prompts it. This is quite distinct from mere animal constancy. It is duty and human pity. [Sidenote: Letter to Colonel Hamley (now General Sir Edward Hamley), 24th Jan. 1871.] I write to say God bless you for your letter to the _Times_, of this morning. It contains the best expression of right principle--I was almost ready to say, the only good, sensible words--that I have yet seen on the actual state of things between the Germans and the French. You will not pause, I trust, but go on doing what can be done only by one who is at once a soldier, a writer, and a clear-headed man of principle. [Sidenote: Journal, 1871.] _March 19_ (Sunday).--It is grievous to me how little, from one cause or other, chiefly languor and occasionally positive ailments, I manage to get done. I have written about two hundred and thirty-six pages (print) of my novel, which I want to get off my hands by next November. My present fear is that I have too much matter--too many _momenti_. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d April, 1871.] I happened to-day to be talking to a very sweet-faced woman (the sister of Dr. Bridges, whom I think you know something of), and she mentioned, _à propos_ of educating children in the love of animals, that she had felt the want of some good little book as a help in this matter. I told her of yours, and when I said that it was written by Mrs. Bray, the author of "Physiology for Schools," she said, "Oh, I know that book well." I have made her a present of my copy of "Duty to Animals," feeling that this was a good quarter in which to plant that offset. For she had been telling me of her practical interest in the infant and other schools in Suffolk, where she lives. We have had a great pleasure to-day in learning that our friend Miss Bury is engaged to be married to Mr. Geddes, a Scotch gentleman. There is a streak of sadness for her family in the fact that she is to go to India with her husband next November, but all else is bright in her prospect. It is very sweet to see, and think of, the happiness of the young. I am scribbling with an infirm head, at the end of the day, just for the sake of letting you know one proof, in addition doubtless to many others which you have already had, that your pretty little book is likely to supply a want. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Gilchrist, 19th April, 1871.] We are very much obliged to you for your kind, methodical thoughtfulness as to all which is necessary for our accommodation at Brookbank, and also for your hints about the points of beauty to be sought for in our walks. That "sense of standing on a round world," which you speak of, is precisely what I most care for among out-of-door delights. The last time I had it fully was at St. Märgen, near Freiburg, on green hilltops, whence we could see the Rhine and poor France. The garden has been, and is being, attended to, and I trust we shall not find the commissariat unendurable. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th June, 1871.] It seems like a resurrection of a buried-alive friendship once more to have a letter from you. Welcome back from your absorption in the Franchise! Somebody else ought to have your share of work now, and you ought to rest. Ever since the 1st of May we have been living in this queer cottage, which belongs to Mrs. Gilchrist, wife of the Gilchrist who wrote the life of William Blake the artist. We have a ravishing country round us, and pure air and water; in short, all the conditions of health, if the east wind were away. We have old prints for our dumb companions--charming children of Sir Joshua's, and large-hatted ladies of his and Romney's. I read aloud--almost all the evening--books of German science, and other gravities. So, you see, we are like two secluded owls, wise with unfashionable wisdom, and knowing nothing of pictures and French plays. I confess that I should have gone often to see Got act if I had been in town, he is so really great as an actor. And yet one is ashamed of seeking amusement in connection with anything that belongs to poor, unhappy France. I am saved from the shame by being safely shut out from the amusement. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th June, 1871.] How about Madame Mohl and her husband? I have been wondering through all the horrors whether M. Mohl had returned to Paris, and whether their house, containing, too probably, the results of much studious work, lies buried among ruins. But I will not further recall the sorrows in that direction. I am glad to see the words "very satisfactory" in connection with the visit to Hitchin and Cambridge. Ely Cathedral I saw last year, but too cursorily. It has more of the massive grandeur that one adores in Le Mans and Chartres than most of our English cathedrals, though I am ready to recall the comparison as preposterous. I don't know how long we shall stay here; perhaps, more or less, till the end of August, for I have given up the idea of going to the Scott Festival at Edinburgh, to which I had accepted an invitation. The fatigue of the long journey, with the crowd at the end, would be too much for me. Let us know beforehand when you are about coming. George is gloriously well, and studying, writing, walking, eating, and sleeping with equal vigor. He is enjoying the life here immensely. Our country could hardly be surpassed in its particular kind of beauty--perpetual undulation of heath and copse, and clear views of hurrying water, with here and there a grand pine wood, steep, wood-clothed promontories, and gleaming pools. If you want delightful reading get Lowell's "My Study Windows," and read the essays called "My Garden Acquaintances" and "Winter." Get the volumes of a very cheap publication--the "Deutscher Novellenschatz." Some of the tales are remarkably fine. I am reading aloud the last three volumes, which are even better than the others. I have just been so deeply interested in one of the stories--"Diethelm von Buchenberg"--that I want everybody to have the same pleasure who can read German. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Gilchrist, 3d July, 1871.] We are greatly obliged to you for the trouble you have so sympathetically taken on our behalf, and we shall prepare to quit our quiet shelter on Wednesday, the 2d of August. During the first weeks of our stay I did not imagine that I should ever be so fond of the place as I am now. The departure of the bitter winds, some improvement in my health, and the gradual revelation of fresh and fresh beauties in the scenery, especially under a hopeful sky such as we have sometimes had--all these conditions have made me love our little world here and wish not to quit it until we can settle in our London home. I have the regret of thinking that it was my original indifference about it (I hardly ever like things until they are familiar) that hindered us from securing the cottage until the end of September, for the chance of coming to it again after a temporary absence. But all regrets ought to be merged in thankfulness for the agreeable weeks we have had, and probably shall have till the end of July. And among the virtues of Brookbank we shall always reckon this, that our correspondence about it has been with you rather than with any one else, so that, along with the country, we have had a glimpse of your ready, quick-thoughted kindness. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 13th July, 1871.] One word to you in response to Emily's note, which comes to me this morning, and lets me know that by this time she is probably in the last hour of her unmarried life. My thoughts and love and tender anxiety are with her and with all of you. When you receive this she will, I suppose, be far away, and it is of little consequence that I can make no new sign to her of my joy in her joy. For the next few weeks my anxiety will be concentrated on you and yours at Yarmouth. Pray, when your mind and body are sufficiently free from absorbing occupation, remember my need of news about you, and write to me. The other day I seemed to get a glimpse of you through Mrs. Call, who told me that you looked like a new creature--so much stronger than you were wont; and she told me of Dr. Congreve's address at the school, which raised my keenest sympathy, and made me feel myself a very helpless friend. Please give my love to the children, and tell Sophy especially that I think her happy in this--that there is a place made for all the effort of her young life to fill it with something like the goodness and brightness which she has known and has just now to part with. I expect her to be your guardian angel, perhaps in a new way--namely, in saving you from some fatigue about details. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th July, 1871.] I still feel that I owe you my thanks for your kind letter, although Mr. Lewes undertook to deliver them in the first instance. You certainly made a seat at the Commemoration Table[14] look more tempting to me than it had done before; but I think that prudence advises me to abstain from the fatigue and excitement of a long railway journey, with a great gathering at the end of it. If there is a chance that "Middlemarch" will be good for anything, I don't want to break down and die without finishing it. And whatever "the tow on my distaff" may be, my strength to unwind it has not been abundant lately. _À propos_ of bodily prosperity, I am sincerely rejoiced to know, by your postscript this morning, that Mr. Simpson is recovered. I hope he will not object to my considering him a good friend of mine, though it is so long since I saw him. The blank that is left when thorough workers like him are disabled is felt not only near at hand, but a great way off. I often say--after the fashion of people who are getting older--that the capacity for good work, of the kind that goes on without trumpets, is diminishing in the world. The continuous absence of sunshine is depressing in every way, and makes one fear for the harvest, and so grave a fear that one is ashamed of mentioning one's private dreariness. You cannot play golf in the rain, and I cannot feel hopeful without the sunlight; but I dare say you work all the more, whereas when my spirits flag my work flags too. I should have liked to see Principal Tulloch again, and to have made the acquaintance of Captain Lockhart, whose writing is so jaunty and cheery, yet so thoroughly refined in feeling. Perhaps I may still have this pleasure in town, when he comes up at the same time with you. Please give my kind regards to Mr. William Blackwood. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th July, 1871.] Thanks for the prompt return of the MS., which arrived this morning. I don't see how I can leave anything out, because I hope there is nothing that will be seen to be irrelevant to my design, which is to show the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional, and to show this in some directions which have not been from time immemorial the beaten path--the Cremorne walks and shows of fiction. But the best intentions are good for nothing until execution has justified them. And you know I am always compassed about with fears. I am in danger in all my designs of parodying dear Goldsmith's satire on Burke, and think of refining when novel-readers only think of skipping. We are obliged to turn out of this queer cottage next week; but we have been fortunate enough to get the more comfortable house on the other side of the road, so that we can move without any trouble. Thus our address will continue to be the same until the end of August. Tennyson, who is one of the "hill-folk" about here, has found us out. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton[15] (now Lady Lytton), 25th July, 1871.] This morning your husband's letter came to us, but if I did not know that it would be nearly a week before any words of mine could reach you, I should abstain from writing just yet, feeling that in the first days of sorrowing it is better to keep silence. For a long while after a great bereavement our only companionship is with the lost one. Yet I hope it will not be without good to you to have signs of love from your friends, and to be reminded that you have a home in their affections, which is made larger for you by your trouble. For weeks my thought has been continually going out to you, and the absence of news has made me so fearful that I have mourned beforehand. I have been feeling that probably you were undergoing the bitterest grief you had ever known. But under the heart-stroke, is there anything better than to grieve? Strength will come back for the duty and the fellowship which gradually bring new contentments, but at first there is no joy to be desired that would displace sorrow. What is better than to love and live with the loved? But that must sometimes bring us to live with the dead; and this too turns at last into a very tranquil and sweet tie, safe from change and injury. You see, I make myself a warrant out of my regard for you, to write as if we had long been near each other. And I cannot help wishing that we were physically nearer--that you were not on the other side of Europe. We shall trust in Mr. Lytton's kindness to let us hear of you by and by. But you must never write except to satisfy your own longing. May all true help surround you, dear Mrs. Lytton, and whenever you can think of me, believe in me as yours with sincere affection. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Mary Cross, 31st July, 1871.] I read your touching story[16] aloud yesterday to Mr. Lewes, and we both cried over it. Your brother wrote to me that you had doubts about giving your name. My faith is, that signature is right in the absence of weighty special reasons against it. We think of you all very often, and feel ourselves much the richer for having a whole dear family to reckon among our friends. We are to stay here till the end of the month. When the trees are yellow, I hope you will be coming to see us in St. John's Wood. How little like the woods we have around us! I suppose Weybridge is more agreeable than other places at present, if it has any of its extra warmth in this arctic season. Our best love, to your dear mother supremely, and then to all. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 2d Aug. 1871.] I always say that those people are the happiest who have a peremptory reason for staying in one place rather than another. Else I should be sorry for you that you are kept in London--by Parliamentary business, of course. There is sunshine over our fields now, but the thermometer is only 64° in the house, and in the warmest part of the day I, having a talent for being cold, sit shivering, sometimes even with a warm-water bottle at my feet. I wonder if you went to the French plays to see the supreme Got? That is a refined pleasure which I enjoyed so much in Paris a few years ago that I was sorry to be out of reach of it this spring. About the Crystal Palace music I remember feeling just what you mention--the sublime effect of the Handel choruses, and the total futility of the solos. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d Aug. 1871.] Thanks for your little picture of things. Eminently acceptable in place of vague conjectures. I am a bitter enemy to make-believe about the human lot, but I think there is a true alleviation of distress in thinking of the intense enjoyment which accompanies a spontaneous, confident, intellectual activity. This may not be a counterpoise to the existing evils, but it is at least a share of mortal good, and good of an exquisite kind. Are you not happy in the long-wished-for sunshine? I have a pretty lawn before me, with hills in the background. The train rushes by every now and then to make one more glad of the usual silence. A good man writes to me from Scotland this morning, asking me if he is not right in pronouncing Rom[)o]la, in defiance of the world around him (not a large world, I hope) who _will_ say Rom[=o]la. Such is correspondence in these days; so that quantity is magnificent _en gros_ but shabby _en détail_--_i.e._, in single letters like this. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 14th Aug. 1871.] We shall stay here only till the end of this month--at least, I have no hope that our _propriétaires_ will be induced to protract their absence; and if the lingering smell of paint does not drive us away from the Priory again, we expect to stay there from the first of September, without projects of travel for many, many months. We enjoy our roomy house and pretty lawn greatly. Imagine me seated near a window, opening under a veranda, with flower-beds and lawn and pretty hills in sight, my feet on a warm-water bottle, and my writing on my knees. In that attitude my mornings are passed. We dine at two; and at four, when the tea comes in, I begin to read aloud. About six or half-past we walk on to the commons and see the great sky over our head. At eight we are usually in the house again, and fill our evening with physics, chemistry, or other wisdom if our heads are at par; if not, we take to folly, in the shape of Alfred de Musset's poems, or something akin to them. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 29th Oct. 1871.] Yesterday we returned from Weybridge, where, for a few days, I have been petted by kind friends (delightful Scotch people), and have had delicious drives in the pure autumn air. That must be my farewell to invalidism and holiday making. I am really better--not robust or fat, but perhaps as well as I am likely to be till death mends me. Your account of Mr. Main[17] sets my mind at ease about him; for in this case I would rather have your judgment than any opportunity of forming my own. The one thing that gave me confidence was his power of putting his finger on the right passages, and giving emphasis to the right idea (in relation to the author's feeling and purpose). Apart from that, enthusiasm would have been of little value. One feels rather ashamed of authoresses this week after the correspondence in the _Times_. One hardly knows which letter is in the worst taste. However, if we are to begin with marvelling at the little wisdom with which the world is governed, we can hardly expect that much wisdom will go to the making of novels. I should think it quite a compliment if the general got through "Miss Brooke." Mr. Lewes amused himself with the immeasurable contempt that Mr. Casaubon would be the object of in the general's mind. I hardly dare hope that the second part will take quite so well as the first, the effects being more subtile and dispersed; but Mr. Lewes seems to like the third part better than anything that has gone before it. But can anything be more uncertain than the reception of a book by the public? I am glad to see that the "Coming Race" has got into a fourth edition. Let us hope that the Koom Posh may be at least mitigated by the sale of a good book or two. As for me, I get more and more unable to be anything more than a feeble sceptic about all publishing plans, and am thankful to have so many good heads at work for me. _Allah illah allah!_ [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1871.] We who are getting old together have the tie of common infirmities. But I don't find that the young troubles seem lighter on looking back. I prefer my years now to any that have gone before. I wish you could tell me the same thing about yourself. And, surely, writing your book is, on the whole, a joy to you--it is a large share in the meagre lot of mankind. All hail for the morrow! How many sweet laughs, how much serious pleasure in the great things others have done, you and I have had together in a past islet of time that remains very sunny in my remembrance. [Sidenote: Journal, 1871.] _Dec. 1._--This day the first part of "Middlemarch" was published. I ought by this time to have finished the fourth part, but an illness which began soon after our return from Haslemere has robbed me of two months. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1871.] If you have not yet fallen in with Dickens's "Life" be on the lookout for it, because of the interest there is in his boyish experience, and also in his rapid development during his first travels in America. The book is ill organized, and stuffed with criticism and other matter which would be better in limbo; but the information about the childhood, and the letters from America, make it worth reading. We have just got a photograph of Dickens, taken when he was writing, or had just written, "David Copperfield"--satisfactory refutation of that keepsakey, impossible face which Maclise gave him, and which has been engraved for the "Life" in all its odious beautification. This photograph is the young Dickens, corresponding to the older Dickens whom I knew--the same face, without the unusually severe wear and tear of years which his latest looks exhibited. [Sidenote: Journal, 1872.] _Dec. 20._--My health has become very troublesome during the last three weeks, and I can get on but tardily. Even now I am only at page 227 of my fourth part. But I have been also retarded by construction, which, once done, serves as good wheels for progress. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Jan. 1872.] Your good wishes and pleasant bits of news made the best part of my breakfast this morning. I am glad to think that, in desiring happiness for you during the new year, I am only desiring the continuance of good which you already possess. I suppose we two, also, are among the happiest of mortals, yet we have had a rather doleful Christmas, the one great lack, that of health, having made itself particularly conspicuous in the surrounding fog. Having no grandchildren to get up a Christmas-tree for, we had nothing to divert our attention from our headaches. Mr. Main's book broke the clouds a little, and now the heavens have altogether cleared, so that we are hoping to come back from a visit of three days to Weybridge with our strength renewed--if not like the eagle's, at least like a convalescent tomtit's. The "Sayings" are set off by delightful paper and print, and a binding which opens with inviting ease. I am really grateful to every one concerned in the volume, and am anxious that it should not be in any way a disappointment. The selections seem to me to be made with an exquisite sensibility to the various lights and shades of life; and all Mr. Main's letters show the same quality. It is a great help to me to have such an indication that there exist careful readers for whom no subtilest intention is lost. We have both read the story of the "Megara" with the deepest interest; indeed, with a quite exceptional enjoyment of its direct, unexaggerated painting. The prescription of two days' golfing per week will, I hope, keep up your condition to the excellent pitch at which it was on your return from Paris. Good news usually acts as a tonic when one's case is not too desperate; and I shall be glad if you and we can get it in the form of more success for "Middlemarch." Dickens's "Life," you see, finds a large public ready to pay more. But the British mind has long entertained the purchase of expensive biographies. The proofs lately given that one's books don't necessarily go out like lucifer matches, never to be taken up again, make one content with moderate immediate results, which perhaps are as much as can reasonably be expected for any writing which does not address itself either to fashions or corporate interests of an exclusive kind. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Jan. 1872.] It is like your kindness to write me your encouraging impressions on reading the third book. I suppose it is my poor health that just now makes me think my writing duller than usual. For certainly the reception of the first book by my old readers is quite beyond my most daring hopes. One of them, who is a great champion of "Adam Bede" and "Romola," told Mr. Lewes yesterday that he thought "Middlemarch" surpassed them. All this is very wonderful to me. I am thoroughly comforted as to the half of the work which is already written; but there remains the terror about the _un_written. Mr. Lewes is much satisfied with the fourth book, which opens with the continuation of the Featherstone drama. We went yesterday to the Tichborne trial, which was an experience of great interest to me. We had to come away after the third hour of Coleridge's speaking; but it was a great enjoyment to me to hear what I did. Coleridge is a rare orator--not of the declamatory, but of the argumentative order. Thanks, not formal, but sincerely felt, for the photographs. This likeness will always carry me back to the first time I saw you, in our little Richmond lodging, when I was thinking anxiously of "Adam Bede," as I now am of "Middlemarch." I felt something like a shudder when Sir Henry Maine asked me last Sunday whether this would not be a very long book; saying, when I told him it would be four good volumes, that that was what he had calculated. However, it will not be longer than Thackeray's books, if so long. And I don't see how the sort of thing I want to do could have been done briefly. I have to be grateful for the gift of "Brougham's Life," which will be a welcome addition to my means of knowing the time "when his ugliness had not passed its bloom." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Jan. 1872.] Your letter seems to pierce the rainy fog with a little sunlight. Cold and clearness are the reverse of what we are usually having here. Until the last few days my chief consciousness has been that of struggling against inward as well as outward fog; but I am now better, and have only been dragged back into headachiness by a little too much fatigue from visitors. I give you this account as a preface to my renunciation of a journey to Dover, which would be very delightful, if I had not already lost too much time to be warranted in taking a holiday. Next Saturday we are going to have a party--six to dine, and a small rush of people after dinner, for the sake of music. I think it is four years at least since we undertook anything of that kind. A great domestic event for us has been the arrival of a new dog, who has all Ben's virtues, with more intelligence, and a begging attitude of irresistible charm. He is a dark-brown spaniel. You see what infantine innocence we live in! Glad you are reading my demigod Milton! We also are rather old-fashioned in our light reading just now; for I have rejected Heyse's German stories, brand new, in favor of dear old Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," which I read aloud in my old age with a delicious revival of girlish impressions. [Sidenote: Journal, 1872.] _Jan. 29._--It is now the last day but one of January. I have finished the fourth part--_i.e._, the second volume--of "Middlemarch." The first part, published on December 1, has been excellently well received; and the second part will be published the day after to-morrow. About Christmas a volume of extracts from my works was published, under the title, "Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings, in Prose and Verse." It was proposed and executed by Alexander Main, a young man of thirty, who began a correspondence with me by asking me how to pronounce Romola, in the summer, when we were at Shottermill. Blackwood proposed that we should share the profits, but we refused. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Jan. 1872.] I do lead rather a crawling life under these rainy fogs and low behavior of the barometer. But I am a little better, on the whole, though just now overdone with the fatigue of company. We have been to hear Coleridge addressing the jury on the Tichborne trial--a very interesting occasion to me. He is a marvellous speaker among Englishmen; has an exquisitely melodious voice, perfect gesture, and a power of keeping the thread of his syntax to the end of his sentence, which makes him delightful to follow. We are going some other day, if possible, to hear a cross-examination of Ballantyne's. The digest of the evidence which Coleridge gives is one of the best illustrations of the value or valuelessness of testimony that could be given. I wonder if the world, which retails Guppy anecdotes, will be anything the wiser for it. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1872.] To hear of a friend's illness after he has got well through it is the least painful way of learning the bad news. I hope that your attack has been a payment of insurance. You probably know what it grieved us deeply to learn the other day--that our excellent friend Mr. William Smith is dangerously ill. They have been so entirely happy and wrapped up in each other that we cannot bear to think of Mrs. Smith's grief. Thanks for the list of sales since February 12th. Things are encouraging, and the voices that reach us are enthusiastic. But you can understand how people's interest in the book heightens my anxiety that the remainder should be up to the mark. It has caused me some uneasiness that the third part is two sheets less than the first. But Mr. Lewes insisted that the death of old Featherstone was the right point to pause at; and he cites your approbation of the part as a proof that effectiveness is secured in spite of diminished quantity. Still it irks me to ask 5_s._ for a smaller amount than that already given at the same price. Perhaps I must regard the value as made up solely by effectiveness, and certainly the book will be long enough. I am still below par in strength, and am too much beset with visitors and kind attentions. I long for the quiet spaces of time and the absence of social solicitations that one enjoys in the country, out of everybody's reach. I am glad to hear of the pleasure "Middlemarch" gives in your household: that makes quite a little preliminary public for me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th Mch. 1872.] I can understand very easily that the two last years have been full for you of other and more imperative work than the writing of letters not absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The proof that you still think of me affectionately is very welcome now it is come, and all the more cheering because it enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard--your western Sorrento--the beloved Rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude--as it always is to us when we go out of reach of London influences, and have the large space of country days to study, walk, and talk in. Last year we spent our summer months in Surrey, and did not leave England. Unhappily, the country was not so favorable to my bodily health as to my spiritual, and on our return to town I had an illness which was the climax of the summer's _malaise_. That illness robbed me of two months, and I have never quite recovered a condition in which the strict duties of the day are not felt as a weight. But just now we are having some clear spring days, and I am in hope of prospering better, the sunshine being to me the greatest visible good of life--what I call the wealth of life, after love and trust. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th Mch. 1872.] When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books, if he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena reported or attested in connection with ideas of spirit-intercourse, "psychion," and so on, have come before me here in the painful form of the lowest _charlatanerie_. Take Mr. H. as an example of what I mean. I could not choose to enter a room where he held a _séance_. He is an object of moral disgust to me; and nothing of late reported by Mr. Crookes, Lord Lindsay, and the rest carries conviction to my mind that Mr. H. is not simply an impostor, whose professedly abnormal manifestations have varied their fashion in order to create a new market, just as if they were _papier mâché_ wares or pomades for the idle rich. But apart from personal contact with people who get money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots, such as those who make a court for a Mrs. Guppy or other feminine personage of that kind, I would not willingly place any barriers between my mind and any possible channel of truth affecting the human lot. The spirit in which you have written in the paper you kindly sent me is likely to teach others--to rouse them, at least, to attention in a case where you have been deeply impressed. I write to you quite openly, dear friend, but very imperfectly, for my letters are always written in shreds of time. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1872.] Thanks for the budget of this morning. The sales, we think, are very cheering, and we may well be content if they continue in the same ratio. But the Greek proverb about the beginning being the half of the whole wants as much defining and excepting from as most other proverbs. I have just had sent me a copy of the magazine _Für die Literatur des Auslander_, containing a review of "Miss Brooke," which will be good for Asher's edition, and is otherwise satisfactory as an intelligent appreciation. It mentions at the end the appearance of Mr. Main's book, "The Sayings." A Frenchman, apparently accomplished, a M. Landolphe, who has made some important translations, is going to translate the whole of "Middlemarch;" and one of the contributors to the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ has written for leave to extract Dorothea's history. I fancy we have done a good turn to English authors generally by setting off Asher's series, for we have heard that Tauchnitz has raised his offers. There is another way in which benefit might come that would be still more desirable--namely, to make him more careful in his selections of books for reprint. But I fear that this effect is not so certain. You see Franz Duncker, who publishes the German translation of "Middlemarch," has also begun an English series. This is really worth while, for the Germans are excellent readers of our books. I was astonished to find so many in Berlin who really knew one's books, and did not merely pay compliments after the fashion of the admirers who made Rousseau savage--running after him to pay him visits, and not knowing a word of his writing. You and other good readers have spoiled me, and made me rather shudder at being read only once; and you may imagine how little satisfaction I get from people who mean to please me by saying that they shall wait till "Middlemarch" is finished, and then sit up to read it "at one go-off." We are looking for a country retreat not too far from town, so that we may run up easily. There is nothing wanting to our happiness except that "Middlemarch" should be well ended without growing signs of its author's debility. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 17th March, 1872.] Before I received your letter this morning, I was going to write you a word of sympathy, knowing how deeply you would be feeling the death of Mazzini. Such a man leaves behind him a wider good than the loss of his personal presence can take away. "The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero." I must be excused for quoting my own words, because they are my _credo_. I enter thoroughly into your sense of wealth in having known him. Brighton does not suit Mr. Lewes. But he was near going there for a night a little while ago to see our friends, Mr. and Mrs. William Smith. He (the author of "Thorndale," etc.) is, I fear, wasting fatally with organic disease, and we grieve much at the too-probably near parting of a husband and wife who have been among the perfectly happy couples of the world. She is a charming woman, and I wish that you may happen to know her. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d March, 1872.] Owing to my loss of two months in illness, and my infirm health ever since, I have not yet finished the writing of "Middlemarch." This payment of wintry arrears makes one prefer the comforts of a London home; but we are obliged to see more company than my health is equal to, and for this reason I dare say we shall soon migrate. To-day we have been to our last morning concert--or Saturday Pop.--held on a Friday because of the University boat-race to-morrow. These concerts are an easy pleasure which we are sorry to part with. This is one of my bad weeks, owing probably to the change in the weather, and I am constantly struggling with hemicrania and _malaise_. Even writing this scrap of a note is the feather too much, and I must leave off. You have known too much of nervous weakness not to understand this. [Sidenote: Journal, 1872.] _May 8._--I have been reposing for more than a week in the hope of getting stronger, my life having been lately a swamp of illness, with only here and there a bit of firm walking. In consequence of this incessant interruption (almost every week having been half nullified for me so far as my work has been concerned) I have only finished the fifth book, and have still three books to write--equal to a large volume and a half. The reception of the book hitherto has been quite beyond what I could have believed beforehand, people exalting it above everything else I have written. Kohn is publishing an English edition in Germany; Duncker is to publish a translation; and Harpers pay me £1200 for reprinting it in America. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 4th June, 1872.] I am glad to know that you are having a time of refreshing in fine scenery, with entire freedom to paint. I am in a corresponding state of relief from the noises and small excitements that break up the day and scatter one's nervous energy in London. We have been in our hiding-place about twelve days now, and I am enjoying it more and more--getting more bodily ease and mental clearness than I have had for the last six months. Our house is not in the least beautiful, but it is well situated and comfortable, perfectly still in the middle of a garden surrounded by fields and meadows, and yet within reach of shops and civilization. We managed to get to the Academy one day before leaving town. I was delighted with Walker's picture--were you?--and Mason's unfinished Reaper, and a few, very few, others. Also we went twice to the opera in order to save ourselves from any yearnings after it when we should have settled in the country. We tell no one our address, and have our letters sent on from the Priory. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th June, 1872.] We too are in a country refuge, you see, and this bit of Surrey, as I dare say you know, is full of beauty of the too garden-like sort for which you pity us. How different from your lodge in the wilderness! I have read your description three or four times--it enchants me so thoroughly--and Mr. Lewes is just as much enamoured of it. We shall never see it, I imagine, except in the mirror of your loving words; but thanks, many and warm, dear friend, for saying that our presence would be welcome. I have always had delight in descriptions of American forests since the early days when I read "Atala," which I believe that you would criticise as half unveracious. I dwelt on the descriptions in "Dred" with much enjoyment. Pray give my special thanks to the Professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really look like Arabic--a very graceful character, surely--happens to be remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word. Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact--which you had told me--that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Old Town Folk;" and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his experience. Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts, physiological and psychological, which have been gathered of late years, to give larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as _subjective_ than the Professor would approve. It seems difficult to limit--at least to limit with any precision--the possibility of confounding sense by impressions, derived from inward conditions, with those which are directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the division between within and without in this sense seems to become every year a more subtle and bewildering problem. _Your_ experience with the _planchette_ is amazing; but that the words which you found it to have written were dictated by the spirit of Charlotte Brontë is to me (whether rightly or not) so enormously improbable, that I could only accept it if every condition were laid bare, and every other explanation demonstrated to be impossible. If it were another spirit aping Charlotte Brontë--if here and there at rare spots and among people of a certain temperament, or even at many spots and among people of all temperaments, tricksy spirits are liable to rise as a sort of earth-bubbles and set furniture in movement, and tell things which we either know already or should be as well without knowing--I must frankly confess that I have but a feeble interest in these doings, feeling my life very short for the supreme and awful revelations of a more orderly and intelligible kind which I shall die with an imperfect knowledge of. If there were miserable spirits whom we could help, then I think we should pause and have patience with their trivial-mindedness; but otherwise I don't feel bound to study them more than I am bound to study the special follies of a particular phase of human society. Others who feel differently, and are attracted towards this study, are making an experiment for us as to whether anything better than bewilderment can come of it. At present it seems to me that to rest any fundamental part of religion on such a basis is a melancholy misguidance of men's minds from the true sources of high and pure emotion. I am comforted to think that you partly agree with me there. I have not time to write more than this very imperfect fragmentary sketch of _only one_ aspect which the question of spirit-communications wears to me at present--being always rather brain-weary after my morning's work, and called for by my husband to walk with him and read aloud to him. I spend nearly three hours every day in this exercise of reading aloud, which, happily, I can carry on without fatigue of lungs. Yet it takes strength as well as time. Mr. Lewes is gone into town to-day, so I have an additional hour at liberty, and have been glad to be able to send you a letter which is not worth anything, indeed, but which satisfies my need to thank you and the Professor for your sweet friendliness--very sweet to me, I assure you. Please accept my entire frankness as a proof of that high value I set on you. And do not call anything I may have written a prejudice--it is simply a statement of how certain things appear to my inward eyesight, which I am ready to have rectified by more light. About photographs--I have _no_ photograph of myself, having always avoided having one taken. That makes me seem very selfish in being particularly glad to get yours. Mrs. Fields, with the beautiful face and charming manners, sent me a letter a little while ago, inviting us in the most tempting way to go to Boston. She said that this pretty action was done at your prompting, which is just like you as you have always shown yourself to me. Dear friend, how much you have lived through, both in the flesh and in the spirit! My experience has been narrow compared with yours. I assure you I feel this, so do not misinterpret anything I say to you as being written in a flippant or critical spirit. One always feels the want of the voice and eyes to accompany a letter and give it the right tone. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th July, 1872.] You were very good and dear to want to give me the pleasure of knowing that the news was good, instead of leaving me to my small stock of hopefulness. Ask Emily to care a little even now, with baby on her mind, that her old friends are the better for hearing that she is well. Four or five months ago it happens that I was writing some playfulness about a baby and baby's hair, which is now in print, to appear next month. I am not afraid that Emily should be revolted by my blasphemy! Mr. Lewes had "a lovely time" from Saturday to Monday at Weybridge. He was feeling languid, and yet was tempted to sit at his desk. The little change has been very serviceable, and he is now bright. Our first book, read aloud by me after we came down, was Wallace's "Eastern Archipelago," which, I think, you had spoken well of to Mr. Lewes. It is delightful. The biography of the infant ourang-outang alone is worth getting the book for. We are now in the middle of Tylor's "Primitive Culture," which is worth studying, and useful for reference on special points, if you happen to want knowledge about the ideas of the savage tribes. Our days go by in delicious peace, unbroken except by my little inward anxieties about all unfinished work. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th July, 1872.] This morning came the joyful news that Gertrude has a fine healthy baby--a daughter. We have just been saying in our walk that by the end of this century our one-day-old granddaughter will probably be married and have children of her own, while we are pretty sure to be at rest. This obvious kind of wisdom does very well for discourse in the delicious sunshine, as we wander over a hilly, half fern-clad, half grassy wilderness called South Park, from which we can overlook two fertile bosky valleys. We like this bit of country better and better. As to health, I am not quite so prosperous as I was at first, but to make amends, Mr. Lewes is in a good average condition, and only now and then has a morning in which he is forced to wander about instead of going to his beloved work. We have had much happiness here, much sympathy in letters from far-off friends unknown in the flesh, and peaceful enjoyment of our occupations. But we have longed for more continuous warmth and brightness, and to-day may perhaps be the beginning of that one wanting condition. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Aug. 1872(?).] The death of that honored, good creature, Mr. William Smith, touched us particularly, because of the perfect marriage-bond which had made the last eleven years of his life unspeakably precious both to him and his wife. Mr. Lewes offered to go to Brighton to see him; but he was so reduced, so very feeble in body, though he kept to the last much brightness of mind, that Mrs. Smith feared for him the excitement of seeing friends who came, specially, from a distance. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Aug. 1872.] I like to think that your journey was a success. But I had felt sure, that unless bad health or bad weather overtook you, both Mrs. Blackwood and you must have great happiness in taking that bright, lovely daughter abroad and watching her fresh impressions. I imagine her laudable indignation at the crushing of the little lizard! Those little creatures darting about the stones seem part of the happiness of Italian sunshine, as the small birds hopping after the rain seem part of the moist happiness at home. I shall send Part VII. in a few days. Since Mr. Lewes tells me that the _Spectator_ considers me the most melancholy of authors, it will perhaps be a welcome assurance to you that there is no unredeemed tragedy in the solution of the story. Mr. Lewes examines the newspapers before I see them, and cuts out any criticisms which refer to me, so as to save me from these spiritual chills--though, alas! he cannot save me from the physical chills which retard my work more seriously. I had hoped to have the manuscript well out of my hands before we left this place at the end of the month, but the return of my dyspeptic troubles makes me unable to reckon on such a result. It will be a good plan, I think, to quicken the publication towards the end; but we feel convinced that the slow plan of publication has been of immense advantage to the book in deepening the impression it produces. Still I shudder a little to think what a long book it will be--not so long as "Vanity Fair" or "Pendennis," however, according to my calculation. How good the articles on French manners and domestic life are in "Maga." The spirit in which they are written is excellent. The manuscript of "Middlemarch" bears the following inscription: "To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes, in this nineteenth year of our blessed union." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, Sept. 1872.] I am tired of behaving like an ungrateful wretch--making no sign in answer to affectionate words which have come to me with cheering effect. And I want to tell you and Mr. Hall (alas! for the dear old name[18] which had such cherished associations) that I long too much to see you all at Six-Mile Bottom, to give up utterly the prospect of that good. We imagine that the place is near Ipswich, which is no more than an hour and fifty minutes from London. If so, the journey would be easily managed, and would be worth taking for the sake of one whole day and two half days with you--just as if you were the hour nearer, at Weybridge--before we set our faces towards Germany. I am not hopeless that we might do that in the second week of September, if you are not quite disgusted with the thought of me as a person who is always claiming pity for small ailments, and also if Mr. Hall can secure me against being shot from the other side of the hedge by the Prince of Wales,[19] while we are discussing plantations. I dare not count much on fulfilling any project, my life for the last year having been a sort of nightmare, in which I have been scrambling on the slippery bank of a pool, just keeping my head above water. But I shall be the happier for having told you that I delight in the double invitation for the sake of the love it assures me of, and that I do want to see you all. You are all gloriously well, I hope, and Alkie looking more and more cherubic, and Emily and Florence blooming. My best love to all. Particular regards to J., and regrets that we were not on his route from Brindisi. I read his paper on New York with much interest and satisfaction. You are often among my imaged companions both in dreaming and waking hours. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, Oct. 1872, from Homburg.] It was a delightful surprise to see your handwriting when we went to inquire at the _Poste Restante_. We had, on the whole, a fortunate journey, and are especially grateful to Mr. Hall for suggesting the route by Trèves, where we spent two nights and an exquisite day. I was continually reminded of Rome when we were wandering in the outskirts in search of the antiquities, and the river banks are a loveliness into the bargain which Rome has not. We had even an opportunity of seeing some dissipation, for there happened to be an excellent circus, where we spent our evening. The pretty country through which we passed had an additional interest for us about Libramont. The air, the waters, the plantations here are all perfect--"only man is vile." I am not fond of denouncing my fellow-sinners, but gambling being a vice I have no mind to, it stirs my disgust even more than my pity. The sight of the dull faces bending round the gaming-tables, the raking up of the money, and the flinging of the coins towards the winners by the hard-faced croupiers, the hateful, hideous women staring at the board like stupid monomaniacs--all this seems to me the most abject presentation of mortals grasping after something called a good that can be seen on the face of this little earth. Burglary is heroic compared with it. I get some satisfaction in looking on, from the sense that the thing is going to be put down. Hell is the only right name for such places. It was cruel to find the bitter cold just set in as we arrived. For two days we were as cold as in clear winter days at Berlin. There are no amusements for the evening here, and the pleasure of listening to the excellent band in the afternoons is diminished by the chillness which makes one fear to sit down in the open air. But we like being idle, and the days pass easily. It is good to have in our memories the two happy days at Six-Mile Bottom; and the love that surrounded me and took care of me there is something very precious to believe in among hard-faced strangers. Much gratitude for the anticipated letter that will come to tell us more news of you by-and-by. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Oct. 1872.] At last I begin a letter which is intended not as a payment but as an acknowledgment of debt. It will have at least the recommendation of requiring no answer. After some perfect autumnal days we are languishing with headache from two days' damp and mugginess, and feel it almost as much work as we are equal to to endure our _malaise_. But on the whole we are not sorry that we came to this place rather than any other. On dry days the air is perfect, and the waters are really an enticing drink. Then there is a wood close by where we can wander in delicious privacy: which is really better than the company here, save and except a few friends whom we found at first, and who have now moved off to Baden. The Kursaal is to me a hell, not only for the gambling but for the light and heat of the gas, and we have seen enough of its monstrous hideousness. There is very little dramatic _Stoff_ to be picked up by watching or listening. The saddest thing to be witnessed is the play of a young lady, who is only twenty-six years old, and is completely in the grasp of this mean, money-making demon. It made me cry to see her young, fresh face among the hags and brutally stupid men around her. Next year, when the gambling has vanished, the place will be delightful; there is to be a subvention from Government to keep up the beautiful grounds; and it is likely that there will be increase enough in the number of decent visitors to keep the town tolerably prosperous. One attraction it has above other German baths that I have seen is the abundance of pleasant apartments to be had, where one can be as peaceful as the human lot allows in a world of pianos. Asher's cheap editions are visible everywhere by the side of Tauchnitz, but the outside is not, I think, quite equally recommendable and recommending. We brought no books with us, but have furnished our table with German books which we bought at Frankfort, from learned writing about Menschlich Sprache and Vernunft down to Kotzebue's comedies, so that we have employment for the rainy hours when once our heads are clear of aches. The certainty that the weather is everywhere else bad will help our resolution to stay here till the 12th at least. In the mean time we hope to have the proof of the finale to "Middlemarch." I am rejoiced to learn from Mr. William's letter that Mr. Simpson has returned from his excursion in good condition. That must be a comfort to you, both for friendship and for work's sake. We mean to return by Paris, and hope that the weather will not drive us away from health and pleasure-seeking until the end of the month. I fear, from the accounts of your Scottish weather, that you will have enjoyed Strathtyrum less than usual, and will be resigned to Edinburgh before your proper time. How one talks about the weather! It is excusable here where there is no grave occupation, and no amusement for us, who don't gamble, except seeking health in walks and water drinking. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 27th Oct. 1872, from Boulogne.] I had meant to write to you again from Germany, but I was hindered from doing so by the uncertainty of our plans, which vacillated between further wanderings in South Germany and the usual dreary railway journeying by Strasburg to Paris. As it was, we left Homburg on the 13th and had ten days of delicious autumnal weather and quietude at Stuttgart and Carlsruhe--ten days which made the heart of our enjoyment. We still hesitated whether we should go to Augsburg, and even Munich, making our way home through Germany and Belgium, and turning our shoulders on Paris. Our evil genius persuaded us to go to Paris and to make the journey by night--whence came headache and horrible disgust with the shops of the Rue de la Paix and the Boulevard. After going to Versailles in the rain, seeing the sad ruins of the Hotel de Ville, missing the Theatre Français, and getting "Patrie" in exchange, we rushed away to this place, where we are trying to recover the sense of benefit from our change, which forsook us on quitting old Germany. We have an affinity for what the world calls "dull places," and always prosper best in them. We are sure to be at home next week, and I hope before long to have some news of you there--some dear faces coming to bring it. We shall linger here a few days and take a favorable time for crossing, but our patience will hardly last beyond Friday. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 1st Nov. 1872.] We returned yesterday evening from six weeks' absence in Germany, and I found your dear, sad letter among the many awaiting me. I prize very highly the fact that you like to write to me and bear me in your mind as one who has a certain fellowship in your sorrow; and I do trust that this letter may reach you in time to prevent you from thinking, even for a moment, that I could be indifferent about responding to any word you send me. I shall address it to the care of Blackwood & Sons, because I imagine you to be by this time in Edinburgh with that delightful friend, Mrs. Stirling, whom I had much kindness from many years ago when I was on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. George Combe. She took me to hear Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Candlish, and through her I saw Craigcrook. I like to think of those hours and her pleasant talk. Mr. Lewes, I am thankful to say, has been getting more robust for the last two years, and is very bright and active. I think there is hardly any one left to whom he would so willingly have written or talked about the subjects which are filling his mind as that dear one who is gone from your side, but is perpetually present in your consciousness. To-day I have been reading the memorial article in _Blackwood_, and have been hoping that there is nothing in it which jars on your feeling. Everybody will think as I do--that the bits from your pen are worth all the rest. I have been especially moved, though, by the two stanzas quoted at the end. Mr. Lewes judges that the writer of the article did not personally know your husband, and wishes that more special touches had been given. I know, dear friend, that the sorrow is irremediable; but the pain--the anguish--will become less sharp and life will be less difficult. You will think of things to do such as he would approve of your doing, and every day will be sacred with his memory--nay, his presence. There is no pretence or visionariness in saying that he is still part of you. Mr. Lewes sends his affectionate regards, which you will not reject. We mention your name to each other with a certain tenderness, as if your sorrow somehow belonged to our love for each other. But I hardly dare to think of what these words which I have written mean. Sometimes in the midst of happiness I cry suddenly at the thought that there must come a parting. Are not you and I very near to one another? I mean in feeling. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Nov. 1872.] I found a letter from dear Mrs. William Smith on my return, and I have had another since in answer to mine. It is inevitable that her sense of loss should deepen for some time to come. I am hoping that by-and-by active interests will arise to make her feel that her life is useful. The article in _Blackwood_ was chiefly valuable for the extracts it contained from Mrs. Smith's own memoir. One felt that the writer of the article had not known Mr. William Smith personally; but her sketches did something to supply that defect. Mr. Lewes felt a peculiar attachment to him. He had always been thoroughly sympathetic, both morally and intellectually, and it was a constant regret to us that he and Mrs. Smith were so far away. There was no man with whom Mr. Lewes would have found it so pleasant to discuss questions of science and philosophy--his culture was so rare and his disposition so free from littleness: and his wife was worthy of him. Gertrude's little Blanche is a charming young lady--fat, cooing, and merry. It is a great comfort to see her with this hope fulfilled--I mean to see Gertrude with her hope fulfilled, and not Blanche, as the grammar seemed to imply. That small person's hopes are at present easy of fulfilment. We have made but one expedition since our return, and that was to see the pictures at Bethnal Green--altogether a cheering and delightful sight. Of course you saw them long ago. The Troyon is my favorite. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Nov. 1872.] I will impute your total silence towards me for many, many months to your preoccupation with the work now announced, and will not believe that a greeting from me at this time of the year will be less welcome than of old. I remember that last year one of your prettily-expressed wishes was that I should write another book and--I think you added--send it to you to read. On the strength of this remembrance, you will be one of the three exceptional people to whom we order "Middlemarch" to be sent. But do not write to me about it, because until a book has quite gone away from me and become entirely of the _non-ego_--gone thoroughly from the wine-press into the casks--I would rather not hear or see anything that is said about it. Cara sent me word that you were looking, as usual, very pretty, and showing great energy on interesting occasions. But this was two months ago, and some detailed news from yourself would be a delightful gift. I am getting stronger, and showing some meagre benefit from being indulged in all possible ways. Mr. Lewes makes a martyr of himself in writing all my notes and business letters. Is not that being a sublime husband? For all the while there are studies of his own being put aside--studies which are a seventh heaven to him. Is there any one who does not need patience? For when one's outward lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing. You are never long without entering into my thoughts, though you may send nothing fresh to feed them. But I am ashamed of expressing regard for my friends, since I do no earthly thing for them. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1872.] A kiss to you on your birthday! with gratitude for your delightful letter, such as only you can write me. How impossible it is to _feel_ that we are as old as we are! Sometimes it seems a little while since you and I were walking over the Radford fields, with the youth in our limbs, talking and laughing with that easy companionship which it is difficult to find in later life. I am busy now reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript, which has been accumulating fast during my "Middlemarch" time. Did I tell you that in the last two years he has been mastering the principles of mathematics? That is an interesting fact, impersonally, at his age. Old Professor Stowe--Mrs. H. B. Stowe's husband--sent me this story, which is almost better than Topsy. He heard a school-master asking a little black girl the usual questions about creation--who made the earth, the sea, etc. At last came, "And who made you?" Some deliberation was necessary, after which she said, "Nobody; _I was so afore_." Expect to be immensely disappointed with the close of "Middlemarch." But look back to the Prelude. I wish I could take the wings of the morning every now and then to cheer you with an hour's chat, such as you feel the need of, and then fly back on the wings of the wind. I have the most vivid thoughts of you, almost like a bodily presence; but these do you no good, since you can only believe that I have them--and you are tired of believing after your work is done. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Dec. 1872.] Before your letter came, Mr. Lewes had been expressing to me his satisfaction (and he is very hard to satisfy with articles on me) in the genuineness of judgment, wise moderation, and excellent selection of points in "Maga's" review of "Middlemarch." I have just now been reading the review myself--Mr. Lewes had meant at first to follow his rule of not allowing me to see what is written about myself--and I am pleased to find the right moral note struck everywhere, both in remark and quotation. Especially I am pleased with the writer's sensibility to the pathos in Mr. Casaubon's character and position, and with the discernment he shows about Bulstrode. But it is a perilous matter to approve the praise which is given to our own doings. I think that such an article as that which you hint at on the tone of the Bar is very desirable. We are usually at one on points of feeling. Is it not time now to insist that ability and not lying is the force of a barrister--that he has not to make himself a bad actor in order to put a case well, but to get the clearness and breadth of vision which will enable him to handle the evidence effectively? Untruthfulness usually ends by making men foolish. I have never read "Spiritual Wives," but judging from the extracts which have come before me, it must be a nasty book. Still, if people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by the disproportionateness of the condemnation which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking. I shall be agreeably surprised if there is a respectable subscription for the four volumes. Already the numbers taken have been satisfactorily large, considering the indisposition of the public to buy books by comparison with other wares, and especially to buy novels at a high price. I fancy every private copy has done duty for a circle. Friends of mine in the country have implied that they lent their copies to all the readers in their neighborhood. A little fuss of advertisement, together with the reviews, will perhaps create a few more curious inquirers after the book, and impress its existence on the slower part of the reading world. But really the reading world is, after all, very narrow, as, according to the _Spectator_, the "comfortable" world also is--the world able to give away a sovereign without pinching itself. Those statistics just given about incomes are very interesting. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 11th Dec. 1872.] A thousand thanks for your kind interest in our project, and for the trouble you have taken in our behalf. I fear the land buying and building[20] is likely to come to nothing, and our construction to remain entirely of the aerial sort. It is so much easier to imagine other people doing wise things than to do them one's self! Practically, I excel in nothing but paying twice as much as I ought for everything. On the whole, it would be better if my life could be done for me, and I could look on. However, it appears that the question of the land at Shere may remain open until we can discuss it with you at Weybridge; and there is no telling what we may not venture on with your eyes to see through. But, oh dear, I don't like anything that is troublesome under the name of pleasure. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 12th Dec. 1872.] I have had the news that you are safely landed at Pooree, so now I can write with some courage. I have got some comfort--I trust it is not false comfort--out of the probability that there will be much good mingled with the evil of this winter's exile for you. You must be the richer for it mentally, and your health may be the better--and then, you will be back again in the late spring. In this way I make myself contented under the incompleteness of our life without you, and I am determined not to grumble at my share of the loss which falls so sadly on Dr. Congreve and the children. Dr. Congreve kindly let me know when you had got through the trials of the Red Sea, rather better than might have been expected; and Sophie tells me that you speak of the brilliant coloring in your new world as quite equal to any description you had read. Beyond that all is a blank to me except the fact of your arrival at Pooree, and all my feeling is taken up with the joy there must have been in the meeting with Mr. Geddes. You find it very difficult to write in the heat--so don't make the thought of me disagreeable by associating it with a claim on you for a letter. I will be grateful for scraps from your correspondence with home, and wait for my turn when you come back to us. For ourselves, we think our little granddaughter, Blanche, the perfection of a baby. She is, dispassionately speaking, very pretty, and has a cooing, chanting song of her own which it makes me happy to hear. Mr. Lewes goes on at his writing with as much interest as ever, and is bringing the first part of his work into its final shape. Since we came home I have been reading his manuscript, which has been piling itself up in preparation for my leisure, and I have been wearing my gravest philosophic cap. Altogether we are dangerously happy. You remember Mrs. Blank of Coventry? You know hers was another name for astonishing cleverness in that town. Now, of course, she is old, and her cleverness seems to have a mouldy flavor. _Apropos_ of the seventh book of "Middlemarch"--which you may not have read, but never mind--Mrs. Blank, having lain awake all night from compassion for Bulstrode, said, "Poor, dear creature, after he had done so much for that wretch, sitting up at night and attending on him! _and I don't believe it was the brandy that killed him_--and what is to become of Bulstrode now, he has nobody left but Christ!" I think this is worth sending to India, you see; it is a little bit of old Coventry life that may make you and Emily laugh with all the more lively memory in the midst of your strange scenery. But there is a hovering terror while I write to you from far off, lest my trivialities should find you when you are ill or have some cause for being sad. In any case, however, you will take my letter for a simple proof that I dwell on you and Emily as images constantly present in my mind, and very often moving to the foreground in my contemplation. Mr. Lewes is one with me in many affectionate thoughts about you, and your names are often on our lips. We are going to pass the Christmas week with our friends at Weybridge; and I shall be glad to escape the London aspects of that season--aspects that are without any happy association for me. Mr. Lewes has just been in to speak to me, and begs me to say that he hopes baby is raised to the _n_^{th} power. You see the lofty point of view from which he regards the world at present. But there is enough of the sap of affection in him to withstand all the dryness of the dryest mathematics, and he has very hearty regards for you all, including Mr. Geddes, not as a matter of course, but with special emphasis. Good-bye, dear, dear friend. May it give you some little satisfaction to think of me as yours always lovingly. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 18th Dec. 1872.] Your letter was very welcome to me. I wanted to know how you were; and I think that I discern in your words some growth of courage to face the hard task--it is a hard task--of living a separate life. I reckon it a great good to me that any writing of mine has been taken into companionship by you, and seemed to speak with you of your own experience. Thank you for telling me of that. This weather, which is so melancholy in the privation it must cause to those who are worst off in the world, adds a little weight to everybody's griefs. But I trust that you find it a comfort, not an oppression, to be among friends who make a little claim on your attention. When you go to How, please tell me all about the place, and whom you have near you, because I like to be able to imagine your circumstances. I have been, and am still, reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript--and I often associate this with your dear husband, to whom I imagine mine would have liked to send his proofs when the matter had reached the printing stage. We are both very well, and Mr. Lewes is enjoying his morning at his desk. He likes very much to be included in your love, and has always thought you one of the most charming women among our acquaintance. Please not to say that he has bad taste in women. We both cherish very tender thoughts of your sorrow, dear friend. Let me always be assured that you think of me as yours affectionately. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Simpson, 18th Dec. 1872.] We have to thank you for two things especially. First, for the good bargain you have made for "Middlemarch" with Australia; and secondly, for the trouble you have kindly taken with the MS., which has come to us safely in its fine Russian coat. The four volumes, we imagine, must have been subscribed long ago; and we should be glad to know, if it were convenient--perhaps even if it were _in_convenient--what are the figures representing the courage of "the trade" in the matter of a 42_s._ novel, which has already been well distributed. We both hope that your health is well confirmed, and that you are prepared for Christmas pleasures, among which you would probably, like Caleb Garth, reckon the extra "business" which the jolly season carries in its hinder wallet. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1869, TO DECEMBER, 1872. Poem on Agatha--Reading on Philology, "Iliad," "Faery Queen," Clough's Poems, Bright's Speeches, "Volpone," Lecture by Sir Wm. Thomson--Writing "How Lisa Loved the King"--Browning and Rector of Lincoln on Versification--Letter to Miss Hennell--Browning's "Elisha"--Fourth visit to Italy--Two months away--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Paris--Dr. Congreve's Reply to Professor Huxley in _Fortnightly_--Meeting in Rome with Mrs. Bullock and Mr. and Mrs. Cross--Letter to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe--Effect of books--Religion of the future--Arrival of Thornton Lewes from Natal--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Marriage engagements of Mr. Beesley, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and Dr. Clifford Allbut--Finished five "Sonnets on Childhood"--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--"Old Town Folks"--Presentation of alien religious convictions--Spiritualism--Reading Drayton and Grote--Writing Introduction to "Middlemarch"--Reading Theocritus--Burne-Jones's Pictures--Reading Littré on Comte--Sainte Beuve--Thornton Lewes's continued illness--Visit to Mrs. Cross at Weybridge--Reading for "Middlemarch"--Asks Mrs. Congreve to get information about provincial hospitals--Letter to Miss Hennell--The Byron scandal--Byron a vulgar-minded genius--The Kovilevskys--"Legend of Jubal" begun--Mr. W. G. Clark--Reading Max Müller--Lecky and Herbert Spencer--Death of Thornton Lewes--Letter to Miss Hennell describing month's visit to Limpsfield--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mr. Doyle--Letter to F. Harrison on the Positivist Problem--Aversion to personal statements--Shrinking from deliverances--Letter to Miss Hennell on Charles Hennell's "Inquiry"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Berlin--Sees Mommsen, Bunsen, and Du Bois Reymond--Visit to Vienna--Return to London--Three days' visit to the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Mrs. Pattison--Meets Sir Benjamin Brodie--Professor Rawlinson and Professor Phillips--Dr. Rolleston and the Miss Gaskells, and Miss Arnold--Mr. Jowett, Professor Henry Smith, and Mr. Fowler--Re-reading Grove "On the Correlation of the Physical Forces"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Dickens's Death, and his story of President Lincoln--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Visit to Cromer--Growing dislike of migratory life--Letter to Mrs. Lytton on the death of Lord Clarendon--Danger of women living too exclusively in the affections--Reading Mendelssohn's letters--From Cromer to Harrogate and Whitby--Meets Mrs. Burne-Jones there--"Armgart" begun--Three weeks' visit to Limpsfield--Letter to Miss Hennell on the beginning of the war between Germany and France--Jowett's "Plato"--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--The French nation--"Armgart" finished at Limpsfield--Return to the Priory--Letter to Miss Hennell--A popular preacher--Growing influence of ideas--Goethe's contempt for revolution of 1830--Letter to Mme. Bodichon on the faults of one's friends--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Industrial schemes--Greater cheerfulness--Frederic Harrison on Bismarckism--Writing "Miss Brooke"--Reading Wolf's "Prolegomena to Homer" and "Wilhelm Meister"--Visit to Mme. Bodichon at Ryde--Letter to Miss Hennell--Ritualism at Ryde--Brutalizing effect of German war--Trollope's "Sir Harry Hotspur"--Limits of woman's constancy--Miss Bury's engagement to Mr. Geddes--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Three and a half months' visit to Petersfield--Mode of life--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Lowell's "My Study Windows"--"Diethelm von Buchenberg" in _Deutschen Novellenschatz_--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mrs. Geddes's marriage--Letter to John Blackwood--Relinquishment of Scott Commemoration--Captain Lockhart--Letter to John Blackwood on MS. of "Middlemarch"--Visit from Tennyson--Letter to Mrs. Lytton on death of her son--Letter to Miss Mary Cross on story in _Macmillan's Magazine_--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Suffering from cold--Got's acting--Crystal Palace music--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Delight in intellectual activity--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Enjoyment of Cherrimans--Letter to John Blackwood--Visit to Weybridge--Mr. Main, the collector of the "Sayings"--Reception of "Middlemarch"--Letters to Miss Hennell--Foster's "Life of Dickens"--Low health--Tichborne trial--Letters to John Blackwood: pleased with the "Sayings"--Visit to Weybridge--Length of "Middlemarch"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Reading Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"--Finished second volume of "Middlemarch"--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Spiritualistic phenomena--Letter to John Blackwood--German and French interest in "Middlemarch"--Asher's edition--German readers--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on death of Mazzini--Letter to Miss Hennell--Low health--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Spirit communications--Letter to Mrs. Congreve on Wallace's "Eastern Archipelago"--Tylor's "Primitive Culture"--Letter to John Blackwood--"Middlemarch" finished--Letter to Mrs. Cross on invitation to Six-Mile Bottom, Cambridge--Month's visit to Homburg--Letter to Mrs. Cross--Trèves--On gambling at Homburg--Letter to John Blackwood--Play of a young lady at Homburg--German reading--Letter to Mrs. Cross from Boulogne--Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith of condolence on loss of her husband--Memorial article on Mr. Wm. Smith--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on Mr. Wm. Smith--Letters to Miss Hennell--Presentation copies of "Middlemarch"--Mr. Lewes studying mathematics--Letter to John Blackwood--"Maga's" review of "Middlemarch"--Tone of the Bar--Letter to J. W. Cross on building a house at Shere--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Happiness--Story of Coventry lady and Bulstrode--Letter to Mr. Simpson--MS. of "Middlemarch." FOOTNOTES: [6] Dr. Congreve's article, "Mr. Huxley on M. Comte," in _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1869. [7] See _ante_, vol. i. p. 220. [8] Professor Edmund Spenser Beesley, a well-known member of the Positivist body, who married Miss Crompton, daughter of Mr. Justice Crompton. [9] An article by Mr. Frederic Harrison in the _Fortnightly Review_ of November, 1869. [10] Portrait of Charles Hennell. [11] Written after the death of Lord Clarendon, who, Lady Lytton tells me, had been like a father to her. [12] "Armgart." [13] Miss Octavia Hill. Walmer Street Industrial Experiment, tried by Canon Fremantle under Miss Hill's supervision. [14] Scott Commemoration. [15] Written just before the death of Mrs. Lytton's eldest boy. [16] "Marie of Villefranche." _Macmillan's Magazine_, August, 1871. [17] The collector of "The Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings of George Eliot." [18] Mr. W. H. Bullock--changed his name to Hall. [19] The Six-Mile Bottom shooting had been let to H. R. H. that year. [20] A site offered near Shere, in Surrey. CHAPTER XVII. [Sidenote: Journal, 1873.] _Jan. 1._--At the beginning of December the eighth and last book of "Middlemarch" was published, the three final numbers having been published monthly. No former book of mine has been received with more enthusiasm--not even "Adam Bede;" and I have received many deeply affecting assurances of its influence for good on individual minds. Hardly anything could have happened to me which I could regard as a greater blessing than the growth of my spiritual existence when my bodily existence is decaying. The merely egoistic satisfactions of fame are easily nullified by toothache, and _that_ has made my chief consciousness for the last week. This morning, when I was in pain, and taking a melancholy breakfast in bed, some sweet-natured creature sent a beautiful bouquet to the door for me, bound round with the written wish that "Every year may be happier and happier, and that God's blessing may ever abide with the immortal author of 'Silas Marner.'" Happily my dear husband is well, and able to enjoy these things for me. That he rejoices in them is my most distinct personal pleasure in such tributes. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 3d Jan. 1873.] It was very pleasant to have your greeting on the New Year, though I was keeping its advent in melancholy guise. I am relieved now from the neuralgic part of my ailment, and am able to write something of the hearty response I feel to your good wishes. We both hope that the coming year may continue to you all the family joys which must make the core of your happiness, without underrating golf and good contributors to "Maga." Health has to be presupposed as the vehicle of all other good, and in this respect you may be possibly better off in '73 than in '72, for I think you have had several invalidings within the last twelve months. Mr. Langford wrote yesterday that he knew of an article on "Middlemarch" being in preparation for the _Times_, which certainly was never before so slow in noticing a book of mine. Whether such an article will affect the sale favorably seems eminently uncertain, and can only complicate Mr. Simpson's problem. We have been glad to welcome our good friend, Mr. Anthony Trollope, after his long absence. He is wonderfully full of life and energy, and will soon bring out his two thick volumes on Australian colonies. My friendly Dutch publishers lately sent us a handsome row of volumes--George Eliot's "Romantische Werke," with an introduction, in which comparisons are safely shrouded for me in the haze of Dutch, so that if they are disadvantageous, I am not pained. Please give my best wishes for the coming year to Mr. William Blackwood. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 4th Jan. 1873.] At last I break my silence, and thank you for your kind care about me. I am able to enjoy my reading at the corner of my study fire, and am at that unpitiable stage of illness which is counterbalanced by extra petting. I have been fearing that you too may be undergoing some _malaise_ of a kindred sort, and I should like to be assured that you have quite got through the troubles which threatened you. How good you have all been to me, and what a disappointing investment of affection I have turned out! But those evening drives, which perhaps encouraged the faceache, have left me a treasure of picture and poetry in my memory quite worth paying for, and in these days all prices are high. The new year began very prettily for me at half-past eight in the morning with a beautiful bouquet, left by an unknown at our door, and an inscription asking that "God's blessing might ever abide with the immortal author of 'Silas Marner.'" [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Feb. 1873.] I am much pleased with the color and the lettering of the guinea edition, and the thinner paper makes it delightfully handy. Let us hope that some people still want to read it, since a friend of ours, in one short railway bit to and fro, saw two persons reading the paper-covered numbers. Now is the moment when a notice in the _Times_ might possibly give a perceptible impulse. Kohn, of Berlin, has written to ask us to allow him to reprint the "Spanish Gypsy" for £50, and we have consented. Some Dresdener, who has translated poems of Tennyson's, asked leave to translate the "Spanish Gypsy" in 1870, but I have not heard of his translation appearing. The rain this morning is welcome, in exchange for the snow, which in London has none of its country charms left to it. Among my books, which comfort me in the absence of sunshine, is a copy of the "Handy Royal Atlas" which Mr. Lewes has got for me. The glorious index is all the more appreciable by me, because I am tormented with German historical atlases which have no index, and are covered with names swarming like ants on every map. The catalogue coming in the other day renewed my longing for the cheap edition of Lockhart's novels, though I have some compunction in teasing your busy mind with my small begging. I should like to take them into the country, where our days are always longer for reading. I have a love for Lockhart because of Scott's Life, which seems to me a perfect biography. How different from another we know of! [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Feb. 1873.] After your kind words I will confess that I should very much like to have the "Manual of Geography" by Mackay, and Bayne's "Port Royal Logic." _À propos_ of the "Lifted Veil," I think it will not be judicious to reprint it at present. I care for the idea which it embodies and which justifies its painfulness. A motto which I wrote on it yesterday perhaps is a sufficient indication of that idea: "Give me no light, great heaven, but such as turns To energy of human fellowship; No powers, save the growing heritage That makes completer manhood." But it will be well to put the story in harness with some other productions of mine, and not send it forth in its dismal loneliness. There are many things in it which I would willingly say over again, and I shall never put them in any other form. But we must wait a little. The question is not in the least one of money, but of care for the best effect of writing, which often depends on circumstances, much as pictures depend on light and juxtaposition. I am looking forward with interest to "Kenelm Chillingly," and thinking what a blessed lot it is to die on just finishing a book, if it could be a good one. I mean, it is blessed only to quit activity when one quits life. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 1st Mch. 1873.] If I had been quite sure of your address I should have written to you even before receiving your dear letter, over which I have been crying this morning. The prompting to write to you came from my having ten days ago read your Memoir--brief yet full--of the precious last months before the parting. Mrs. P. Taylor brought me her copy as a loan. But may I not beg to have a copy of my own? It is to me an invaluable bit of writing; the inspiration of a great sorrow, born of a great love, has made it perfect; and ever since I read it I have felt a strengthening companionship from it. You will perhaps think it strange when I tell you that I have been more cheerful since I read the record of his sweet, mild heroism, which threw emphasis on every blessing left in his waning life, and was silent over its pangs. I have even ventured to lend this copy, which is not my own, to a young married woman of whom I am very fond, because I think it is an unforgetable picture of that union which is the ideal of marriage, and which I desire young people to have in their minds as a goal. It is a comfort in thinking of you that you have two lovable young creatures with you. I have found quite a new interest in young people since I have been conscious that I am getting older; and if all personal joy were to go from me as it has gone from you, I could perhaps find some energy from that interest, and try to teach the young. I wish, dear friend, it were possible to convey to you the sense I have of a great good in being permitted to know of your happiness, and of having some communion with the sorrow which is its shadow. Your words have a consecration for me, and my husband shares my feeling. He sends his love along with mine. He sobbed with something which is a sort of grief better worth having than any trivial gladness, as he read the printed record of your love. He, too, is capable of that supreme, self-merging love. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1873.] This is good news about the guinea edition, but I emphatically agree with you that it will be well to be cautious in further printing. I wish you could see a letter I had from California the other day, apparently from a young fellow, and beginning, "Oh, you dear lady! I who have been a Fred Vincy ever so long ... have played vagabond and ninny ever since I knew the meaning of such terms," etc., etc. I am sorry to infer, from what you say about being recommended to go to a German bath, that you have been out of health lately. There really is a good deal of curative virtue in the air, waters, and exercise one gets at such places, and if the boredom were not strong enough to counteract the better influences, it would be worth while to endure. That phrase of Miss Stuart's--"fall flat on the world"--is worth remembering. I should think it is not likely to prove prophetic, if she is at all like her cousin, whose fair, piquant face remains very vividly before me. The older one gets, the more one delights in these young things, rejoicing in their joys. The ministerial crisis interests me, though it does not bring me any practical need for thinking of it, as it does to you. I wish there were some solid, philosophical Conservative to take the reins--one who knows the true functions of stability in human affairs, and, as the psalm says, "Would also practice what he knows." [Sidenote: Letter to Edward Burne-Jones, 20th Mch. 1873.] I suppose my hesitation about writing to you to tell you of a debt I feel towards you is all vanity. If you did not know me, you might think a great deal more of my judgment than it is worth, and I should feel bold in that possibility. But when judgment is understood to mean simply one's own impression of delight, one ought not to shrink from making one's small offering of burnt clay because others can give gold statues. It would be narrowness to suppose that an artist can only care for the impressions of those who know the methods of his art as well as feel its effects. Art works for all whom it can touch. And I want in gratitude to tell you that your work makes life larger and more beautiful to me. I mean that historical life of all the world, in which our little personal share often seems a mere standing-room from which we can look all round, and chiefly backward. Perhaps the work has a strain of special sadness in it--perhaps a deeper sense of the tremendous outer forces which urge us, than of the inner impulse towards heroic struggle and achievement--but the sadness is so inwrought with pure, elevating sensibility to all that is sweet and beautiful in the story of man and in the face of the earth that it can no more be found fault with than the sadness of mid-day, when Pan is touchy, like the rest of us. Don't you agree with me that much superfluous stuff is written on all sides about purpose in art? A nasty mind makes nasty art, whether for art or any other sake; and a meagre mind will bring forth what is meagre. And some effect in determining other minds there must be, according to the degree of nobleness or meanness in the selection made by the artist's soul. Your work impresses me with the happy sense of noble selection and of power determined by refined sympathy. That is why I wanted to thank you in writing, since lip-homage has fallen into disrepute. I cannot help liking to tell you a sign that my delight must have taken a little bit of the same curve as yours. Looking, _à propos_ of your picture, into the "Iphigenia in Aulis," to read the chorus you know of, I found my blue pencil-marks made seven years ago (and gone into that forgetfulness which makes my mind seem very large and empty)--blue pencil-marks made against the dance--loving Kithara and the footsteps of the muses and the nereids dancing on the shining sands. I was pleased to see that my mind had been touched in a dumb way by what has touched yours to fine utterance. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 15th April, 1873] Welcome back to Europe! What a comfort to see your handwriting dated from San Remo--to think that Dr. Congreve's anxieties about your voyage are at an end, and that you are once more in the post which is more specially and permanently yours! Mr. Lewes finds fault with your letter for not telling enough; but the mere fact of your safety seems to fill it quite full for me, and I can think of no drawbacks--not even of the cold, which I hope is by this time passing away for you, as it is for us. You must be so rich in memories that we and our small ordinary news must appear very flat to you, but we will submit to be a little despised by you if only we can have you with us again. I have never lost the impression of Dr. Congreve's look when he paid us his farewell visit, and spoke of his anxiety about your voyage, fearing that you had started too late; and that impression gives me all the keener sympathy with the repose I trust he is feeling. About ourselves I have only good news to tell. We are happier than ever, and have no troubles. We are searching for a country-house to go to at the end of May or earlier. I long for the perfect peace and freedom of the country again. The hours seem to stretch themselves there, and to hold twice as much thought as one can get into them in town, where acquaintances and small claims inevitably multiply. Imagine us nearly as we were when we last saw you--only a little older--with unchanged affection for you and undimmed interest in whatever befalls you. Do not tax yourself to write unless you feel a pleasure in that imperfect sort of communication. I will try not to fear evil if you are silent, but you know that I am glad to have something more than hope to feed on. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 25th April, 1873.] It was a cordial to me this morning to learn that you have the project of going with your young friend to Cambridge at the end of the autumn. I could not have thought of anything better to wish for on your behalf than that you should have the consciousness of helping a younger life. I know, dear friend, that so far as you directly are concerned with this life the remainder of it can only be patience and resignation. But we are not shut up within our individual life, and it is one of the gains of advancing age that the good of young creatures becomes a more definite, intense joy to us. With that renunciation for ourselves which age inevitably brings, we get more freedom of soul to enter into the life of others; what we can never learn they will know, and the gladness which is a departed sunlight to us is rising with the strength of morning to them. I am very much interested in the fact of young women studying at Cambridge, and I have lately seen a charming specimen of the pupils at Hitchin--a very modest, lovely girl, who distinguished herself in the last examination. One is anxious that, in the beginning of a higher education for women--the immediate value of which is chiefly the social recognition of its desirableness--the students should be favorable subjects for experiment, girls or young women whose natures are large and rich enough not to be used up in their efforts after knowledge. Mr. Lewes is very well and goes on working joyously. Proofs come in slowly, but he is far from being ready with all the manuscript which will be needed for his preliminary volume--the material, which has long been gathered, requiring revision and suggesting additions. Do think it a privilege to have that fine _physique_ of yours instead of a headachy, dyspeptic frame such as many women drag through life. Even in irremediable sorrow it is a sort of blasphemy against one's suffering fellow-beings to think lightly of any good which they would be thankful for in exchange for something they have to bear. [Sidenote: Journal, 1873.] _May 19._--We paid a visit to Cambridge at the invitation of Mr. Frederick Myers, and I enjoyed greatly talking with him and some others of the "Trinity Men." In the evenings we went to see the boat-race, and then returned to supper and talk--the first evening with Mr. Henry Sidgwick, Mr. Jebb, Mr. Edmund Gurney; the second, with young Balfour, young Lyttelton, Mr. Jackson, and Edmund Gurney again. Mrs. and Miss Huth were also our companions during the visit. On the Tuesday morning we breakfasted at Mr. Henry Sidgwick's with Mr. Jebb, Mr. W. G. Clark, Mr. Myers, and Mrs. and Miss Huth. _May 22._--We went to the French play at the Princess's and saw Plessy and Desclée in "Les Idées de Madame Aubray." I am just finishing again Aristotle's "Poetics," which I first read in 1856. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 25th May, 1873.] Our plans have been upset by the impossibility of finding a house in the country that is suitable to us, and weariness of being deluded into journeys of investigation by fanciful advertisements has inclined Mr. Lewes for the present to say that we will go abroad. Still, I have nothing to tell that is absolutely settled, and I must ask you, when you return, to send a note to this house. If I am in England it will be forwarded to me, and you will get a prompt answer. If I am silent you will conclude that I am gone abroad. I think it is at the end of June that you are to come home? Here we have been wearing furs and velvet, and having fires all through the past week, chiefly occupied by Mr. Lewes and me in a visit to Cambridge. We were invited ostensibly to see the boat-race, but the real pleasure of the visit consisted in talking with a hopeful group of Trinity young men. On Monday we had a clear, cold day, more like the fine weather of mid-winter than any tradition of May time. I hope that you have had no such revisiting of winter at San Remo. How much we should enjoy having you with us to narrate everything that has happened to you in the last eventful half year! I shall feel the loss of this, as an immediate prospect, to be the greatest disadvantage in our going abroad next month--if we go. Your last news of Emily and of "baby's teeth" is cheerful. "Baby's teeth" is a phrase that enters much into our life just now. Little Blanche had a sad struggle with her first little bit of ivory, but she has been blooming again since, and is altogether a ravishing child. To-day we have had a large collection of visitors, and I have the usual Sunday evening condition of brain. But letters are so constantly coming and claiming my time to answer them, that I get fidgety lest I should neglect to write to you; and I was determined not to let another day pass without letting you have a proof that I think of you. When I am silent please believe that the silence is due to feebleness of body, which narrows my available time. Mr. Lewes often talks of you, and will value any word from you about yourself as much as I shall. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 2d June, 1873.] Thanks for sending me word of poor Miss Rebecca Franklin's death. It touches me deeply. She was always particularly good and affectionate to me, and I had much happiness in her as my teacher. In September a house near Chislehurst will be open to us--a house which we think of ultimately making our sole home, turning our backs on London. But we shall be allowed to have it, furnished, for a year on trial. [Sidenote: Journal, 1873.] _June._--In the beginning of June we paid a visit to Mr. Jowett at Oxford, meeting there Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roundell, then newly married. We stayed from Saturday to Monday, and I was introduced to many persons of interest. Professor T. Green, Max Müller, Thomson, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, a Mr. Wordsworth, the grandson of the poet, who had spent some time in India, and a host of others. _June 23._--Started for the Continent. Fontainebleau, Plombières, etc. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 9th Aug. 1873.] I feel myself guilty that I have allowed the vicissitudes of travelling to hinder me from writing to you, for the chance that a letter from me might be welcome to you in what I have been imagining as the first weeks of your return to England and the house in Mecklenburgh Square. I am sure that I should not have been guilty in this way if I had been at any time able to say where you should send me an answer which I could call for at a _Poste Restante_. But we have been invariably uncertain as to the length of our stay in any one place and as to our subsequent route; and I confess that I shrink from writing a letter full of my own doings, without the prospect of getting some news in return. I am usually in a state of fear rather than of hope about my absent friends; and I dread lest a letter written in ignorance about them should be ill-timed. But at last all fears have become weaker than the uneasy sense that I have omitted to send you a sign of your loved presence in my thoughts, and that you may have lost a gleam of pleasure through my omission. We left home on the 23d of June, with a sketch of a journey in our minds, which included Grenoble, the Grande Chartreuse, Aix-les-Bains, Chambéry, and Geneva. The last place I wished to get to, because my friend Mme. d'Albert is not likely to live much longer, and I thought that I should like to see her once more. But during a short stay at Fontainebleau I began to feel that lengthy railway journeys were too formidable for us old, weak creatures, and, moreover, that July and August were not the best months for those southern regions. We were both shattered, and needed quiet rather than the excitement of seeing friends and acquaintances--an excitement of which we had been having too much at home--so we turned aside by easy stages to the Vosges, and spent about three weeks at Plombières and Luxeuil. We shall carry home many pleasant memories of our journey--of Fontainebleau, for example, which I had never seen before. Then of the Vosges, where we count on going again. Erckmann-Chatrian's books had been an introduction to the lovely region; and several of them were our companions there. But what small experiences these are compared with yours; and how we long for the time when you will be seated with us at our country-house (Blackbrook, near Bromley, is the name of the house), and tell us as much as you can think of about this long year in which we have been deprived of you. If you receive this letter in time to write me a line, which would reach me by the 15th, I shall be most grateful if you will give me that undeserved indulgence. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Aug. 1873.] On our return yesterday from our nine-weeks' absence I found a letter from Mr. Main, in which he shows some anxiety that I should write you the "formal sanction" you justly require before admitting extracts from "Middlemarch" in the new edition of the "Sayings." I have no objection, if you see none, to such an enlargement of the volume, and I satisfy our good Mr. Main's promptitude by writing the needed consent at once. We used our plan of travel as "a good thing to wander from," and went to no single place (except Fontainebleau) to which we had beforehand projected going. Our most fortunate wandering was to the Vosges--to Plombières and Luxeuil--which have made us in love with the mode of life at the _Eaux_ of France, as greatly preferable to the ways of the German _Bad_. We happened to be at Nancy just as the Germans were beginning to quit it, and we saw good store of _tricolores_ and paper lanterns ready in the shop windows for those who wished to buy the signs of national rejoicing. I can imagine that, as a Prussian lady told us, the Germans themselves were not at all rejoiced to leave that pretty town for "les bords de la Spree," where, in French dialogue, all Germans are supposed to live. [Sidenote: Journal, 1873.] _Sept. 4._--Went to Blackbrook, near Bickley. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 17th Sept. 1873.] Thanks, dear friend, for the difficult exertion you gave to the telling of what I so much wished to know--the details of the trouble[21] which you have all had to go through either directly or sympathetically. But I will not dwell now on what it cost you, I fear, too much pain to recall so as to give me the vivid impressions I felt in reading your letter. The great practical result of such trouble is to make us all more tender to each other; this is a world in which we must pay heavy prices for love, as you know by experience much deeper than mine. I will gossip a little about ourselves now. We gave up our intention of going far southward, fearing the fatigue of long railway journeys, and the heat (which hardly ever came) of July and August in the region we had thought of visiting. So, after staying a very enjoyable time at Fontainebleau, we went to the Vosges, and at Plombières and Luxeuil we should have felt ourselves in paradise if it had not been for a sad deafness of George's, which kept us uneasy and made us hurry to that undesirable place, Frankfort, in order to consult Spiess. At Frankfort the nearest bath was the also undesirable Homburg; so we spent or wasted a fortnight there, winning little but the joy of getting away again. The journey home, which we took very easily, was interesting--through Metz, Verdun, Rheims, and Amiens. As to our house, spite of beautiful lawn, tall trees, fine kitchen-garden, and good, invigorating air, we have already made up our minds that it will not do for our home. Still, we have many things to enjoy, but we shall not probably remain here longer than to the end of October. My motherly love to all such young ones as may be around you. I do not disturb George in order to ask for messages from him, being sure that his love goes with mine. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 19th Sept. 1873.] I quite assent to your proposal that there should be a new edition of "Middlemarch" in one volume, at 7_s._ 6_d._--to be prepared at once, but not published too precipitately. I like your project of an illustration; and the financial arrangements you mention are quite acceptable to me. For one reason especially I am delighted that the book is going to be reprinted--namely, _that I can see the proof-sheets and make corrections_. Pray give orders that the sheets be sent to me. I should like the binding to be of a rich, sober color, with very plain Roman lettering. It might be called a "revised edition." Thanks for the extract from Mr. Collins's letter. I did not know that there was really a Lowick, in a Midland county too. Mr. Collins has my gratitude for feeling some regard towards Mr. Casaubon, in whose life _I_ lived with much sympathy. When I was at Oxford, in May, two ladies came up to me after dinner: one said, "How could you let Dorothea marry _that_ Casaubon?" The other, "Oh, I understand her doing that, but why did you let her marry the other fellow, whom I cannot bear?" Thus two "ardent admirers" wished that the book had been quite different from what it is. I wonder whether you have abandoned--as you seemed to agree that it would be wise to do--the project of bringing out my other books in a cheaper form than the present 3_s._ 6_d._, which, if it were not for the blemish of the figure illustrations, would be as pretty an edition as could be, and perhaps as cheap as my public requires. Somehow, the cheap books that crowd the stalls are always those which look as if they were issued from Pandemonium. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 11th Oct. 1873.] I am rather ashamed of our grumblings. We are really enjoying the country, and have more than our share of everything. George has happy mornings at his desk now, and we have fine bracing air to walk in--air which I take in as a sort of nectar. We like the bits of scenery round us better and better as we get them by heart in our walks and drives. The house, with all its defects, is very pretty, and more delightfully secluded, without being remote from the conveniences of the world, than any place we have before thought of as a possible residence for us. I am glad that you have been seeing the Cowper Temples. My knowledge of them has not gone beyond dining with them at Mrs. Tollemache's, and afterwards having a good conversational call from them, but they both struck me very agreeably. Mr. Henry Sidgwick is a chief favorite of mine--one of whom his friends at Cambridge say that they always expect him to act according to a higher standard than they think of attributing to any other chief man, or of imposing on themselves. "Though we kept our own fellowships without believing more than he did," one of them said to me, "we should have felt that Henry Sidgwick had fallen short if he had not renounced his." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 12th Oct. 1873.] Our plan is not to give up our London house, but to have a country place as a retreat. We want a good house in a lovely country, _away from rows of villas_, but within easy reach of all conveniences. This seems an immodest requirement in a world where one good is hardly to be got without renunciation of another. You perceive that we are getting very old and fastidious. I like to interpret your enjoyment of Brighton and its evening skies as a proof that you flourish there physically. All things are to be endured and counted even as a fuller life, with a body free from pain and depressing sensations of weakness; but illness is a partial death, and makes the world dim to us. We have no great strength to boast of; but we are so unspeakably happy in all other respects that we cannot grumble at this tax on us as elderly mortals. Our little Blanche grows in grace, and her parents have great delight in her--Charles being quite as fond a father as if he had beforehand been an idolizer of babies. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, Sunday, 20th Oct. 1873.] The chances of conversation were against my being quite clear to you yesterday as to the cases in which it seems to me that conformity is the higher rule. What happened to be said or not said is of no consequence in any other light than that of my anxiety not to appear what I should _hate to be_--which is surely not an ignoble, egoistic anxiety, but belongs to the worship of the Best. All the great religions of the world, historically considered, are rightly the objects of deep reverence and sympathy--they are the record of spiritual struggles, which are the types of our own. This is to me pre-eminently true of Hebrewism and Christianity, on which my own youth was nourished. And in this sense I have no antagonism towards any religious belief, but a strong outflow of sympathy. Every community met to worship the highest Good (which is understood to be expressed by God) carries me along in its main current; and if there were not reasons against my following such an inclination, I should go to church or chapel constantly for the sake of the delightful emotions of fellowship which come over me in religious assemblies--the very nature of such assemblies being the recognition of a binding belief or spiritual law, which is to lift us into willing obedience and save us from the slavery of unregulated passion or impulse. And with regard to other people, it seems to me that those who have no definite conviction which constitutes a protesting faith may often more beneficially cherish the good within them and be better members of society by a conformity, based on the recognized good in the public belief, than by a nonconformity which has nothing but negatives to utter. _Not_, of course, if the conformity would be accompanied by a consciousness of hypocrisy. That is a question for the individual conscience to settle. But there is enough to be said on the different points of view from which conformity may be regarded to hinder a ready judgment against those who continue to conform after ceasing to believe, in the ordinary sense. But with the utmost largeness of allowance for the difficulty of deciding in special cases, it must remain true that the highest lot is to have definite beliefs about which you feel that "necessity is laid upon you" to declare them, as something better which you are bound to try and give to those who have the worse. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 5th Nov. 1873.] It was a cheerful accompaniment to breakfast this morning to have a letter from you, with the pretty picture you suggested of Miss Blackwood's first ball. I am glad that I have seen the "little fairy," so as to be able to imagine her. We are both the better for the delicious air and quiet of the country. We, too, like you, were sorry to quit the woods and fields for the comparatively disturbed life which even we are obliged to lead in town. Letters requesting interviews can no longer be made void by one's absence; and I am much afflicted by these interruptions, which break up the day without any adequate result of good to any mortal. In the country the days have broad spaces, and the very stillness seems to give a delightful roominess to the hours. Is it not wonderful that the world can absorb so much "Middlemarch" at a guinea the copy? I shall be glad to hear particulars, which, I imagine, will lead to the conclusion that the time is coming for the preparation of a 7_s._ 6_d._ edition. I am not fond of reading proofs, but I am anxious to correct the sheets of this edition, both in relation to mistakes already standing, and to prevent the accumulation of others in the reprinting. I am slowly simmering towards another big book; but people seem so bent on giving supremacy to "Middlemarch" that they are sure not to like any future book so well. I had a letter from Mr. Bancroft (the American ambassador at Berlin) the other day, in which he says that everybody in Berlin reads "Middlemarch." He had to buy two copies for his house; and he found the rector of the university, a stupendous mathematician, occupied with it in the solid part of the day. I am entertaining you in this graceful way about myself because you will be interested to know what are the chances for our literature abroad. That Ashantee business seems to me hideous. What is more murderous than stupidity? To have a husband gone on such an expedition is a trial that passes my imagination of what it is possible to endure in the way of anxiety. We are looking forward to the "Inkerman" volume as something for me to read aloud. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 11th Nov. 1873.] During the latter part of our stay at Blackbrook we had become very fond of the neighborhood. The walks and drives round us were delightfully varied--commons, wooded lanes, wide pastures--and we felt regretfully that we were hardly likely to find again a country-house so secluded in a well-inhabited region. We have seen few people at present. The George Howards are come from a delicious, lonely _séjour_ in a tower of Bamborough Castle!--and he has brought many sketches home. That lodging would suit you, wouldn't it? A castle on a rock washed by the sea seems to me just a paradise for you. We have been reading John Mill's "Autobiography," like the rest of the world. The account of his early education and the presentation of his father are admirable; but there are some pages in the latter half that one would have liked to be different. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 6th Dec. 1873.] Our wish to see you after all the long months since June, added to your affectionate invitation, triumphs over our disinclination to move. So, unless something should occur to make the arrangement inconvenient to you, we will join the dear party on your hearth in the afternoon of the 24th, and stay with you till the 26th. Notwithstanding my trust in your words, I feel a lingering uneasiness lest we should be excluding some one else from enjoying Christmas with you. J.'s friend, Dr. Andrew Clark, has been prescribing for Mr. Lewes--ordering him to renounce the coffee which has been a chief charm of life to him, but being otherwise mild in his prohibitions. I hear with much comfort that you are better, and have recovered your usual activity. Please keep well till Christmas, and then love and pet me a little, for that is always very sweet. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 22d Dec. 1873.] In writing any careful presentation of human feelings, you must count on that infinite stupidity of readers who are always substituting their crammed notions of what ought to be felt for any attempt to recall truly what they themselves have felt under like circumstances. We are going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our friends at Weybridge. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 28th Dec. 1873.] We have been spending our Christmas in the country, and it is only on my return that I got your kind note, with its pretty symbols of remembrance. Such little signs are very sweet, coming from those whom one loves well in spite of long separation. I am very glad to have seen you in your new home, and to be able to imagine you among your household treasures--especially to imagine both you and your husband in enjoyable health. We have been invalidish lately, and have put ourselves under the discipline of Dr. Andrew Clark, who is not one of the "three meat-meals and alcohol" physicians, but rather one of those who try to starve out dyspepsia. We both send our kind regards to Mr. Taylor, and hope that he may remain robust for his parliamentary campaign. Life, I trust, will deal gently with you in future, dear friend, and give you years of peace after your period of anxiety and of parting from old places and habits. [Sidenote: Journal, 1874.] _Jan. 1._--The happy old year, in which we have had constant enjoyment of life, notwithstanding much bodily _malaise_, is gone from us forever. More than in any former year of my life love has been poured forth to me from distant hearts, and in our home we have had that finish to domestic comfort which only faithful, kind servants can give. Our children are prosperous and happy--Charles evidently growing in mental efficiency; we have abundant wealth for more than our actual needs; and our unspeakable joy in each other has no other alloy than the sense that it must one day end in parting. My dear husband has a store of present and prospective good in the long work which is likely to stretch through the remaining years of his intellectual activity; and there have not been wanting signs that what he has already published is being appreciated rightly by capable persons. He is thinner than ever, but still he shows wonderful elasticity and nervous energy. I have been for a month rendered almost helpless for intellectual work by constant headache, but am getting a little more freedom. Nothing is wanting to my blessings but the uninterrupted power of work. For as to all my unchangeable imperfections I have resigned myself. _Jan. 17._--I received this morning, from Blackwood, the account of "Middlemarch" and of "The Spanish Gypsy" for 1873. Of the guinea edition of "Middlemarch," published in the spring, 2434 copies have been sold. Of "The Spanish Gypsy" 292 copies have been sold during 1873, and the remaining copies are only 197. Thus, out of 4470 which have been printed, 4273 have been distributed. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 12th Feb. 1874.] We have received the volume--your kind and valuable gift--and I have read it aloud with Mr. Lewes, all except the later pages, which we both feel too much to bear reading them in common. You have given a deeply interesting and, we think, instructive picture, and Mr. Lewes has expressed his wish that it had not been restricted to a private circulation. But I understand your shrinking from indiscriminate publicity, at least in the first instance. Perhaps, if many judges on whom you rely concur with Mr. Lewes, you will be induced to extend the possible benefit of the volume. I care so much for the demonstration of an intense joy in life on the basis of "plain living and high thinking" in this time of more and more eager scrambling after wealth and show. And then there are exquisite bits which you have rescued from that darkness to which his self-depreciation condemned them. I think I never read a more exquisite little poem than the one called "Christian Resignation;" and Mr. Lewes, when I read it aloud, at once exclaimed, "How very fine--read it again!" I am also much impressed with the wise mingling of moderation with sympathy in that passage, given in a note, from the article on Greg's "Political Essays." What must have been the effort which the writing cost you I can--not fully, but almost--imagine. But believe, dear friend, that in our judgment you have not poured out these recollections in a cry of anguish all in vain. I feel roused and admonished by what you have told, and if I--then others. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 20th Feb. 1874.] I imagined you absorbed by the political crisis, like the rest of the world except the Lord Chief-justice, who must naturally have felt his summing-up deserving of more attention. I, who am no believer in salvation by ballot, am rather tickled that the first experiment with it has turned against its adherents. I have been making what will almost certainly be my last corrections of the "Spanish Gypsy," and that causes me to look forward with special satisfaction to the probable exhaustion of the present edition. The corrections chiefly concern the quantity of the word Zincálo, which ought to be Zíncalo; but there are some other emendations; and, altogether, they make a difference to more than seventy pages. But it would still be worth while to retain the stereotypes, replacing simply the amended pages, there being about 400 in the whole book. I am sadly vexed that I did not think of having these corrections ready for the German reprint. I have been compunctious lately about my having sprinkled cold water on the proposal suggested by Mr. Simpson, of bringing out my novels in a cheaper way--on thinner paper and without illustrations. The compunction was roused by my happening, in looking at old records, to alight on some letters, one especially, written by a working-man, a certain E. Hall,[22] more than ten years ago, begging me to bring out my books in a form cheap enough to let a poor man more easily "get a read of them." Hence, if you and Mr. Simpson see good to revive the design in question, I am perfectly in accord. You did send me a copy of Lord Lytton's "Fables"--many thanks for doing so. Mr. Lewes had seen several of them in manuscript, and thought well of their merits. I am reading them gradually. They are full of graceful fancies and charming verse. So far as cleverness goes it seems to me he can do almost anything; and the leanings of his mind are towards the best things. The want I feel is of more definiteness and more weight. The two stanzas to his wife, placed before "Far and Near," are perfect. I think I have never written to you since I wanted to tell you that I admired very much the just spirit in which the notice of Mill's "Autobiography" was written in the Magazine. Poor Dickens's latter years wear a melancholy aspect, do they not? But some of the extracts from his letters in the last volume have surprisingly more freshness and naturalness of humor than any of the letters earlier given. Still, something should be done by dispassionate criticism towards the reform of our national habits in the matter of literary biography. Is it not odious that as soon as a man is dead his desk is raked, and every insignificant memorandum which he never meant for the public is printed for the gossiping amusement of people too idle to re-read his books? "He gave the people of his best. His worst he kept, his best he gave;" but there is a certain set, not a small one, who are titillated by the worst and indifferent to the best. I think this fashion is a disgrace to us all. It is something like the uncovering of the dead Byron's club-foot. Mr. Lewes is in a more flourishing condition than usual, having been helped by Dr. Andrew Clark, who ministers to all the brain-workers. I have been ill lately: weeks of _malaise_ having found their climax in lumbar-neuralgia, or something of that sort, which gave fits of pain severe enough to deserve even a finer name. My writing has not been stimulated as Scott's was under circumstances of a like sort, and I have nothing to tell you securely. Please give an expression of my well-founded sympathy to Mr. William Blackwood. My experience feelingly convinces me of the hardship there must be in his. I trust I shall hear of the lameness as a departed evil. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Mch. 1874.] I send you by this post a small collection of my poems, which Mr. Lewes wishes me to get published in May. Such of them as have been already printed in a fugitive form have been received with many signs of sympathy, and every one of those I now send you represents an idea which I care for strongly, and wish to propagate as far as I can. Else I should forbid myself from adding to the mountainous heap of poetical collections. The form of volume I have in my eye is a delightful duodecimo edition of Keats's poems (without the "Endymion") published during his life: just the volume to slip in the pocket. Mine will be the least bit thicker. I should like a darkish green cover, with Roman lettering. But you will consider the physique and price of the book, and kindly let me know your thoughts. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 25th Mch. 1874.] I fear the fatal fact about your story[23] is the absence of God and hell. "My dear madam, you have not presented motives to the children!" It is really hideous to find that those who sit in the scribes' seats have got no further than the appeal to selfishness, which they call God. The old Talmudists were better teachers. They make Rachel remonstrate with God for his hardness, and remind him that she was kinder to her sister Leah than he to his people--thus correcting the traditional God by human sympathy. However, we must put up with our contemporaries, since we can neither live with our ancestors nor with posterity. It is cheering to see the programme of your new society. There certainly is an awakening of conscience about animals in general as our fellow-creatures--even the vogue of Balaam's ass is in that sense a good sign. A lady wrote to me the other day that when she went to church in the island of Sark the sermon turned on that remonstrant hero or heroine. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Mch. 1874.] I can imagine how great an encouragement you feel from the enthusiasm generously expressed in Mr. C.'s letter. It is always an admirable impulse to express deeply felt admiration, but it is also possible that you have some grateful readers who do not write to you. I have heard men whose greatest delight is literature, say that they should never dream of writing to an author on the ground of his books alone. Poor Mr. Francis Newman must be aged now and rather weary of the world and explanations of the world. He can hardly be expected to take in much novelty. I have a sort of affectionate sadness in thinking of the interest which, in far-off days, I felt in his "Soul" and "Phases of Faith," and of the awe I had of him as a lecturer on mathematics at the Ladies' College. How much work he has done in the world which has left no deep, conspicuous mark, but has probably entered beneficially into many lives! [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d April, 1874.] How glorious this opening spring is! At this moment even London is so beautiful that I come home filled with the Park landscapes, and see them as a background to all my thoughts. Your account of Mr. George Dawson is rather melancholy. I remember him only as a bright, vigorous, young man--such as perhaps his sons are now. I imagine it is his fortune, or, rather, misfortune, to have talked too much and too early about the greatest things. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Mary Cross, 11th May, 1874.] I could not dwell on your sweet gift[24] yesterday--I should perhaps have begun to cry, which would not have been _convenable_ in a hostess. For I have been in a suffering, depressed condition lately, so your good, loving deed has come just at the right time--when I need the helpfulness that love brings me--and my heart turns to you with grateful blessing this Monday morning. I have been looking at the little paintings with a treble delight, because they were done for _me_, because you chose for them subjects of my "making," and because they are done with a promising charm of execution (which Mr. Lewes feels as well as I). It gives me special gladness that you have this sort of work before you. Some skill or other with the hands is needful for the completeness of the life, and makes a bridge over times of doubt and despondency. Perhaps it will please you to know that nineteen years ago, when Mr. Lewes and I were looking at a print of Goethe's statue by Ritzchl, which stands on a pedestal ornamented with _bassi relievi_ of his characters, I said (little believing that my wish would ever be fulfilled), "How I should like to be surrounded with creatures of my own making!" And yesterday, when I was looking at your gift, that little incident recurred to me. Your love seemed to have made me a miniature pedestal. I was comforted yesterday that you and J. had at least the pleasure of hearing Bice Trollope sing, to make some amends for the long, cold journey. Please do not any of you, forget that we shall only be three weeks more in this corner of the world, and that we want to see you as often as you care to come. Best love to all, the mother being chief among the all. [Sidenote: Journal, 1874.] _May 19._--This month has been published a volume of my poems--"Legend of Jubal, and other Poems." On the 1st of June we go into the country to the cottage, Earlswood Common, for four months, and I hope there to get deep shafts sunk in my prose book. My health has been a wretched drag on me during this last half-year. I have lately written "a symposium." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 14th June, 1874.] I have so much trust in your love for us that I feel sure you will like to know of our happiness in the secure peace of the country, and the good we already experience in soul and body from the sweet breezes over hill and common, the delicious silence, and the unbroken spaces of the day. Just now the chill east wind has brought a little check to our pleasure in our long afternoon drives; and I could wish that Canon Kingsley and his fellow-worshippers of that harsh divinity could have it reserved entirely for themselves as a tribal god. We think the neighborhood so lovely that I must beg you to tell J. we are in danger of settling here unless he makes haste to find us a house in your "country-side"--a house with undeniable charms, on high ground, in a strictly rural neighborhood (water and gas laid on, nevertheless), to be vacant precisely this autumn! My philosopher is writing away with double _verve_ in a projecting window, where he can see a beautiful green slope crowned and studded with large trees. I, too, have an agreeable corner in another room. Our house has the essentials of comfort, and we have reason to be contented with it. I confess that my chief motive for writing about ourselves is to earn some news of you, which will not be denied me by one or other of the dear pairs of hands always ready to do us a kindness. Our Sunday is really a Sabbath now--a day of thorough peace. But I shall get hungry for a sight of some of the Sunday visitors before the end of September. I include all your family in a spiritual embrace, and am always yours lovingly. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 16th June, 1874.] We are revelling in the peace of the country, and have no drawback to our delight except the cold winds, which have forced us to put on winter clothing for the last four or five days. Our wide common is very breezy, and the wind makes mournful music round our walls. But I should think it is not possible to find a much healthier region than this round Reigate and Redhill; and it is prettier than half the places one crosses the Channel to see. We have been hunting about for a permanent country home in the neighborhood, but no house is so difficult to get as one which has at once seclusion and convenience of position, which is neither of the suburban-villa style nor of the grand hall and castle dimensions. The restoration of the empire (in France), which is a threatening possibility, seems to me a degrading issue. In the restoration of the monarchy I should have found something to rejoice at, but the traditions of the empire, both first and second, seem to my sentiment bad. Some form of military despotism must be, as you say, the only solution where no one political party knows how to behave itself. The American pattern is certainly being accepted as to senatorial manners. I dare say you have been to Knebworth and talked over French matters with Lord Lytton. We are grieved to hear from him but a poor account of sweet Lady Lytton's health and spirits. She is to me one of the most charming types of womanliness, and I long for her to have all a woman's best blessings. The good news about the small remainder of "Jubal" is very welcome, and I will write at once to Mr. Simpson to send him my two or three corrections, and my wishes about the new edition. The price of the book will well bear a thicker and a handsomely tinted paper, especially now it has proved movable; and I felt so much the difference to the eye and touch of the copies on rich tinted paper, that I was much vexed with myself for having contributed to the shabby appearance of the current edition by suggesting the thin Keats volume as a model. People have become used to more luxurious editions; and I confess to the weakness of being affected by paper and type in something of the same subtile way I am affected by the odor of a room. Many thanks for Lord Neaves's pleasant little book, which is a capital example of your happily planned publication. I came down here half poisoned by the French theatre, but I am flourishing now, and am brewing my future big book with more or less (generally less) belief in the quality of the liquor which will be drawn off. The secured peacefulness and the pure air of the country make our time of double worth; and we mean to give no invitations to London friends desirous of change. We are selfishly bent on dual solitude. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st July, 1874.] I am so glad to know from your kind letter that you are interesting yourself, with Madame Belloc, in the poor workhouse girls. You see my only social work is to rejoice in the labors of others, while I live in luxurious remoteness from all turmoil. Of course you have seen Mrs. Senior's report. I read it, and thought it very wise, very valuable in many ways, and since then she has sent me word how much she has been worried about it by (as I imagine) obstructive officials. We are revelling in our country peacefulness, in spite of the chills and rain, driving about every day that the weather will allow, and finding in each drive new beauties of this loveliest part of a lovely country. We are looking out for a house in this neighborhood as a permanent retreat; not with the idea of giving up our London house, at least for some years, but simply of having a place to which we may come for about six months of the year, and perhaps finally shrink into altogether. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 1st July, 1874.] Only the day before your letter came to me I had been saying, "I wonder how our dear Mrs. William Smith is?" so that your impulse to write to me satisfied a need of mine. I cannot help rejoicing that you are in the midst of lovely scenery again, for I had had a presentiment that Cambridge was antipathetic to you; and, indeed, I could not have imagined that you would be in the right place there but for the promised helpfulness of your presence to a young friend. You tell me much that is interesting. Your picture of Mr. and Mrs. Stirling, and what you say of the reasons why one may wish even for the anguish of being _left_ for the sake of waiting on the beloved one to the end--all that goes to my heart of hearts. It is what I think of almost daily. For death seems to me now a close, real experience, like the approach of autumn or winter, and I am glad to find that advancing life brings this power of imagining the nearness of death I never had till of late years. I remember all you told me of your niece's expected marriage, and your joy in the husband who has chosen her. It is wealth you have--that of several sweet nieces to whom being with you is a happiness. You can feel some sympathy in their cheerfulness, even though sorrow is always your only private good--can you not, dear friend?--and the time is short at the utmost. The blessed reunion, if it may come, must be patiently waited for; and such good as you can do others, by loving looks and words, must seem to you like a closer companionship with the gentleness and benignity which you justly worshipped while it was visibly present, and still more, perhaps, now it is veiled, and is a memory stronger than vision of outward things. We are revelling in the sweet peace of the country, and shall remain here till the end of September. Mr. Lewes sends his affectionate remembrances with mine. I am scribbling while he holds my bed-candle, so pray forgive any incoherency. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th July, 1874.] I have two questions to ask of your benevolence. First, was there not some village near Stonehenge where you stayed the night, nearer to Stonehenge than Amesbury? Secondly, do you know anything specific about Holmwood _Common_ as a place of residence? It is ravishingly beautiful; is it in its higher part thoroughly unobjectionable as a site for a dwelling? It seems that they have been having the heat of Tophet in London, whereas we have never had more than agreeable sunniness, this common being almost always breezy. And the country around us must, I think, be the loveliest of its undulating, woody kind in all England. I remember, when we were driving together last, something was said about my disposition to melancholy. I ought to have said then, but did not, that I am no longer one of those whom Dante found in hell border because they had been sad under the blessed sunlight.[25] I am uniformly cheerful now--feeling the preciousness of these moments, in which I still possess love and thought. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 3d Aug. 1874.] It was sweet of you to write me that nice long letter. I was athirst for some news of you. Life, as you say, is a big thing. No wonder there comes a season when we cease to look round and say, "How shall I enjoy?" but, as in a country which has been visited by the sword, pestilence, and famine, think only how we shall help the wounded, and how find seed for the next harvest--how till the earth and make a little time of gladness for those who are being born without their own asking. I am so glad of what you say about the Latin. Go on conquering and to conquer a little kingdom for yourself there. We are, as usual, getting more than our share of peace and other good, except in the matter of warmth and sunshine. Our common is a sort of ball-room for the winds, and on the warmest days we have had here we have found them at their music and dancing. They roar round the corners of our house in a wintry fashion, while the sun is shining on the brown grass. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 8th Aug. 1874.] Thanks for sending me the good news. The sale of "Middlemarch" is wonderful "out of all whooping," and, considered as manifesting the impression made by the book, is more valuable than any amount of immediate distribution. I suppose there will be a new edition of the "Spanish Gypsy" wanted by Christmas; and I have a carefully corrected copy by me, containing my final alterations, to which I desire to have the stereotyped plates adjusted. As to confidence in the work to be done I am somewhat in the condition suggested to Armgart, "How will you bear the poise of eminence with dread of falling?" And the other day, having a bad headache, I did what I have sometimes done before at intervals of five or six years--looked into three or four novels to see what the world was reading. The effect was paralyzing, and certainly justifies me in that abstinence from novel-reading which, I fear, makes me seem supercilious or churlish to the many persons who send me their books, or ask me about their friends' books. To be delivered from all doubts as to one's justification in writing at this stage of the world, one should have either a plentiful faith in one's own exceptionalness, or a plentiful lack of money. Tennyson said to me, "Everybody writes so well now;" and if the lace is only machine-made, it still pushes out the hand-made, which has differences only for a fine, fastidious appreciation. To write indifferently after having written well--that is, from a true, individual store which makes a special contribution--is like an eminent clergyman spoiling his reputation by lapses, and neutralizing all the good he did before. However, this is superfluous stuff to write to you. It is only a sample of the way in which depression works upon me. I am not the less grateful for all the encouragement I get. I saw handsome Dean Liddell at Oxford. He is really a grand figure. They accuse him of being obstructive to much-needed reforms. For my own part I am thankful to him for his share in "Liddell and Scott" and his capital little Roman History. _À propos_ of books and St. Andrews, I have read aloud to Mr. Lewes Professor Flint's volume, and we have both been much pleased with its conscientious presentation and thorough effort at fairness. We have enjoyed the country, as we always do; but we have been, for our constitutions, a little unfortunate in the choice of a spot which is the windiest of the windy. That heat which we have read and heard of has hardly been at all felt by us; and we have both suffered a little from chills. You will perceive from my letter I am just now possessed by an evil spirit in the form of headache; but on the whole I am much the stronger for the peace and the delicious air, which I take in as a conscious addition to the good of living. We have been near buying a little country hermitage on Holmwood Common--a grand spot, with a view hard to match in our flat land. But we have been frightened away by its windiness. I rather envy Major Lockhart and the rest of the golfian enthusiasts; to have a seductive idleness which is really a healthy activity is invaluable to people who have desk-work. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 11th Nov. 1874.] I feel rather disgraced by the fact that I received your last kind letter nearly two months ago. But a brief note of mine, written immediately on hearing of you from Mrs. Fields, must have crossed yours and the Professor's kind letters to me; and I hope it proved to you that I love you in my heart. We were in the country then, but soon afterwards we set out on a six-weeks' journey, and we are but just settled in our winter home. Those unspeakable troubles in which I necessarily felt more for _you_ than for any one else concerned, are, I trust, well at an end, and you are enjoying a time of peace. It was like your own sympathetic energy to be able, even while the storm was yet hanging in your sky, to write to me about my husband's books. Will you not agree with me that there is one comprehensive Church whose fellowship consists in the desire to purify and ennoble human life, and where the best members of all narrower Churches may call themselves brother and sister in spite of differences? I am writing to your dear husband as well as to you, and in answer to his question about Goethe, I must say, for my part, that I think he had a strain of mysticism in his soul--of so much mysticism as I think inevitably belongs to a full, poetic nature--I mean the delighted bathing of the soul in emotions which overpass the outlines of definite thought. I should take the "Imitation" as a type (it is one which your husband also mentions), but perhaps I might differ from him in my attempt to interpret the unchangeable and universal meanings of that great book. Mr. Lewes, however, who has a better right than I to a conclusion about Goethe, thinks that he entered into the experience of the mystic--as in the confessions of the _Schöne Seele_--simply by force of his sympathetic genius, and that his personal individual bent was towards the clear and plastic exclusively. Do not imagine that Mr. Lewes is guided in his exposition by theoretic antipathies. He is singularly tolerant of difference, and able to admire what is unlike himself. He is busy now correcting the proofs of his second volume. I wonder whether you have headaches and are rickety as we are, or whether you have a glorious immunity from those ills of the flesh. Your husband's photograph looks worthy to represent one of those wondrous Greeks who wrote grand dramas at eighty or ninety. I am decidedly among the correspondents who may exercise their friends in the virtue of giving and hoping for nothing again. Otherwise I am unprofitable. Yet believe me, dear friend, I am always with lively memories of you, yours affectionately. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Nov. 1874.] We have spent this year in much happiness, and are sorry to part with it. From the beginning of June to the end of September we had a house in Surrey, and enjoyed delicious quiet with daily walks and drives in the lovely scenery round Reigate and Dorking. October we spent in a country visit to friends (Six-Mile Bottom) and in a journey to Paris, and through the Ardennes homeward, finishing off our travels by some excursions in our own country, which we are ready to say we will never quit again--it is so much better worth knowing than most places one travels abroad to see. We make ourselves amends for being in London by going to museums to see the wonderful works of men; and the other day I was taken over the Bank of England and to Woolwich Arsenal--getting object-lessons in my old age, you perceive. Mr. Lewes is half through the proof-correcting of his second volume; and it will be matter of rejoicing when the other half is done, for we both hate proof-correcting (do you?)--the writing always seems worse than it really is when one reads it in patches, looking out for mistakes. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby (now Lady Ponsonby), 10th Dec. 1874.] My books have for their main bearing a conclusion the opposite of that in which your studies seem to have painfully imprisoned you--a conclusion without which I could not have cared to write any representation of human life--namely, that the fellowship between man and man which has been the principle of development, social and moral, is not dependent on conceptions of what is not man: and that the idea of God, so far as it has been a high spiritual influence, is the ideal of a goodness entirely human (_i.e._, an exaltation of the human). Have you quite fairly represented yourself in saying that you have ceased to pity your suffering fellow-men, because you can no longer think of them as individualities of immortal duration, in some other state of existence than this of which you know the pains and the pleasures?--that you feel less for them now you regard them as more miserable? And, on a closer examination of your feelings, should you find that you had lost all sense of quality in actions, all possibility of admiration that yearns to imitate, all keen sense of what is cruel and injurious, all belief that your conduct (and therefore the conduct of others) can have any difference of effect on the well-being of those immediately about you (and therefore on those afar off), whether you carelessly follow your selfish moods, or encourage that vision of others' needs which is the source of justice, tenderness, sympathy in the fullest sense--I cannot believe that your strong intellect will continue to see, in the conditions of man's appearance on this planet, a destructive relation to your sympathy. This seems to me equivalent to saying that you care no longer for color, now you know the laws of the spectrum. As to the necessary combinations through which life is manifested, and which seem to present themselves to you as a hideous fatalism, which ought logically to petrify your volition, have they, _in fact_, any such influence on your ordinary course of action in the primary affairs of your existence as a human, social, domestic creature? And if they don't hinder you from taking measures for a bath, without which you know that you cannot secure the delicate cleanliness which is your second nature, why should they hinder you from a line of resolve in a higher strain of duty to your ideal, both for yourself and others? But the consideration of molecular physics is not the direct ground of human love and moral action any more than it is the direct means of composing a noble picture or of enjoying great music. One might as well hope to dissect one's own body and be merry in doing it, as take molecular physics (in which you must banish from your field of view what is specifically human) to be your dominant guide, your determiner of motives, in what is solely human. That every study has its bearing on every other is true; but pain and relief, love and sorrow, have their peculiar history, which make an experience and knowledge over and above the swing of atoms. The teaching you quote as George Sand's would, I think, deserve to be called nonsensical if it did not deserve to be called wicked. What sort of "culture of the intellect" is that which, instead of widening the mind to a fuller and fuller response to all the elements of our existence, isolates it in a moral stupidity?--which flatters egoism with the possibility that a complex and refined human society can continue, wherein relations have no sacredness beyond the inclination of changing moods?--or figures to itself an æsthetic human life that one may compare to that of the fabled grasshoppers who were once men, but having heard the song of the Muses could do nothing but sing, and starved themselves so till they died and had a fit resurrection as grasshoppers? "And this," says Socrates, "was the return the Muses made them." With regard to the pains and limitations of one's personal lot, I suppose there is not a single man or woman who has not more or less need of that stoical resignation which is often a hidden heroism, or who, in considering his or her past history, is not aware that it has been cruelly affected by the ignorant or selfish action of some fellow-being in a more or less close relation of life. And to my mind there can be no stronger motive than this perception, to an energetic effort that the lives nearest to us shall not suffer in a like manner from _us_. The progress of the world--which you say can only come at the right time--can certainly never come at all save by the modified action of the individual beings who compose the world; and that we can say to ourselves with effect, "There is an order of considerations which I will keep myself continually in mind of, so that they may continually be the prompters of certain feelings and actions," seems to me as undeniable as that we can resolve to study the Semitic languages and apply to an Oriental scholar to give us daily lessons. What would your keen wit say to a young man who alleged the physical basis of nervous action as a reason why he could not possibly take that course? As to duration and the way in which it affects your view of the human history, what is really the difference to your imagination between infinitude and billions when you have to consider the value of human experience? Will you say that, since your life has a term of threescore years and ten, it was really a matter of indifference whether you were a cripple with a wretched skin disease, or an active creature with a mind at large for the enjoyment of knowledge, and with a nature which has attracted others to you? Difficulties of thought--acceptance of what is, without full comprehension--belong to every system of thinking. The question is to find the least incomplete. When I wrote the first page of this letter I thought I was going to say that I had not courage to enter on the momentous points you had touched on in the hasty, brief form of a letter. But I have been led on sentence after sentence--not, I fear, with any inspiration beyond that of my anxiety. You will at least pardon any ill-advised things I may have written on the prompting of the moment. [Sidenote: Journal, 1875.] _Jan. 13._--Here is a great gap since I last made a record. But the time has been filled full of happiness. A second edition of "Jubal" was published in August; and the fourth edition of the "Spanish Gypsy" is all sold. This morning I received a copy of the fifth edition. The amount of copies sold of "Middlemarch" up to 31st December is between nineteen and twenty thousand. Yesterday I also received the good news that the engagement between Emily Cross and Mr. Otter is settled. The last year has been crowded with proofs of affection for me and of value for what work I have been able to do. This makes the best motive or encouragement to do more; but, as usual, I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing, and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books. I am now just beginning the part about "Deronda," at page 234. [Sidenote: Letter to Francis Otter, 13th (?) Jan. 1875.] Your letter was a deeply felt pleasure to me last night; and I have one from Emily this morning, which makes my joy in the prospect of your union as thorough as it could well be. I could not wish either her words or yours to be in the least different. Long ago, when I had no notion that the event was probable, my too hasty imagination had prefigured it and longed for it. To say this is to say something of the high regard with which all I have known of you has impressed me--for I hold our sweet Emily worthy of one who may be reckoned among the best. The possibility of a constantly growing blessedness in marriage is to me the very basis of good in our mortal life; and the believing hope that you and she will experience that blessedness seems to enrich me for the coming years. I shall count it among my strengthening thoughts that you both think of me with affection, and care for my sympathy. Mr. Lewes shares in all the feelings I express, and we are rejoicing together. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 15th Jan. 1875.] Please never wonder at my silence, or believe that I bear you in any the less lively remembrance because I do not write to you. Writing notes is the _crux_ of my life. It often interferes with my morning hours (before 1 o'clock), which is the only time I have for quiet work. For certain letters are unavoidable demands, and though my kind husband writes them for me whenever he can, they are not all to be done by proxy. That glorious bit of work of yours about the Home for Girls[26] is delightful to hear of. Hardly anything is more wanted, I imagine, than homes for girls in various employments--or, rather, for unmarried women of all ages. I heard also the other day that your name was among those of the ladies interested in the beginning of a union among the bookbinding women, which one would like to succeed and spread. I hope, from your ability to work so well, that you are in perfect health yourself. Our friend Barbara, too, looks literally the pink of well-being, and cheers one's soul by her interest in all worthy things. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby (now Lady Ponsonby), 30th Jan. 1875.] I should urge you to consider your early religious experience as a portion of valid knowledge, and to cherish its emotional results in relation to objects and ideas which are either substitutes or metamorphoses of the earlier. And I think we must not take every great physicist--or other "ist"--for an apostle, but be ready to suspect him of some crudity concerning relations that lie outside his special studies, if his exposition strands us on results that seem to stultify the most ardent, massive experience of mankind, and hem up the best part of our feelings in stagnation. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 7th Feb. 1875.] Last night I finished reading aloud to Mr. Lewes the "Inkerman" volume, and we both thank you heartily for the valuable present. It is an admirable piece of writing; such pure, lucid English is what one rarely gets to read. The masterly marshalling of the material is certainly in contrast with the movements described. To my non-military mind the Inkerman affair seems nothing but a brave blundering into victory. Great traits of valor--Homeric movements--but also a powerful lack of brains in the form of generalship. I cannot see that the ordering up of the two 18-pounder guns was a vast mental effort, unless the weight of the guns is to be counted in the order as well as in the execution. But the grand fact of the thousands beaten by the hundreds remains under all interpretation. Why the Russians, in their multitudinous mass, should have chosen to retreat into Sebastopol, moving at their leisure, and carrying off all their artillery, seems a mystery in spite of General Dannenberg's memorable answer to Mentschikoff. There are some splendid movements in the story--the tradition of the "Minden Yell," the "Men, remember Albuera," and the officer of the 77th advancing with, "Then I will go myself," with what followed, are favorite bits of mine. My mind is in the anomalous condition of hating war and loving its discipline, which has been an incalculable contribution to the sentiment of duty. I have not troubled myself to read any reviews of the book. My eye caught one in which the author's style was accused of affectation. But I have long learned to apply to reviewers an aphorism which tickled me in my childhood--"There must be some such to be some of all sorts." Pray tell Mr. Simpson that I was much pleased with the new dress of the "Spanish Gypsy." The first part of "Giannetto" raised my interest, but I was disappointed in the unravelling of the plot. It seems to me neither really nor ideally satisfactory. But it is a long while since I read a story newer than "Rasselas," which I re-read two years ago, with a desire to renew my childish delight in it, when it was one of my best-loved companions. So I am a bad judge of comparative merits among popular writers. I am obliged to fast from fiction, and fasting is known sometimes to weaken the stomach. I ought to except Miss Thackeray's stories--which I cannot resist when they come near me--and bits of Mr. Trollope, for affection's sake. You would not wonder at my fasting, if you knew how deplorably uncalled-for and "everything-that-it-should-not-be" my own fiction seems to me in times of inward and outward fog--like this morning, when the light is dim on my paper. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby (now Lady Ponsonby), 11th Feb. 1875.] _Do_ send me the papers you have written--I mean as a help and instruction to me. I need very much to know how ideas lie in other minds than my own, that I may not miss their difficulties while I am urging only what satisfies myself. I shall be deeply interested in knowing exactly what you wrote at that particular stage. Please remember that I don't consider myself a teacher, but a companion in the struggle of thought. What can consulting physicians do without pathological knowledge? and the more they have of it, the less absolute--the more tentative--are their procedures. You will see by the _Fortnightly_, which you have not read, that Mr. Spencer is very anxious to vindicate himself from neglect of the logical necessity that the evolution of the abstraction "society" is dependent on the modified action of the units; indeed, he is very sensitive on the point of being supposed to teach an enervating fatalism. Consider what the human mind _en masse_ would have been if there had been no such combination of elements in it as has produced poets. All the philosophers and _savants_ would not have sufficed to supply that deficiency. And how can the life of nations be understood without the inward light of poetry--that is, of emotion blending with thought? But the beginning and object of my letter must be the end--please send me your papers. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 10th May, 1875.] We cannot believe that there is reason to fear any painful observations on the publication of the memoir in one volume with "Gravenhurst" and the essays. The memoir is written with exquisite judgment and feeling; and without estimating too highly the taste and carefulness of journalists in their ordinary treatment of books, I think that we may count on their not being impressed otherwise than respectfully and sympathetically with the character of your dear husband's work, and with the sketch of his pure, elevated life. I would also urge you to rely on the fact that Mr. Blackwood thinks the publication desirable, as a guarantee that it will not prove injudicious in relation to the outer world--I mean, the world beyond the circle of your husband's especial friends and admirers. I am grieved to hear of your poor eyes having been condemned to an inaction which, I fear, may have sadly increased the vividness of that inward seeing, already painfully strong in you. There has been, I trust, always some sympathetic young companionship to help you--some sweet voice to read aloud to you, or to talk of those better things in human lots which enable us to look at the good of life a little apart from our own particular sorrow. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 11th May, 1875.] The doctors have decided that there is nothing very grave the matter with me: and I am now so much better that we even think it possible I may go to see Salvini, in the Gladiator, to-morrow evening. This is to let you know that there is no reason against your coming, with or without Margaret, at the usual time on Friday. Your words of affection in the note you sent me are very dear to my remembrance. I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 14th May, 1875.] You are right--there is no time, but only the sense of not having time; especially when, instead of filling the days with useful exertion, as you do, one wastes them in being ill, as I have been doing of late. However, I am better now, and will not grumble. Thanks for all the dear words in your letter. Be sure I treasure the memory of your faithful friendship, which goes back--you know how far. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 1st June, 1875.] If you could, some day this week or the beginning of next, allow me half an hour's quiet _tête-à-tête_, I should be very much obliged by such a kindness. The trivial questions I want to put could hardly be shapen in a letter so as to govern an answer that would satisfy my need. And I trust that the interview will hardly be more troublesome to you than writing. I hope, when you learn the pettiness of my difficulties, you will not be indignant, like a great doctor called in to the favorite cat. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 9th Aug. 1875, from Rickmansworth.] We admire our bit of Hertfordshire greatly; but I should be glad of more breezy common land and far-reaching outlooks. For fertility, wealth of grand trees, parks, mansions, and charming bits of stream and canal, our neighborhood can hardly be excelled. And our house is a good old red-brick Georgian place, with a nice bit of garden and meadow and river at the back. Perhaps we are too much in the valley, and have too large a share of mist, which often lies white on our meadows in the early evening. But who has not had too much moisture in this calamitously wet, cold summer? Mr. Lewes is very busy, but not in zoologizing. We reserve that for October, when we mean to go to the coast for a few weeks. It is a long while since I walked on broad sands and watched the receding tide; and I look forward agreeably to a renewal of that old pleasure. I am not particularly flourishing in this pretty region, probably owing to the low barometer. The air has been continually muggy, and has lain on one's head like a thick turban. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 14th Aug. 1875.] What a comfort that you are at home again and well![27] The sense of your nearness had been so long missing to us that we had begun to take up with life as inevitably a little less cheerful than we remembered it to have been formerly, without thinking of restoration. My box is quite dear to me, and shall be used for stamps, as you recommend, unless I find another use that will lead me to open it and think of you the oftener. It is very precious to me that you bore me in your mind, and took that trouble to give me pleasure--in which you have succeeded. Our house here is rather a fine old brick Georgian place, with a lovely bit of landscape; but I think we have suffered the more from the rainy, close weather, because we are in a valley, and can see the mists lie in a thick, white stratum on our meadows. Mr. Lewes has been, on the whole, flourishing and enjoying--writing away with vigor, and making a discovery or theory at the rate of one per diem. Of me you must expect no good. I have been in a piteous state of debility in body and depression in mind. My book seems to me so unlikely ever to be finished in a way that will make it worth giving to the world, that it is a kind of glass in which I behold my infirmities. That expedition on the Thames would be a great delight, if it were possible to us. But our arrangements forbid it. Our loving thanks to Mr. Druce, as well as to you, for reviving the thought. We are to remain here till the 23d of September; then to fly through town, or at least only perch there for a night or so, and then go down to the coast, while the servants clean our house. We expect that Bournemouth will be our destination. Let us have news of you all again soon. Let us comfort each other while it is day, for the night cometh. I hope this change of weather, in which we are glorying both for the country's sake and our own, will not make Weybridge too warm for Mrs. Cross. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, 19th Aug. 1875.] I don't mind how many letters I receive from one who interests me as much as you do. The receptive part of correspondence I can carry on with much alacrity. It is writing answers that I groan over. Please take it as a proof of special feeling that I declined answering your kind inquiries by proxy. This corner of Hertfordshire is as pretty as it can be of the kind. There are really rural bits at every turn. But for my particular taste I prefer such a region as that round Haslemere--with wide, furzy commons and a grander horizon. Also I prefer a country where I don't make bad blood by having to see one public house to every six dwellings--which is literally the case in many spots around us. My gall rises at the rich brewers in Parliament and out of it, who plant these poison shops for the sake of their million-making trade, while probably their families are figuring somewhere as refined philanthropists or devout Evangelicals and Ritualists. You perceive from this that I am dyspeptic and disposed to melancholy views. In fact, I have not been flourishing, but I am getting a little better; grateful thanks that you will care to know it. On the whole the sins of brewers, with their drugged ale and devil's traps, depress me less than my own inefficiency. But every fresh morning is an opportunity that one can look forward to for exerting one's will. I shall not be satisfied with your philosophy till you have conciliated necessitarianism--I hate the ugly word--with the practice of willing strongly, willing to will strongly, and so on, that being what you certainly can do and have done about a great many things in life, whence it is clear that there is nothing in truth to hinder you from it--except, you will say, the absence of a motive. But that absence I don't believe in in your case--only in the case of empty, barren souls. Are you not making a transient confusion of intuitions with innate ideas? The most thorough experientialists admit intuition--_i.e._, direct impressions of sensibility underlying all proof, as necessary starting-points for thought. [Sidenote: Journal, 1875.] _Oct. 10._--On the 15th June, we went to a house we had taken at Rickmansworth. Here, in the end of July, we received the news that our dear Bertie had died on June 29th. Our stay at Rickmansworth, though otherwise peaceful, was not marked by any great improvement in health from the change to country instead of town--rather the contrary. We left on 23d September, and then set off on a journey into Wales, which was altogether unfortunate on account of the excessive rain. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 10th Oct. 1875.] I behaved rather shabbily in not thanking you otherwise than by proxy for the kind letter you sent me to Rickmansworth, but I had a bad time down there, and did less of everything than I desired. Last night we returned from our trip--a very lively word for a journey made in the worst weather; and since I am, on the whole, the better for a succession of small discomforts in hotels, and struggling walks taken under an umbrella, I have no excuse for not writing a line to my neglected correspondents. You will laugh at our nervous caution in depositing our MSS. at the Union Bank before we set out. We could have borne to hear that our house had been burned down, provided no lives were lost, and our unprinted matter, our _oeuvres inédites_, were safe out of it. About _my_ unprinted matter, Mr. Lewes thinks it will not be well to publish the first part till February. The four first monthly parts are ready for travelling now. It will be well to begin the printing in good time, so that I may not be hurried with the proofs; and I must beg Mr. Simpson to judge for me in that matter with kind carefulness. I can't say that I am at all satisfied with the book, or that I have a comfortable sense of doing in it what I want to do; but Mr. Lewes _is_ satisfied with it, and insists that since he is as anxious as possible for it to be fine, I ought to accept his impressions as trustworthy. So I resign myself. I read aloud the "Abode of Snow" at Rickmansworth, to our mutual delight; and we are both very much obliged to you for the handsome present. But what an amazing creature is this Andrew Wilson to have kept pluck for such travelling while his body was miserably ailing! One would have said that he had more than the average spirit of hardy men to have persevered even in good health after a little taste of the difficulties he describes. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 20th Oct. 1875.] The arrangements as to the publication of my next book are already determined on. Ever since "Adam Bede" appeared I have been continually having proposals from the proprietors or editors of periodicals, but I have always declined them, except in the case of "Romola," which appeared in the _Cornhill_, and was allowed to take up a varying and unusual number of pages. I have the strongest objection to cutting up my work into little bits; and there is no motive to it on my part, since I have a large enough public already. But, even apart from that objection, it would not now be worth the while of any magazine or journal to give me a sum such as my books yield in separate publication. I had £7000 for "Romola," but the mode in which "Middlemarch" was issued brings in a still larger sum. I ought to say, however, that the question is not entirely one of money with me: if I could gain _more_ by splitting my writing into small parts, I would not do it, because the effect would be injurious as a matter of art. So much detail I trouble you with to save misapprehension. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Nov. 1875.] Your enjoyment of the proofs cheers me greatly; and pray thank Mrs. Blackwood for her valuable hints on equine matters. I have not only the satisfaction of using those hints, I allow myself the inference that where there is no criticism on like points I have made no mistake. I should be much obliged to Mr. Simpson--whom I am glad that Gwendolen has captivated--if he would rate the printers a little about their want of spacing. I am anxious that my poor heroes and heroines should have all the advantage that paper and print can give them. It will perhaps be a little comfort to you to know that poor Gwen is spiritually saved, but "so as by fire." Don't you see the process already beginning? I have no doubt you do, for you are a wide-awake reader. But what a climate to expect good writing in! Skating in the morning and splashy roads in the afternoon is just typical of the alternation from frigid to flaccid in the author's bodily system, likely to give a corresponding variety to the style. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Nov. 1875.] I got my head from under the pressure of other matters, like a frog from under the water, to send you my November greeting. My silence through the rest of the months makes you esteem me the more, I hope, seeing that you yourself hate letter-writing--a remarkable exception to the rule that people like doing what they can do well, if one can call that a rule of which the reverse seems more frequent--namely, that they like doing what they do ill. We stayed till nearly the end of September at the house we had taken in Hertfordshire. After that we went into Wales for a fortnight, and were under umbrellas nearly the whole time. I wonder if you all remember an old governess of mine who used to visit me at Foleshill--a Miss Lewis? I have found her out. She is living at Leamington, very poor as well as old, but cheerful, and so delighted to be remembered with gratitude. How very old we are all getting! But I hope you don't mind it any more than I do. One sees so many contemporaries that one is well in the fashion. The approach of parting is the bitterness of age. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Dec. 1875.] Your letter is an agreeable tonic, very much needed, for that wretched hinderance of a cold last week has trailed after it a series of headaches worse than itself. An additional impression, like Mr. Langford's, of the two volumes is really valuable, as a sign that I have not so far failed in relation to a variety of readers. But you know that in one sense I count nothing done as long as anything remains to do; and it always seems to me that the worst difficulty is still to come. In the sanest, soberest judgment, however, I think the third volume (which I have not yet finished) would be regarded as the difficult bridge. I will not send you any more MS. until I can send the whole of vol. iii. We think that Mr. Simpson has conducted our Australian business admirably. Remembering that but for his judgment and consequent activity we might have got no publication at all in that quarter, we may well be content with £200. Mr. Lewes has not got the Life of Heine, and will be much pleased and obliged by your gift. Major Lockhart's lively letter gives one a longing for the fresh, breezy life and fine scenery it conjures up. You must let me know when there is a book of his, because when I have done my own I shall like to read something else by him. I got much pleasure out of the two books I did read. But when I am writing, or only thinking of writing, fiction of my own, I cannot risk the reading of other English fiction. I was obliged to tell Anthony Trollope so when he sent me the first part of his "Prime Minister," though this must seem sadly ungracious to those who don't share my susceptibilities. Apparently there are wild reports about the subject-matter of "Deronda"--among the rest, that it represents French life! But that is hardly more ridiculous than the supposition that after refusing to go to America, I should undertake to describe society there! It is wonderful how "Middlemarch" keeps afloat in people's minds. Somebody told me that Mr. Henry Sidgwick said it was a bold thing to write another book after "Middlemarch," and we must prepare ourselves for the incalculableness of the public reception in the first instance. I think I have heard you say that the chief result of your ample experience has been to convince you of that incalculableness. What a blow for Miss Thackeray--the death of that sister to whom she was so closely bound in affection. [Sidenote: Journal, 1875.] _Dec. 25._--After our return from Wales in October I grew better and wrote with some success. For the last three weeks, however, I have been suffering from a cold and its effects so as to be unable to make any progress. Meanwhile the two first volumes of "Daniel Deronda" are in print, and the first book is to be published on February 1st. I have thought very poorly of it myself throughout, but George and the Blackwoods are full of satisfaction in it. Each part as I see it before me _im werden_ seems less likely to be anything else than a failure; but I see on looking back this morning--Christmas Day--that I really was in worse health and suffered equal depression about "Romola;" and, so far as I have recorded, the same thing seems to be true of "Middlemarch." I have finished the fifth book, but am not far on in the sixth, as I hoped to have been; the oppression under which I have been laboring having positively suspended my power of writing anything that I could feel satisfaction in. _SUMMARY._ JANUARY, 1873, TO DECEMBER, 1875. Reception of "Middlemarch"--Letter to John Blackwood--Mr. Anthony Trollope--Dutch translation of George Eliot's novels--Letter to Mrs. Cross--Evening drives at Weybridge--Letter to John Blackwood--German reprint of "Spanish Gypsy"--"The Lifted Veil"--"Kenelm Chillingly"--Letter to Mrs. William Smith on her Memoir of her husband--Pleasure in young life--Letter to John Blackwood--Want of a Conservative leader--Letter to Mr. Burne-Jones--The function of art--Purpose in art--"Iphigenia in Aulis"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Welcoming her home--Letter to Mrs. William Smith on women at Cambridge--Visit to Mr. Frederic Myers at Cambridge--Meets Mr. Henry Sidgwick, Mr. Jebb, Mr. Edmund Gurney, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Lyttelton, and Mrs. and Miss Huth--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Death of Miss Rebecca Franklin--Visit to the Master of Balliol--Meets Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roundell--Professor Green--Max Müller--Thomson, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge--Nine-weeks' trip to the Continent--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Homburg--Fontainebleau, Plombières, and Luxeuil--Two months' stay at Bickley--Letter to Mrs. Cross on journey abroad and Blackbrook--Letter to John Blackwood--New edition of "Middlemarch"--A real Lowick in a Midland county--Cheap editions--Letter to Mrs. Cross on the pleasures of the country and on Mr. Henry Sidgwick--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--House in the country--Letter to J. W. Cross on conformity--Letter to John Blackwood--Interruptions of town life--Simmering towards another book--Berlin reading "Middlemarch"--Ashantee war--Letter to Madame Bodichon--The George Howards--John Stuart Mill's Autobiography--Letter to Mrs. Cross on Christmas invitation--Dr. Andrew Clark--Letter to Mrs. Bray on stupidity of readers--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Retrospect of 1873--Sales of "Middlemarch" and "Spanish Gypsy"--Letter to Mrs. William Smith--"Plain living and high thinking"--Letter to John Blackwood--Conservative reaction--Cheaper edition of novels--Lord Lytton's "Fables"--Dickens's Life and biography in general--Letter to John Blackwood--Volume of poems--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Motives for children--Letter to Miss Hennell--Francis Newman--George Dawson--"The Legend of Jubal and other Poems" published--"Symposium" written--Letter to Miss Mary Cross thanking her for a vase--Letter to Mrs. Cross--Delight in country--Letter to John Blackwood--Threatened restoration of the empire in France--"Brewing" "Deronda"--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on Mrs. Nassau Senior's report--Letter to Mrs. William Smith on consolations in loss--Letter to Madame Bodichon--No disposition to melancholy--Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones--The serious view of life--Letter to John Blackwood--Justifications for writing--Dean Liddell--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Goethe's mysticism--Letter to Miss Hennell--Visit to Six-Mile Bottom--Paris and the Ardennes--Bank of England and Woolwich Arsenal--Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby--The idea of God an exaltation of human goodness--Vision of others' needs--Ground of moral action--Need of altruism--The power of the will--Difficulties of thought--Sales of books--Retrospect of 1874--Letter to Francis Otter on his engagement--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Note-writing--Home for girls--Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby--Value of early religious experience--Limitations of scientists--Letter to John Blackwood--Kinglake's "Crimea"--Discipline of war--"Rasselas"--Miss Thackeray--Anthony Trollope--Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby--Desire to know the difficulties of others--Companion in the struggle of thought--Mr. Spencer's teaching--The value of poets--Emotion blending with thought--Letter to Mrs. William Smith--Her memoir--Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones--The world of light and speech--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Rickmansworth--Letter to F. Harrison asking for consultation--Letter to J. W. Cross--"The Elms"--Depression--Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby--The Brewing interest--Conciliation of necessitarianism with will--Innate ideas--Death of Herbert Lewes--Trip to Wales--Letter to John Blackwood--Not satisfied with "Deronda"--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Mode of publication of books--Letter to John Blackwood--Gwendolen--Letter to Miss Hennell--Miss Lewis--Letter to John Blackwood--Impressions of "Deronda"--Major Lockhart--Depression about "Deronda." FOOTNOTES: [21] Death of Mrs. Cross's sister of cholera, at Salzburg. [22] See _ante_, p. 66. [23] "Paul Bradley." [24] A vase with paintings from "Romola" on tiles. [25] "Tristi fummo Nell'aer dolce che dal sol s'allegra." _Inferno_, cant. vii. 121, 122. [26] Bessborough Gardens. [27] I had been abroad for six weeks. CHAPTER XVIII. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 17th March, 1876.] We have just come in from Weybridge, but are going to take refuge there again on Monday for a few days more of fresh air and long, breezy afternoon walks. Many thanks for your thoughtfulness in sending me the cheering account of sales. Mr. Lewes has not heard any complaints of not understanding Gwendolen, but a strong partisanship for and against her. My correspondence about the misquotation of Tennyson has quieted itself since the fifth letter. But one gentleman has written me a very pretty note, taxing me with having wanted insight into the technicalities of Newmarket, when I made Lush say, "I will _take_ odds." He judges that I should have written, "I will lay odds." On the other hand, another expert contends that the case is one in which Lush would be more likely to say, "I will take odds." What do you think? I told my correspondent that I had a dread of being righteously pelted with mistakes that would make a cairn above me--a monument and a warning to people who write novels without being omniscient and infallible. Mr. Lewes is agitating himself over a fifth reading of revise, Book VI., and says he finds it more interesting than on any former reading. It is agreeable to have a home criticism of this kind! But I am deep in the fourth volume, and cannot any longer care about what is past and done for--the passion of the moment is as much as I can live in. We had beautiful skies with our cold, and only now and then a snow shower. It is grievous to read of the suffering elsewhere from floods. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 30th March, 1876.] I am well pleased that "Deronda" touches you. I _wanted_ you to prefer the chapter about Mirah's finding, and I hope you will also like her history in Part III., which has just been published. We want very much to get away, but I fear we shall hardly be able to start till the end of May. At present we think of the Maritime Alps as a destination for the warm summer--if we have such a season this year; but we shall wander a little on our way thither, and not feel bound to accomplish anything in particular. Meanwhile we are hearing some nice music occasionally, and we are going to see Tennyson's play, which is to be given on the 15th. The occasion will be very interesting, and I should be very sorry to miss it. We have been getting a little refreshment from two flights between Sundays to Weybridge. But we have had the good a little drained from us by going out to dinner two days in succession. At Sir James Paget's I was much interested to find that a gentle-looking, clear-eyed, neatly-made man was Sir Garnet Wolseley; and I had some talk with him, which quite confirmed the impression of him as one of those men who have a power of command by dint of their sweet temper, calm demeanor, and unswerving resolution. The next subject that has filled our chat lately has been the Blue Book on Vivisection, which you would like to look into. There is a great deal of matter for reflection in the evidence on the subject, and some good points have been lately put in print, and conversation that I should like to tell you of if I had time. Professor Clifford told us the other Sunday that Huxley complained of his sufferings from "the profligate lying of virtuous women." [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _April 12._--On February 1st began the publication of "Deronda," and the interest of the public, strong from the first, appears to have increased with Book III. The day before yesterday I sent off Book VII. The success of the work at present is greater than that of "Middlemarch" up to the corresponding point of publication. What will be the feeling of the public as the story advances I am entirely doubtful. The Jewish element seems to me likely to satisfy nobody. I am in rather better health--having, perhaps, profited by some eight days' change at Weybridge. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th April, 1876.] Your sympathetic letter is a welcome support to me in the rather depressed condition which has come upon me from the effect, I imagine, of a chill taken in the sudden change from mildness to renewed winter. You can understand how trying it is to have a week of incompetence at the present stage of affairs. I am rather concerned to see that the part is nearly a sheet smaller than any of the other parts. But Books V. and VI. are proportionately thick. It seemed inadmissible to add anything after the scene with Gwendolen; and to stick anything in not necessary to development between the foregoing chapters is a form of "matter in the wrong place" particularly repulsive to my authorship's sensibility. People tell us that the book is enormously discussed, and I must share with you rather a neat coincidence which pleased us last week. Perhaps you saw what Mr. Lewes told me of--namely, that [a critic] opined that the scenes between Lush and Grandcourt were not _vraisemblable_--were of the imperious feminine, not the masculine, character. Just afterwards Mr. Lewes was chatting with a friend who, without having read the [criticism] or having the subject in the least led up to by Mr. Lewes, said that he had been at Lady Waldegraves', where the subject of discussion had been "Deronda;" and Bernal Osborne, delivering himself on the book, said that the very best parts were the scenes between Grandcourt and Lush. Don't you think that Bernal Osborne has seen more of the Grandcourt and Lush life than that critic has seen? But several men of experience have put their fingers on those scenes as having surprising verisimilitude; and I naturally was peculiarly anxious about such testimony, where my construction was founded on a less direct knowledge. We are rather vexed, now it is too late, that I did not carry out a sort of incipient intention to expunge a motto from Walt Whitman which I inserted in Book IV. Of course the whole is irrevocable by this time; but I should have otherwise thought it worth while to have a new page, not because the motto itself is objectionable to me--it was one of the finer things which had clung to me from among his writings--but because, since I quote so few poets, my selection of a motto from Walt Whitman might be taken as a sign of a special admiration, which I am very far from feeling. How imperfectly one's mind acts in proof-reading! Mr. Lewes had taken up Book IV. yesterday to re-read it for his pleasure merely; and though he had read it several times before, he never till yesterday made a remark against taking a motto from Walt Whitman. I, again, had continually had an _appetency_ towards removing the motto, and had never carried it out--perhaps from that sort of flaccidity which comes over me about what _has been_ done, when I am occupied with what _is being_ done. People in their eagerness about my characters are quite angry, it appears, when their own expectations are not fulfilled--angry, for example, that Gwendolen accepts Grandcourt, etc., etc. One reader is sure that Mirah is going to die very soon, and, I suppose, will be disgusted at her remaining alive. Such are the reproaches to which I make myself liable. However, that you seem to share Mr. Lewes's strong feeling of Book VII. being no falling off in intensity makes me brave. Only endings are inevitably the least satisfactory part of any work in which there is any merit of development. I forgot to say that the "tephillin" are the small leather bands or phylacteries, inscribed with supremely sacred words, which the Jew binds on his arms and head during prayer. Any periphrasis which would be generally intelligible would be undramatic; and I don't much like explanatory foot-notes in a poem or story. But I must consider what I can do to remedy the unintelligibility. The printers have sadly spoiled the beautiful Greek name Kalonymos, which was the name of a celebrated family of scholarly Jews, transplanted from Italy into Germany in mediæval times. But my writing was in fault. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 6th May, 1876.] Your letter was one of the best cordials I could have. Is there anything that cheers and strengthens more than the sense of another's worth and tenderness? And it was that sense that your letter stirred in me, not only by the words of fellowship and encouragement you give directly to me, but by all you tell me of your own feeling under your late painful experience. I had felt it long since I had heard of your and the Professor's well being; but I need not say one word to you of the reasons why I am not active towards my distant friends except in thought. I _do_ think of them, and have a tenacious memory of every little sign they have given me. Please offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am ruthlessly proud that I kept him out of his bed. I hope that both you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children. My cares for them are nearly at an end, and in a few weeks we expect to set out on a Continental journey, as the sort of relaxation which carries one most thoroughly away from studies and social claims. You rightly divine that I am a little overdone, but my fatigue is due not to any excess of work so much as to the vicissitudes of our long winter, which have affected me severely as they have done all delicate people. It is true that some nervous wear, such as you know well, from the excitement of writing, may have made me more susceptible to knife-like winds and sudden chills. Though you tenderly forbade me to write in answer to your letter, I like to do it in these minutes when I happen to be free, lest hinderances should come in the indefinite future. I am the happier for thinking that you will have had this little bit of a letter to assure you that the sweet rain of your affection did not fall on a sandy place. I make a delightful picture of your life in your orange-grove--taken care of by dear daughters. Climate enters into _my_ life with an influence the reverse of what I like to think of in yours. Sunlight and sweet air make a new creature of me. But we cannot bear now to exile ourselves from our own country, which holds the roots of our moral and social life. One fears to become selfish and emotionally withered by living abroad, and giving up the numerous connections with fellow countrymen and women whom one can further a little towards both public and private good. I wonder whether you ever suffered much from false writing (about your biography and motives) in the newspapers. I dare say that pro-slavery prints did not spare you. But I should be glad to think that there was less impudent romancing about you as a _citoyenne_ of the States than there appears to be about me as a stranger. But it is difficult for us English, who have not spent any time in the United States, to know the rank that is given to the various newspapers; and we may make the mistake of giving emphasis to some American journalism which is with you as unknown to respectable minds as any low-class newspaper with us. When we come back from our journeying, I shall be interesting myself in the MS. and proofs of my husband's third volume of his Problems, which will then go to press, and shall plunge myself into the mysteries of our nervous tissue as the Professor has been doing into the mysteries of the Middle Ages. I have a cousinship with him in that taste--but how to find space in one's life for all the subjects that solicit one? My studies have lately kept me away from the track of my husband's researches, and I feel behindhand in my wifely sympathies. You know the pleasure of such interchange--husband and wife each keeping to their own work, but loving to have cognizance of the other's course. God bless you, dear friend. Beg the Professor to accept my affectionate respect, and believe me always yours with love. [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _June 3._--Book V. published a week ago. Growing interest in the public, and growing sale, which has from the beginning exceeded that of "Middlemarch;" the Jewish part apparently creating strong interest. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 3d June, 1876.] The useful "companion," which your loving care has had marked with my initials, will go with me, and be a constant sign of the giver's precious affection, which you have expressed in words such as I most value. Even success needs its consolations. Wide effects are rarely other than superficial, and would breed a miserable scepticism about one's work if it were not now and then for an earnest assurance such as you give me that there are lives in which the work has done something "to strengthen the good and mitigate the evil." I am pursued to the last with some bodily trouble--this week it has been sore throat. But I am emerging, and you may think of me next week as raising my "Ebenezer." Love and blessings to you all. The manuscript of "Daniel Deronda" bears the following inscription: "To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes. "Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, * * * * * Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising Haply I think on thee--and then my state Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings." [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _June 10._--We set off on our journey, intending to go to San Martino Lantosc in the Maritime Alps. But I was ill at Aix, where the heat had become oppressive, and we turned northwards after making a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes--stayed a few days at Lausanne, then at Vevey, where again I was ill; then by Berne and Zurich to Ragatz, where we were both set up sufficiently to enjoy our life. After Ragatz to Heidelberg, the Klönthal, Schaffhausen, St. Blasien in the Black Forest, and then home by Strasburg, Nancy, and Amiens, arriving September 1. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 6th July, 1876, from Ragatz.] After much travelling we seem to have reached the right place for our health and comfort, and as we hope to stay here for at least a fortnight, I have begun to entertain selfish thoughts about you and the possibility of having news from you. Our month's absence seems long to us--filled with various scenes and various ailments--but to you, I dare say, the request for a letter to tell us what has happened will seem to have come before there is anything particular to tell. On our arriving at Aix the effect of railway travelling and heat on me warned us to renounce our project of going to the Maritime Alps and to turn northward; so after resting at Aix we went to Chambéry, just to make a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes, and then set our faces northward, staying at beautiful Lausanne and Vevey for a week, and then coming on by easy stages to this nook in the mountains. In spite of illness we have had much enjoyment of the lovely scenery we have been dwelling in ever since we entered Savoy, where one gets what I most delight in--the combination of rich, well-cultivated land, friendly to man, and the grand outline and atmospheric effect of mountains near and distant. This place seems to be one of the quietest baths possible. Such fashion as there is, is of a German, unimposing kind; and the King of Saxony, who is at the twin hotel with this, is, I imagine, a much quieter kind of eminence than a London stock-broker. At present the company seems to be almost exclusively Swiss and German, but all the appliances for living and carrying on the "cure" are thoroughly generous and agreeable. We rose at five this morning, drank our glasses of warm water, and walked till a quarter to seven, then breakfasted; and from half-past eight to eleven walked to Bad Pfeffers and back again, along a magnificent ravine where the Tamine boils down beneath a tremendous wall of rock, and where it is interesting to see the electric telegraph leaping from the summit, crossing the gulf, and then quietly running by the roadside till it leaps upward again to the opposite summit. You may consider us as generally ill-informed, and as ready to make much of a little news as any old provincial folk in the days when the stage-coach brought a single London paper to the village Crown or Red Lion. We have known that Servia has declared war against Turkey, and that Harriet Martineau is dead as well as George Sand. Our weather has been uniformly splendid since we left Paris, with the exception of some storms, which have conveniently laid the dust. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 2d Sept. 1876.] We reached home only last night, and had scarcely taken our much-needed dinner before a parcel was brought in which proved to be "Daniel Deronda" in the four bound volumes, and various letters with other "missiles"--as an acquaintance of mine once quite naively called his own favors to his correspondents--which have at present only gone to swell a heap that I mean to make acquaintance with very slowly. Mr. Lewes, however, is more eager than I, and he has just brought up to me a letter which has certainly gratified me more than anything else of the sort I ever received. It is from Dr. Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi here, expressing his "warm appreciation of the fidelity with which some of the best traits of the Jewish character have been depicted by" etc., etc. I think this will gratify you. We are both the better for our journey, and I consider myself in as good case as I can ever reasonably expect. We can't be made young again, and must not be surprised that infirmities recur in spite of mineral waters and air 3000 feet above the sea-level. After Ragatz, we stayed at Stachelberg and Klönthal--two lovely places, where an English face is seldom seen. Another delicious spot, where the air is fit for the gods of Epicurus, is St. Blasien, in the Schwarzwald, where also we saw no English or American visitors, except such as _übernachten_ there and pass on. We have done exploits in walking, usually taking four or five hours of it daily. I hope that you and yours have kept well and have enjoyed the heat rather than suffered from it. I confess myself glad to think that this planet has not become hopelessly chilly. Draughts and chills are my enemies, and but for them I should hardly ever be ailing. The four volumes look very handsome on the outside. Please thank Mr. William Blackwood for many kind notes he wrote me in the days of MS. and proofs--not one of which I ever answered or took notice of except for my own behoof. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 6th Sept. 1876.] We got home again last Friday, much strengthened by our journey, notwithstanding vicissitudes. I suppose you will not be in town for ages to come, but I let you know that I am here in case you have anything to say to me by letter--about "objects." After leaving Ragatz we still kept in eastern Switzerland, in high valleys unvisited by the English; and in our homeward line of travel we paused in the Schwarzwald at St. Blasien, which is a _Luft-kur_, all green hills and pines, with their tops as still as if it were the abode of the gods. But imagine how we enjoy being at home again in our own chairs, with the familiar faces giving us smiles which are not expecting change in franc pieces! We are both pretty well, but of course not cured of all infirmities. Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years. Still we are thoroughly lively and "spry." I hope that the hot summer has passed agreeably for you and not been unfavorable to your health or comfort. Of course a little news of you will be welcome, even if you don't particularly want to say anything to me. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d Oct. 1876.] My blessing on you for your sweet letter, which I count among the blessings given to me. Yes. Women can do much for the other women (and men) to come. My impression of the good there is in all unselfish efforts is continually strengthened. Doubtless many a ship is drowned on expeditions of discovery or rescue, and precious freights lie buried. But there was the good of manning and furnishing the ship with a great purpose before it set out. We are going into Cambridgeshire this week, and are watching the weather with private views.[28] I have had some very interesting letters both from Jews and from Christians about "Deronda." Part of the scene at the club is translated into Hebrew in a German-Jewish newspaper. On the other hand, a Christian (highly accomplished) thanks me for embodying the principles by which Christ wrought and will conquer. This is better than the laudation of readers who cut the book up into scraps, and talk of nothing in it but Gwendolen. I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else there. I quite enter into Miss Jekyll's view of negative beauty. Life tends to accumulate "messes" about one, and it is hard to rid one's self of them because of the associations attached. I get impatient sometimes, and long, as Andrew Fairservice would say, to "kaim off the fleas," as one does in a cathedral spoiled by monuments out of keeping with the pillars and walls. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 14th Oct. 1876.] I had felt it long before you let me have some news of you. How could you repeat deliberately that bad dream of your having made yourself "objectionable?" I will answer for it that you were never objectionable to any creature except perhaps to your own self--a too modest and shrinking self. I trusted in your understanding last spring that I was glad to hear from my friends without having to make the effort of answering, when answering was not demanded for practical purposes. My health was not good, and I was absorbed as to my working power, though not as to my interest and sympathy. You have been in my mind of late, not only on your own account but in affectionate association with our dear Mrs. Ruck, whose acquaintance I owe to you. On my return from abroad I found among my heap of letters a delightful one from her, written, I think, at the end of June, as bright and cheering as the hills under the summer sky. And only a day or two after we saw that sad news in the _Times_. I think of her beautiful, open face, with the marks of grief upon it. Why did you write me such a brief letter, telling me nothing about your own life? I am a poor correspondent, and have to answer many letters from people less interesting to me than you are. Will you not indulge me by writing more to me than you expect me to write to you? That would be generous. We both came back the better for our three months' journeying, though I was so ill after we had got to the south that we thought of returning, and went northward in that expectation. But Ragatz set me up, so far as I expect to be set up, and we greatly enjoyed our fresh glimpses of Swiss scenery. Mr. Lewes is now printing his third volume of "Problems of Life and Mind," and is, as usual, very happy over his work. He shares my interest in everything that relates to you; and be assured--will you not?--that such interest will always be warm in us. I shall not, while I live, cease to be yours affectionately. [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _Oct. 20._--Looking into accounts _apropos_ of an offer from Blackwood for another ten years of copyright, I find that before last Christmas there had been distributed 24,577 copies of "Middlemarch." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe,[29] 29th Oct. 1876.] "Evermore thanks" for your last letter, full of generous sympathy that can afford to be frank. The lovely photograph of the grandson will be carefully preserved. It has the sort of beauty which seems to be peculiarly abundant in America, at once rounded and delicate in form. I do hope you will be able to carry out your wish to visit your son at Bonn, notwithstanding that heavy crown of years that your dear Rabbi has to carry. If the sea voyage could be borne without much disturbance, the land journey might be made easy by taking it in short stages--the plan we always pursue in travelling. You see I have an interested motive in wishing you to come to Europe again, since I can't go to America. But I enter thoroughly into the disinclination to move when there are studies that make each day too short. If we were neighbors, I should be in danger of getting troublesome to the revered Orientalist, with all kinds of questions. As to the Jewish element in "Deronda," I expected from first to last, in writing it, that it would create much stronger resistance, and even repulsion, than it has actually met with. But precisely because I felt that the usual attitude of Christians towards Jews is--I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid when viewed in the light of their professed principles, I therefore felt urged to treat Jews with such sympathy and understanding as my nature and knowledge could attain to. Moreover, not only towards the Jews, but towards all Oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national disgrace to us. There is nothing I should care more to do, if it were possible, than to rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs. But towards the Hebrews we western people, who have been reared in Christianity, have a peculiar debt, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, a peculiar thoroughness of fellowship in religious and moral sentiment. Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called "educated" making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? They hardly know that Christ was a Jew. And I find men, educated, supposing that Christ spoke Greek. To my feeling, this deadness to the history which has prepared half our world for us, this inability to find interest in any form of life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounces as our own, lies very close to the worst kind of irreligion. The best that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness--in plain English, the stupidity--which is still the average mark of our culture. Yes, I expected more aversion than I have found. But I was happily independent in material things, and felt no temptation to accommodate my writing to any standard except that of trying to do my best in what seemed to me most needful to be done, and I sum up with the writer of the Book of Maccabees--"If I have done well and as befits the subject, it is what I desired; and if I have done ill, it is what I could attain unto." You are in the middle of a more glorious autumn than ours, but we, too, are having now and then a little sunshine on the changing woods. I hope that I am right in putting the address from which you wrote to me on the 25th September, so that my note may not linger away from you, and leave you to imagine me indifferent or negligent. Please offer my reverent regard to Mr. Stowe. We spent three months in East Switzerland, and are the better for it. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1876.] Any one who knows from experience what bodily infirmity is--how it spoils life even for those who have no other trouble--gets a little impatient of healthy complainants, strong enough for extra work and ignorant of indigestion. I at least should be inclined to scold the discontented young people who tell me in one breath that they never have anything the matter with them, and that life is not worth having, if I did not remember my own young discontent. It is remarkable to me that I have entirely lost my _personal_ melancholy. I often, of course, have melancholy thoughts about the destinies of my fellow creatures, but I am never in that _mood_ of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant even in the midst of external happiness; and this, notwithstanding a very vivid sense that life is declining and death close at hand. We are waiting with some expectation for Miss Martineau's Autobiography, which, I fancy, will be charming so far as her younger and less renowned life extends. All biography diminishes in interest when the subject has won celebrity--or some reputation that hardly comes up to celebrity. But autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called "Memoirs." It would be nice if we could be a trio--I mean you, Cara, and I--chatting together for an hour as we used to do when I had walked over the hill to see you. But that pleasure belongs to "the days that are no more." Will you believe that an accomplished man some years ago said to me that he saw no place for the exercise of _resignation_ when there was no personal divine will contemplated as ordaining sorrow or privation? He is not yet aware that he is getting old and needing that unembittered compliance of soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough meaning for the word "resignation." [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _Dec. 1._--Since we came home at the beginning of September I have been made aware of much repugnance or else indifference towards the Jewish part of "Deronda," and of some hostile as well as adverse reviewing. On the other hand, there have been the strongest expressions of interest, some persons adhering to the opinion, started during the early numbers, that the book is my best. Delightful letters have here and there been sent to me; and the sale both in America and in England has been an unmistakable guarantee that the public has been touched. Words of gratitude have come from Jews and Jewesses, and these are certain signs that I may have contributed my mite to a good result. The sale hitherto has exceeded that of "Middlemarch," as to the £2 2_s._ four-volume form, but we do not expect an equal success for the guinea edition which has lately been issued. _Dec. 11._--We have just bought a house in Surrey, and think of it as making a serious change in our life--namely, that we shall finally settle there and give up town. This was a charming house--The Heights, Witley, near Godalming. It stands on a gentle hill overlooking a lovely bit of characteristic English scenery. In the foreground green fields, prettily timbered, undulate up to the high ground of Haslemere in front, with Blackdown (where Tennyson lives) on the left hand, and Hind Head on the right--"Heights that laugh with corn in August, or lift the plough-team against the sky in September." Below, the white steam-pennon flies along in the hollow. The walks and drives in the neighborhood are enchanting. A land of pine-woods and copses, village greens and heather-covered hills, with the most delicious old red or gray brick, timbered cottages nestling among creeping roses; the sober-colored tiles of their roofs, covered with lichen, offering a perpetual harmony to the eye. The only want in the landscape is the want of flowing water. About the house there are some eight or nine acres of pleasure ground and gardens. It quite fulfilled all expectations, as regards beauty and convenience of situation, though I am not quite sure that it was bracing enough for health. [Sidenote: Journal, 1876.] _Dec. 15._--At the beginning of this week I had deep satisfaction from reading in the _Times_ the report of a lecture on "Daniel Deronda," delivered by Dr. Hermann Adler to the Jewish working-men--a lecture showing much insight and implying an expectation of serious benefit. Since then I have had a delightful letter from the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, written by an American Jew named Isaacs, who excuses himself for expressing his feeling of gratitude on reading "Deronda," and assures me of his belief that it has even already had an elevating effect on the minds of some among his people--predicting that the effect will spread. I have also had a request from Signor Bartolommeo Aquarone, of Siena, for leave to translate "Romola," and declaring that as one who has given special study to the history of San Marco, and has written a life of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, he cares that "Romola" should be known to his countrymen, for their good. _Magnificat anima mea!_ And last night I had a letter from Dr. Benisch, editor of the _Jewish Chronicle_, announcing a copy of the paper containing an article written by himself on reading "Deronda" (there have long ago been two articles in the same journal reviewing the book), and using strong words as to the effect the book is producing. I record these signs, that I may look back on them if they come to be confirmed. _Dec. 31._--We have spent the Christmas with our friends at Weybridge, but the greater part of the time I was not well enough to enjoy greatly the pleasures their affection prepared for us. Farewell 1876. [Illustration: The Heights, Witley. From a Sketch by Mrs. Allingham.] [Sidenote: Journal, 1877.] _Jan. 1._--The year opens with public anxieties. First, about the threatening war in the East; and next, about the calamities consequent on the continued rains. As to our private life, all is happiness, perfect love, and undiminished intellectual interest. G.'s third volume is about half-way in print. [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 19th Jan. 1877.] I don't know that I ever heard anybody use the word "meliorist" except myself. But I begin to think that there is no good invention or discovery that has not been made by more than one person. The only good reason for referring to the "source" would be that you found it useful for the doctrine of meliorism to cite one unfashionable confessor of it in the face of the fashionable extremes. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Jan. 1877.] What are we to do about "Romola?" It ought to range with the cheap edition of my books--which, _exceptis excipiendis_, is a beautiful edition--as well as with any handsomer series which the world's affairs may encourage us to publish. The only difficulty lies in the illustrations required for uniformity. The illustrations in the other volumes are, as Mr. Lewes says, not queerer than those which amuse us in Scott and Miss Austin, with one exception--namely, that where Adam is making love to Dinah, which really enrages me with its unctuousness. I would gladly pay something to be rid of it. The next worst is that of Adam in the wood with Arthur Donnithorne. The rest are endurable to a mind well accustomed to resignation. And the vignettes on the title-pages are charming. But if an illustrator is wanted, I know one whose work is exquisite--Mrs. Allingham. This is not a moment for new ventures, but it will take some time to prepare "Romola." I should like to see proofs, feeling bound to take care of my text; and I have lately been glancing into a book on Italian things, where almost every citation I alighted on was incorrectly printed. I have just read through the cheap edition of "Romola," and though I have only made a few alterations of an unimportant kind--the printing being unusually correct--it would be well for me to send this copy to be printed from. I think it must be nearly ten years since I read the book before, but there is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I could swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood, such as it is, and with the most ardent care for veracity of which my nature is capable. It has made me often sob with a sort of painful joy as I have read the sentences which had faded from my memory. This helps one to bear false representations with patience; for I really don't love any gentleman who undertakes to state my opinions well enough to desire that I should find myself all wrong in order to justify his statement. I wish, whenever it is expedient, to add "The Lifted Veil" and "Brother Jacob," and so fatten the volume containing "Silas Marner," which would thus become about 100 pages thicker. [Sidenote: Letter to William Allingham, 8th March, 1877.] Mr. Lewes feels himself innocent of dialect in general, and of Midland dialect in especial. Hence I presume to take your reference on the subject as if it had been addressed to me. I was born and bred in Warwickshire, and heard the Leicestershire, North Staffordshire, and Derbyshire dialects during visits made in my childhood and youth. These last are represented (mildly) in "Adam Bede." The Warwickshire talk is broader, and has characteristics which it shares with other Mercian districts. Moreover, dialect, like other living things, tends to become mongrel, especially in a central, fertile, and manufacturing region, attractive of migration; and hence the Midland talk presents less interesting relics of elder grammar than the more northerly dialects. Perhaps, unless a poet has a dialect ringing in his ears, so as to shape his metre and rhymes according to it at one jet, it is better to be content with a few suggestive touches; and, I fear, that the stupid public is not half grateful for studies in dialect beyond such suggestions. I have made a few notes, which may perhaps be not unacceptable to you in the absence of more accomplished aid: 1. The vowel always a double sound, the _y_ sometimes present, sometimes not; either _aäl_ or _yaäl_. _Hither_ not heard except in _c'moother_, addressed to horses. 2. _Thou_ never heard. In general, the 2d person singular not used in Warwickshire except occasionally to young members of a family, and then always in the form of _thee_--_i.e._, _'ee_. For the _emphatic_ nominative, _yo_, like the Lancashire. For the accusative, _yer_, without any sound of the _r_. The demonstrative _those_ never heard among the common people (unless when caught by infection from the parson, etc.). _Self_ pronounced _sen_. The _f_ never heard in _of_, nor the _n_ in _in_. 3. Not year but 'ear. On the other hand, with the usual "compensation," head is pronounced _y_ead. 4. "A gallows little chap as e'er ye see." 5. Here's _to_ you, maäster. Saäm to yo. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 20th March, 1877.] You must read Harriet Martineau's "Autobiography." The account of her childhood and early youth is most pathetic and interesting; but as in all books of the kind, the charm departs as the life advances, and the writer has to tell of her own triumphs. One regrets continually that she felt it necessary not only to tell of her intercourse with many more or less distinguished persons--which would have been quite pleasant to everybody--but also to pronounce upon their entire merits and demerits, especially when, if she had died as soon as she expected, these persons would nearly all have been living to read her gratuitous rudenesses. Still I hope the book will do more good than harm. Many of the most interesting little stories in it about herself and others she had told me (and Mr. Atkinson) when I was staying with her, almost in the very same words. But they were all the better for being told in her silvery voice. She was a charming talker, and a perfect lady in her manners as a hostess. We are only going to bivouac in our Surrey home for a few months, to try what alterations are necessary. We shall come back to this corner in the autumn. We don't think of giving up London altogether at present, but we may have to give up life before we come to any decision on that minor point. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th May, 1877.] Pray bring Madame Mario to see us again. But bear in mind that on Sunday the 27th--which probably will be our last Sunday in London--Holmes the violinist is coming to play, with Mrs. Vernon Lushington to accompany him. Don't mention to any one else that they are coming, lest the audience should be larger than he wishes. We are working a little too hard at "pleasure" just now. This morning we are going for the third time to a Wagner rehearsal at 10 o'clock. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th May, 1877.] I have not read, and do not mean to read, Mrs. Chapman's volume, so that I can judge of it only by report. You seem to me to make a very good case for removing the weight of blame from her shoulders and transferring it to the already burdened back of Harriet Martineau. But I confess that the more I think of the book and all connected with it, the more it deepens my repugnance--or, rather, creates a new repugnance in me--to autobiography, unless it can be so written as to involve neither self-glorification nor impeachment of others. I like that the "He, being dead, yet speaketh," should have quite another meaning than that. But however the blame may be distributed, it remains a grievously pitiable thing to me that man, or woman, who has cared about a future life in the minds of a coming generation or generations, should have deliberately, persistently mingled with that prospect the ignoble desire to perpetuate personal animosities, which can never be rightly judged by those immediately engaged in them. And Harriet Martineau, according to the witness of those well acquainted with facts which she represents in her Autobiography, was quite remarkably apt to have a false view of her relations with others. In some cases she gives a ridiculously inaccurate account of the tenor or bearing of correspondence held with her. One would not for a moment want to dwell on the weakness of a character on the whole valuable and beneficent, if it were not made needful by the ready harshness with which she has inflicted pain on others. No; I did not agree with you about the Byron case. I understand by the teaching of my own egoism--and therefore I can sympathize with--any act of self-vindicating or vindictive rage under the immediate infliction of what is felt to be a wrong or injustice. But I have no sympathy with self-vindication, or the becoming a proxy in vindication, deliberately bought at such a price as that of vitiating revelations--which may even possibly be false. To write a letter in a rage is very pardonable--even a letter full of gall and bitterness, meant as a sort of poisoned dagger. We poor mortals can hardly escape these sins of passion. But I have no pity to spare for the rancor that corrects its proofs and revises, and lays it by chuckling with the sense of its future publicity. [Sidenote: Letter to Professor Dr. David Kaufmann, 31st May, 1877.] Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction--I may say, a more heartfelt joy--than you have given me in your estimate of "Daniel Deronda." I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil. Certainly if I had been asked to choose _what_ should be written about my books, and _who_ should write it, I should have sketched--well, not anything so good as what you have written, but an article which must be written by a Jew who showed not merely a sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind. Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions. Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is," but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative narrow perception of what one has been intending and profoundly feeling in one's work, impresses one with the sense that it must be poor perishable stuff, without roots to take any lasting hold in the minds of men; while any instance of complete comprehension encourages one to hope that the creative prompting has foreshadowed and will continue to satisfy a need in other minds. Excuse me that I write but imperfectly, and perhaps dimly, what I have felt in reading your article. It has affected me deeply, and though the prejudice and ignorant obtuseness which has met my effort to contribute something towards the ennobling of Judaism in the conceptions of the Christian community, and in the consciousness of the Jewish community, has never for a moment made me repent my choice, but rather has been added proof that the effort was needed--yet I confess that I had an unsatisfied hunger for certain signs of sympathetic discernment which you only have given. I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish elements and those of English social life. I write under the pressure of small hurries; for we are just moving into the country for the summer, and all things are in a vagrant condition around me. But I wished not to defer answering your letter to an uncertain opportunity. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 14th June, 1877.] I am greatly indebted to you for your letter. It has done something towards rousing me from what I will not call self-despair but resignation to being of no use. I wonder whether you at all imagine the terrible pressure of disbelief in my own {duty/right} to speak to the public, which is apt with me to make all beginnings of work like a rowing against tide. Not that I am without more than my fair ounce of self-conceit and confidence that I know better than the critics, whom I don't take the trouble to read, but who seem to fill the air as with the smoke of bad tobacco. But I will not dwell on my antithetic experiences. I only mention them to show why your letter has done me a service, and also to help in the explanation of my mental attitude towards your requests or suggestions. I do not quite understand whether you have in your mind any plan of straightway constructing a liturgy to which you wish me to contribute in a direct way. That form of contribution would hardly be within my powers. But your words of trust in me as possibly an organ of feelings which have not yet found their due expression is as likely as any external call could be to prompt such perfectly unfettered productions as that which you say has been found acceptable. I wasted some time, three years ago, in writing (what I do not mean to print) a poetic dialogue embodying or rather shadowing very imperfectly the actual contest of ideas. Perhaps what you have written to me may promote and influence a different kind of presentation. At any rate all the words of your letter will be borne in mind, and will enter into my motives. We are tolerably settled now in our camping, experimental fashion. Perhaps, before the summer is far advanced, you may be in our neighborhood, and come to look at us. I trust that Mrs. Harrison is by this time in her usual health. Please give my love to her, and believe me always, with many grateful memories, yours sincerely. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1877.] It was a draught of real comfort and pleasure to have a letter written by your own hand, and one altogether cheerful.[30] I trust that you will by-and-by be able to write me word of continued progress. Hardly any bit of the kingdom, I fancy, would suit your taste better than your neighborhood of the Land's End. You are not fond of bushy midland-fashioned scenery. We are enjoying the mixture of wildness and culture extremely, and so far as landscape and air go we would not choose a different home from this. But we have not yet made up our minds whether we shall keep our house or sell it. Some London friends are also occasional dwellers in these parts. The day before yesterday we had Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Harrison, whose parents have a fine old Tudor house--Sutton Place--some three miles beyond Guildford. And do you remember Edmund Gurney? He and his graceful bride lunched with us the other day. And Miss Thackeray is married to-day to young Ritchie. I saw him at Cambridge, and felt that the nearly twenty years' difference between them was bridged hopefully by his solidity and gravity. This is one of several instances that I have known of lately, showing that young men with even brilliant advantages will often choose as their life's companion a woman whose attractions are chiefly of the spiritual order. I often see you enjoying your sunsets and the wayside flowers. [Sidenote: Letter to William Allingham, 26th Aug. 1877.] I hope that this letter may be sent on to you in some delicious nook where your dear wife is by your side preparing to make us all richer with store of new sketches. I almost fear that I am implying unbecoming claims in asking you to send me a word or two of news about your twofold, nay, fourfold self. But you must excuse in me a presumption which is simply a feeling of spiritual kinship, bred by reading in the volume you gave me before we left town. That tremendous tramp--"Life, Death; Life, Death"[31]--makes me care the more, as age makes it the more audible to me, for those younger ones who are keeping step behind me. [Sidenote: Letter to Professor Kaufmann, 12th Oct. 1877.] I trust it will not be otherwise than gratifying to you to know that your stirring article on "Daniel Deronda" is now translated into English by a son of Professor Ferrier, who was a philosophical writer of considerable mark. It will be issued in a handsomer form than that of the pamphlet, and will appear within this autumnal publishing season, Messrs. Blackwood having already advertised it. Whenever a copy is ready we shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. There is often something to be borne with in reading one's own writing in a translation, but I hope that in this case you will not be made to wince severely. In waiting to send you this news, I seem to have deferred too long the expression of my warm thanks for your kindness in sending me the Hebrew translations of Lessing and the collection of Hebrew poems--a kindness which I felt myself rather presumptuous in asking for, since your time must be well filled with more important demands. Yet I must further beg you, when you have an opportunity, to assure Herr Bacher that I was most gratefully touched by the sympathetic verses with which he enriched the gift of his work. I see by your last letter that your Theological Seminary was to open on the 4th of this month, so that this too retrospective letter of mine will reach you when you are in the midst of your new duties. I trust that this new institution will be a great good to professor and students, and that your position is of a kind that you contemplate as permanent. To teach the young personally has always seemed to me the most satisfactory supplement to teaching the world through books; and I have often wished that I had such a means of having fresh, living spiritual children within sight. One can hardly turn one's thought towards Eastern Europe just now without a mingling of pain and dread, but we mass together distant scenes and events in an unreal way, and one would like to believe that the present troubles will not at any time press on you in Hungary with more external misfortune than on us in England. Mr. Lewes is happily occupied in his psychological studies. We both look forward to the reception of the work you kindly promised us, and he begs me to offer you his best regards. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, 17th Oct. 1877.] I like to know that you have been thinking of me and that you care to write to me, and though I will not disobey your considerate prohibition so far as to try to answer your letter fully, I must content my soul by telling you that we shall be settled in the old place by the end of the first week in November, and that I shall be delighted to see you then. There are many subjects that I shall have a special pleasure in talking of with you. Let me say now that the passage quoted from your friend's letter is one that I am most glad to find falling in with your own attitude of mind. The view is what I have endeavored to represent in a little poem called "Stradivarius," which you may not have happened to read. I say, not God Himself can make man's best Without best men to help Him. And next: I think direct personal portraiture--or caricature--is a bastard kind of satire that I am not disposed to think the better of because Aristophanes used it in relation to Socrates. Do you know that pretty story about Bishop Thirlwall? When somebody wanted to bring to him Forchhammer as a distinguished German writer, he replied, "No; I will never receive into my house the man who justified the death of Socrates!" "O that we were all of one mind, and that mind good!" is an impossible-to-be-realized wish: and I don't wish it at all in its full extent. But I think it would be possible that men should differ speculatively as much as they do now, and yet be "of one mind" in the desire to avoid giving unnecessary pain, in the desire to do an honest part towards the general well-being, which has made a comfortable _nidus_ for themselves, in the resolve not to sacrifice another to their own egoistic promptings. Pity and fairness--two little words which, carried out, would embrace the utmost delicacies of the moral life--seem to me not to rest on an unverifiable hypothesis but on facts quite as irreversible as the perception that a pyramid will not stand on its apex. I am so glad you have been enjoying Ireland in quiet. We love our bit of country and are bent on keeping it as a summer refuge. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 6th Nov. 1877, from the Priory.] _Apropos_ of authorship, I was a little uneasy on Sunday because I had seemed in the unmanageable current of talk to echo a too slight way of speaking about a great poet. I did not mean to say Amen when the "Idylls of the King" seemed to be judged rather _de haut en bas_. I only meant that I should value for my own mind "In Memoriam" as the chief of the larger works; and that while I feel exquisite beauty in passages scattered through the "Idylls," I must judge some smaller wholes among the lyrics as the works most decisive of Tennyson's high place among the immortals. Not that my deliverance on this matter is of any moment, but that I cannot bear to fall in with the sickening fashion of people who talk much about writers whom they read little, and pronounce on a great man's powers with only half his work in their mind, while if they remembered the other half they would find their judgments as to his limits flatly contradicted. Then, again, I think Tennyson's dramas such as the world should be glad of--and would be, if there had been no prejudgment that he could not write a drama. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 10th Nov. 1877.] Never augur ill because you do not hear from me. It is, you know, my profession _not_ to write letters. Happily I can meet your kind anxiety by contraries. I have for two months and more been in better health than I have known for several years. This pleasant effect is due to the delicious air of the breezy Surrey hills; and, further, to a friend's insistence on my practising lawn-tennis as a daily exercise. We are in love with our Surrey house, and only regret that it hardly promises to be snug enough for us chilly people through the winter, so that we dare not think of doing without the warmer nest in town. [Sidenote: Journal, 1877.] _Nov. 10._--We went to the Heights, Witley, at the beginning of June, after a delightful visit to Cambridge, and returned to this old home on the 29th October. We are at last in love with our Surrey house, and mean to keep it. The air and abundant exercise have quite renovated my health, and I am in more bodily comfort than I have known for several years. But my dear husband's condition is less satisfactory, his headaches still tormenting him. Since the year began several little epochs have marked themselves. Blackwood offered for another ten years' copyright of my works, the previous agreement for ten years having expired. I declined, choosing to have a royalty. G.'s third volume has been well received, and has sold satisfactorily for a book so little in the popular taste. A pleasant correspondence has been opened with Professor Kaufmann, now Principal of the Jewish Theological Seminary at Pesth; and his "Attempt at an Appreciation of 'Daniel Deronda'" has been translated into English by young Ferrier, son of Professor Ferrier. A new Cabinet edition of my works, including "Romola," has been decided on, and is being prepared; and there have been multiplied signs that the spiritual effect of "Deronda" is growing. In America the book is placed above all my previous writings. Our third little Hampstead granddaughter has been born, and was christened Saturday--the 3d--Elinor. Yesterday Mr. Macmillan came to ask me if I would undertake to write the volume on Shakespeare, in a series to be issued under the title "Men of Letters." I have declined. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Nov. 1877.] Having a more secure freedom than I may have next week, I satisfy my eagerness to tell you that I am longing for the news of you which you have accustomed me to trust in as sure to come at this time of the year. You will give me, will you not, something more than an affectionate greeting? You will tell me how and where you have been, and what is the actual state of your health and spirits--whether you can still interest yourself in writing on great subjects without too much fatigue, and what companionship is now the most precious to you? We returned from our country home (with which we are much in love) at the beginning of this month, leaving it earlier than we wished because of the need to get workmen into it. Our bit of Surrey has the beauties of Scotland wedded to those of Warwickshire. During the last two months of our stay there I was conscious of more health and strength than I have known for several years. Imagine me playing at lawn-tennis by the hour together! The world I live in is chiefly one that has grown around me in these later years, since we have seen so little of each other. Doubtless we are both greatly changed in spiritual as well as bodily matters, but I think we are unchanged in the friendship founded on early memories. I, for my part, feel increasing gratitude for the cheering and stimulus your companionship gave me, and only think with pain that I might have profited more by it if my mind had been more open to good influences. [Sidenote: Journal, 1877.] _Nov. 26._--The other day we saw in the _Times_ that G.'s name had been proposed for the Rectorship of St. Andrews. Blackwood writes me that in less than a month they have sold off all but 400 of the 5250 printed; and in October were sold 495 of the 3_s._ 6_d._ edition of "Adam Bede." Our friend Dr. Allbut came to see us last week, after we had missed each other for three or four years. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 3d Dec. 1877.] I have been made rather unhappy by my husband's impulsive proposal about Christmas. We are dull old persons, and your two sweet young ones ought to find each Christmas a new bright bead to string on their memory, whereas to spend the time with us would be to string on a dark, shrivelled berry. They ought to have a group of young creatures to be joyful with. Our own children always spend their Christmas with Gertrude's family, and we have usually taken our sober merry-making with friends out of town. Illness among these will break our custom this year; and thus _mein Mann_, feeling that our Christmas was free, considered how very much he liked being with you, omitting the other side of the question--namely, our total lack of means to make a suitably joyous meeting, a real festival, for Phil and Margaret. I was conscious of this lack in the very moment of the proposal, and the consciousness has been pressing on me more and more painfully ever since. Even my husband's affectionate hopefulness cannot withstand my melancholy demonstration. So pray consider the kill-joy proposition as entirely retracted, and give us something of yourselves, only on simple black-letter days when the Herald Angels have not been raising expectations early in the morning. I am not afraid of your misunderstanding one word. You know that it is not a little love with which I am yours ever. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 13th Dec. 1877.] Your note yesterday gave me much comfort, and I thank you for sparing the time to write it. The world cannot seem quite the same to me as long as you are all in anxiety about her who is most precious to you[32]--in immediate urgent anxiety that is. For love is never without its shadow of anxiety. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. [Sidenote: Journal, 1877.] _Dec. 31._--To-day I say a final farewell to this little book, which is the only record I have made of my personal life for sixteen years and more. I have often been helped, in looking back in it, to compare former with actual states of despondency, from bad health or other apparent causes. In this way a past despondency has turned to present hopefulness. But of course, as the years advance, there is a new rational ground for the expectation that my life may become less fruitful. The difficulty is to decide how far resolution should set in the direction of activity rather than in the acceptance of a more negative state. Many conceptions of work to be carried out present themselves, but confidence in my own fitness to complete them worthily is all the more wanting because it is reasonable to argue that I must have already done my best. In fact, my mind is embarrassed by the number and wide variety of subjects that attract me, and the enlarging vista that each brings with it. I shall record no more in this book, because I am going to keep a more business-like diary. Here ends 1877. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th Jan. 1878.] Yes, it is a comfort to me, in the midst of so many dispiriting European signs, that France has come so far through her struggle. And no doubt you are rejoicing too that London University has opened all its degrees to women. I think we know no reading more amusing than the _Times_ just now. We are deep among the gravities. I have been reading aloud Green's first volume of his new, larger "History of the English People;" and this evening have begun Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century"--in fact, we are dull old fogies, who are ill-informed about anything that is going on of an amusing kind. On Monday we took a youth to the pantomime, but I found it a melancholy business. The dear old story of Puss in Boots was mis-handled in an exasperating way, and every incident as well as pretence of a character turned into a motive for the most vulgar kind of dancing. I came away with a headache, from which I am only to-day recovered. It is too cruel that one can't get anything innocent as a spectacle for the children! Mr. Lewes sends his best love, but is quite barren of suggestions about books--buried in pink and lilac periodicals of a physiological sort, and preoccupied with the case of a man who has an artificial larynx, with which he talks very well. What do you say to the phonograph, which can report gentlemen's bad speeches with all their stammering? [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 26th Jan. 1878.] I like to think of you and Mrs. Blackwood taking your daughter to Rome. It will be a delightful way of reviving memories, to mingle and compare them with her fresh impressions, and in a spiritual sense to have what Shakespeare says is the joy of having offspring--"to see your blood warm while you feel it cold." I wish that and all other prospects were not marred by the threat of widening war. Last night I finished reading Principal Tulloch's small but full volume on "Pascal"--a present for which I am much obliged. It is admirably fair and dispassionate, and I should think will be an acceptable piece of instruction to many readers. The brief and graphic way in which he has made present and intelligible the position of the Port Royalists is an example of just what is needed in such a series as the Foreign Classics. But of course they are the most fortunate contributors who have to write about the authors, less commonly treated of, and especially when they are prepared to write by an early liking and long familiarity--as in the present case. I have read every line of appreciation with interest. My first acquaintance with Pascal came from his "Pensées" being given to me, as a school prize, when I was fourteen; and I am continually turning to them now to revive my sense of their deep though broken wisdom. It is a pity that "La Bruyère" cannot be done justice to by any merely English presentation. There is a sentence of his which touches with the finest point the diseased spot in the literary culture of our time--"Le plaisir de la critique nous ôté celui d'être vivement touchés de tres belles choses." We see that our present fashions are old, but there is this difference, that they are followed by a greater multitude. You may be sure I was very much cheered by your last despatch--the solid unmistakable proof that my books are not yet superfluous. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 23d March, 1878.] As to my enjoyment of the "Two Grenadiers," it would have been impossible but for the complete reduction of it to symbolism in my own mind, and my belief that it really touches nobody now, as enthusiasm for the execrable Napoleon I. But I feel that the devotion of the common soldier to his leader (the sign for him of hard duty) is the type of all higher devotedness, and is full of promise to other and better generations. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 7th June, 1878.] The royalties did themselves much credit.[33] The Crown Prince is really a grand-looking man, whose name you would ask for with expectation, if you imagined him no royalty. He is like a grand antique bust--cordial and simple in manners withal, shaking hands, and insisting that I should let him know when we next came to Berlin, just as if he had been a Professor Gruppe, living _au troisième_. _She_ is equally good-natured and unpretending, liking best to talk of nursing soldiers, and of what her father's taste was in literature. She opened the talk by saying, "You know my sister Louise"--just as any other slightly embarrassed mortal might have done. We had a picked party to dinner--Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Peterborough, Lord and Lady Ripon, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Kinglake (you remember "Eothen"--the old gentleman is a good friend of mine), Froude, Mrs. Ponsonby (Lord Grey's granddaughter), and two or three more "illustrations;" then a small detachment coming in after dinner. It was really an interesting occasion. We go to Oxford to-morrow (to the Master of Balliol). [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 27th June, 1878, from Witley.] I hope we are not wrong in imagining you settled at Strathtyrum, with a fresh power of enjoying the old scenes after your exile, in spite of the abstinence from work--the chief sweetness of life. Mr. Lewes, too, is under a regimen for gout, which casts its threatening shadow in the form of nightly cramps and inward _malaise_. He wants me to tell you something amusing--a bit of Baboo English, from an Indian journal sent us by Lord Lytton. _Apropos_ of Sir G. Campbell's rash statement that India was no good to England, the accomplished writer says, "But British House of Commons stripped him to pieces, and exposed his _cui bono_ in all its naked hideousness!" After all, I think the cultivated Hindoo writing what he calls English, is about on a par with the authors of leading articles on this side of the globe writing what _they_ call English--accusing or laudatory epithets and phrases, adjusted to some dim standard of effect quite aloof from any knowledge or belief of their own. Letter-writing, I imagine, is counted as "work" from which you must abstain; and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence, hence you have nothing to answer. How glad I shall be of an announcement that "No further bulletins will be sent, Mr. Blackwood having gone to golf again." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 18th July, 1878.] I thought you understood that I have grave reasons for not speaking on certain public topics. No request from the best friend in the world--even from my own husband--ought to induce me to speak when I judge it my duty to be silent. If I had taken a contrary decision, I should not have remained silent till now. My function is that of the _æsthetic_, not the doctrinal teacher--the rousing of the nobler emotions, which make mankind desire the social right, not the prescribing of special measures, concerning which the artistic mind, however strongly moved by social sympathy, is often not the best judge. It is one thing to feel keenly for one's fellow-beings; another to say, "This step, and this alone, will be the best to take for the removal of particular calamities." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th July, 1878.] I did hope that by the time your military evolutions were over, we might see our way to enjoying the kind welcome which you and Mrs. Blackwood have offered us. No expedition attracts us more than the projected visit to Strathtyrum. Unhappily, Mr. Lewes continues to be troubled and depressed by symptoms that, with the recollection upon us of the crippling gout which once followed them, quite rob us of the courage to leave home. The journey and the excitement, which would be part of his pleasure if he were tolerably well, seem to him now dangerous to encounter--and I am not myself robust enough to venture on a risk of illness to him; so that I cannot supply the daring he needs. We begin to think that we shall be obliged to defer our pleasure of seeing you in your own home--so promising of walks and talks, such as we can never have a chance of in London--until we have the disadvantage of counting ourselves a year older. I am very sorry. But it is better to know that you are getting well, and we unable to see you, than to think of you as an invalid, unable to receive us. We must satisfy ourselves with the good we have--including the peace, and the promise of an abundant wheat harvest. Please ask Mrs. and Miss Blackwood to accept my best regards, and assure them that I counted much on a longer, quieter intercourse with them in a few sunny days away from hotels and callers. Do not write when writing seems a task. Otherwise you know how well I like to have a letter from you. [Sidenote: Letter to William Blackwood, 15th Aug. 1878.] We have certainly to pay for all our other happiness, which is a Benjamin's share, by many small bodily miseries. Mr. Lewes continues ailing, and I am keeping him company with headache. "Rejoice, O young man, in the days of thy youth," and keep a reserve of strength for the more evil days. Especially avoid breaking your neck in hunting. Mr. Lewes did once try horseback, some years ago, but found the exercise too violent for him. I think a Highland sheltie would be the suitable nag, only he is very fond of walking; and between that and lawn-tennis he tires himself sufficiently. I shall hope by and by to hear more good news about your uncle's health. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 26th Aug. 1878.] Shall you mind the trouble of writing me a few words of news about you and yours? just to let me know how things are with you, and deliver me from evil dreams. We have been so ailing in the midst of our country joys that I need to hear of my friends being well as a ground for cheerfulness--a bit of sugar in the cup of resignation. Perhaps this fine summer has been altogether delightful to you. Let me know this good, and satisfy the thirsty sponge of my affection. If you object to my phrase, please to observe that it is Dantesque--which will oblige you to find it admirable. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 26th Aug. 1878.] You remember the case of the old woman of whom her murderers confessed that they had beaten her to death, "partly with crowbars and partly with their fists." Well, I have been beaten into silence since your kind letter, partly by visitors and partly by continual headache. I am a shade or two better this morning, and my soul has half awaked to run its daily stage of duty. Happily I was temporarily relieved from headache during our friends' (the Tom Trollopes') visit. We took them to see Tennyson, and they were delighted with the reading which he very amiably gave us. Then the Du Mauriers came to dine with us on the Thursday, and so the time was not, I hope, too languid for our visitors. Mr. Lewes continues to show improvement in health, so that the balance of good is not much altered by my deficit. We shall be pleased to have any news of you, whether by post or person. At this time I was in the habit of going over occasionally from Weybridge on Sundays. The shadow of trouble was on both our houses. My mother was in her last illness, and Mr. Lewes was constantly ailing, though none of us then thought that he would be taken first. But the sharing of a common anxiety contributed to make our friendship much more intimate. In our drives in the neighborhood of Witley, Mr. Lewes used sometimes to be suddenly seized with severe cramping pains. I think he was himself aware that something was far wrong, but the moment the pain ceased the extraordinary buoyancy of his spirits returned. Nothing but death could quench that bright flame. Even on his worst days he had always a good story to tell; and I remember on one occasion, between two bouts of pain, he sang through, with great _brio_, though without much voice, the greater portion of the tenor part in the "Barber of Seville"--George Eliot playing his accompaniment, and both of them thoroughly enjoying the fun. They led a very secluded life at Witley--as always in their country retreats--but enjoyed the society of some of their neighbors. Sir Henry and Lady Holland, who lived next door; charming Mrs. Thellusson and her daughter, Mrs. Greville, who lived between Witley and Godalming, were especial friends. The Tennysons, too, and the Du Mauriers and Allinghams, were all within easy visiting distance. George Eliot's dislike of London life continued to increase with the increasing number of her acquaintance, and consequent demands on time. The Sunday receptions, confined to a small number of intimate friends in 1867, had gradually extended themselves to a great variety of interesting people. These receptions have been so often and so well described that they have hitherto occupied rather a disproportionate place in the accounts of George Eliot's life. It will have been noticed that there is very little allusion to them in the letters; but, owing to the seclusion of her life, it happened that the large majority of people who knew George Eliot as an author never met her elsewhere. Her _salon_ was important as a meeting-place for many friends whom she cared greatly to see, but it was not otherwise important in her own life. For she was eminently _not_ a typical mistress of a _salon_. It was difficult for her, mentally, to move from one person to another. Playing around many disconnected subjects, in talk, neither interested her nor amused her much. She took things too seriously, and seldom found the effort of entertaining compensated by the gain. Fortunately Mr. Lewes supplied any qualities lacking in the hostess. A brilliant talker, a delightful _raconteur_, versatile, full of resource in the social difficulties of amalgamating diverse groups, and bridging over awkward pauses, he managed to secure for these gatherings most of the social success which they obtained. Many of the _réunions_ were exceedingly agreeable and interesting, especially when they were not too crowded, when general conversation could be maintained. But the larger the company grew the more difficult it was to manage. The English character does not easily accommodate itself to the exigencies of a _salon_. There is a fatal tendency to break up into small groups. The entertainment was frequently varied by music when any good performer happened to be present. I think, however, that the majority of visitors delighted chiefly to come for the chance of a few words with George Eliot alone. When the drawing-room door of the Priory opened, a first glance revealed her always in the same low arm-chair on the left-hand side of the fire. On entering, a visitor's eye was at once arrested by the massive head. The abundant hair, streaked with gray now, was draped with lace, arranged mantilla-fashion, coming to a point at the top of the forehead. If she were engaged in conversation her body was usually bent forward with eager, anxious desire to get as close as possible to the person with whom she talked. She had a great dislike to raising her voice, and often became so wholly absorbed in conversation that the announcement of an incoming visitor sometimes failed to attract her attention; but the moment the eyes were lifted up, and recognized a friend, they smiled a rare welcome--sincere, cordial, grave--a welcome that was felt to come straight from the heart, not graduated according to any social distinction. Early in the afternoon, with only one or two guests, the talk was always general and delightful. Mr. Lewes was quite as good in a company of three as in a company of thirty. In fact, he was better, for his _verve_ was not in the least dependent on the number of his audience, and the flow was less interrupted. Conversation was no effort to him; nor was it to her so long as the numbers engaged were not too many, and the topics were interesting enough to sustain discussion. But her talk, I think, was always most enjoyable _à deux_. It was not produced for effect, nor from the lip, but welled up from a heart and mind intent on the one person with whom she happened to be speaking. She was never weary of giving of her best so far as the wish to give was concerned. In addition to the Sundays "at home" the Priory doors were open to a small circle of very intimate friends on other days of the week. Of evening entertainments there were very few, I think, after 1870. I remember some charming little dinners--never exceeding six persons--and one notable evening when the Poet Laureate read aloud "Maud," "The Northern Farmer," and parts of other poems. It was very interesting on this occasion to see the two most widely known representatives of contemporary English literature sitting side by side. George Eliot would have enjoyed much in her London life if she had been stronger in health, but, with her susceptible organization, the _atmosphere_ oppressed her both physically and mentally. She always rejoiced to escape to the country. The autumn days were beginning to close in now on the beautiful Surrey landscape, not without some dim, half-recognized presage to her anxious mind of impending trouble. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Sept. 1878.] I am not inclined to let you rest any longer without asking you to send me some account of yourself, for it is long since I got my last news from Edinburgh. I should like to know that you have continued to gather strength, and that you have all been consequently more and more enjoying your life at Strathtyrum. It is an ugly theory that happiness wants the contrast of illness and anxiety, but I know that Mrs. Blackwood must have a new comfort in seeing you once more with your usual strength. We have had "a bad time" in point of health, and it is only quite lately that we have both been feeling a little better. The fault is all in our own frames, not in our air or other circumstances; for we like our house and neighborhood better and better. The general testimony and all other arguments are in favor of this district being thoroughly healthy. But we both look very haggard in the midst of our blessings. Are you not disturbed by yesterday's Indian news? One's hopes for the world's getting a little rest from war are continually checked. Every day, after reading the _Times_, I feel as if all one's writing were miserably trivial stuff in the presence of this daily history. Do you think there are persons who admire Russia's "mission" in Asia as they did the mission in Europe? Please write me anything that comes easily to the end of your pen, and make your world seem nearer to me. Good Mr. Simpson, I hope, lets you know that he is prospering in his pursuit of pleasure without work--which seems a strange paradox in association with my idea of him. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th Oct. 1878.] The days pass by without my finding time to tell you what I want to tell you--how delighted I was to have a good account of you. But every bright day, and we have had many such, has made me think the more of you, and hope that you were drawing in strength from the clear, sweet air. I miss so much the hope that I used always to have of seeing you in London and talking over everything just as we used to do--in the way that will never exactly come with any one else. How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends! The new are comparatively foreigners, with whom one's talk is hemmed in by mutual ignorance. The one cannot express, the other cannot divine. We are intensely happy in our bit of country, as happy as the cloudy aspect of public affairs will allow any one who cares for them to be, with the daily reading of the _Times_. A neighbor of ours was reciting to me yesterday some delicious bits of dialogue with a quaint Surrey woman; _e.g._, "O ma'am, what I have gone through with my husband! He is so uneddicated--he never had a tail-coat in his life!" [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 23d Nov. 1878, from the Priory.] When Mr. Lewes sent you my MS.[34] the other morning he was in that state of exhilarated activity which often comes with the sense of ease after an attack of illness which had been very painful. In the afternoon he imprudently drove out, and undertook, with his usual eagerness, to get through numerous details of business, over-fatigued himself, and took cold. The effect has been a sad amount of suffering from feverishness and headache, and I have been in deep anxiety, am still very unhappy, and only comforted by Sir James Paget's assurances that the actual trouble will be soon allayed. I have been telling the patient about your letter and suggestion that he should send a form of slip as advertisement for the Magazine. He says--and the answer seems to have been a matter of premeditation with him--that it will be better not to announce the book in this way at once--"the Americans and Germans will be down on us." I cannot question him further at present, but I have no doubt he has been thinking about the matter, and we must not cross his wish in any way. I have thought that a good form of advertisement, to save people from disappointment in a book of mine not being a story, would be to print the list of contents, which, with the title, would give all but the very stupid a notion to what form of writing the work belongs. But this is a later consideration. I am glad you were pleased with the opening. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Sunday evening, 24th Nov. 1878.] For the last week I have been in deep trouble. Mr. Lewes has been alarmingly ill. To-day Sir James Paget and Dr. Quain pronounce him in all respects better, and I am for the first time comforted. You will not wonder now at my silence. Thanks for your affectionate remembrances. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Nov. 1878.] Mr. Lewes continues sadly ill, and I am absorbed in nursing him. When he wrote about Parliament meeting, he was thinking that it would be called together at the usual time--perhaps February. The book can be deferred without mischief. I wish to add a good deal, but, of course, I can finish nothing now, until Mr. Lewes is better. The doctors pronounced him in every respect better yesterday, and he had a quiet night, but since five o'clock this morning he has had a recurrence of trouble. You can feel for him and me, having so lately known what severe illness is. Mr. Lewes died on the 28th November, 1878. _SUMMARY._ MARCH, 1876, TO NOVEMBER, 1878. Letter to John Blackwood--Visit to Weybridge--"Daniel Deronda"--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Meets Sir Garnet Wolseley--Vivisection--Letter to John Blackwood--Public discussion of "Deronda"--Motto from Walt Whitman--Inscription on the MS. of "Deronda"--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Thanks for sympathy--Drawbacks to going too much abroad--Mr. Lewes's "Problems"--Letter to J. W. Cross on the effect of her writing--Three-months' trip to Continent--Letter to John Blackwood--Visit to Chambéry and Les Charmettes--Lausanne and Vevey--Ragatz--Return to London--Letter to John Blackwood--Dr. Hermann Adler--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--St. Blasien--Women's work--Visit to Six-Mile Bottom--Meets Turguenieff--Jewish appreciation of "Deronda"--Letter to Mrs. William Smith--Mrs. Ruck--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Jewish element in "Deronda"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Miss Martineau's "Autobiography," and biography in general--Resignation--Gratitude of Jews for "Deronda"--Purchase of house at Witley, near Godalming--Dr. Hermann Adler's lectures on "Daniel Deronda"--Application to translate "Romola" into Italian--Christmas at Weybridge--Opening of year 1877--Letter to James Sully--The word "meliorism"--Letter to John Blackwood--Illustrations of cheap editions--"Romola"--Letter to William Allingham--Warwickshire dialect--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Harriet Martineau's "Autobiography"--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Holmes and Mrs. Vernon Lushington playing--Letter to Miss Hennell--Mrs. Chapman on Harriet Martineau--Mrs. Stowe and the Byron case--Letter to Professor Kaufmann--Gratitude for his estimate of "Deronda"--Letter to F. Harrison--Sympathy incentive to production--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Miss Thackeray's marriage--Letter to W. Allingham on his poems--Letter to Professor Kaufmann--Translation of his article by Mr. Ferrier--Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby--Reference to Stradivarius--Pity and fairness--Letter to J. W. Cross--Appreciation of Tennyson's poems and dramas--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Improvement in health at Witley--Proposal to write on Shakespeare for "Men of Letters" series--Letter to Miss Hennell--Gain of health and strength at Witley--Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones--Christmas plans--Farewell to Journal and to year 1877--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--State of France--London University opening degrees to women--Reading Green's "History of the English People" and Lecky--The phonograph--Letter to John Blackwood--"Pascal"--"La Bruyère"--Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones on the "Two Grenadiers"--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Meeting with Crown Prince and Princess of Germany at Mr. Goschen's--Visit to Oxford to the Master of Balliol--Letter to John Blackwood--Indian story of Lord Lytton's--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Function the æsthetic not the doctrinal teacher--Letter to John Blackwood--Mr. Lewes's ill-health--Letter to William Blackwood--Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones complaining of health--Letter to J. W. Cross--Mr. Lewes's continued illness--Life at Witley--Effect of receptions at the Priory--Description of receptions--Letter to John Blackwood--Complaining of health--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Delight in old friends--Letters to John Blackwood--MS. of "Theophrastus Such"--Mr. Lewes's last illness--Postponement of publication of "Theophrastus"--Mr. Lewes's death. FOOTNOTES: [28] This was a visit to Six-Mile Bottom, where M. Turguenieff, who was a very highly valued friend of Mr. and Mrs. Lewes, had come to compare his experiences of Russian and English sport. I remember George Eliot telling me that she had never met any literary man whose society she enjoyed so thoroughly and so unrestrainedly as she did that of M. Turguenieff. They had innumerable bonds of sympathy. [29] This letter is in acknowledgment of a letter from Mrs. Beecher Stowe on "Daniel Deronda." [30] Mme. Bodichon had been dangerously ill. [31] Refers to a poem by W. Allingham, "The General Chorus," with a burden: "Life, Death; Life, Death; Such is the song of human breath." [32] The beginning of my mother's last illness. [33] Dinner at Mr. Goschen's. [34] "The Impressions of Theophrastus Such." CHAPTER XIX. For many weeks after Mr. Lewes's death, George Eliot saw no one except Mr. Charles Lewes, and the very few persons she was obliged to receive on necessary business. She read no letters, and wrote none, but at once began to occupy herself busily with Mr. Lewes's unfinished MSS., in which work Mr. Charles Lewes was able to assist her in the arrangement. The only entry in her diary on the 1st January, 1879, is "Here I and sorrow sit." At the end of two months this desolation had told terribly on her health and spirits; and on the last day of January she was greatly comforted by a visit from Sir James Paget--a friend for whom she had always had the highest and most cordial regard during the many years she had known him. Meantime she had begun to write a few short notes, and she mentions in her journal of 2d January, "A kind letter from Professor Michael Foster, of Cambridge, offering to help me on any physiological point;" and on the 19th January, "Ruminating on the founding of some educational instrumentality as a memorial to be called by his name." There are the following letters in January and February. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 7th Jan. 1879.] I bless you for all your goodness to me, but I am a bruised creature, and shrink even from the tenderest touch. As soon as I feel able to see anybody I will see _you_. Please give my love to Bessie[35] and thank her for me--I mean, for her sweet letter. I was a long while before I read any letters, but tell her I shall read hers again and again. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 13th Jan. 1879.] It was a long while before I read any letters, and as yet I have written none, except such as business required of me. You will believe that this has not been for want of gratitude to all my friends for their goodness to me. I can trust to your understanding of a sorrow which has broken my life. I write now because I ought not to allow any disproportionate expense to be incurred about my printed sheets. To me, now, the writing seems all trivial stuff, but since he wished it to be printed, and you seem to concur, I will correct the sheets (if you will send me the remainder) gradually as I am able, and they can be struck off and laid by for a future time. I submit this proposition to your judgment, not knowing what may be most expedient for your printing-office. Thank you for all your kind words. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 22d Jan. 1879.] Sometime, if I live, I shall be able to see you--perhaps sooner than any one else--but not yet. Life seems to get harder instead of easier. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 30th Jan. 1879.] When I said "sometime" I meant still a distant time. I want to live a little time that I may do certain things for his sake. So I try to keep up my strength, and I work as much as I can to save my mind from imbecility. But that is all at present. I can go through anything that is mere business. But what used to be joy is joy no longer, and what is pain is easier because he has not to bear it. I bless my friends for all their goodness to me. Please say so to all of them that you know, especially Mr. Hall. Tell him I have read his letter again and again. If you feel prompted to say anything, write it to me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 4th Feb. 1879.] Do not believe that your love is lost upon me, dear. I bless you for all your goodness to me, and keep every sign of it in my memory. I have been rather ill lately, but my head is clearer this morning. The world's winter is going, I hope, but my everlasting winter has set in. You know that and will be patient with me. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 6th Feb. 1879.] Bless you for your loving thought. But for all reasons, bodily and mental, I am unable to move. I am entirely occupied with his manuscripts, and must be on this spot among all the books. Then, I am in a very ailing condition of body--cannot count on myself from day to day--and am not fit to undertake any sort of journey. I have never yet been outside the gate. Even if I were otherwise able, I could not bear to go out of sight of the things he used and looked on. Bless you once more. If I could go away with _anybody_ I could go away with you. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 7th Feb. 1879.] I do need your affection. Every sign of care for me from the beings I respect and love is a help to me. In a week or two I think I shall want to see you. Sometimes, even now, I have a longing, but it is immediately counteracted by a fear. The perpetual mourner--the grief that can never be healed--is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning--a new acquaintance with grief. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, Saturday, 22d Feb. 1879.] If you happen to be at liberty to-morrow, or the following Friday, or to-morrow week, I hope I shall be well enough to see you. Let me know which day. On Sunday, the 23d February, I saw her for the first time, and there is the following letter next day. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 24th Feb. 1879.] A transient absence of mind yesterday made me speak as if it were possible for me to entertain your thoughtful, kind proposal that I should move to Weybridge for a short time. But I cannot leave this house for the next two months--if for no other reason, I should be chained here by the need of having all the books I want to refer to. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Feb. 1879.] Pray do not announce "Theophrastus" in any way. It would be intolerable to my feelings to have a book of my writing brought out for a long while to come. What I wish to do is, to correct the sheets thoroughly, and then have them struck off and laid by till the time of publication comes. One reason which prompted me to set about the proofs--in addition to my scruples about occupying the type--was that I was feeling so ill, I thought there was no time to be lost in getting done everything which no one else would do if I left it undone. But I am getting better, I think; and my doctors say there is nothing the matter with me to urge more haste than the common uncertainty of life urges on us all. There is a great movement now among the Jews towards colonizing Palestine, and bringing out the resources of the soil. Probably Mr. Oliphant is interested in the work, and will find his experience in the West not without applicability in the East. It is a satisfaction to you, I hope, that your son is about to be initiated in George Street. I trust he will one day carry on the good traditions of the name "John Blackwood." [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Mch. 1879.] Your letter, which tells me that you are benefiting by the clear, sunny air, is very welcome. Yes, here too the weather is more merciful, and I drive out most days. I am better bodily, but I never feel thoroughly comfortable in that material sense, and I am incredibly thin. As to my mind, I am full of occupation, but the sorrow deepens down instead of diminishing. I mean to go to Witley in a few months, that I may look again on the spots that he enjoyed, and that we enjoyed together, but I cannot tell beforehand whether I shall care to go again afterwards. Everybody is very kind to me, and by and by I shall begin to see a few intimate friends. I can do or go through anything that is business or duty, but time and strength seem lacking for everything else. You must excuse my weakness, remembering that for nearly twenty-five years I have been used to find my happiness in his. I can find it nowhere else. But we can live and be helpful without happiness, and I have had more than myriads who were and are better fitted for it. I am really very busy, and have been sadly delayed by want of health. One project I have entered on is to found a studentship, which will be called after his name. I am getting help from experienced men. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 5th Mch. 1879.] I send the corrected sheets of "Theophrastus," and shall be much obliged if you will order a complete revise to be sent me before they are struck off. Whenever the book is published (I cannot contemplate its appearing before June, and if that is a bad time it must stand over till the autumn season) I beg you kindly to write for me a notice, to be printed on the fly-leaf, that the MS. was placed in your hands last November, or simply last year. I think you will enter into my feeling when I say that to create a notion on the part of the public of my having been occupied in writing "Theophrastus" would be repugnant to me. And I shrink from putting myself forward in any way. I hope you are benefiting by the milder weather. I drive out a little now, but you must be prepared to see me a much changed creature. I think I should hardly know myself. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _March 8._--Gertrude[36] and the children came to tea. _March 9._--Mr. Henry Sidgwick came to discuss the plan of the studentship. _March 13._--Professor Michael Foster came to discuss the studentship, and we arrived at a satisfactory clearness as to the conditions. He mentioned as men whom he thought of as suitable trustees, Huxley, Pye Smith, Thiselton Dyer, Francis Balfour, and Henry Sidgwick. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 20th Mch. 1879.] DEAR FRIEND,--When you have time to come to me about six o'clock I shall love to see you. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _March 22._--Mrs. Congreve came again. Mrs. Burne-Jones came. [Sidenote: Letter to William Blackwood, 25th Mch. 1879.] I am so dissatisfied with "Theophrastus" on reading the revise that I have proposed to suppress it in this original form, and regenerate it whenever--if ever--I recover the power to do so. You see the cruel weather has travelled after you. It makes one feel every grievance more grievously in some respects, though to me the sunshine is in one sense sadder. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _March 30._--Mr. Bowen (now Lord Justice Bowen) came, Mr. Spencer, and J. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 5th April, 1879.] After weighing what you have said, I agree to the publication of "Theophrastus" in May. If you had at all suspected that the book would injure my influence, you would not have wished me to give it forth in its present form, and in the uncertainty of one's inner and outer life it is not well to depend on future capabilities. There are some things in it which I want to get said, and if the book turned out to be effective in proportion to my other things, the form would lend itself to a "second series"--supposing I lived and kept my faculties. As to the price for the right of translating, you will judge. If you will kindly undertake these negotiations for me, I shall be thankful. And pray remember that I don't _want_ the book to be translated, so that it will be well to wait for the application, and to ask a sufficient sum to put the publisher on his guard as to the selection of a translator. But, of course, this little book cannot be paid for according to the difficulty of translation. You see, I have been so used to have all trouble spared me that I am ready to cast it on any willing shoulders. But I am obliged now to think of business in many ways. I am so glad to know that Mrs. Blackwood has the comfort of a good report about you from the doctors. Perhaps it may seem to you the wrong order of sympathy to be glad for your sake in the _second_ place. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _April 8._--Mrs. Stuart came. Mrs. Stuart was a devoted friend whose acquaintance had been formed some years before through the presentation of some beautiful wood-carving which she had executed as an offering to George Eliot. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 8th April, 1879.] DEAR FRIENDS,--Will you come to see me some day? I am always in from my drive and at liberty by half-past four. Please do not say to any one that I am receiving visitors generally. Though I have been so long without making any sign, my heart has been continually moved with gratitude towards you. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 8th April, 1879.] Your letter was very welcome this morning, for I do not like to be very long without having some picture of you, and your words of affection are always sweet. The studentship I mention is to supply an income to a young man who is qualified and eager to carry on physiological research, and would not otherwise have the means of doing so. Mr. H. Sidgwick, Michael Foster, and other men of kindred mind are helping me in settling the scheme. I have been determined in my choice of the studentship by the idea of what would be a sort of prolongation of _his_ life. That there should always, in consequence of his having lived, be a young man working in the way he would have liked to work, is a memorial of him that comes nearest my feeling. It is to be at Cambridge to begin with, and we thought at first of affiliating it to the university; but now the notion is that it will be well to keep it free, so that the trustees may move it where and when they will. But the scheme is not yet drafted. I am going to bring out one of "The Problems" in a separate volume at the beginning of May, and am now correcting the proofs. My going to Witley is an experiment. I don't know how I shall bear being there, but I hope there will be nothing to hinder my _having you_ there if you will undertake the troublous journey for my sake. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 9th April, 1879.] I enclose the proof of title-page and motto. Whether the motto (which is singularly apt and good) should be on the title-page or fly-leaf I leave you to judge. Certainly, everybody who does not read Latin will be offended by its claiming notice, and will consider that only the deepest-dyed pedantry could have found the motive for it. But I will not leave it out altogether. I have had such various letters from time to time, asking me to reprint or write essays, that, perhaps, some of the public will not be disappointed that the volume is not a story. But that must be as it may; and if you think the acceptance dubious, it is much the better plan not to stereotype. What energy there is in Mr. Kinglake in spite of the somewhat shattered health that his _Wesen_ gives one the impression of! Among incidents of war that one can dwell on with anything like gladness, that account of the rescue of the colors at Isandlana is memorable, is it not? I go out every day, drive beyond the ranks of hideous houses in the Kilburn outskirts, and get to lanes where I can walk, in perfect privacy, among the fields and budding hedgerows. I hope Mr. Julian Sturgis will take care of his writing and do something lasting. He seems to me to have a strain above the common in him; and he is not writing for his bread, or even his butter. I don't know why I say this just now, except that I had it in my mind to say long ago, and it has just come upper-most as I was thinking of the Magazine. [Sidenote: Letter to Professor Kaufmann, 17th April, 1879.] Your kind letter has touched me very deeply. I confess that my mind had, more than once, gone out to you as one from whom I should like to have some sign of sympathy with my loss. But you were rightly inspired in waiting till now, for during many weeks I was unable even to listen to the letters which my generous friends were continually sending me. Now, at last, I am eagerly interested in every communication that springs out of an acquaintance with my husband and his works. I thank you for telling me about the Hungarian translation of his "History of Philosophy;" but what would I not have given if the volumes could have come, even only a few days, before his death! For his mind was perfectly clear, and he would have felt some joy in that sign of his work being effective. I do not know whether you will enter into the comfort I feel that he never knew he was dying, and fell gently asleep after ten days of illness, in which the suffering was comparatively mild. One of the last things he did at his desk was to despatch a manuscript of mine to the publishers. The book (not a story, and not bulky) is to appear near the end of May, and, as it contains some words I wanted to say about the Jews, I will order a copy to be sent to you. I hope that your labors have gone on uninterruptedly for the benefit of others, in spite of public troubles. The aspect of affairs with us is grievous--industry languishing, and the best part of our nation indignant at our having been betrayed into an unjustifiable war in South Africa. I have been occupied in editing my husband's MSS., so far as they are left in sufficient completeness to be prepared for publication without the obtrusion of another mind instead of his. A brief volume on "The Study of Psychology" will appear immediately, and a further volume of psychological studies will follow in the autumn. But his work was cut short while he still thought of it as the happy occupation of far-stretching months. Once more let me thank you for remembering me in my sorrow. [Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 22d April, 1879.] I am in dreadful need of your counsel. Pray come to me when you can--morning, afternoon, or evening. From this time forward I saw George Eliot constantly. My mother had died in the beginning of the previous December, a week after Mr. Lewes; and, as my life had been very much bound up with hers, I was trying to find some fresh interest in taking up a new pursuit. Knowing very little Italian, I began Dante's "Inferno" with Carlyle's translation. The first time I saw George Eliot afterwards, she asked me what I was doing, and, when I told her, exclaimed, "Oh, I must read that with you." And so it was. In the following twelve months we read through the "Inferno" and the "Purgatorio" together; not in a _dilettante_ way, but with minute and careful examination of the construction of every sentence. The prodigious stimulus of such a teacher (_cotanto maestro_) made the reading a real labor of love. Her sympathetic delight in stimulating my newly awakened enthusiasm for Dante did something to distract her mind from sorrowful memories. The divine poet took us into a new world. It was a renovation of life. At the end of May I induced her to play on the piano at Witley for the first time; and she played regularly after that whenever I was there, which was generally once or twice a week, as I was living at Weybridge, within easy distance. Besides Dante, we read at this time a great many of Sainte-Beuve's "Causeries," and much of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. But I am anticipating. We will return to the correspondence in its order. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 22d April, 1879.] When I shall be able to get to Witley is altogether uncertain. The cold winds make one less hungry for the country, but still it will be a relief to me, in some respects, to get away from town. I am much stronger than I was, and am again finding interest in this wonderful life of ours. But I am obliged to keep my doors closed against all but the few until I go away. You, however, I shall hope to see. I am founding a studentship of Physiology, to be called "The George Henry Lewes Studentship." It will be placed, in the first instance, at Cambridge, where there is the best physiological school in the kingdom. But the trustees (with my consent during my life) will have the power of moving it where they judge best. This idea, which I early conceived, has been a great stay to me. But I have plenty to think of, plenty of creatures depending on me, to make my time seem of some value. And there are so many in the world who have to live without any great enjoyment. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _April 26._--Mr. and Mrs. Hall came. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 3d May, 1879.] If you can come to me next week for a parting word, will you try to learn beforehand whether and when your husband can give me half an hour at the end of his working-day? I should like to see him before I go, which I hope to do soon after the 13th. [Sidenote: Journal, 1879.] _May 6._--Mr. and Mrs. Call, Eleanor and Florence (Cross) came. _May 8._--Mr. Burne-Jones came. _May 10._--Edith Simcox and Mr. Pigott came. _May 13._--Dr. Andrew Clark came and gave me important suggestions about the studentship. _May 21._--Saw Mr. Anthony Trollope. _May 22._--Came down to Witley--lovely mild day. [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 28th May, 1879.] Mr. Lewes always wrote the dramatic criticisms in the _Leader_, and for a year or two he occasionally wrote such criticisms in the _Pall Mall_. Of the latter, the chief were reprinted in the little book on "Actors, and the Art of Acting." What was written in the _Fortnightly_ (1865-66) is marked by signature. The most characteristic contributions to the _Cornhill_ (1864-65) were "The Mental Condition of Babies," "Dangers and Delights of Tobacco," "Was Nero a Monster?" "Shakespeare in France," and "Miseries of a Dramatic Author." But after 1866 his contributions to any periodical were very scanty--confined to a few articles in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, one on "The Reign of Law," in the _Fortnightly_, and the series on Darwin, now incorporated in "The Physical Basis of Mind." After these, his sole contributions were an article on Dickens (1872), two on "Spiritualism" and "Mesmerism" (1876), and one on "The Dread and Dislike of Science" (1878). Charles, I think, mentioned to you my desire that you should do me the valuable service of looking over the proofs of the remaining volume of "Problems," and you were so generous as to express your willingness to undertake that labor. The printing will not begin till after the 16th--Dr. Michael Foster, who has also kindly offered to help me in the same way, not being sufficiently at leisure till after that date. I have been rather ill again lately, but am hoping to benefit by the country quietude. You, too, I am sorry to hear, are not over strong. This will make your loan of mind and eyesight all the more appreciated by me. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 3d June, 1879.] Your letter, full of details--just the sort of letter I like to have--has been among my comforts in these last damp, chill days. The first week I was not well, and had a troublesome attack of pain, but I am better, and try to make life interesting by always having something to do. I am wishing Margaret many happy returns of this day, and am making a picture of you all keeping the little _fête_. A young birthday, when the young creature is promising, is really a happy time; one can hope reasonably; and the elder ones may be content that gladness has passed onward from them into newer vessels. I should like to see the blue-eyed maid with her bangles on her arms. Please give my love to all and sundry who make any sign of love for me; and any amount you like is ready for you to draw upon. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 10th June, 1879.] I am greatly obliged to you for sending me the paper you are to read to-day; and I appreciate it the more highly because your diligence is in contrast with the general sluggishness of readers about any but idle reading. It is melancholy enough that to most of our polite readers the social factor in psychology would be a dull subject; for it is certainly no conceit of ours which pronounces it to be the supremely interesting element in the thinking of our time. I confess the word factor has always been distasteful to me as the name for the grandest of forces. If it were only mathematical I should not mind, but it has many other associated flavors which spoil it for me. Once more--ever more--thanks. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 10th June, 1879.] You will like to know that Mr. Frederic Harrison has sent me a brief paper, which is to be read to-day at the Metaphysical Society, on the "Social Factor in Psychology," opening with a quotation from the "Study of Psychology," and marking throughout his high appreciation of your father's work. Also the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, kindly sent (with his initials only) to Trübner four errata which he had found in reading the "Study of Psychology." Trübner did not know who was the kind corrector, and very properly sent the paper to me, offering to have the corrections made on the plates if I wished it. I said, "By all means," and have written to thank the Rector. What a blessing to find a man who really reads a book! I have received the enclosed letter, with other papers (about country lodgings at Sevenoaks for poor children). Will you look out a single copy of as many of my books (poems included) as you can find, and send them in a parcel, saying that they come from me for the Free Library? Please not to mind this trouble, as it is for the _impecunious_ readers. (You know I am nothing if not "sesquipedalian" and scientific; and a word of five syllables will do for both qualities.) I wish you could see Coquelin in Tabourin. He is a wonderful actor, when he gets the right part for him. He has a penetrating personality that one cannot be indifferent to, though possibly it may be unpleasant to some people. [Sidenote: Letter to William Blackwood, 12th June, 1879.] I was beginning, with my usual apprehensiveness, to fear that you had no good news to tell me, since I did not hear from you, and I should have gone on fearing till to-morrow morning if I had not happened to drive to Godalming and ask for the second post. We only get one post a day at the benighted Witley, so that if you want me to get a letter quickly it must be posted early at Edinburgh. I am heartily glad to know that the invalid is going on well, and I trust that the softer air we are having now will help him forward. "Theophrastus" seems to be really welcomed by the public. Mr. Blackwood will be amused to hear that one gentleman told Charles, or implied, that "Theophrastus" was a higher order of book, and _more difficult to write_ than a novel. Wait long enough, and every form of opinion will turn up. However, poor "Theophrastus" is certainly not composed of "chips" any more than my other books. Another amusing bit of news is, that the other day Mrs. Pattison sent me an extract from the _livret_ of the Paris _Salon_, describing a picture painted by a French artist from "The Lifted Veil," and representing the moment when the resuscitated woman, fixing her eyes on her mistress, accuses her of having poisoned her husband. I call this amusing--I ought rather to have said typical of the relation my books generally have with the French mind. Thank you for sending me the list of orders. It does interest me to see the various country demands. I hope the movement will continue to cheer us all, and you are sure to let me know everything that is pleasant, so I do not need to ask for that kindness. The weather is decidedly warmer, and Tuesday was a perfectly glorious day. But rain and storm have never let us rest long together. I am not very bright, and am ready to interpret everything in the saddest sense, but I have no definite ailment. My best regards to the convalescent, who, I have no doubt, will write to me when he is able to do so. But I am only one of many who will be glad to hear from him. [Sidenote: Letter from Madame Bodichon to Miss Bonham-Carter, 12th June, 1879.] "I spent an hour with Marian (5th June). She was more delightful than I can say, and left me in good spirits for her--though she is wretchedly thin, and looks, in her long, loose, black dress, like the black shadow of herself. She said she had so much to do that she must keep well--'the world was so _intensely interesting_.' She said she would come _next year_ to see me. We both agreed in the great love we had for life. In fact, I think she will do more for us than ever." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 20th June, 1879.] I have been having my turn of illness of rather a sharp kind. Yesterday, when your letter came, I was in more acute pain than I have ever known in my life before, but before the morning was over I was sufficiently relieved to read your pleasant news. I am writing in bed, but am in that most keenly conscious ease which comes after unusual suffering. The way in which the public takes "Theophrastus" is really a comfort to me. I have had some letters, not of the complimentary, but of the grateful kind, which are an encouragement to believe in the use of writing. But you would be screamingly amused with one, twenty-three pages long (from an Edinburgh man, by-the-bye), who has not read the book, but has read of it, and thinks that his own case is still more worthy of presentation than Merman's. I think a valuable series (or couple of volumes) might be made up from "Maga" of articles written _hot_ by travellers and military men, and not otherwise republished--chronicles and descriptions by eye-witnesses--which might be material for historians. What a comfort that the Afghan war is concluded! But on the back of it comes the black dog of Indian finance, which means, alas! a great deal of hardship to poor Hindûs. Let me hear more news of you before long. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 29th June, 1879.] Your description of the effects you feel from the restless, tormenting winds would serve well to represent my experience too. It seems something incredible written in my memory that when I was a little girl I loved the wind--used to like to walk about when it was blowing great guns. And now the wind is to me what it was to early peoples--a demon-god, cruelly demanding all sorts of human sacrifices. Thank you, dear, for caring whether I have any human angels to guard me. None are permanently here except my servants, but Sir James Paget has been down to see me, I have a very comfortable country practitioner to watch over me from day to day, and there is a devoted friend who is backward and forward continually to see that I lack nothing. It is a satisfaction to me that you felt the need for "Debasing the Moral Currency" to be written. I was determined to do it, though it might make me a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to all the comic tribe. Do not rate my illness too high in the scale of mortal misery. I am prone to make much of my ailments, and am among the worst at enduring pain. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 29th June, 1879.] Thank you for sending me the pretty little book.[37] I am deeply touched by the account of its origin, and I remember well everything you said to me of Mr. Brown in old days when he was still with you. I had only cut a very little way into the volume when a friend came and carried it off, but my eyes had already been arrested by some remarks on the character of Harold Transome, which seemed to me more penetrating and finely felt than almost anything I have read in the way of printed comment on my own writing. When my friend brings back the volume I shall read it reverentially, and most probably with a sense of being usefully admonished. For praise and sympathy arouse much more self-suspicion and sense of shortcoming than all the blame and depreciation of all the Pepins. I am better, and I hope on the way to complete recovery, but I am still at some distance from that goal. Perhaps if the winds would give one some rest from their tormenting importunity, both you and I should get on faster. I am looking forward to reading the "Recollections of Ekowe" in "Maga," which came to me yesterday, with its list of my own doings and misdoings on the cover. Does not this Zulu war seem to you a horribly bad business? [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 30th June, 1879.] Sir Henry Maine has sent me the one letter that has rejoiced my heart about the "Study of Psychology." He says: "In this branch of Mr. Lewes's studies I am almost as one of the ignorant, but I think I have understood every sentence in the book, and I believe I have gained great knowledge from it. It has been the most satisfactory piece of work I have done for a long time." I have written to tell him that he has rescued me from my scepticism as to any one's reading a serious book except the author or editor. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1879.] The sight of your handwriting on the pamphlet sent me urges me to do the sooner what I should have already done but for a rather sharp illness, which has kept me chiefly in bed for nearly a fortnight, and from which I am not yet quite free. I enclose a copy of Michael Foster's draft of conditions for the studentship, which I put into the lawyer's hands some ten or twelve days ago, and which is now come to me drawn up in legal form. You said it would interest you to see the draft, and I have been bearing this in mind, but have not been able to go to the desk where the copy lay. I hope to hear that you have been going on well despite the cruel, restless winds and sad intermittence of sunshine. On the 12th I am going to have two daughters-in-law, _five_ grandchildren, and servant for a week--if I can get well enough, as I have good hope now that I shall. The strawberries will be ripe then, and as I don't eat any myself it would be dolorous not to be able to have the children, and see them enjoy the juicy blessing. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 16th July, 1879.] I was beginning to want some news of you, and was almost ready to ask for it. It is the more welcome for having had time to ripen into a decidedly good report of your condition. About myself I have a very poor story to tell, being now in the fifth week of a troublesome illness, in which, like you, I have been partly fed on "poisonous decoctions." To-day, however, happens to show a considerable improvement in my symptoms, and I have been walking in the warmer air with more ease than hitherto. Driving I have not been able to manage for some time, the motion of the carriage shaking me too much. The best of care has been taken of me. I have an excellent country doctor (Mr. Parsons of Godalming) who watches me daily; and Sir James Paget and Dr. Andrew Clark have been down to add their supervision. I begin to think that if I can avoid any evil condition, such as a chill that would bring on a relapse, I may soon be pretty well again. The point to be achieved is to stop the wasting of my not too solid flesh. I am glad to hear that the third edition of "Theophrastus" has had so lively a movement. If the remainder should be sold off I think it would be well just to print a small number of copies to carry on, and avoid bringing out a cheaper edition too soon after people have been paying for the expensive one. I have been always able to write my letters and read my proofs, usually in bed before the fatigue of dressing, but the rest of my time has been very unprofitable--spent chiefly in pain and languor. I am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 22d July, 1879.] I feel a perhaps too selfish need to tell you that things have gone ill with me since I last wrote to you. Why do I want to let you know this not agreeable news about myself? Chiefly because I want you to be quite clear that if I do not write to say, "When can you come to me?" it is not from indifference, but from misfortune of another sort. Meanwhile it will do me good to have little items of news from you, when you can find half an hour for the kind deed of writing me a letter. What helps me most is to be told things about others, and your letters are just of the sort I like to have. I am just now in one of my easier hours, and the demon wind has abated. He seems to enter into my pains with hideous rejoicing. [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 7th Aug. 1879.] Thank you for your kind note. There are to be more than as many proofs as you have already had, for which I must crave the valuable aid of your reading. You will understand all the better how much comfort it is to me to have your help as well as Professor Foster's, when I tell you that for the last eight weeks I have been seriously out of health, and have often been suffering much pain--a state which I imagine you know by experience to heighten all real anxieties, and usually to create unreal. It cheers me to be told by you that you think the volume interesting. In reading the MS. again and again I had got into a state of tremor about it which deprived me of judgment--just as if it were writing of my own, which I could not trust myself to pronounce upon. I hope that your own health, and Mrs. Sully's too, will have been benefited by your change from south to north. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 11th Aug. 1879.] I think that I am really getting better, and shall have to stay among the minority in this world a little longer than I had expected. Will you send me word how long you shall be at liberty, and whether you would think it worth while to come down to me one morning and stay till the afternoon of the following day? Your letter is delightful to me. Several spiritual kisses for it. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Aug. 1879.] Thank you for your sweet affection. I have had rather a trying illness, which lasted, without great relief, for nearly eight weeks. But I hope that I am now out of it--that is, so far established that I may go on without a relapse. The cold weather was against me, as it was and is against much more important matters. The days of warmth and sunlight which have now and then blessed us have been my best medicine, though I acknowledge the benefit of pepsin and steel, and many other drugs. The gray skies and recurring rain are peculiarly dispiriting to me, and one seems to feel their influence all the more for the wide, beautiful view of field and hill which they sadden and half conceal. In town one thinks less of the sky. If you are ever writing to our dear Mrs. William Smith do give my love to her, and tell her I am very grateful to her for the letter she wrote me with the postmark _Ventnor_ upon it. With her usual delicacy of feeling she did not send her address, so that I could not write in return. [Sidenote: Letter to William Blackwood, 3d Sept. 1879.] I am much obliged to you for writing me your letter of pleasant news. It is wonderful how "Theophrastus" goes on selling in these bad times, and I have only to hope in addition that the buyers will be the better for it. Apparently we shall get through this last edition before Christmas, and then perhaps you will think of adding the volume to the Cabinet Edition. I am especially rejoiced to hear that your uncle is better again, and I trust that Strathtyrum is sharing our sunshine, which will be the best cure for him as for me. I am getting strong, and also am gaining flesh on my moderate scale. It really makes a difference to one's spirits to think that the harvest may now possibly be got in without utter ruin to the produce and unhappy producers. But this year will certainly prove a serious epoch, and initiate many changes in relation to farming. I fear, from what I have read, that the rich Lothians will have to be called compassionately the poor Lothians. By the way, if you happen to want any translation done from the French, and have not just the right person to do it, I think I can recommend a Miss Bradley Jenkins, of 50 Cornwall Road, Wesbourne Park, as one who has an unusually competent knowledge of French. We sat side by side on the same form translating Miss Edgeworth into French when we were girls. I have not seen her for many years, but I know that she has been engaged in a high order of teaching, and I have lately heard from her that she is anxious to get work of the kind in question. She already spoke French well when we were pupils together, and she has since been an unintermitting student. I wonder, talking of translators, how the young Mr. Ferrier is going on, who translated Kaufmann's pamphlet on "Deronda." What Mr. Blackwood told me of him interested me about his future. Oblige us all by not falling into another accident when the next hunting season comes. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 3d Sept. 1879.] Before I received your letter the other day I was intending to write to you to ask whether, now that I am stronger and the fine weather shows some signs of permanence, you feel any revival of the inclination to come and see me for a couple of days. I hardly like to propose your taking the journey, now that you are not being brought near me by other visits--for the railway from you to us is, I think, rather tiresome. But if your inclination really lies towards coming you will be affectionately welcomed. About the sea-side I am hopeless. The latter part of October is likely to be too cold for me to move about without risk of chills; and I hope to be back in town before the end of the month. I am not very fond of the sea-side, and this year it is likely to be crowded with people who have been hindered by the bad weather from going earlier. I prefer the Surrey hills and the security from draughts in one's own home. The one attraction of a coast place to me is a great breadth of sand to pace on when it is in its fresh firmness after the fall of the tide. But the sea itself is melancholy to me, only a little less so under warm sunlight, with plenty of fishing-smacks changing their shadows. All this is to let you know why I do not yield to the attraction of being with you, where we could chat as much or as little as we liked. I feel very much your affectionateness in wishing to have me near you. Write me word soon whether you feel able to come as far as this for my sake. [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 10th Sept. 1879.] I have read the article[38] with very grateful feelings. I think that he would himself have regarded it as a generally just estimate. And I am much obliged to you for sending it to me in proof. Your selection of subjects for remark, and the remarks themselves, are in accordance with my feeling to a comforting extent; and I shall always remain your debtor for writing the article. I trust you will not be forced to omit anything about his scientific and philosophical work, because that is the part of his life's labor which he most valued. Perhaps you a little underrate the (original) effect of his "Life of Goethe in Germany." It was received with enthusiasm, and an immense number of copies, in both the English and German form, have been sold in Germany since its appearance in 1854. I wish you were allowed to put your name to the article. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 17th Sept. 1879.] I am getting strong now after a long spell of medical discipline. All these long months I have been occupied with my husband's manuscripts: also with the foundation of a Physiological Studentship, which is my monument to his memory, and which is now all settled, as you may perhaps have seen by advertisements.[39] But I am not yet through the proof-reading of the final volume of "Problems of Life and Mind," which will contain the last sheets he ever wrote. I hear very good accounts of Madame Bodichon, who is coming to me for a couple of days on the 29th. You are wonderful for life and energy, in spite of your delicate looks. May you have all the strength you need for your sympathetic tasks! [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 7th Oct. 1879.] I have not yet thanked you--and I do so now very gratefully--for the help you have given me in my sad and anxious task. Your eyes have been a most precious aid, not only as a matter of fact, but as a ground of confidence. For I am not at all a good proof-reader, and have a thorough distrust of myself. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 18th Oct. 1879.] I cannot wish not to have been cheered by your triple letter, even though I have caused you to rise earlier in the morning, and to feel a disproportionate remorse. "Maggior difetto men vergogna lava," as says Virgil to the blushing Dante. And you have given me the fuller measure because I had to wait a little. Your legend of "Fair Women" interests me very much. I feel a citizen of the world again, knowing all the news. But the core of good news in your letter is that your husband is well again, and again happy in his work. Your collapse is what I feared for you; and you must call the getting change of air and scene--I was going to say "a duty," but are you one of those wonderful beings who find everything easier under that name? But at least one prefers doing a hard duty to grimacing with a pretence of pleasure in things that are no pleasure. I am greatly comforted this morning by the fact that the (apparently) right man is found for the George Henry Lewes Studentship--an ardent worker, who could not have carried on his pursuit without this help. I know you are not unmindful of what touches me deeply. Go on your visit, dear, and come back well--then show yourself without unnecessary delay to your loving friend. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, Saturday, 20th Oct. 1879.] I have had a delightful bit of news from Dr. Foster this morning. He had mentioned to me before that there was an Edinburgh student whom he had in his mind as the right one to elect. This morning he writes: "The trustees meet to-morrow to receive my nomination. I have chosen Dr. Charles Roy, an Edinburgh man, and Scotchman--not one of my own pupils. He is, I think, the most promising--by far the most promising--of our young physiologists, putting aside those who do not need the pecuniary assistance of the studentship. And the help comes to him just when it is most needed--he is in full swing of work, and was casting about for some means of supporting himself which would least interfere with his work, when I called his attention to the studentship. I feel myself very gratified that I can, at the very outset, recommend just the man, as it appears to me, for the post." This is a thing your father would have chosen as a result of his life. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, Tuesday, 27th Oct. 1879.] I have just had some news that grieves me. Mr. Blackwood is dangerously ill, and I fear, from Mr. William's letter, that there is little hope of recovery. He will be a heavy loss to me. He has been bound up with what I most cared for in my life for more than twenty years; and his good qualities have made many things easy to me that, without him, would often have been difficult.[40] I wrote to Mr. Trübner to tell him that the printing of the "Problems" being finished, I should be glad if he would arrange with you about the conditions of publication. Bear in mind your father's wish that the volumes should not be made dearer than necessary. I am going to Weybridge on Friday, and I intend to be at the Priory by Saturday before dusk. But it is _just possible_ I may be detained till Monday morning. So if you have any good occupation for Sunday you had better call on your way home on Monday. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 29th Oct. 1879.] Your affectionate note would quite have determined me to do what, when your brother kindly proposed it, raised a certain longing in me. I thought that I should like to see you all in the remembered home again. But I have had a little check in health, and I am feeling so depressed that I shrink from making any engagement which involves others. A visitor to-day and my own languor threatens to throw me backward in my arrangements for leaving, and I have a sense of impossibility about everything that, under other conditions, would be a pleasure. I am afraid lest a fit of sadness should make me an oppression to you all; and my conclusion this morning is that I must give up the few hours' happiness of feeling your family love around me as I used to do, and simply go straight up to town with my servants. But if Friday morning brings me better hopes I will telegraph to you, since you allow me to wait till the eleventh hour. If you receive no telegram you will understand that I am still too downhearted to venture on a visit even to those who are among the best-loved of my friends. In that case you must all make me amends for my loss by coming to see me in the old place in town. Came to Weybridge on 31st October, and returned to the Priory on 1st November. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 8th Nov. 1879.] I came here just a week ago, and I had a superstition that you would come to me yesterday. But I used no enchantments--and so you didn't come. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1879, from the Priory.] I am very grateful to you for your kind letter. News about you all had been much desired by me; but I have now so many business letters to write that I am apt to defer such as are not absolutely necessary. The careful index is a sign of your effective industry, and I have no doubt that it will be a great help to yourself as well as to your readers. One very often needs an index to one's own writing. My chief objects are quite completed now. The Dr. Roy appointed to the studentship is held by competent persons to be the most hopeful of our young physiologists: and there is a volume of 501 pages (the last) of "Problems of Life and Mind" ready to appear next month. I am quite recovered from the ailment which made me good for little in the summer, and indeed am stronger than I ever expected to be again. People are very good to me, and I am exceptionally blessed in many ways; but more blessed are the dead who rest from their labors, and have not to dread a barren, useless survival. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th Dec. 1879, from the Priory.] I am very well, dear kind friend, all things considered. One cannot help getting occasional chills and headaches in this hard, wintry time. Oh, yes, I read the _Times_ with great interest, and am much concerned to know what my contemporaries are doing. My time is very fully occupied, for I have now to write a great many letters, such as used to be written for me, and I would willingly spend the time thus taken up in another sort of reading and writing. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 5th Jan. 1880.] Thank you a thousand times, my dear friend, for your tender New Year's greeting and inquiries. I have passed well from "under the saws and harrows" of the severe cold, and am better, both in apparent organic soundness and in strength for all occupation, than I once thought was possible for me. Our dear Barbara is painting in water colors again from her window--just as of old. I know you will be glad to hear of this. And I am now seeing many other friends, who interest me and bring me reports of their several worlds. The great public calamities of the past year have helped to quiet one's murmuring spirit in relation to private sorrows, and the prospect for the future is not yet very bright. One thinks of mothers like Mrs. Ruck, whose best-loved sons are in Afghanistan. But we must live as much as we can for human joy, dwelling on sorrow and pain only so far as the consciousness of it may help us in striving to remedy them. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 19th Jan. 1880.] Life has seemed worse without my glimpses of you. And now I have not the amends of thinking that you are out of our Egyptian darkness and getting health in the country. I must drive over to ask about you as soon as I can. As the year went on, George Eliot began to see all her old friends again. But her life was nevertheless a life of heart-loneliness. Accustomed as she had been for so many years to solitude _à deux_, the want of close companionship continued to be very bitterly felt. She was in the habit of going with me very frequently to the National Gallery, and to other exhibitions of pictures, to the British Museum sculptures, and to South Kensington. This constant association engrossed me completely, and was a new interest to her. A bond of mutual dependence had been formed between us. On the 28th March she came down to Weybridge and stayed till the 30th; and on the 9th April it was finally decided that our marriage should take place as soon, and as privately, as might be found practicable. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 13th April, 1880.] You can hardly think how sweet the name sister is to me, that I have not been called by for so many, many years. Without your tenderness I do not believe it would have been possible for me to accept this wonderful renewal of my life. Nothing less than the prospect of being loved and welcomed by you all could have sustained me. But now I cherish the thought that the family life will be the richer and not the poorer through your brother's great gift of love to me. Yet I quail a little in facing what has to be gone through--the hurting of many whom I care for. You are doing everything you can to help me, and I am full of gratitude to you all for his sake as well as my own. The springs of affection are reopened in me, and it will make me better to be among you--more loving and trustful. I valued Florence's little visit very much. You and she will come again--will you not?--to your sister. [Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 19th April, 1880.] I have found the spot in "The Prelude" where the passage I mentioned occurs. It is in book viii., "The Retrospect," towards the end: "The human nature unto which I felt That I belonged, and reverenced with love, Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit Diffused through time and space, with aid derived Of evidence from monuments, erect, Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime Of vanished nations." The bit of brickwork in the rock is "With aid derived from evidence." I think you would find much to suit your purpose in "The Prelude," such as-- "There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead." Except for travelling, and for popular distribution, I prefer Moxon's one-volumed edition of Wordsworth to any selection. No selection gives you the perfect gems to be found in single lines, or in half a dozen lines which are to be found in the "dull" poems. I am sorry Matthew Arnold has not included the sonnet beginning-- "I griev'd for Buonaparté with a vain And an unthinking grief--" and which has these precious lines, "'Tis not in battles that from youth we train The governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. _Wisdom doth live with children round her knees._" Has he the magnificent sonnet on Toussaint l'Ouverture? I don't know where there is anything finer than the last eight lines of it. Please don't acknowledge this note, else you will neutralize my pleasure in sending it by making me feel that I have given you trouble. [Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Lady Lytton, 24th April, 1880.] The beautiful photograph has reached me safely, and I am very grateful to you for your kindness in sending it to me. In comparing it with the photograph which you gave me seven or eight years ago I see the effect of a saddening experience which the years must bring to us all, but, to my feeling, the face is the more endearing because of that effect. You have been very often in my thoughts, because I have associated you with public affairs, and have imagined sympathetically how they must have affected your private life. I am sure that this momentous experience in India has been a hard discipline both for you and for Lord Lytton. I can imagine he has often been sick at heart with the near vision, which his post forces on him, of human meanness and rancor. You, too, must have gathered some melancholy knowledge of that sort, which has perhaps changed a little the curves of the mouth and the glance of the eyes since those Vienna days, when the delightful M. de Villers helped to make the hours pleasant to us. I saw the photographs of your daughters, which gave me an idea how fast the dramatic authoress has developed physically as well as mentally. When I first saw her at Vienna she was the prettiest little rosebud. Mrs. Strachey called the other day when I was out, and among other reasons for my being sorry not to have seen her, was the having missed some authentic news about your probable movements. What happens to you will always have interest for me, since I have long been, with sincere regard, yours most truly. On the 24th April George Eliot came down to Weybridge, and stayed till the 26th. [Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 26th April, 1880.] I am deeply obliged to you for the care with which you have treated the final volume of "The Problems" in the _Academy_, which you have kindly sent me. I think you could hardly have written more effectively towards exciting an interest in the work in the minds of the comparatively few who really care for the study of psychology. You have added one more to the obligations which will make me always yours gratefully. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th May, 1880.] I have something to tell you which will doubtless be a great surprise to you; but since I have found that other friends, less acquainted with me and my life than you are, have given me their sympathy, I think that I can count on yours. I am going to do what not very long ago I should myself have pronounced impossible for me, and therefore I should not wonder at any one else who found my action incomprehensible. By the time you receive this letter I shall (so far as the future can be matter of assertion) have been married to Mr. J. W. Cross, who, you know, is a friend of years, a friend much loved and trusted by Mr. Lewes, and who, now that I am alone, sees his happiness in the dedication of his life to me. This change in my position will make no change in my care for Mr. Lewes's family, and in the ultimate disposition of my property. Mr. Cross has a sufficient fortune of his own. We are going abroad for a few months, and I shall not return to live at this house. Mr. Cross has taken the lease of a house, No. 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where we shall spend the winter and early spring, making Witley our summer home. I indulge the hope that you will some day look at the river from the windows of our Chelsea house, which is rather quaint and picturesque. Please tell Bessie[41] for me, with my love to her. I cannot write to more than two or three persons. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 5th May, 1880.] A great, momentous change is going to take place in my life. My indisposition last week and several other subsequent circumstances have hindered me from communicating it to you, and the time has been but short since the decision was come to. But with your permission Charles will call on you and tell you what he can on Saturday. Yours and Emily's ever, with unchanging love. [Sidenote: Journal, 1880.] _May 6._--Married this day at 10.15 to John Walter Cross, at St. George's, Hanover Square. Present, Charles, who gave me away, Mr. and Mrs. Druce, Mr. Hall, William, Mary, Eleanor, and Florence Cross. We went back to the Priory, where we signed our wills. Then we started for Dover and arrived there a little after five o'clock. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 9th May, 1880.] Your letter was a sweet greeting to us on our arrival here yesterday. We had a millennial cabin on the deck of the Calais-Douvres, and floated over the strait as easily as the saints float upward to heaven (in the pictures). At Amiens we were very comfortably housed, and paid two enraptured visits, evening and morning, to the cathedral. I was delighted with J.'s delight in it. And we read our dear old cantos of the "Inferno" that we were reading a year ago, declining afterwards on "Eugénie Grandet." The nice woman who waited on us made herself very memorable to me by her sketch of her own life. She went to England when she was nineteen as a lady's maid--had been much _ennuyée de sa mère_, detested _les plaisirs_, liked only her regular every-day work and _la paix_. Here we have a very fair _appartement_, and plenty of sunlight, _au premier_. Before dinner we walked up to the Arc de l'Étoile and back again, enjoying the lovely greenth and blossoms of the horse-chestnuts, which are in their first glory, innocent of dust or of one withered petal. This morning at twelve o'clock we are going to the Russian church, where J. has never been, and where I hope we shall hear the wonderful intoning and singing as I heard it years ago. This is the chronicle of our happy married life, three days long--all its happiness conscious of a dear background in those who are loving us at Weybridge, at Thornhill, and at Ranby. You are all inwoven into the pattern of my thoughts, which would have a sad lack without you. I like to go over again in imagination all the scene in the church and in the vestry, and to feel every loving look from the eyes of those who were rejoicing for us. Besides Professor Sellar's letter, which touched J. with grateful surprise, we have had one to him from Mr. Frederic Harrison, saying everything affectionate, and two very finely felt letters from Edith Simcox--one to him enclosing the one to me. Certainly, she has a rare generosity and elevation which find their easy channel in writing. My love to Henry and to the gentle Berthe,[42] who was an invisible presence at our wedding. I think I must thank Florence, too, for her letter to J.; for we accept to the full the principle of "what is mine is thine" on each side. What most comforted him this morning was a letter from Albert Druce about the Chelsea house. His usual exclamation over anything from Albert is that his brother-in-law is the most satisfactory of men! Write us word about everything, and consider yourselves all very much loved and spiritually petted by your loving sister. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st May, 1880, from Grenoble.] This place is so magnificently situated, in a smiling valley, with the Isère flowing through it, and surrounded by grand and various lines of mountains, and we were so enraptured by our expedition yesterday to the Grande Chartreuse that we congratulate ourselves greatly on our choice of route. I think it unlikely that we shall want to wander beyond the second week in July. We shall begin to long for home just when the rest of the London world are longing for travel. We are seeing nature in her happiest moment now--the foliage on all the tremendous heights, the soft slopes, and the richly clad valleys on the way to the Chartreuse is all fresh and tender, shone through by a sunlight which cherishes and does not burn us. I had but one regret in seeing the sublime beauty of the Grande Chartreuse. It was that the Pater had not seen it. I would still give up my own life willingly if he could have the happiness instead of me. But marriage has seemed to restore me to my old self. I was getting hard, and if I had decided differently, I think I should have become very selfish. To feel daily the loveliness of a nature close to me, and to feel grateful for it, is the fountain of tenderness and strength to endure. Glorious weather always, and I am very well--quite amazingly able to go through fatigue. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Florence Cross, 25th May, 1880.] Our life since we wrote to you has been a chapter of delights--Grenoble--Grande Chartreuse--Chambéry--paradisiacal walk to Les Charmettes--roses gathered in Jean Jacques' garden--Mont Cenis Tunnel and emergence into Italian sunshine. Milan, comfortable _appartement_, delicious privacy, and great minds condescending to relax themselves! We got here yesterday, and of course our first walk was to the post, where we found your delightful budget and other letters, which we took to a _café_ in the grand _galleria_ and read at our ease to the accompaniment of tea. Two of my letters yesterday touched me very gratefully. One was from "Brother Jimmy"--the prettiest letter possible. The other letter that moved me was one from my own brother. Then J. had a graceful letter of congratulation from Mr. Henry James, who is still at Florence. I think you did not send that letter of Mr. Edmund Gurney's which you mention. I am fond of seeing the letters which put my friends in an amiable light for my imagination. And now that I have had that charming letter from my new brother in America, I feel that my family initiation is complete. No woman was ever more sweetly received by brothers and sisters than I have been; and it is a happy, new longing in my life that I may return into their bosoms some of the gladness they have poured into mine. I have been uninterruptedly well, and feel quite strong with all sorts of strength except strong-mindedness. We are going to hear the music in the Duomo at eleven, and after that we intend to pay our first visit to the Brera gallery. It is our present plan to stay here for some days, and we enjoy the thought of a little stationary life such as we have not had since we left Paris. We often talk of our sisters, oftener think of them. You are our children, you know. [Sidenote: Letter to Isaac P. Evans, 26th May, 1880.] Your letter was forwarded to me here, and it was a great joy to me to have your kind words of sympathy, for our long silence has never broken the affection for you which began when we were little ones. My husband, too, was much pleased to read your letter. I have known his family for eleven years, and they have received me among them very lovingly. The only point to be regretted in our marriage is that I am much older than he; but his affection has made him choose this lot of caring for me rather than any other of the various lots open to him. Emily Clarke has lately sent me rather a sad account of Sarah's[43] health. I trust that it is now better, for I think it is her lungs that chiefly trouble her, and summer may act beneficently on them. Please give my love to her, and tell her that I like the assurance of her share in the good wishes you send me. I have often heard of Frederick[44] through the admiration of those who have heard him preach; and it has been a happy thought to me that you and Sarah must feel it a great comfort to have him as well as Walter settled near you. Edith is the only one of your children whom I have seen since they have been grown up, and I thought her a noble-looking woman. We are going to remain abroad until some time in July, and shall then return to the Heights, Witley, Surrey. Our home in London will be 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, looking on a very picturesque bit of the river. I hope that your own health is quite good now, and that you are able to enjoy the active life which I know you are fond of. Always your affectionate sister. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 28th May, 1880.] Many thanks for your delightful letter, which came to me yesterday, with a loving though brief letter from Mrs. Congreve to keep it company in making the day agreeable. We arrived here on Monday, and have been induced by a nice quiet apartment and pleasant attendance to carry out our plan of resting here and deliberately seeing what is to be seen in this cheerful, prosperous city. I am glad to find that the Luini pictures come up to my remembrance, and that J. is much impressed by his introduction to them. I continue remarkably well, and am every day surprising myself by the amount of walking, standing, and looking that I can go through. To-morrow or the next day we intend to go on to Verona, then, after a sufficient pause to enjoy that glorious place, we shall move on to Padua and Venice, where it will be best for you to send anything you may have to send. I like to see the letters. They make one realize the fact of one's home and little world there amid the dreaminess of foreign travel. We take our meals in our own apartment and see nothing of our fellow-guests in the hotel--only hear their British and American voices when they air themselves in the _cortile_ after their dinner. The weather has hitherto been delicious, not excessively warm, always with a pleasant movement in the air; but this morning there is a decided advance in heat, and we shall both have our theory of great heat being the best thing for us well tested in the next month. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 29th May and 1st June, 1880, from Verona.] The change I make in the date of this letter is a sign of the difficulty you well know that one finds in writing all the letters one wants to write while travelling. Ever since Charles forwarded to me your dear letter while I was in Paris I have been meaning to write to you. That letter was doubly sweet to me because it was written before you received mine, _intended_ to inform you of my marriage before it appeared in the newspapers. Charles says that my friends are chiefly hurt because I did not tell them of the approaching change in my life. But I really did not finally, absolutely, decide--I was in a state of doubt and struggle--until only a fortnight before the event took place, so that at last everything was done in the utmost haste. However, there were four or five friends, of whom you were one, to whom I was resolved to write, so that they should at least get my letter on the morning of the 6th. I had more than once said to Mr. Cross that you were that one of my friends who required the least explanation on the subject--who would spontaneously understand our marriage. But Charles sends me word that my friends in general are very sympathetic, and I should like to mention to you that Bessie[45] is one whose very kind words he has sent to me, for you may have an opportunity of giving my love to her, and telling her that it is very sweet to me to feel that her affection is constant to me in this as it was in other crises of my life. I wish, since you can no longer come in and out among us as you used to do, that you already knew my husband better. His family welcome me with the uttermost tenderness. All this is wonderful blessing falling to me beyond my share, after I had thought that my life was ended, and that, so to speak, my coffin was ready for me in the next room. Deep down below there is a hidden river of sadness, but this must always be with those who have lived long--and I am able to enjoy my newly reopened life. I shall be a better, more loving creature than I could have been in solitude. To be constantly, lovingly grateful for the gift of a perfect love is the best illumination of one's mind to all the possible good there may be in store for man on this troublous little planet. We leave Verona to-day, and stay a little at Padua on our way to Venice. Hitherto we have had delightful weather, and just the temperature we rejoice in. We are both fond of warmth, and could bear more heat than we have the prospect of at present. Yesterday we had a drive on the skirting heights of Verona, and saw the vast fertile plain around, with the Euganean hills, blue in the distance, and the Apennines just dimly visible on the clear margin of the horizon. I am always made happier by seeing well-cultivated land. We came into Italy by way of Grenoble (seeing the Grande Chartreuse), Chambéry, and the Mont Cenis Tunnel; since then we have been staying at Milan and enjoying the Luini frescoes and a few other great things there. The great things are always by comparison few, and there is much everywhere one would like to help seeing, after it has once served to give one a notion of historical progression. We shall stay at Venice for ten days or a fortnight; so if you have a scribe, or would write yourself, to tell me that all is going on well with you, the letter would not, as the Scotch say, "go amissing." [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 9th June, 1880, from Venice.] We both enjoyed reading your letter on the morning after our arrival at this enchanting city, where the glorious light, with comparative stillness and total absence of dust, makes a paradise much more desirable than that painted by Tintoretto on the wall of the Consiglio Maggiore. Nothing but the advent of mosquitoes would make it easy for us to tear ourselves away from this place, where every prospect pleases, but also where one is obliged to admit that man is somewhat vile. I am sadly disappointed in the aspect of the Venetian populace. Even physically they look less endowed than I thought them when we were here under the Austrian dominion. We have hardly seen a sweet or noble woman's face since we arrived; but the men are not quite so ill-looking as the women. The singing here (by itinerant performers in gondolas) is disgraceful to Venice and to Italy. Coarse voices, much out of tune, make one shudder when they strike suddenly under the window. Our days here are passed quite deliciously. We see a few beautiful pictures or other objects of interest, and dwell on them sufficiently every morning, not hurrying ourselves to do much; and afterwards we have a _giro_ in our gondola, enjoying the air and the sight of marvellous Venice from various points of view and under various aspects. Hitherto we have had no _heat_, only warmth, with a light breeze. To-day, for the first time, one thinks that violent exercise must be terribly trying for our red-skinned fellow-mortals at work on the gondolas and the barges. But for us it is only pleasant to find the air warm enough for sitting out in the evening. We shall not soon run away from Venice unless some plague--_e.g._, mosquitoes--should arise to drive us. We edify ourselves with what Ruskin has written about Venice, in an agreeable pamphlet shape, using his knowledge gratefully, and shutting our ears to his wrathful innuendoes against the whole modern world. And we are now nearly at the end of Alfieri's autobiography, which is a deeply interesting study of character. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 10th June, 1880.] It may well seem incredible to you, for it is hardly credible to myself, that while I have been longing to write to you ever since I received your dear letter, I have not found the time to satisfy my longing. Perhaps you are more able than most people to conceive the difficulty of getting a clear half-hour between the business of travelling and the attention to little details of packing and toilet, over and above the companionship of talk and reading. Certainly I have thought of you all the more, but you have not known that, and I have lost my claim to hear about you--a use and wont which I would not willingly part with. I wonder whether you have imagined--I believe that you are quick to imagine for the benefit of others--all the reasons why it was left at last to Charles to tell you of the great, once undreamed-of change in my life. The momentous decision, in fact, was not made till scarcely more than a fortnight before my marriage; and even if opportunity had lent itself to my confiding everything to you, I think I could hardly have done it at a time when your presence filled me rather with a sense of your and Emily's trouble[46] than with my own affairs. Perhaps Charles will have told you that the marriage deprives no one of any good I felt bound to render before--it only gives me a more strenuous position, in which I cannot sink into the self-absorption and laziness I was in danger of before. The whole history is something like a miracle-legend. But instead of any former affection being displaced in my mind, I seem to have recovered the loving sympathy that I was in danger of losing. I mean, that I had been conscious of a certain drying-up of tenderness in me, and that now the spring seems to have risen again. Who could take your place within me or make me amends for the loss of you? And yet I should not take it bitterly if you felt some alienation from me. Such alienation is very natural where a friend does not fulfil expectations of long standing. We have already been ten days at Venice, but we hope to remain as long again, not fearing the heat, which has hitherto been only a false alarm in the minds of English travellers. If you could find time to send me word how you all are--yourself, Dr. Congreve after his holiday, and Emily, with all her cares about removal--a letter sent to the _Poste Restante_ here would reach me, even if we had left before the next ten days were over. We shall hardly be at Witley before the middle of July: but the sense of neighborhood to you at Witley is sadly ended now. We thought too little of the heat, and rather laughed at English people's dread of the sun. But the mode of life at Venice has its peculiar dangers. It is one thing to enjoy heat when leading an active life, getting plenty of exercise in riding or rowing in the evenings; it is another thing to spend all one's days in a gondola--a delicious, dreamy existence--going from one church to another--from palaces to picture-galleries--sight-seeing of the most exhaustively interesting kind--traversing constantly the _piccoli rei_, which are nothing more than drains, and with bedroom-windows always open on the great drain of the Grand Canal. The effect of this continual bad air, and the complete and sudden deprivation of all bodily exercise, made me thoroughly ill. As soon as I could be moved we left Venice, on the 23d of June, and went to Innspruck, where we stayed for a week, and in the change to the pure, sweet, mountain air I soon regained strength. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 7th July, 1880, from Stuttgart.] I was made very glad by Gertrude's letter, which assured me that Witley had been enjoyed by you and the little ones. We stayed six days at Innspruck, finding it more and more beautiful under the sunshine which had been wanting to it during our first two days. Then we went on to Munich, and yesterday we arrived here, as a temporary resting-place on our way to Wildbad, which, we hope, will put the finishing-touch to J.'s recovery of his usual health. I wish I had been able to let you know in time that you could have remained a little longer at Witley, as I think we shall hardly be at home before the 20th if we find Wildbad what we want. Your _Mutter_ is marvellously well and strong. It seems more natural to her to have anxiety than to be free from it. Let us hope that she will not run down like a jelly-fish now that her anxiety is over. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 13th July, 1880, from Wildbad.] I received your welcome letter yesterday morning, and felt inclined to answer it the next minute. J. is quite well again, but is inclined to linger a little in the sweet air of the Schwarzwald, which comes to one on gently stirred wings, laden with the scent of the pine forests. We mean to drive from here to Baden, which is within easy distance. Yesterday we sallied forth for a walk over the mountain, to a place where we could rest and lunch, returning in the afternoon. The sky was brilliant. But in half an hour the clouds gathered and threatened a storm. We were prudent enough to turn back, and by the time we were in the hotel again the thunder was rolling and the rain pouring down. This continued till about two o'clock, and then again the sky became clear. I never saw so incalculable a state of weather as we have in this valley. One quarter of an hour the blue sky is only flecked by lightest cirrus clouds, the next it is almost hidden by dark rain clouds. But we are going to start on our promised expedition this morning, the sunshine flattering us that it is quite confirmed. I think you had better address your next letter _Poste Restante_, Strasburg, as I am uncertain how long we shall rest at Baden. Left Wildbad on the 17th July, and had a delightful drive through the Black Forest by Herrenalb to Baden, and thence by Strasburg, Metz, Luxemburg, and Brussels, arriving at Witley on Monday the 26th of July. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st Aug. 1880.] We arrived here in all safety last Monday, and if I had not had your welcome little note this morning I think I should soon have written to you without any such extra stimulus. Mr. Cross had a sharp but brief attack at Venice, due to the unsanitary influences of that wondrous city in the later weeks of June. We stayed a little too long there, with a continuous sirocco blowing, and bad smells under the windows of the hotel; and these conditions found him a little below par from long protracted anxiety before our marriage. But ever since we left Venice (on the 23d of June) he has been getting strong again, and we have enjoyed a leisurely journey through Germany in constant warmth and sunshine, save for an occasional thunderstorm. The climate in this beloved country of ours is a sad exchange, and makes one think of a second bad harvest, with all its consequences. Still, it is a delight to be at home and enjoy perfect stillness, after the noisiness of foreign bells and foreign voices indoors and out. It would be very pretty to pay you a visit next April, if we are all alive, and I think Mr. Cross would like it very much. He sends you, hoping you will accept them, his best remembrances, which have been kept up by our often talking about you. I have been amazingly well through all the exertion of our travels, and in the latter half of the time have done a great deal of walking. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 2d Aug. 1880.] How sweet of you to write me a little welcome as soon as you knew that I was at home again. Yes, we are both well now, and _glad_ to be at home again, though the change of climate is not of the exhilarating sort. One is so sorry for all the holiday-makers, whose best enjoyment of these three days would have been in the clear air and sunshine. Do not reproach me for not telling you of my marriage beforehand. It is difficult to speak of what surprises ourselves, and the decision was sudden, though not the friendship which led to the decision. My heart thoroughly responds to your remembrance of our long--our thirty-years' relation to each other. Let me tell you this once what I have said to others--that I value you as one of the purest-minded, gentlest-hearted women I have ever known, and where such a feeling exists, friendship can live without much aid from sight. We shall probably not be in town again till the beginning of November. Our address then will be 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where we shall have an outlook on the river and meadows beyond. Just now we have the prospect of going on family visits to married sisters, which prevents us from feeling quite settled. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 12th Aug. 1880.] I expected your letter, and expected, too, just the sort of letter I have received, telling me everything delightfully. I can follow you everywhere in your journeying except to Ober Wesel. I hope you will have enjoyed St. Blasien and some of the walks there consecrated by the beloved Pater's footsteps. We reversed your drive and went to Freiburg, so that I can enter into your enjoyment of the Höllenthal. I am glad that your weather has been temperate. Here we have now had four sunny and really hot days, and this morning promises to be the fifth. That is consolatory as to the harvest, and is very agreeable as to our private life. The last two evenings we have walked in the garden after eight o'clock--the first time by starlight, the second under a vapory sky, with the red moon setting. The air was perfectly still and warm, and I felt no need of extra clothing. Our life has had no more important events than calls from neighbors and our calls in return. To-morrow we pay our visit to the Druces at Sevenoaks, where, you may remember, Mr. Druce has built a beautiful house. At the beginning of September we are to visit Mr. and Mrs. Otter at Ranby, and after that we shall go to Six-Mile Bottom for a day or two. Then our wanderings will be over. I went to the Priory the other day, and found a treatise on Blood Pressure, by Dr. Roy, which he had sent me there, and which he has published as the "George Henry Lewes Student." I imagine that he has come to pursue his studies in England, as he intended to do. Delbeuf's article on the last volume of the "Problems" (in the Belgian _Athenæum_) is very nicely done. He has read the book. I am pretty well, but find myself more languid than I was when abroad. I think the cause is perhaps the moisture of the climate. There is something languorous in this climate, or, rather, in its effects. J. gets a little better every day, and so each day is more enjoyable. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 9th Sept. 1880.] We have just come home after paying family visits in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, else I should have answered your letter earlier. The former one reached me in Venice, when I was in great trouble on account of Mr. Cross's illness. I had had reason to believe that my letters, ordered to be posted on the 5th of May, had not been delivered; so I asked Charles to inquire about the letter I wrote to you--not because it demanded an answer, but because I wished you to know that I had written. I am so glad to know that you have been enjoying our brief English summer. The good harvest makes the country everywhere cheerful, and we have been in great, even districts where the fields, full of sheaves or studded with ricks, stretch wide as a prairie. Now, we hope not to leave this place again till November, when we intend to go to Chelsea for the winter and earliest spring. I almost envy you the opportunity of seeing Wombwell's Menagerie. I suppose I got more delight out of that itinerant institution when I was nine or ten years old than I have ever got out of the Zoological Gardens. The smells and the sawdust mingled themselves with my rapture. Everything was good. It was very dear of you to write to me before you finished your holiday. My love attends you all. [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 14th Sept. 1880.] Your letter this morning is a welcome assurance about you. We have been away in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, paying visits to the Otters and the Halls. The weather, which is now broken, was glorious through all our wandering, which we made very interesting by pausing to see Ely, Peterborough, and Lincoln cathedrals. The Otters have a very pretty, happy household. He is a country gentleman now, acting as a magistrate, and glancing towards Parliament. But he keeps up his reading, and is delightful to talk to. Emily looks very pretty in her matronly position, with three little children. The Halls, too, are very pleasant to behold in their home life. He has done wonders in building nice cottages and schools, and sinking wells where they were wanted, and founding a co-operative store--and, in general, doing whatever opportunity allows towards slowly improving this confused world. We saw (at Six-Mile Bottom) Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick. Perhaps you know that they have had, and have, the admirable public spirit to let their house and arrange to live for a year in the new Newnham House, in order to facilitate matters for the double institution. We are very well. Mr. Cross gets stronger and brighter every day. We often mention you, because you are associated with so many of my memories. Our only bugbear--it is a very little one--is the having to make preliminary arrangements towards settling ourselves in the new house (4 Cheyne Walk). It is a quaint house; and a Mr. Armitage of Manchester, of whom you may have heard, has been superintending the decoration and furnishing, but not to the exclusion of old things, which we must carry and stow, especially wallings of books. I am become so lazy that I shrink from all such practical work. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 23d Sept. 1880.] I have been and am suffering under an attack of a comparatively mild sort, but I expect to be well in two or three days, and am just going to drive to Godalming to meet my husband. Hence I write this hurriedly. We should like to see you and Gertrude from Saturday to Monday some week next month if it would be pleasant to you. This attack was a recurrence of the renal disorder of the previous year. On the 29th September we went for ten days to Brighton as the most accessible place for a bracing change. The first effects of the sea breezes were encouraging, but the improvement was not maintained. Shortly after our return to Witley Dr. Andrew Clark,[47] "the beloved physician," came down to consult with Mr. Parsons of Godalming--on 22d October. From that time there was gradual but slow improvement, and, during November, a decided recovery of strength. But an English autumn was not favorable to the invalid. Her sensibility to climatic influences was extreme. It will have been noticed in the preceding letters how constantly change of air and scene was required. I had never seen my wife out of England, previous to our marriage, except the first time at Rome, when she was suffering. My general impression, therefore, had been that her health was always very low, and that she was almost constantly ailing. Moreover, I had been with her very frequently during her long, severe illness at Witley in 1879. I was the more surprised, after our marriage, to find that from the day she set her foot on Continental soil till the day she returned to Witley she was never ill--never even unwell. She began at once to look many years younger. During the eleven years of our acquaintance I had never seen her so strong in health. The greater dryness and lightness of the atmosphere seemed to have a magical effect. At Paris we spent our mornings at the Louvre or the Luxembourg, looking at pictures or sculpture, or seeing other sights--always fatiguing work. In the afternoons we took long walks in the Bois, and very often went to the theatre in the evening. Reading and writing filled in all the interstices of time; yet there was no consciousness of fatigue. And we had the same experience at all the places we stayed at in Italy. On our way home she was able to take a great deal of walking exercise at Wildbad and Baden. Decrease of physical strength coincided exactly with the time of our return to the damper climate of England. The specific form of illness did not declare itself until two months later, but her health was never again the same as it had been on the Continent. Towards the middle of October she was obliged to keep her bed, but without restriction as to amount of reading and talking, which she was always able to enjoy, except in moments of acute pain. During her illness I read aloud, among other books, Comte's "Discours Préliminaire," translated by Dr. Bridges. This volume was one of her especial favorites, and she delighted in making me acquainted with it. For all Comte's writing she had a feeling of high admiration, intense interest, and very deep sympathy. I do not think I ever heard her speak of any writer with a more grateful sense of obligation for enlightenment. Her great debt to him was always thankfully acknowledged. But the appreciation was thoroughly selective, so far as I was able to judge. Parts of his teaching were accepted and other parts rejected. Her attitude towards him, as the founder of a new religion, may be gathered from the references and allusions in the foregoing correspondence, and from the fact that for many years, and up to the time of her death, she subscribed to the Comtist Fund, but never, so far as I am aware, more directly associated herself with the members of the Positivist Church. It was a limited adherence. We generally began our reading at Witley with some chapters of the Bible, which was a very precious and sacred book to her, not only from early associations, but also from the profound conviction of its importance in the development of the religious life of man. She particularly enjoyed reading aloud some of the finest chapters of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and St. Paul's Epistles. With a naturally rich, deep voice, rendered completely flexible by constant practice; with the keenest perception of the requirements of emphasis, and with the most subtile modulations of tone, her reading threw a glamour over indifferent writing, and gave to the greatest writing fresh meanings and beauty. The Bible and our elder English poets best suited the organ-like tones of her voice, which required, for their full effect, a certain solemnity and majesty of rhythm. Her reading of Milton was especially fine; and I shall never forget four great lines of the "Samson Agonistes" to which it did perfect justice-- "But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty." The delighted conviction of justice in the thought--the sense of perfect accord between thought, language, and rhythm--stimulated the voice of the reader to find the exactly right tone. Such reading requires for its perfection a rare union of intellectual, moral, and physical qualities. It cannot be imitated. It is an art, like singing--a personal possession that dies with the possessor, and leaves nothing behind except a memory. Immediately before her illness we had read, together, the first part of "Faust." Reading the poem in the original with such an interpreter was the opening of a new world to me. Nothing in all literature moved her more than the pathetic situation and the whole character of Gretchen. It touched her more than anything in Shakespeare. During the time that we were reading the "Faust" we were also constantly reading, together, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth: some of Scott's novels and Lamb's essays too, in which she greatly delighted. For graver study we read through Professor Sayce's "Introduction to the Science of Language." Philology was a subject in which she was most deeply interested; and this was my first experience of what seemed to me a limitless persistency in application. I had noticed the persistency before, while looking at pictures, or while hearing her play difficult music; for it was characteristic of her nature that she took just as great pains to play her very best to a single unlearned listener as most performers would do to a room full of critical _cognoscenti_. Professor Sayce's book was the first which we had read together requiring very sustained attention ("The Divina Commedia" we had read in very short bits at a time), and it revealed to me more clearly the depth of George Eliot's mental concentration. Continuous thought did not fatigue her. She could keep her mind on the stretch hour after hour: the body might give way, but the brain remained unwearied. Her memory held securely her great stores of reading. Even of light books her recollections were always crisp, definite, and vivid. On our way home from Venice, after my illness, we were reading French novels of Cherbuliez, Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Droz, George Sand. Most of these books she had read years before, and I was astonished to find what clear-cut, accurate impressions had been retained, not only of all the principal characters, but also of all the subsidiary personages--even their names were generally remembered. But, on the other hand, her verbal memory was not always to be depended on. She never could trust herself to write a quotation without verifying it. In foreign languages George Eliot had an experience more unusual among women than among men. With a complete literary and scholarly knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Spanish, she _spoke_ all four languages with difficulty, though accurately and grammatically; but the mimetic power of catching intonation and accent was wanting. Greek and Latin she could read with thorough delight to herself; and Hebrew was a favorite study to the end of her life. In her younger days, especially at Geneva, inspired by Professor de la Rive's lectures, she had been greatly interested in mathematical studies. At one time she applied herself heartily and with keen enjoyment to geometry, and she thought that she might have attained to some excellence in that branch if she had been able to pursue it. In later days the map of the heavens lay constantly on her table at Witley, and she longed for deeper astronomical knowledge. She had a passion for the stars; and one of the things to which we looked forward on returning to London was a possible visit to Greenwich Observatory, as she had never looked through a great telescope of the first class. Her knowledge of wild-flowers gave a fresh interest each day to our walks in the Surrey lanes, as every hedgerow is full of wonders--to "those who know;" but she would, I think, have disclaimed for herself real botanical knowledge, except of an elementary sort. This wide and varied culture was accompanied with an unaffected distrust of her own knowledge, with the sense of how little she really knew, compared with what it was possible for her to have known, in the world. Her standard was always abnormally high--it was the standard of an expert; and she believed in the aphorism that to know any subject well we must know the details of it. During our short married life our time was so much divided between travelling and illness that George Eliot wrote very little, so that I have but slight personal experience of how the creative effort affected her. But she told me that, in all that she considered her best writing, there was a "not herself," which took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting. Particularly she dwelt on this in regard to the scene in "Middlemarch" between Dorothea and Rosamond, saying that, although she always knew they had, sooner or later, to come together, she kept the idea resolutely out of her mind until Dorothea was in Rosamond's drawing-room. Then, abandoning herself to the inspiration of the moment, she wrote the whole scene exactly as it stands, without alteration or erasure, in an intense state of excitement and agitation, feeling herself entirely possessed by the feelings of the two women. Of all the characters she had attempted she found Rosamond's the most difficult to sustain. With this sense of "possession" it is easy to imagine what the cost to the author must have been of writing books, each of which has its tragedy. We have seen the suffering alluded to in the letters on the "Mill on the Floss," "Felix Holt," and "Romola." For those who would know the length and the breadth of George Eliot's intellectual capacity she has written her books. Here I am only putting down some of my own personal impressions or recollections, which must be taken for what they are worth. In doing this I should like to dwell on the catholicity of her judgment. Singularly free from the spirit of detraction, either in respect of her contemporaries or her predecessors, she was always anxious to see the best and the most noble qualities of human beings or of books, in cases where she felt some general sympathy notwithstanding particular disagreements. And it was this wide sympathy, this understanding of so many points of view, that gained for her the passionate devotion not only of personal friends, but also of literary admirers, from the most widely sundered sections of society. Probably few people have ever received so many intimate confidences from confidants of such diverse habits of thought. This many-sidedness, however, makes it exceedingly difficult to ascertain, either from her books or from the closest personal intimacy, what her exact relation was to any existing religious creed or to any political party. Yet George Eliot's was emphatically a religious mind. My own impression is that her whole soul was so imbued with, and her imagination was so fired by, the scientific spirit of the age--by the constant rapid development of ideas in the Western world--that she could not conceive that there was, as yet, any religious formula sufficient nor any known political system likely to be final. She had great hope for the future, in the improvement of human nature by the gradual development of the affections and the sympathetic emotions, and "by the slow, stupendous teaching of the world's events," rather than by means of legislative enactments. Party measures and party men afforded her no great interest. Representative government, by numerical majorities, did not appeal to her as the last word of political wisdom. Generally speaking, she had little patience with talk about practical politics, which seemed to her under our present system to be too often very unpractically handled by ignorant amateurs. The amateur was always a "stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." Her wrath used often to be roused, in late years, by the increased bitterness in the language of parties, and by the growing habit of attributing, for political effect, the most shameful motives to distinguished statesmen. She was keenly anxious to redress injustices to women, and to raise their general status in the community. This, she thought, could best be effected by women improving their work--ceasing to be amateurs. But it was one of the most distinctly marked traits in her character that she particularly disliked everything generally associated with the idea of a "masculine woman." She was, and as a woman she wished to be, above all things, feminine--"so delicate with her needle, and an admirable musician." She was proud, too, of being an excellent housekeeper--an excellence attained from knowing how things ought to be done, from her early training, and from an inborn habit of extreme orderliness. Nothing offended her more than the idea that because a woman had exceptional intellectual powers therefore it was right that she should absolve herself, or be absolved, from her ordinary household duties. It will have been seen from the letters that George Eliot was deeply interested in the higher education of women, and that she was among the earliest contributors to Girton College. After meeting Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, in September, 1880, when they had gone to reside at the new hall of Newnham College for a time, she was anxious to be associated in that work also, but she did not live to carry out the plan herself. The danger she was alive to in the system of collegiate education was the possible weakening of the bonds of family affection and family duties. In her view, the family life holds the roots of all that is best in our mortal lot; and she always felt that it is far too ruthlessly sacrificed in the case of English _men_ by their public school and university education, and that much more is such a result to be deprecated in the case of women. But, the absolute good being unattainable in our mixed condition of things, those women especially who are obliged to earn their own living must do their best with the opportunities at their command, as "they cannot live with posterity," when a more perfect system may prevail. Therefore, George Eliot wished God-speed to the women's colleges. It was often in her mind and on her lips that the only worthy end of all learning, of all science, of all life, in fact, is, that human beings should love one another better. Culture merely for culture's sake can never be anything but a sapless root, capable of producing at best a shrivelled branch. In her general attitude towards life George Eliot was neither optimist nor pessimist. She held to the middle term, which she invented for herself, of "meliorist." She was cheered by the hope and by the belief in gradual improvement of the mass; for in her view each individual must find the better part of happiness in helping another. She often thought it wisest not to raise too ambitious an ideal, especially for young people, but to impress on ordinary natures the immense possibilities of making a small home circle brighter and better. Few are born to do the great work of the world, but all are born to this. And to the natures capable of the larger effort the field of usefulness will constantly widen. In her personal bearing George Eliot was seldom moved by the hurry which mars all dignity in action. Her commanding brows and deep, penetrating eyes were seconded by the sweet, restrained, impressive speech, which claimed something like an awed attention from strangers. But to those very near to her there was another side of her nature, scarcely suspected by outside friends and acquaintances. No one could be more capable of enjoying and of communicating genuine, loving, hearty, uncontrollable laughter. It was a deep-seated wish, expressed in the poem of "Agatha"--"I would have young things merry." And I remember, many years ago, at the time of our first acquaintance, how deeply it pained her when, in reply to a direct question, I was obliged to admit that, with all my admiration for her books, I found them, on the whole, profoundly sad. But sadness was certainly not the note of her intimate converse. For she had the distinctively feminine qualities which lend a rhythm to the movement of life. The quick sympathy that understands without words; the capacity for creating a complete atmosphere of loving interest; the detachment from outside influences; the delight in everything worthy--even the smallest thing--for its own sake; the readiness to receive as well as to give impressions; the disciplined mental habit which can hold in check and conquer the natural egoism of a massive, powerful personality; the versatility of mind; the varied accomplishments--these are characteristics to be found more highly developed among gifted women than among gifted men. Add to these the crowning gift of genius, and, in such companionship, we may possess the world without belonging to it. The November days had come now--cold and clear. My wife was able again to enjoy the daily drives and walks on which she was very dependent for health. The letters continue. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d Nov. 1880.] Since I wrote to you I have been much more ill, and have only, during the last few days, begun to feel myself recovering strength. But I have been cared for with something much better than angelic tenderness. The fine, clear air, if it lasts, will induce us to linger in the country; and, indeed, I am not yet quite fit to move; for, though I appear to be quite cured of my main ailment, half my bodily self has vanished. We are having deliciously clear days here, and I get out for short drives and walks. I really have nothing to complain of now except a little lack of strength. I play on the piano again, and walk with perfect ease. There is a long chapter about myself! [Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 7th Nov. 1880.] Three weeks ago I had a rather troublesome attack, but I am getting well now, though still reduced and comparatively weak. We shall probably linger here till near the end of the month, for the autumnal landscape is very beautiful, and I am not yet quite fit for the exertion of moving. It is a comfort to think that you can be very snug through the winter in your nice house. What a pity we are not within an easy driving distance from you! Mr. Hall is here to-day. He gave a lecture on Leclaire, the house-painter in Paris who initiated an excellent plan of co-operative sharing for his workmen. It has been printed, and when I have another copy I will send it you. Leclaire is mentioned by John S. Mill in the notes to his "Political Economy," but had not been otherwise taken much notice of. Still, you may know all about him. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 18th Nov. 1880.] Thanks for your loving remembrance of me. We have been kept in the country by two sufficient causes: I have been ill, and the house at Cheyne Walk has not been ready to receive us. I suppose we shall not be there till the end of the month instead of the beginning. One of the good things I look forward to is the sight of your dear face again. You will see little more than half of me, for nearly half has been consumed. But I have been nursed with supreme tenderness, and am daily gaining some strength. Much love to both. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 23d Nov. 1880.] We are lingering here for three reasons: the beauty of the weather, the unreadiness of the house, and my unfitness to bear the hurry of moving. I am getting better, but have not yet been able to bear much exertion. Thanks for your pretty letter. I do not think I shall have many returns of Novembers, but there is every prospect that such as remain to me will be as happy as they can be made by the devoted tenderness which watches over me. Your years will probably be many, and it is cheering to me to think that you have many springs of happiness in your lot that are likely to grow fuller with advancing time. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 28th Nov. 1880.] I have thought of you all the more because I have not even heard anything of you for several months. You will wonder less why I have not written, as a consequence of those thoughts, when I tell you that I have been ill, and not allowed to do anything but indulge myself and receive indulgence. I am very well now, and am every day consciously gathering strength, so that, if I could like giving trouble, I should look back on my illness as a great opportunity of enjoying the tenderest watching and nursing. I kept my bed only about a week, and have always been equal, except at short intervals, to much reading and talking, so that there is no fair cause for any grumbling on my part. It has not been so bad an illness as that of last summer. You see we are not yet at Cheyne Walk, but we are to be settled there by the end of next week. I have had no trouble, but have remained here on my cushions while Mr. Cross has gone early for several mornings running to superintend the removal. It is difficult to give you materials for imagining my "world." Think of me as surrounded and cherished by family love; by brothers and sisters whose characters are admirable to me, and who have for years been my friends. But there is no excessive visiting among us, and the life of my own hearth is chiefly that of dual companionship. If it is any good for me that my life has been prolonged till now, I believe it is owing to this miraculous affection which has chosen to watch over me. [Sidenote: Journal, 1880.] _Dec. 3._--Came to 4 Cheyne Walk. _Dec. 4._--Went to Popular Concert at St. James's Hall. Heard Madame Neruda, Piatti, and Miss Zimmermann. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Dec. 1880.] Only on Friday evening did we get into this new house, and I had deferred writing to you till I could say "Come and see me." I can say so now, but on reflection I have come to the conclusion that you would like yourself to fix a time beforehand, the journey here being rather long. Perhaps you will like to choose a day on which you could go to Emily also, her house being less formidably distant--across the park and down Sloane Street would be an easy way to us. This week we shall be much engaged in household matters, such as the reduction to order of the chaos which still reigns in certain places least obvious to visitors, and the procuring of small objects, either necessary or desirable. But after this week I shall be most glad if you and Dr. Congreve will come to see us just _as_ and _when_ you would find the least inconvenience in doing so--either at lunch-time (half-past one) or at a later hour. I find myself in a new climate here--the London air and this particular house being so warm compared with Witley. I hope that you too find the air mild, for I know that suits you best. Dr. and Mrs. Congreve paid their promised visit the week after this letter was written; and Madame Belloc lunched with us the following day. Order was beginning to reign in the new house. The books had all been arranged as nearly as possible in the same order that they had occupied at the Priory, Mr. Radermacher of the Pantechnicon having given his personal attention to this arrangement of some thousands of volumes, for which George Eliot was particularly grateful. Notwithstanding all this care, however, there were many unforeseen details of furnishing still to be completed, which caused a considerable expenditure of time. We continued reading aloud Max Müller's "Lectures on the Science of Language," and Duffield's translation of "Don Quixote;" we were also reading "Hermann and Dorothea," Tennyson's last volume of poems, just published, and Mr. Frederic Myers's volume on Wordsworth. In the evenings we had always a little feast of music, and were becoming in every way reconciled to town life, notwithstanding the loss of country quiet, light, and beauty. On the afternoon of Friday, the 17th December, we went to see the "Agamemnon" performed in Greek by Oxford undergraduates. The representation was a great enjoyment--an exciting stimulus--and my wife proposed that during the winter we should read together some of the great Greek dramas. The following afternoon we went to the Saturday Popular Concert at St. James's Hall. It was a cold day. The air in the hall was overheated, and George Eliot allowed a fur cloak which she wore to slip from her shoulders. I was conscious of a draught, and was afraid of it for her, as she was very sensitive to cold. I begged her to resume the cloak, but, smiling, she whispered that the room was really too hot. In the evening she played through several of the pieces that we had heard at the concert, with all her accustomed enjoyment of the piano, and with a touch as true and as delicate as ever. On Sunday there was very slight trouble in the throat, but not sufficient to prevent her from coming down-stairs to breakfast as usual. In the afternoon she was well enough to receive visits from Mr. Herbert Spencer and one or two other friends. Afterwards she began the following letter to Mrs. Strachey. It was left unfinished in her writing-case, and is printed as it stands. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Strachey, 19th Dec. 1880.] I have been thinking so much of Lady Colvile, and yet I shrank from troubling even your more indirect sympathetic sorrow with a letter. I am wondering how far her health is in a state to endure this loss--a loss which extends even to me, who only occasionally saw, but was always cheered by, the expression of a wise and sweet nature, which clearly shone in Sir James Colvile's manner and conversation. One great comfort I believe she has--that of a sister's affection. Here the letter is broken off. The pen which had delighted and comforted so many minds and hearts here made its last mark. The spring, which had broadened out into so wide a river of speech, ceased to flow. Little more remains to be told. On Monday the doctor treated the case as one of laryngeal sore throat; and when Dr. Andrew Clark came for consultation on Wednesday evening the pericardium was found to be seriously affected. While the doctors were at her bedside she had just time to whisper to me, "Tell them I have great pain in the left side," before she became unconscious. Her long illness in the autumn had left her no power to rally. She passed away, about ten o'clock at night, on the 22d December, 1880. She died, as she would herself have chosen to die, without protracted pain, and with every faculty brightly vigorous. Her body rests in Highgate Cemetery, in the grave next to Mr. Lewes. In sleet and snow, on a bitter day--the 29th December--very many whom she knew, very many whom she did not know, pressed to her grave-side with tributes of tears and flowers. Her spirit joined that choir invisible "whose music is the gladness of the world." FOOTNOTES: [35] Madame Belloc. [36] Mrs. Charles Lewes. [37] "The Ethics of George Eliot's Works," by J. C. Brown. Blackwood: 1879. [38] Article on G. H. Lewes.--_New Quarterly Review_, Oct. 1879. [39] "George Henry Lewes Studentship."--This studentship has been founded in memory of Mr. George Henry Lewes, for the purpose of enabling the holder for the time being to devote himself wholly to the prosecution of original research in physiology. The studentship, the value of which is slightly under £200 per annum, paid quarterly in advance, is tenable for three years, during which time the student is required to carry on, under the guidance of a director, physiological investigations, to the complete exclusion of all other professional occupations. No person will be elected as a "George Henry Lewes Student" who does not satisfy the trustees and director, first, as to the promise of success in physiological inquiry; and, second, as to the need of pecuniary assistance. Otherwise all persons of both sexes are eligible. Applications, together with such information concerning ability and circumstances as the candidate may think proper, should be sent to the present director, Dr. Michael Foster, New Museums, Cambridge, not later than October 15, 1879. The appointment will be made and duly advertised as soon as possible after that date. [40] Mr. John Blackwood died on 29th October, 1879. [41] Madame Belloc. [42] Mrs. Hall. [43] Mrs. Isaac Evans (since deceased). [44] Rev. Frederick Evans, Rector of Bedworth. [45] Madame Belloc. [46] Mr. Geddes's death. [47] Now Sir Andrew Clark. INDEX. "Abode of Snow," by Andrew Wilson, iii. 190. A breezy common, iii. 108. "Adam Bede," progress of, i. 338; second volume finished in Dresden, ii. 42; £800 offered for copyright for four years, 47; its history, 48-52; author's love of, 51; subscription to, 59; cheap edition suggested by working man, 66; sale increasing, 67, 68; quoted in House of Commons, 69; French translation proposed, 73; additional £400 from publishers, 80; fourth edition (5000) sold in a fortnight, 88; sixth edition, 96; seventh edition (2000), 101; Blackwoods propose to pay £800 above agreed price, 101; 16,000 copies sold in one year, 105; copyright conceded, 111; third volume written in six weeks, 113. "Adam Bede, Junior," a sequel, advertised, ii. 104. "Address to the Working Men," by Felix Holt, iii. 18. Adler, Dr. Hermann, appreciation of Jewish character in "Deronda," iii. 207; lecture on "Deronda" by, 215. Æsthetic teaching the highest of all teaching, ii. 318. Æsthetic, the, not a doctrinal teacher, iii. 237. Afghanistan, effect of the sad news from, iii. 278. "Agatha" sold to Fields & Osgood for _Atlantic Monthly_, iii. 63. Aix to Vevey, journey to, iii. 205. Allbut, Dr. Clifford, Leeds, iii. 41, 42. Allingham, William, letter to, on Midland dialect, iii. 218; on his poems, 226. Altruism, the need of, iii. 178, 179. Amalfi, grand drive, ii. 153. America, interest in, i. 219; the war in, anxiety regarding, ii. 242; delight in descriptions of, iii. 115; invited to visit, 118. Amsterdam, Jewish synagogues in, ii. 317. "An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity," by Charles Hennell, influence of, on George Eliot, i. 68; read again with admiration, 119. Anders, Mr., apologizes for the Liggins business, ii. 78. Antwerp, pictures at, i. 239, 240. Apennines, across the, ii. 168. Application, persistence in, iii. 304. Appreciation of Dickens's letter, ii. 6. Ardennes, journey to the, iii. 176. "Aristotle," by G. H. Lewes, ii. 271. "Armgart," a dramatic poem, iii. 85. Art, the function of, iii. 144; purpose in, 144. Articles written by Mr. Lewes, iii. 260, 261; by military men, 265. Ashantee War, the, iii. 157. Asher's cheap editions of "George Eliot," iii. 124. Atkinson, Mr., i. 193. Australia, proposed visit to, i. 221. Authors and booksellers, meeting of, i. 201. Authorship acknowledged to the Brays and Miss Hennell, ii. 83. Autobiography, repugnance to, iii. 221. Autumn, love for, i. 67; ii. 263, 264. "A Word for the Germans," ii. 288. Aytoun, Professor, admiration of "Gilfil's Love-Story," i. 326; on "Adam Bede," ii. 81. Bâle, a morning in, ii. 87. Ballot, dislike of the, iii. 49; the first experiment of the, 161. Balzac, a saying of, iii, 41. Bancroft, American Minister, Berlin, on "Middlemarch," iii. 157. Bank of England visited, iii. 176. "Beata," by T. A. Trollope, ii. 239. Bedworth, country about, i. 5-7. Beesley, Professor Edmund Spencer, iii. 64. Bellagio and the Splügen Pass, ii. 181. Benisch, Dr., editor of _Jewish Chronicle_, iii. 216. Berlin, popularity of "Middlemarch" in, iii. 157. Berlin, visit to the _Charité_, iii. 77; society and music at, 77; increase in luxury in, 78. Berlin recollections: meets Varnhagen, i. 251, 252; impressions of the city, 251; new acquaintances, 253; portrait of Kleist, 253; Fräulein Solmar's _salon_, 253; General Pfuhl, 254; Baron Sternberg, 254; "Lisez les Chroniques," 254; Professor Gruppe, 255, 263; Waagen on Goethe, 256; Edward Magnus, 257; celebrities, 258; Professor Stahr, 258, 263; Schiller's portrait, 258; Rauch the sculptor, 258; his atelier, 259, 260; Dessoir the actor, 260; "Nathan der Weise," 261; Johanna Wagner, 261; Gluck's "Orpheus," 261; Roger and Arabella Goddard, 264; Vivier anecdotes, 264, 265; works of art, 265; evenings in, 266; _table d'hôte_, reading between the courses, 266; work at and books read, 268; translating Spinoza's "Ethics," 268; remarks on books read, 270; return to England, 271. Bethnal Green, pictures at, iii. 128. Biarritz, its natural beauties, iii. 2; the Chambre de l'Amour, 2; journey to Barcelona from, 4. Bible and the Liturgy of the English Church, ii. 226. Bible reading, iii. 302. Bickley, country-house at, iii. 152. Birthday greetings, iii. 47. Bishop Steignton, visit to, i. 185. Blackie, Professor, Edinburgh, letter of sympathy from, ii. 111, 113. _Blackwood's Magazine_ on "Adam Bede," ii. 70. Blackwood, John, his favorable opinion of "Amos Barton," i. 302; accepts it for "Maga," 304; receives kind letter from author, 307; cautions regarding "huddling up stories," 319; not enthusiastic about "Janet's Repentance," 326; calls on Lewes, and George Eliot reveals herself, ii. 10; letter from George Eliot on artistic combination, 31; offers £800 for copyright of "Adam Bede" for four years, 47; letter to, regarding Liggins, 73; his liberal treatment of George Eliot, 102; proposals for "Mill on the Floss," 110; concedes copyright of "Adam Bede," 111; suggests title of "Mill on the Floss," 112; letter from author on finishing "Mill on the Floss," 114; letter to, from George Eliot at Berne, 182, 183; do. from Florence, 218; offers £5000 for "Felix Holt," 308; letters to, about "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 16, 26; about Scott Commemoration, 97; "Middlemarch," 103; his favorable impressions of "Middlemarch," 106; letter to, from Homburg, 123; New Year's greetings from George Eliot, 138; letter on "Middlemarch," 153; on another book simmering in her head, 157; on corrected edition of "Spanish Gypsy," 161, 162; letter to, with volume of poems, 164; on printing of "Deronda," 190, 191, 197; on re-reading "Romola," 217, 218; offers for second ten-years' copyright, 230; letter to, declining invitation to Strathtyrum, 237; on her continued ill-health, 244; his death, 276. Blackwood, Major, his opinion of "Amos Barton," i. 306; hopeful about the "Scenes," 342; calls on Lewes, and suspects identity of George Eliot, 342; letter regarding the Liggins affair, ii. 81; letter from author on "Mill on the Floss," 167. Blackwood, William, his favorable news of "Clerical Life," ii. 116; letter to, on Mr. Lewes's illness, iii. 239; on "Theophrastus Such," 254, 263, 271. Blanc, Louis, anecdote of, i. 195. Bodichon, Madame, discovers author of "Adam Bede," ii. 77; letters to: on artistic combinations, 93; on Mrs. Gaskell's letter, 107; the rewards of the artist, 107; on settling in London, 198; on religious forms and ceremonies, 205; on the necessity of sympathy, 268; on her Spanish tour, iii. 4; on cheerfulness, 172; on "Deronda," 198; on woman's work, 208; on her illness, 225; on improvement in health, 252; letter regarding "Lewes Studentship," 267; letter announcing her marriage, 283; on sympathy with marriage, 289. Bohn, Madame, visit from, ii. 293. Bologna, its pictures and churches, ii. 169; the leaning towers, 170. Bonham-Carter, Miss, letter to, from Madame Bodichon, iii. 264. Bonheur, Rosa, her pictures, i. 333. Books belong to successive mental phases, ii. 211. Books read at Malvern, 1861, ii. 228-230, 234-236. Books read, with remarks on, i. 268-271, 322, 341, 344; ii. 58, 299; iii. 25, 41, 68, 71, 72. Booksellers and authors, meeting of, i. 201. Bookstalls, literary taste at, iii. 51. Brabant, Miss, i. 85. Bracebridge, Mr., and Liggins, ii. 99. Bray, Charles, his work, "The Philosophy of Necessity," i. 67; influence of his opinions, 68; words of affection in time of depression, 135; letter to, on rumors of authorship, ii. 13. Bray, Mrs., letters to: on favorite books, i. 86; reading and music, 87; poetry of Christianity, 93; chameleon-like nature, 158; orthodox friends, 162; anxiety for letters, 164; need of encouragement, 165; life in Geneva, 169, 170; Christmas wishes, 174; severe winter, 175; yearning for friends at home, 175; a singular advertisement, 195; _Westminster_ reviewers, 199; love for music, 202; feels well and "plucky," 207; in Edinburgh again, 211; pleasant travelling, 213; a Saturday's work, 214; work in the Strand, 215; domestic grievances, 229; view of union with Mr. Lewes, 235; on careless cooking, 316; on the charms of Richmond Park, 326; unbelief in others' love, 337; authorship acknowledged to, ii. 83; recollections of journey of 1849, 191; asking for music, 241; on her "Physiology for Schools," 267; on writing poetry instead of novels, iii. 31; on happiness in recovery, 313. Bremer, Frederica, i. 188, 190. Brewing interest in Parliament, the, iii. 188, 189. Brewster, Sir David, i. 190. Bridges, Dr., Leeds, iii. 42. Bright on Ireland, iii. 56. Brittany, trip to, ii. 296. Broadstairs, delight with, i. 205. Brodie, Sir Benjamin, iii. 80. Brontë, Charlotte, life of, i. 317. Brooks, Shirley, delighted with "Adam Bede," ii. 70. "Brother Jacob" written, ii. 199. "Brother and Sister," sonnets, iii. 70. Brougham, Lord, a delicious _non sequitur_, i. 214. Brown, Dr. John, sends "Rab and his Friends" to author of "Adam Bede," ii. 60; kindly letter in reply, 60. Brown, J. C., "Ethics of George Eliot's Works," iii. 266. Browne, Dr., chemist, Edinburgh, i. 195. Browning, first visit from, ii. 249; "Elisha," iii. 56. Browning, Mrs., her "Casa Guidi Windows", ii. 243. Buchanan, Robert, his "David Grey," ii. 273. Buckle, personal dislike to, ii. 47. Buckle's "History of Civilization," i. 341, 345. Buckle's ideal not George Eliot's, ii. 220. Bulstrode, new view of, iii. 133. Bunyan, reading again with pleasure, ii. 105. Burne-Jones, Edward, letter to, on the function of art, iii. 144. Burne-Jones, Mrs., iii. 29; letter to, on the serious view of life, 172; on her illness, 185; on Christmas plans, 232; on her sense of depression, 239. Burton, Mr., wishes to take portrait, ii. 273; his picture of a knight in armor, 277. Burton, Sir Frederick, Director of the National Gallery, ii. 240. Byron, a vulgar-minded genius, iii. 72. Call, Mr., author of "Reverberations and other Poems," i. 335. Calvinism, a libel on, iii. 88. Camaldoli, expedition to, ii. 221. Cambridge, a visit to, iii. 147; a group of "Trinity" men, 147. Cambridgeshire, visit to, iii. 299. Caricature, a bastard kind of satire, iii. 228. _Caritas_, the highest love, ii. 252. Carlyle, Mrs., pleasant letter from, ii. 7; her conception of George Eliot, 8. Carlyle, on the Glasgow artisan, i. 55; eulogium on Emerson, 140; "Life of Sterling," 189; anecdotes of, 190, 257; his denunciation of the opera, 192; letter to George Eliot on "Frederic," 343; G. A. anxious he should read her novels, ii. 63. "Carlyle's Memoirs," ii. 208. Catholicity of judgment, iii. 307. Cavour, Count, ii. 122, 143. Cerebellum, function of the, i. 210. Chapman, Mrs., on Harriet Martineau, iii. 220. Charade party, failure of, ii. 287. Charity of the Apostle Paul, the, ii. 251. Chart of Ecclesiastical History, i. 45. Cheap books, opinion of, iii. 154. Cheap edition of "Adam Bede" suggested by working man, ii. 66. Cheap editions of novels, arrangements for, iii. 10. Cheap music in England, ii. 81. Cheerful, now uniformly, iii. 172. Chiem See, journey by, ii. 34. Childhood's real feelings, i. 91. Child's idea of God, a, i. 153, 154. Chills, spiritual and physical, iii. 120. Chioggia, journey to, ii. 177. "Christianity and Infidelity," Baillie Prize Essay, i. 311. Chronological order in writing, ii. 211. Church-going resumed, i. 82. Clark, Sir James, pleasant evening with, i. 222; meeting with, 226, 230. Clark, W. G., late public orator at Cambridge, ii. 240; visit to, at Cambridge, iii. 24; resigns his oratorship, 74. "Clerical Tutor," discouraged to proceed with, i. 336. Club criticism of "Amos Barton," i. 308. Coaching days, i. 7. Cobbe, Miss, her introduction to Theodore Parker, ii. 253. Cobden, disappointed with, i. 196. Cologne, journey to, i. 267. Colossians, Epistle to the, i. 51. Combe, George, friendship with, i. 186; on the _Westminster_, 204; visit to, in Edinburgh, 211. Comprehensive Church, one, iii. 175. Comte and his critics, ii. 224; admiration of, 224; delight in his "Politique," iii. 2. Comte's "Discours Préliminaire," ii. 264. Comte's works, reading, iii. 302. Conceptions of new work, iii. 233. Confidence, desire for, i. 128. Conformity, letter to J. W. Cross on, iii. 155. Congreve, Mrs., letters to, ii. 82, 84, 141; visits George Eliot in London, 232; letter to, on Thornton Lewes's illness, iii. 63; leaves for India, 132; returns to Europe, 145; letter to, after marriage with Mr. Cross, 292; invited to Cheyne Walk, 314. Congreve, Richard, ii. 62, 67, 73; friendship of Mr. and Mrs., 76, 80; Christmas Day with, 110; his lectures on Positivism, iii. 12; his article Huxley on Comte, 58. Conolly, Dr., i. 233. Conscience in work, iii. 27. Conservative reaction, on the, iii. 143. Contemporary fiction, iii. 183. Continent, start for, visiting Fontainebleau, Plombières, iii. 149; three months' trip to the, 205. Continental tour, six weeks' journey to Baden, etc., iii. 37; St. Märgen, 37; peasant proprietors in the Black Forest, 38. Continental trip with the Brays, i. 150. Coquelin's acting, iii. 263. Correggio's Madonnas, ii. 43. Correspondence, views on, i. 134. Country, delight in the, iii. 154. Country districts, remoteness of, i. 5. Country-house, visions of a, ii. 61. Country life, monotony of, i. 25; enjoyment of, ii. 275. Country quiet, the benefits of, iii. 110. Critical attitude, the, iii. 79. Criticism, sensibility to, ii. 63. Critics, indifference to opinions of, iii. 224. Cross, J. W., first meeting at Rome with George Eliot, iii. 59; meet again at Weybridge, 71; letter to, on buying a house, 131; on conformity, 155; on depression, 187; on effect of her writing, 204; on Tennyson, 229; letters to, after Lewes's death, 250-252; his engagement, 279; his marriage, 282; illness in Venice, 294. Cross, Miss Eleanor, letter to, iii. 276; on her engagement to Mr. Cross, 279; on her marriage tour, 283. Cross, Miss Elizabeth D., "An Old Story and other Poems," iii. 15. Cross, Miss Florence, letter to from Milan on the enjoyment of travel, iii. 286. Cross, Miss Mary, her "Marie of Villefranche," iii. 100; letter to, on gift of a vase, 166. Cross, Mrs., letters to, accepting invitation to Six-Mile Bottom, iii. 121; letter to, from Homburg, 122; on return home, 125; on journey abroad, and country-house at Bickley, 152; on the pleasures of the country, 154; on Christmas invitation, 158; on silence of the country, 167. Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, dinner with, iii. 236; their simple manner, 236; guests at table, 236. Cruikshank, George, i. 202. Cumming, article on, in the _Westminster_, i. 277. D'Albert, M. and Mme. _See_ Durade. Dallas, Mr., an admirer of "Adam Bede," ii. 64. Daniel, the prophecies of, i. 122. "Daniel Deronda," writing, iii. 180; fear for MS. being burned, 190; anticipations of, 193, 194; public interest in, 199, 214; finished, 204; Jewish element in, 211. Darwin's "Origin of Species," ii. 104, 105, 108. Dawson, Mr. George, lecturer, i. 129; ii. 233; iii. 165. Dean Ramsay, letter from, with his "Reminiscences of Scottish Life," ii. 320. Death, imagining the nearness of, iii. 170. "Debasing the Moral Currency," iii. 266. Delight in the country, iii. 154; in old friends, 245. Depression from damp, iii. 187. Derbyshire, memories of, iii. 47. Deutsch, his article on the Talmud, iii. 18. "Deutscher Novellenschatz," iii. 96. "Development of Industries," effect of, ii. 281. Development of religion, iii. 62. Dialect in "Adam Bede," ii. 72; iii. 219. Dickens, Charles, meeting with, i. 201; letter from, ii. 2; recognizes woman's hand in "Clerical Life," 3; dines at Wandsworth, 102; asks for a story for "All the Year Round," 104; his death, iii. 82; his "Life" by Forster, 104. Dinah Morris, the character of, ii. 49. Dinner at Greenwich, with Blackwood, Colonel Stewart, Colonel Hamley, and Mr. Skene, ii. 222. Discontent of the young, iii. 213. Discouraged with her writings, ii. 86. D'Israeli's "Tancred," i. 118, 123; his theory of races, 124; funeral oration on the Duke of Wellington, 215. Distrust of her own knowledge, iii. 305. "Divina Commedia," reading the, with Mr. Cross, iii. 259. Dorking, fourth visit to, ii. 254. Doyle, Mr., iii. 74. Drama, trying a, ii. 280. Drawbacks to living abroad, iii. 203. Drawings from "Romola," iii. 166. Dresden: end of vol. ii. of "Adam Bede" written, ii. 42; Holbein's "Madonna," 42; the "Sistine Madonna," 43; the Correggios, 43; Murillo's "St. Rodriguez," 43; Dutch and Flemish pictures, 44; Veronese, 44; the theatres and concerts, 45. Druce, Mr., visit to, at Sevenoaks, iii. 297. Dulwich Picture-gallery, ii. 79. Durade, M. d'Albert, i. 164; residence with, 165; their household, 166; affection to, 173; paints her portrait, 178; visits England, 181; wished to translate the "Scenes," ii. 109; two days with, 186; translates the "Scenes," 187. Dürer, Albert, his paintings, ii. 24. Dutch translation of George Eliot's novels, iii. 139. Dutch and Flemish pictures in Dresden, ii. 44. Dwelling on faults, abstention from, iii. 89. Dying in harness, on, iii. 141. Dyspeptic troubles and their cure, ii. 288. Early death, thoughts on, ii. 290. Edinburgh criticisms more favorable than London, ii. 64. Edinburgh, enjoyment of, i. 211; visit to Craigcrook, 212. Editor's life, i. 215, 221. Education of Women, iii. 27; the higher, 146. Effect of talking of her own books, ii. 85. Effect of writing, the, iii. 306. Egotism, cure for, i. 128. "Elijah," delight in hearing, i. 112, 118. Ellis, Mr. and Mrs., i. 191. Emerson, first meeting with, i. 139; Carlyle's eulogium on, 140; his "Man the Reformer," ii. 196. Empire in France, the, iii. 168. Englefield Green, delightful week at, ii. 244. English, attitude of the, towards Orientals, iii. 212; ignorance of the Jews, 212. English domestic life _versus_ German, i. 271. English and French working classes, difference between, i. 131. "Englishwoman's Journal" on the Infant Seamstresses, ii. 97. Enjoying the thought of work, ii. 219. Enriched with new ideas after journey to Italy, ii. 182. "Ethics of George Eliot's Works," by J. C. Brown, iii. 266. Evans, Christiana (sister), married to Mr. Edward Clark, surgeon, i. 22; relations between the sisters, 22, 23; her husband's death, 216; plans for her family, 217; letter to her brother Isaac regarding, 318; visit to her sister, ii. 96. Evans, Isaac (brother), recollections of his sister, i. 11; her susceptibility to terror, 12; their happy childhood, 12; his marriage, 61; renewed correspondence with his sister on her marriage with Mr. Cross, iii. 287; notice of his family, 287. Evans, J. C., offers £1000 for a story for American periodical, ii. 94. Evans, Mrs. Samuel (aunt), the Dinah Morris of "Adam Bede," i. 33. Evans, Robert (father), his career, i. 1, 2; removed to Griff, 2; influence of his ideas on his daughter, 4; his position, 8; his wife, partly represented in Mrs. Poyser, 10; her death, 22; removal to Foleshill Road, Coventry, 61; strong disapproval of his daughter's religious views, 75; she visits her brother at Griff, 79; regrets her impetuosity, and returns to Foleshill, 81; his illness, 100; visits Dover with his daughter, 107; trip to Isle of Wight, 120; illness increases, and visits St. Leonards, 135; returns to Coventry, 139; his death, 148. Evidence, the value of, iii. 109. Evil-speaking, contrition for, i. 141. "Fables," by Lord Lytton, iii. 162. Fairness and pity, where necessary, iii. 228. Fame in dreams, ii. 89. Family reunion, iii. 268; joys, iii. 286. Faraday, letter from, acknowledging presentation copy of "Clerical Life," ii. 9. Farming, an epoch in, iii. 271. Faucit, Helen, admiration of, i. 222. Faults, abstention from dwelling on, iii. 89. "Faust," reading in the original, iii. 303. Faux, David, Confectioner (Brother Jacob), written, ii. 199. Fawcett, Henry, articles on Strikes by, ii. 194. "Fawn of Sertorius," i. 108. Fechter in "Hamlet," ii. 225; his "Othello," 232. Feeling old for her years, ii. 193. "Felix Holt," writing commenced, ii. 290; reading for, 292; Blackwood offers £5000 for, 308; pains taken with, 309; finished in excitement, 311; final instalment received from Blackwood, iii. 13; payment for copyright, 13. Feminine characteristics, iii. 310, 311. Ferrier, Mr., translates Kaufmann's article on "Deronda," iii. 216. Feuerbach, translation of, published; first and only time her real name appeared in print, i. 233. Fiction, contemporary, iii. 183. Fiction-reading condemned, i. 36. Fiction-writing, first mention of, i. 296; how I came to write, 298-300. First authorship, i. 42. First novel, i. 298; title of, 299. Flemish and Dutch pictures in Dresden, ii. 44. Florence: view from Fiesole and Bellasguardo, ii. 155; the Duomo and Campanile, 156; the palaces and libraries, 157; the Loggia di Lanza, 158; Santa Maria Novella, 158; Santa Croce and the Carmine, 159; the frescoes, 159; S. Maria Novella, 160; San Michele, the shrine, 160; the Uffizi Gallery, 161; and pictures, 162; Pitti pictures, 162; paintings at the Accademia, 163; Galileo's tower, 164; Michael Angelo's house, 165, 166. Flower, Mr., i. 191. Fontainebleau, visit to, iii. 150. Forster, W. E., his article on Slavery, i. 218; "Life of Dickens," iii. 104. Foster, Professor Michael, his draught of conditions for Lewes scholar studentship, iii. 267, 269. France, the Empire in, iii. 168. Franco-German war, iii. 86, 92. Franklin, Miss Rebecca, her school at Coventry, i. 17; her death, iii. 149. Freethinkers, little sympathy with, as a class, ii. 249. French and English working classes, difference between, i. 131. French revolution of 1848, i. 129. Froude's "Shadows of the Clouds," i. 146. Fuller, Margaret, her Journal, i. 198. Function of art, the, iii. 144. Furnishing, on troubles of, ii. 267. "Futile Lying," letter on, ii. 290. Gambler, a girl, iii. 124. Garibaldi at the Crystal Palace, ii. 276. Gaskell, Mrs., suspected to have written "Adam Bede," ii. 82; letter from, 102; expresses admiration of "Scenes" and "Adam Bede," 107. Gaskell's, Mrs., "Ruth," i. 219. Geneva, life at Campagne Plongeon, i. 151-157; Genevese preachers, 153, 154; _Fête_ of Navigation, 157; effect of change of life, 159; plans for lessons, 160; Baronne de Ludwigsdorff, 161; home remembrances, 170; beauty of scenery, 171; delight in town life, 171; the Juras, 178; last days in, 179. Genevese preachers, i. 153, 154. Genoa, the cathedral, ii. 124. George Eliot.--1819-37: Birth at Arbury farm, i. 1; removal to Griff, 2; anecdotes of father, 9; character of mother, 10; at Dame's school, 10; at Miss Lathom's school at Attleboro, 11; happy childhood, 12; first books read, 13; first journey to Staffordshire, 15; Miss Wallington's school at Nuneaton, 15; writes out "Waverley," 16; favorite books, 17; charade-acting, 17; riot at Nuneaton, 20; first letter to Miss Lewis, 21; mother's illness and death, 22; housekeeper at Griff, 24; life and studies there, 24. 1838-41: First visit to London, i. 28; religious asceticism, 29; nineteenth birthday, 32; religious objections to music, 32; religious reflections, 34; besetting sin, ambition, 35; objections to fiction-reading, 36; first poem, 42; books read and studies pursued, 44; German lessons begun, 45; chart of ecclesiastical history, 46; Italian studies, 49; dislike to housekeeping work, 50; reads Isaac Taylor, 51; visits Birmingham to hear "Messiah," 53; translates German poem, 54; her reading, 57; removal to Foleshill Road, Coventry, 59. 1841-46: Coventry life, i. 61; mental depression, 64; friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Bray, 67; reads Charles Hennell's "Inquiry," 67, 68; effect of this book, 74; gives up going to church, 75; family difficulties, 79; regrets her impetuosity, 81; resumes going to church, 82; intimacy with Miss Sara Hennell and Mr. and Mrs. Bray, 83; attitude towards immortality, 84; excursion to Stratford and Malvern, 85; meets Robert Owen, 86; studies German and music, 86, 87; opinion in regard to conformity, 89; translation of Strauss's "Leben Jesu," 90; despair about publication of Strauss, 94; trip to the Highlands, 97. 1846-49: Strauss translation published, i. 107; classical books wanted, 108; suspected of novel-writing, 108; reading Foster's life, 109; thoughts on Jesus at Emmaus, 110; a child's idea of God, 111, 112; visits London and hears "Elijah," 112; re-reading Hennell's "Inquiry," 119; visit to Isle of Wight with father, 120; admiration of Richardson, 121; delight in George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur," 122; dislike to Jews, 125; supremacy of Hebrew poetry, 125; admiration of Roberts and Creswick, 127; opinion of Mr. Dawson the lecturer, 129; sympathy with revolution, 130; France and England contrasted, 131; sympathy with nonconformity, 133; visit to St. Leonards, 135; father's illness, 135; mental depression, 136; how to be overcome, 136; admiration of Louis Blanc, 137; recovery from depression, 138; opinion of "Jane Eyre," 138; meets Emerson, 138; again suffering from depression, 141; contrition for evil-speaking, 141; reading Macaulay's "History," 142; bodily suffering, 143; on the influence of Sand's and Rousseau's writings, 143, 144; writes review of the "Nemesis of Faith," 145; translates Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," 147; father's death, 148. 1849-50: Goes abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Bray, 150; Geneva, life at Campagne Plongeon, 151,152; prophetic anticipation of position seven years later, 158; effect of change of life, 159; plans for lessons, 160; finds apartments in Geneva, 164; enjoyment of society, 165; need of encouragement, 165; life in Geneva, 169, 170; yearning for friends at home, 170; remarks on translations of Spinoza, 172; desire for a woman's duty, 173; portrait by M. d'Albert, 178; remarks on education of children, 179; leaving Geneva, 180. 1850-54: Return to England, 181; reviews Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect" in _Westminster_, 184; assistant editor of _Westminster Review_, 186; introduced to Mr. Lewes, 189; intimacy begins, 192; help in despondency, 198; growing intimacy with Mr. Herbert Spencer, 201; dislike of scrap-work, 203; visit to Edinburgh, 211; an editor's life, 214, 215; ill with rheumatism, 218; interest in America, 219; growing intimacy with Mr. Lewes, 221, 232; contemplates publishing "The Idea of a Future Life," 229; union with Mr. Lewes, 234, 235; letter to Mrs. Bray, 235, 236. 1854-55: Visits Antwerp with Mr. Lewes, i. 239; extracts from journal, 239 _et seq._; Weimar, i. 240-251; Berlin recollections, 251-268; work at Weimar and Berlin, 268; remarks on books read, 268-271; return to England, 271. 1855-57: Articles written, i. 275; effect of article on Cumming, 278; reading on physiology, 279; miscellaneous writing, 280; Spinoza's "Ethics," translation finished, 281; wishes not to be known as translator, 283; articles on Young and Riehl, 286; tendency to scientific accuracy, 287; naturalistic experiences, 288; first mention of fiction-writing, 296; "how I came to write fiction," 298; correspondence about "Amos Barton," 300; "Mr. Gilfil's Love-story" begun, 305; Blackwood's high admiration of the story, 307; name of George Eliot assumed, 309; artistic bent, 310; Caterina and the dagger scene, 313; trip to the Scilly Isles, 313; social life at St. Mary's, 316; on conclusions of stories, 319; Jersey recollections, 319-322; Mr. Liggins, 323; opinions of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-story," 324, 325; happiness in her life, 328; Blackwood's opinion of "Janet's Repentance," 329; haunted by new story, 334; "Adam Bede" begun, 337; receives £120 for first edition of "Clerical Life," 337; unbelief in others' love, 337; sympathy with individuals, 339; objection to theism, 339; evening studies, 342; Major Blackwood suspects identity of George Eliot, 324; review of the year 1857. 1858: The _Times_ reviews of "Scenes of Clerical Life," ii. 1; letter from Charles Dickens, recognizing woman's hand, 3; from Froude, 3; from Mrs. Carlyle, 7; reveals herself to John Blackwood, 10; visit to Germany, 14-46; progress with "Adam Bede," 32; latter half written, 42; description of life at Dresden, 45; history of "Adam Bede," 48-52; retrospect of year, 55. 1859-60: Reading up for "Mill on the Floss," ii. 58; letter to John Blackwood on "Adam Bede," 58; wishes Carlyle to read her novels, 63; awakening to fame, 68; Mr. Liggins said to be author of "Adam Bede," 71; finished the "Lifted Veil," 75; reveals herself to Brays as author of "Adam Bede," 83; trip to Switzerland, 87; fourth edition (5000) of "Adam Bede" sold in a fortnight, 88; receives £800 beyond bargain for success, 102; 16,000 sold in one year, 107; Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, 115; "Mill on the Floss" finished, 116; start for Italy, 116. 1860: First journey to Italy, ii. 120; Rome, first sight of, 126; description of Naples, 144, 145; visit to Pompeii, 148; Florence, 155; first mention of Italian novel, 168; Venice, 172; home by Berne and Geneva, 181; enriched with new ideas, 182. 1860-61: "Mill on the Floss" success, ii. 185; sitting to Lawrence for portrait, 194; independence secured, 203; the queen's admiration of "Mill on the Floss," 203; success of "Silas Marner," 214; second journey to Italy, 216; hopeful about future work, 220; began "Romola," 230; studying for, 235, 236. 1862-65: Begins "Romola" again, ii. 238; offered £10,000 for "Romola" for the _Cornhill_, but idea given up, 244; £7000 accepted under new terms, 245; the effect of writing "Romola," 255; continued ill-health, 256, 258; letter from Frederick Maurice, 259; third visit to Italy, 278; trying a drama, 280; retrospect of year 1864, 282; "A Word for the Germans" written, 288; "Felix Holt" begun, 290; readings, 292; expedition to Brittany, 296; retrospect of 1865, 299. 1866: Mr. Harrison's legal help in "Felix Holt," ii. 303, 304, 310; offered £5000 for "Felix Holt" by Blackwood, 308; visit to Holland and Germany, 312; "The Spanish Gypsy" taken up again, 317; reading for, 321; start for Spain, 324. 1867: Journey to Spain, iii. 1; learning Spanish, 3; letters from Spain, 4-9; return to the Priory, 9; two months' visit to North Germany, 14; acquaintance with Mrs. Cross and family, 15; "Address to the Working Men," 19. 1868: Month's visit to Torquay, iii. 25; "Spanish Gypsy" finished, 29; notes on the "Spanish Gypsy," 30; on the writing of poetry instead of novels, 36; six weeks' journey to Baden, 37; meditating subject of Timoleon, 49; retrospect of the year, 50; cheap edition of novels, 51. 1869-72: Poem on "Agatha," iii. 55; writing "How Lisa Loved the King," 56; fourth visit to Italy, 57; religion of the future, 62; "Sonnets on Childhood" finished, 65; the phenomena of spiritualism, 67; the Byron scandal, 72; "Legend of Jubal" begun, 73; letter on the Positivist problem, 75; visit to Germany, 76; three days' visit to Oxford, 80; growing dislike of migratory life, 82; "Armgart" begun, 85; industrial schemes, 90; visit to Petersfield, 94; visit from Tennyson, 99; delight in intellectual activity, 101; reception of "Middlemarch," 103; Foster's "Life of Dickens," 104; "Middlemarch" finished, 121; a month's visit to Homburg, 122; a girl gambler, 124; memorial article on author of "Thorndale," 126; "Maga" on "Middlemarch," 130. 1873-75: Reception of "Middlemarch," iii. 138; Dutch translation of novels, 139; German reprints, 140; visit to Cambridge, 147; visit to the Master of Balliol, 149; nine weeks' trip to the Continent, 150; another book simmering in her thoughts, 157; retrospect of 1873, 160; cheaper edition of novels, 162; "Legend of Jubal" published, 167; journey to the Ardennes, 176; sales of her books, 180; value of early religious experience, 182; not satisfied with "Deronda," 193; depression in finishing, 194. 1876-78: Public interest in "Deronda," iii. 199; Mrs. Stowe's admiration of "Deronda," 202; letter to J. W. Cross, 204; trip to the Continent, 205; Jewish appreciation of "Deronda," 209; Dr. Adler's lecture on, 216; Mrs. Stowe and the Byron case, 221; appreciation of Tennyson, 229; gaining strength at Witley, 231; meets Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, 236; visit to Oxford, 236; Mr. Lewes's ill-health, 239; reception at the Priory, 241; Mr. Lewes's last illness and death, 245-247. 1879-80: First weeks of loneliness, iii. 249; announcement of "Theophrastus Such" delayed, 252; project of Physiological Studentship, 254; dissatisfied with "Theophrastus," 254; letter to J. W. Cross asking counsel, 258; reception of "Theophrastus" by the public, 263, 264; serious renal attack, 265; conditions for the studentship, 267; renewed interest in social news, 270; Dr. Roy appointed to studentship, 275; death of John Blackwood, 276; engagement to Mr. Cross, 279; married at St. George's, Hanover Square, 283; left for the Continent, 283; letters from France and Italy, 284-294; Mr. Cross's illness in Venice, 294; arrival in England, 295; recurrence of illness, 300; recovery of strength, 313; settled in Cheyne Walk, 313; first appearance of sore throat, 315; letter to Mrs. Strachey (unfinished), 316; sudden death, 316. German editions of "Middlemarch," iii. 114. German poem, translation of, i. 54. German reading, iii. 124. German Revolution of '48 caused by real oppression, i. 258. German translation of "Adam Bede," ii. 116; first volume received, 116. Germans, Vivier's anecdotes of, i. 264, 265; domestic life of, 271. Germany, North, journey to, iii. 14; places revisited and new scenes, 15. Germany, second visit to, 1854: Munich, ii. 14-34; Ischl, 37; Vienna, 38; Prague, 40; Dresden, 45; Leipzig, 46. Germany, visit to, in 1854; extracts from journal: Weimar, i. 240; Berlin, 251, 252. Gift of a vase from Miss Mary Cross, iii. 166. Girl gambler, a, iii. 124. Girton College scheme, iii. 18. Goethe on Spinoza, ii. 298. Goschen, Mr., dinner with, iii. 236; meets Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, 236. Got's acting, iii. 101. Granada, the Alhambra, iii. 7; view from, 8. Grand Chartreuse, expedition to the, iii. 285. Grandcourt and Lush, iii. 200. Grandison, Sir Charles, i. 121. Green, Professor T., iii. 149. Ground of moral action, iii. 178. Gurney, Mr. Edmund, iii. 147. Gurney, Rev. Archer, on "Scenes of Clerical Life," i. 324. Guthrie, Dr., address by, i. 230. Hamilton, Sir William, valuable contributions, i. 278. Hamley, Colonel (now General Sir Edward Hamley), impressions of, ii. 315; thanks for letter to the _Times_, iii. 93. Handel Festival, the, ii. 82. Hannay, Mr., on "Romola," ii. 252. Happiness in recovery of health, iii. 313. Hare, Mrs. Julius, ii. 263; her death, 273. Harrison, Frederic, letter to, on industrial co-operation, ii. 303; his legal advice in "Felix Holt," 303; more consultations with, 305, 306; letter to, on æsthetic teaching, etc., 318; receives a copy of "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 36; consultation with, 186. Harrogate, its lovely walks, ii. 281. Haughton, Mrs., letters to: on contrition for evil-speaking, i. 141; on friends at home, 159; on the bondage of luxuries, 177; on her proof-reading, 231. Haunted by new story, i. 334. Hawthorne, admiration of, i. 208. Heine, article on, in _Westminster_, i. 279. Helps, Arthur, dinner with, i. 230; incident in Spain, 242; on "Clerical Life," ii. 2. Hemans's "The Forest Sanctuary," i. 57. Hennell, Charles, analysis of "An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity," i. 68-74; his marriage, 85. Hennell, Miss Mary, author of "An Outline of the various Social Systems founded on the Principle of Co-operation," her death, i. 84. Hennell, Miss Sara, first meeting with, i. 82; letters to, on mental characteristics, 84; dangers of nonconformity, 89, 90; translating Strauss, 92; Strauss difficulties, 96; title of translation, 98; finishing translation, 101; longing for idleness, 102; thankfulness for help in translation, 103; visit to Mrs. Hennell, 107; desire for classics, 108; relief from work, 109; admiration of "Heliados," 111; philosophy and religion, 121; "Live and teach," 122; "sweet uses" of adversity, 135; depression by father's illness, 136; the "Romanticist," 139; a longing for sympathy, 141; bodily suffering, 143; return to England, 180, 181; Mr. Chapman's soirées, 190; delight with change of life, 206; letter from Berlin, 262; on essay "Christianity and Infidelity," 311; peacefully busy, 334; delight in Mr. Lewes's books, ii. 11; on the death of a mother, 12; admiration of Liebig, 25; sympathy with, on her mother's death, 32; letter from Dresden, 45; about Mrs. Clarke, 66, 67; recollections of Mr. Liggins, 72; authorship acknowledged to, 83; "expecting disappointments," 201, 202; settled in new house, 204, 205; on the blessings of good health, 229; old remembrances, 233; on her low health, 306; a birthday letter, iii. 129. Hereditary misfortunes, iii. 34. Hereford, Dean of, i. 227. Herts, country-house in, iii. 186. Higher education of women, iii. 13, 146. History of "Adam Bede," ii. 48-52. "History of Europe," Alison's, i. 282. History reading, iii. 234. Holbein's Madonna, ii. 42. Holland and Germany, journey to, ii. 312; the route taken, 315. Holland, Sir Henry, visit from, ii. 321. Holmwood Common, iii. 174. Homburg, the gaming-tables, iii. 122. Home, enjoyment of, iii. 208. Home for Girls, iii. 181. Home life, i. 13; iii. 107, 108. "Horsedealer in Syria," ii. 101. Housekeeping work, dislike of, i. 50. How I came to write fiction, i. 298-300. Hungarian, "Adam Bede" translated into, ii. 115. Hunt, Leigh, his "The Religion of the Heart," i. 226. Huth, Mrs. and Miss, iii. 147. Hutton, R. H., letter to, on "Romola," ii. 261. "Huxley on M. Comte," Dr. Congreve's article on, iii. 58. Huxley, Mr., an agreeable evening with, i. 220. Hyrtl, the German anatomist, ii. 39. "Idea of a Future Life," contemplates publishing, i. 229. Ilfracombe recollections: journey to, i. 285; naturalistic experiences, 288; zoological expeditions, 289; Devonshire lanes, 289; Rev. Mr. Tugwell, 290; the scientific spirit, 291; leave for Tenby, 292. Illness a partial death, iii. 155. Illustrations in cheap edition, not _queerer_ than in other books, iii. 217. Impetuosity regretted, i. 81. "Impossibility of marrying," dangers of speaking of, ii. 212. Incentive to production, iii. 224. Independence of external good, i. 81. Indian newspaper-writing, iii. 237. Individual versus the general, the, iii. 33. Industrious poor, helping the, iii. 90. Inkermann, battle of, a mere brave blundering, iii. 182. Inman, Dr., Liverpool, ii. 114. Innspruck and Wildbad, iii. 294, 295. Intellectual activity, enjoyment of, iii. 101. Intellectual superciliousness, ii. 255. "Introduction to the Science of Language," iii. 303. "Iphigenia in Aulis," iii. 145. Irregular verses, the use of, iii. 40. Ischl, the Gmunden See, ii. 37; voyage down the Danube, 38. Isle of Wight, trip to the, ii. 72, 256. Italian novel, first mention of, ii. 168. Italian studies, i. 49. Italy, first journey to, 1860: Turin, ii. 122; Genoa, 123; Leghorn, 124; Pisa, 125; Rome, 126-144; Naples, 144; Salerno, 151; Pæstum, 152; Amalfi, 153; Sorrento, 153, 154; Florence, 155; Bologna, 168; Padua, 170; Venice, 172; Verona, 179; Milan, 179-181. Italy, second journey to, ii. 216; stay at Florence, 217; renewed delight in, 219; work during the visit, 221. Italy, third visit to, ii. 277; Mr. Burton's companionship, 278; the Alps by the St. Gothard, 278. Italy, fourth visit to, iii. 57; places visited, 58. Italy, fifth visit to: Milan, iii. 288; Verona, 289; Venice, 291. "Jane Eyre," opinion of, i. 138. Jansa, Herr, takes lessons from, ii. 271. Jersey recollections, 1857: scenery, i. 319; inland walks, 320, 321; coast beauties, 321; books read, 322. Jesus at Emmaus, thoughts on, i. 110. Jewish appreciation of "Deronda," iii. 207, 216. Jews, dislike of, i. 125; English ignorance of the, iii. 212. Jones, Mr. Owen, decorates the new house, ii. 265, 266. Journal, 1855: Third book of "Ethics," preface written, i. 273; _Westminster Review_, 274; wrote for the _Leader_, 275. 1856: Working at Spinoza, i. 281; first mention of fiction-writing, 296; "Mr. Gilfil's Love-story" begun, 305. 1857: Pleasant letters regarding "Gilfil," i. 323, 324; finished "Janet's Repentance," 336; began "Adam Bede," 336; books read, 342; the year's work, 344. 1858: News from the city regarding "Clerical Life," ii. 12; visit to Germany, 14-46; "Adam Bede" finished, 48. 1859: A trip to Lucerne, ii. 87; return to England, 88; declined American offer for new story, 94; anxiety and doubt about new novel, 97. 1860: Seeing friends, ii. 114; first journey to Italy, 120-182. 1861: Second journey, ii. 216; struggling constantly with depression, 227; continued ill-health, 243-245; despondency, 279. 1868: Books, reading, iii. 25; retrospect of year, 50. 1869: Work in prospect, iii. 55; beginning "Middlemarch," 69; "Legend of Jubal" begun, 73. 1870: In languid health, iii. 79. 1871: First part of "Middlemarch" published, iii. 104. 1873: Success of "Middlemarch," iii. 138; retrospect of year, 159. 1875: Sales of books, iii. 180. 1876: Depression in writing "Deronda," iii. 194. 1877: Cabinet edition decided on, iii. 230; declined to renew copyright agreement, 230; close of her journal, 233. 1879: Seeing visitors, iii. 260. 1880: Her marriage with Mr. Cross, iii. 283; came to 4 Cheyne Walk, 311. Jowett, Mr., Master of Balliol, visit to, iii. 149. Julian the Apostate, Strauss's pamphlet on, i. 139. Justification in writing, iii. 173. Kaufmann, Dr. David, letter to, on his estimate of "Daniel Deronda," iii. 222; on the function of the teacher, 226; on Lewes's death, 257. Kenelm Chillingly, iii. 141. Knight, Charles, i. 202. La Bruyère's wisdom, iii. 235. Lamartine as a poet, i. 130. Languages, her knowledge of, iii. 305. La Vernia, description of, ii. 223. Lawrence wishes to take her portrait, ii. 115; sits for it, 194. Lecky's "History of Rationalism," ii. 291. Lecture on "Daniel Deronda," by Dr. Adler, iii. 216. Leeds, the horrible smoke of, iii. 43; its fine hospital, 44. "Legend of Jubal," some verses written, iii. 73; published as "Legend of Jubal, and other Poems," 167; new edition of, 169. Leghorn, the Jewish synagogue, ii. 125; to Civita Vecchia, 125; a pleasant companion, 126. Leipzig, two days at, ii. 45; its picture-gallery, 45. Leroux, Pierre, his theories, i. 194. Letters to her friends almost all destroyed, ii. 207. "Letter to Berthelot," Renan's, ii. 269. Lewes, Charles, first letter to, ii. 91; on musical parties, 98; on liking for algebra, 106; returns from Hofwyl, 185; receives appointment in Post-office, 194; letters from Florence to, 216, 219, 221; from Isle of Wight, 257; his engagement, 278; letters to, on Harrison's paper, iii. 262; on printing the "Problems," 276; from Grenoble, 285; from Milan, 288; from Venice, 291; from Stuttgart and Wildbad, 294, 295; on his visit to St. Blasien, 297; on recurrence of illness, 300. Lewes, George H., i. 188; first introduction to Miss Evans, 189; meet at the theatre, 192; article on "Julia von Krüdener," 192; his Comte papers, 209; growing intimacy, 221; his "History of Philosophy," 227; illness, 231; intimate relations with Miss Evans, 232; their union, 235; completed life of Goethe at Weimar, 267; estimation of George Eliot, 277; necessity for hard work, 277; proposes sending boys to Hofwyl, 284; goes to Switzerland with them, 297; highly pleased with "Amos Barton," 300; letter to John Blackwood with MS. of "Scenes of Clerical Life," 300; George Eliot revealed to John Blackwood, ii. 10; suggestions in "Adam Bede," 49, 50; extract from Journal, 55; "Physiology of Common Life," 92; "Studies in Animal Life," 113; dispassionate judgment, 202; delicate health, 223; busy with Aristotle, 233; "History of Science" begun, 243; views of Bible-reading, 251; buoyant nature, 290; walking expedition with Mr. Spencer, iii. 15; acquaintance with Mrs. Cross, 15; visits Bonn, 20; death of his mother, 91; proposed for Rectorship of St. Andrews, 232; continued illness, 240; his death, 247. Lewes, Herbert, his death, iii. 189. Lewes Studentship proposed, iii. 253; plans for, and trustees, 254. Lewes, Thornton, leaves for Natal, ii. 264; returns, iii. 63; his death, 73. Lewis, Miss, Leamington, iii. 192. Lewis, Miss, letters to: On first visit to London, i. 28; on living for eternity, 30; emulation of Wilberforce, 31; oratorios, 32; bad effect of novels, 37; religious controversies, 39; first authorship, 42; studies pursued, 44; Italian studies, 49; Mrs. Somerville's "Connection of the Physical Sciences," 50; opinions of Isaac Taylor, 51; German translation, 54; a walled-in world, 55; sensitiveness, 57; war's purgations, 59; satisfaction with new life, 62; depression of mind, 64; mind requiring rest, 65; desire for brain waves, 66; religious doubts and difficulties, 74, 75; on self-denial, 78. Lichfield, recollections of, ii. 96. Liddell, Dean, Oxford, iii. 173. Liebig, Professor, ii. 23; admiration of, 25, 29. "Life of Goethe," i. 275. "Lifted Veil," finished April, 1859, ii. 75; the idea of the story, iii. 141. Liggins, Mr., first mention of, i. 323; calls himself George Eliot, ii. 71; some recollections of, 72; Mr. Anders's apology, 78; Mr. Bracebridge's letter regarding, 99. Limitations of scientists, iii. 182. Lincoln, President, anecdote of, iii. 82. Lincoln, the Rector of, iii. 81. Lincolnshire, visits to, iii. 288. "Lisa," writing rhymed poem on, iii. 55. Literary biography, iii. 163. Literary taste at bookstalls, iii. 51. Littlehampton, trip to, ii. 247. Liturgy of the English Church and the Bible, ii. 226. Living abroad, drawbacks to, iii. 203. Lockhart, Captain, his writings, iii. 98, 193. Lonely days: "here I and sorrow sit," iii. 249. Louis Blanc, admiration of, i. 138. Louis Philippe and his sons, i. 130. Lowell's "My Study Windows," iii. 96. Lucerne, a trip to, ii. 87; visit from Mrs. Congreve, 87. Lush and Grandcourt, iii. 200. Lushington, Mrs. Vernon, iii. 220. Lyrics for "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 16. Lytton, Hon. Mrs. Robert (now Lady Lytton), letter of sympathy to, iii. 83; on thoughts of death, 99, 100; on Lord Lytton's Indian experiences, 281. Lytton, Hon. Robert (now Lord Lytton), on pronunciation in "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 52; explanation of errors, 52. Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer, letter from, thanking author of "Adam Bede," ii. 74, 75; visit from, 115; criticises "Adam Bede," 115; his criticisms of "Maggie," 190. Macaulay, interest in, i. 142. Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect" reviewed, i. 183; extracts from, 183-185, 190. "Macmillan," article on "The Mill on the Floss" in, ii. 212. Macmillan, Mr., his proposal for volume on Shakespeare, iii. 231. Madrid, the Gallery, iii. 9. Madonna di San Sisto, first impression of, ii. 43. Main, Mr., collector of "The Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings of George Eliot," iii. 103; opinions of, 105. Maine, Sir Henry, on Lewes's "Physiology," iii. 267. Malvern, trip to, ii. 228; improved health from, 230, 231. "Man's Nature and Development," i. 187. "Marie of Villefranche," by Miss Mary Cross, iii. 100. Marriage, possibilities in, iii. 181. Marriage, the ideal, iii. 142. Martineau, Harriet, "The Crofton Boys," i. 93; meeting with, 94, 193; invitation from, 197; article on "Niebuhr," 203; visit to, at Ambleside, 212; respect for her, ii. 103; her autobiography, iii. 214, 219. Martineau, James, i. 192; critique of Kingsley's "Phaethon," 219; on Sir William Hamilton, 223; invitation from, 54; "Comte," 55. Martineau, Maria, her death, ii. 274. "Masculine woman," dislike of the, iii. 308. Masson, Mr., on Recent Philosophy, ii. 298. Mathematics, her love for, iii. 305. Matlock, recollections of, iii. 47. Maurice, Frederick, generous tribute from, ii. 259. Mazzini, asked to write on "Freedom _v._ Despotism," i. 194; his speeches, 198. Mazzini Fund, the, ii. 294. Mazzini's death, iii. 113. "Meliorist," the word, iii. 217. Memorial article on author of "Thorndale," iii. 126. Mendelssohn's "Letters," iii. 84. Mental characteristics described, i. 84. "Middlemarch," writing introduction, iii. 69; reading for, 71, 72; the design of, 99; anticipations of, 103; first part published, 104; French and German interest in, 112; delayed by ill-health, 113; £1200 from Harpers for reprint, 114; finished, 121; reviewed in _Blackwood's Magazine_, 130; new edition called for, 153; number sold in 1873, 160; December, 1874, 20,000 sold, 180. Milan, the Ambrosian Library, ii. 180; the "Brera," 180; Church of San Ambrogio, 181; the "Luini" pictures, iii. 288. Military men, articles by, iii. 265. Mill, John Stuart, his "Autobiography," iii. 158. "Mill on the Floss," first volume finished as "Sister Maggie," ii. 101; Blackwood's proposals for, 110; discussions as to title, 111; Blackwood's suggestion adopted, 112; Harpers, New York, give £300 for American edition, 115; third volume finished, 116; inscription on, 116; sad at finishing, 117; first and second editions (6000) sold, 185. Miracle play at Antwerp, the, ii. 316. Miscellaneous writing, i. 280. Misconception of others, on, ii. 197. "Miss Brooke," experimenting on, iii. 91. Mixed marriages in Germany, ii. 28. Modern German art, ii. 27. Mohl, Madame, dinner with, iii. 1. Moleschott, of Zurich, ii. 182. Molière's "Misanthrope," ii. 108. Mommsen's "History of Rome," ii. 264. Mont Cenis, passage of, ii. 120. Moral action, ground of, iii. 178. Moral sanction is obedience to facts, iii. 34. Morality with the "Bible shut," i. 230. More, Mrs. Hannah, her letters, i. 123. Müller, Max, ii. 239; iii. 149. Munich, the opera, ii. 18; Samson and Delilah, 18; Schwanthaler's "Bavaria," 19; appreciation of Rubens, 20; Catholic and Protestant worship, 21; the Glyptothek and Pinnacothek, 21; Kaulbach, Bodenstedt, and Genelli, 22, 23; Professor Wagner, 23; Professor Martius, 23; Liebig, 23, 25; Heyse and Geibel, 23; music of the "Faust," 24; Professor Löher, 24; Albert Dürer's paintings, 24; Bluntschli and Melchior Meyr, 25; the _Tafel-rund_, 26; the Siebolds, 26, 33; Kaulbach's pictures, 27; mixed marriages, 28; porcelain-painting, 30; Madame Bodenstedt, 30; visit to Grosshesselohe, 31; Lewes leaves for Switzerland, 33; leaves for Dresden, 33. Murillo's St. Rodriguez, ii. 43. Music, cheap, inconveniences connected with, in England, ii. 81. Musical evenings with Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford, ii. 227, 229, 230. Musical parties, ii. 99. Myers, Mr. Frederick, Cambridge, iii. 147. "My Vegetarian Friend," written, ii. 285. Nancy, the Germans at, iii. 151. Naples: first impressions, ii. 144; visits to Baiæ, Avernus, and Misena, 145; to Pozzuoli and Capo di Monte, 146; the Cemetery, 147; Museo Borbonico, 147; Pompeii, 148; its remains, 149; beauty of, 150; the pictures at, 151; Giotto's frescoes, 151; leave for Florence, 154. Nearness of death, imagining the, iii. 170. Negative attitude unsatisfactory, iii. 156. "Nemesis of Faith," reviews the, i. 145; note from Froude, 145. New house, enjoyment of, ii. 269, 270. Newman, Francis, i. 140; iii. 165. Newman's "Apologia," ii. 280. Newman's, J. H., "Lectures on the Position of Catholics," i. 192. New misery in writing, i. 227. New Year's wishes, iii. 139. Nichol's "Architecture of the Heavens," i. 65. Nightingale, Miss Florence, note from, i. 206; ii. 61. Noel, Mr., i. 191. Nonconformity, effect of, i. 79; dangers of, 90. Normandy, trip to, ii. 296. _North British_, favorable review, ii. 199. Notes on the "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 30, 31. Novel-writing, suspected of, i. 108. Nuneaton, riot at, i. 20. Nürnberg, description of, ii. 14; its roofs and balconies, 15; the Frauen-Kirche, 16; effect of Catholic "Function," 17; Albert Dürer's house, 17. Old people's judgments, i. 118. "Old Town Folks," appreciation of, iii. 66. Oliphant, Lawrence, and the colonizing of Palestine, iii. 252. Oliphant, Mrs., the novelist, ii. 11. _Once a Week_, a story requested for, ii. 104, 106. Oratorios at Birmingham, i. 53. Oratorios condemned, i. 32. Orientals, English attitude towards, iii. 211. Osborne, Bernal, on "Deronda," iii. 200. Otter, Francis, letter to, on his engagement, iii. 180, 181. Owen, Professor, i. 202; on the cerebellum, 210; sends his "Palæontology," ii. 116. Owen, Robert, i. 86. Oxford, first visit to, iii. 80; people met with, 80. Oxford Tracts and Christian Year, i. 48. Padua, Church of San Antonio, ii. 170; the Arena Chapel, 171; Giotto's painting, 171. Pæstum, the Temple of Neptune, ii. 152. Paris, visit to Comte's apartment, ii. 286. Parkes, Miss (Madame Belloc), friendship with, i. 195; iii. 289. "Pascal," by Principal Tulloch, iii. 235. Passionate affliction, defence against, iii. 84. Patience, the need of, iii. 128. "Paul Bradley," by Mrs. Bray, iii. 164. Pays no visits in London, ii. 215. Peabody, George, his magnificent gift, ii. 245. Pears, Mrs., letters to: on religious difficulties, i. 76; on desire for truth, 77; on her impetuosity, 81; her friendship with Mr. Robert Evans, 147. Penmaenmawr, ii. 96. Permanent influence of ideas, the, iii. 89. Persistence in application, iii. 304. Personal bearing, her, iii. 310. Personal portraiture objected to, iii. 228. Personality, independence of our, iii. 84. Phenomena of spiritualism, the, iii. 67. Philosophical Club, first meeting of, ii. 248; dissolution of, 253. "Philosophy of Necessity," the, i. 339. Phrenological indications, i. 78. Phrenology, the position of, i. 340. Physiological reading, i. 279. Physiological Studentship, the purpose of, iii. 256. "Physiology for Schools," Mrs. Bray's, ii. 267. Pigott, Mr. Edward Smith, i. 293. Pisa, description of, ii. 125; the cathedral, 125. Pity and fairness, where requisite, iii. 228. Plain living and high thinking, iii. 161. Plombières and the Vosges, iii. 150. Poem in _Christian Observer_, i. 43. Poetry instead of novels, on writing, iii. 36. Poetry of Christianity, i. 93; ii. 251. Poets, the value of, iii. 184. Political and religious standpoint, iii. 308. Pompeii and its remains, ii. 149, 150, 154. Ponsonby, Hon. Mrs. (now Lady Ponsonby), letter to, on the idea of God an exaltation of human goodness, etc., iii. 176; on the desire to know the difficulties of others, 184; on excess of public-houses, 188; on pity and fairness, 228. Poor, helping industrious, iii. 90. "Popular author," characteristics of the, ii. 59. Popular Concerts, Monday, ii. 204, 248. Popular judgment of books, iii. 62. Popular preacher, a, iii. 87. Positivism in "The Spanish Gypsy," iii. 49. Positivism regarded as one-sided, ii. 224. Possession, the sense of, iii. 306. Power of the will, the, iii. 179. Poyser, Mrs., her dialogue, ii. 54; quoted in House of Commons, 69. Prague: the Jewish burial-ground, ii. 40; impressive view, 41. Preacher, a popular, criticised, iii. 87. Presentation copies never sent, ii. 216. Press notices of "Adam Bede," ii. 60. "Pretended comforts," ii. 296. Prince Albert, admiration of, i. 202. Printed rancor, on, iii. 221. Priory, receptions at the, iii. 241. Private correspondence almost all destroyed, ii. 207. Private theatricals, i. 176, 178. "Problems of Life and Mind," by G. H. Lewes, iii. 203, 210. _Prospective Review_, i. 219; on Goethe, 224. Psychical troubles, i. 232. Public-houses, excess of, iii. 188. Public interest in "Deronda," iii. 199. Public school and University education, iii. 309. Publishing books, on different methods of, iii. 190, 191. "Pug," letter to John Blackwood on, ii. 91. Quackery of infidelity, i. 89. _Quarterly_ on "The Mill on the Floss," ii. 201. Queen's admiration of "The Mill on the Floss," ii. 203. Quiet joy in success, ii. 72. Quirk, Mr., finally renounces Liggins, ii. 96. Race characteristics, i. 125. Ragatz, "The Cure" at, iii. 206; gain in health from, 210. Rancor, on printed, iii. 221. Rawlinson, Professor, iii. 80. Reade, Charles, on "Adam Bede," ii. 70. Reading aloud, the effect of her, iii. 302, 303. Reading world very narrow, iii. 131. Reeves, Sims, singing "Adelaide," ii. 205. Religion and art, i. 126; the development of, iii. 62. Religious controversies, i. 39, 47; aspirations, 63; doubts and difficulties, 74, 76; forms and ceremonies, ii. 205; assemblies, the need of, iii. 156; and political standpoint, 308. Renan, estimate of, ii. 269; his appearance, iii. 3. Renan's "Vie de Jésus," ii. 260. Renunciation, on, iii. 35. Repugnance to autobiography, iii. 221. Responsibility of authorship, ii. 89. Retrospect of year 1819, i. 4, 5; of 1857, 346; of 1858, ii. 55; of 1864, 285; of 1865, 300; of 1868, iii. 50; of year 1873, 159. Reviews, effect of, ii. 192; abstains from reading, 193. Reviews of "Spanish Gypsy," iii. 40, 44. Revolution, sympathy with, i. 130. Revolutionary spirit, i. 138. "Revue des Deux Mondes," review of "Adam Bede," ii. 105; Lewes accepts editorship of periodical on plan of, ii. 287. Rewards of the artist, the, ii. 107. Richmond Park, the charms of, i. 326; sunset effects, 341. Riehl's "Die Familie," i. 344. Ritualistic services at Ryde, iii. 91. Rive, M. le Professeur de la, his lectures, i. 175, 177. Romance in real life, a, ii. 258, 259. Rome: from Civita Vecchia to, ii. 126; first sight of, 126; disappointed with, 127; view from the Capitol, 128; the Sabine and Alban hills, 128; the temples and palaces, 129; the arches and columns, 129, 130; the Coliseum and baths, 130; the Lateran and Vatican sculptures, 131; St. Peter's, 132; mediæval churches, 133; Sistine chapel, 133; palaces, 133, 134; illumination of St. Peter's, 134; the Quirinal, 134; San Pietro in Vincoli, 134; Michael Angelo's "Moses," 135; modern artists, 135; Riedel and Overbeck, 136; Pamfili Doria gardens, 137; Villa Albani and Frascati, 137; Tivoli, 138; pictures at the Capitol, 139; the Lateran Museum, 139; Shelley's and Keats's graves, 140; removal to apartments, 142; the French occupation, 143; beautiful mothers and children, 143; the Pope's blessing, 144. "Romola," first conception of, ii. 197; began the first chapter, 230; studying for, 234; begins it again, 238; Smith offers £10,000 for it to appear in the _Cornhill_, 244; £7000 accepted, 245; slow progress in writing, 246, 250; opinions of, 252; strain of writing, 255; finished Part XIII., 255; completion of, 256; application to translate into Italian, iii. 216. Rosehill, visit to, i. 193. Roundell, Mr. and Mrs. Charles, iii. 149. Roy, Dr. Charles, elected Lewes Physiological student, iii. 275; his treatise on "Blood Pressure," 298. Rubens, appreciation of, ii. 20. Rumors of authorship, ii. 13. Ruskin and Alfieri, reading, iii. 292. Ruskin's Works, opinion of, ii. 5. Ryde, visit to, iii. 91; ritualistic service at, 91. Salerno, visit to, ii. 151. Salzburg, description of scenery, ii. 36. Sand's, George, "Lettres d'un Voyageur," i. 122. Saragossa, the old cathedral, iii. 5. Saturday Popular Concerts, last visit to, iii. 315. _Saturday Review_, the, i. 281. Saveney on "La Physique Moderne," iii. 3. Scarborough, visit to, ii. 281. "Scenes of Clerical Life:" "Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton," i. 299; offered to Blackwood, 300; accepted, 304; sensitiveness of author, 304; "Mr. Gilfil's Love-story" begun, 305; "Amos Barton," published in January (1856) Magazine, 305; opinions regarding authorship, 308, 309; assumes the name of George Eliot, 310; Caterina and the dagger scene, 313; "Mr. Gilfil" finished, 319; epilogue to, 319; opinions of, 324; "Janet's Repentance" begun, 326; Blackwood's opinion of, 328; increased circulation, 342; favorable opinions of, ii. 10. Scherer, Professor, Geneva, iii. 8. School-fellows, excels her, i, 19. Schwalbach, description of, ii. 312. Scientists, limitations of, iii. 182. Scilly Islands, recollections of: St. Mary's, i. 314; Beauties of the coast, 314; sunlight on the waves, 315; social life, 316. Scotch Reign of Terror, disbelief in a, i. 132. Scotland, trip to, i. 97; visit to, ii. 275. Scott Commemoration, afraid of journey to, iii. 97, 98. Scott, Life of Sir Walter, ii. 61. Scrap-work, dislike of, i. 203. Sculpture and painting, i. 127. Sensibility to criticism, ii. 63. Sequel to "Adam Bede" proposed, ii. 100. Shakespeare's "Passionate Pilgrim," i. 273. Shakespeare, the acting preferred to the reading, ii. 109. Shakespeare, volume on, requested by Macmillan, iii. 231. Sheffield, visit to, iii. 46; early recollections of, 46. Shelley's "Cloud," i. 53. Shottermill, life at, iii. 94. Sibree, John, letters to, i. 123; on "Tancred" and D'Israeli, 123, 124; race characteristics, 125; religion and art, 126; painting and sculpture, 127; sympathy with him, 128; necessity of utterance, 132; desire for a change, 133. Sibree, Miss Mary (Mrs. John Cash), her recollections of Miss Evans at Coventry, i. 113-116; letter to, 327. Sidgwick, Mr. Henry, iii. 147. Siebold the anatomist, ii. 26. Siena, expedition to, ii. 164; the Cathedral, 164, 165; its paintings, 165. "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," a sudden inspiration, ii. 204; story begun, 207; its sombre character, 210; subscription to, 5500, 212. Silence of the country, iii. 107. "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists," article on, finished, i. 297. Simpson, Mr. George, Edinburgh, letter to, iii. 135; proposed a yet cheaper edition of novels, 162; author's regret at not adopting the plan, 162. "Small upper room" 1866 years ago, comparison with, ii. 285. Smith, Albert, on "Amos Barton," i. 308. Smith, Barbara (Madame Bodichon), i. 205, 295. _See_ Madame Bodichon. Smith, Mr. George, offers £10,000 for "Romola," to appear in the _Cornhill_, ii. 244; accepted for £7000, 245. Smith, Mrs. William, letters to, on the Memoir of her husband, iii. 126, 142; on the higher education of women, 146; on her poems, 160. Smith, Sydney, anecdote of, ii. 299. Smith, William, author of "Thorndale," ii. 5, 212; his illness, iii. 109; his death, 119; memoir of, 185. Social dangers, i. 56. Somerville's, Mrs., "Connection of the Physical Sciences," i. 50. "Sonnets on Childhood," iii. 65. Sorrento, visit to, ii. 153; its neighborhood, Vico, and the Syren Isles, 154. Spain, set off on journey to, ii. 324; return home, iii. 9. "Spanish Gypsy," reading for, ii. 280; first act finished, 283; taken up again, 317; reading for, 321; recommenced in new form, 321; reading for, iii. 15; Mr. Lewes's opinion of, 22; shortening of, 29; finished, 29; notes on, 30; the _motif_ of the poem, 30; reviews of, 39, 40; second and third editions, 42, 45; reprinted in Germany, 140; number sold in 1873, 160; fifth edition published, 180. Spanish grammar, studying, ii. 282. Spanish, new system of learning, iii. 3; scenery, 4; travelling, 6. Speke, Captain, the African traveller, ii. 95, 101. Spencer, Herbert, first meeting with, i. 187; intimacy with, 201, 203; "Universal Postulate," 225; "Genesis of Science," 234; Essays, 371; his influence on Lewes, ii. 55, 56; enthusiastic letter from, 89; his new work, 206; visit from, 276; introduces Lewes to Mrs. Cross, iii. 15; his teaching, 184; last visit from, 315. Spencer, Mr., senior, teacher, ii. 272. Spinoza's "Ethics," desires not to be known as translator, i. 283. Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus," i. 147, 172. Spiritualistic evidence, iii. 111; phenomena, 116. "Spiritual Wives," a nasty book, iii. 130. Spiritualism, the phenomena of, iii. 67; one aspect of, 117. Splügen Pass, journey across, ii. 181. Springs of affection reopened, iii. 280. Stachelberg and Klönthal, iii. 207. Staffordshire, first journey to, i. 15. Stanley, Lord, his opinion of the "Scenes," i. 325. _Statesman_ review of "Clerical Life," ii. 6. Stella Collas in "Juliet," ii. 259. Stephenson, George, one of her heroes, ii. 241. St. Blasien, in the Schwarz Wald, iii. 207. St. Leonards, visit to, i. 223. St. Paul's, charity children singing, i. 203. Stories, on conclusions of, i. 319. Stowe, Mrs., Miss Cobbe's rejoinder to, ii. 253; letters to, iii. 60; on early memories of, 60; the popular judgment of books, 61; the development of religion, 62; a woman's experience, 63; on appreciation of "Old Town Folks," 66; Professor Stowe's psychological experience, 67; phenomena of spiritualism, 67; on the benefits of country quiet, 110; on spiritualistic phenomena, 116; on Goethe, 175; on her admiration for "Deronda," 202; on the Jewish element in "Deronda," 211. Stowe, Mrs., letter to Mrs. Follen, i. 220. Stowe, Professor, his psychological experience, iii. 66; a story by, iii. 129. Strachey, Mrs., letter to (unfinished), iii. 315. "Stradivarius," referred to, iii. 228. Strain of writing "Romola," ii. 255. Strauss, translation of, i. 90, 94; delay in publication, 95; difficulties, 96; title, 98; finishing translation, 101; Miss Hennell's help in translation, 103; review of, 109; interview with, 240; renewed acquaintance with, ii. 46. Strength while abroad, iii. 301. Stuart, Mrs., visit from, iii. 255. Study, enjoyment of, ii. 322. Studying for "Romola," ii. 234, 240, 246, 249, 250. Sturgis, Julian, high opinion of, iii. 257. Sully, James, letter to, on Mr. Lewes's articles, iii. 260, 269, 273; thanking him for proof-reading, 274. "Sunshine through the Clouds," i. 233. Surrey, enjoyment, iii. 170. Surrey hills preferred to the sea-side, iii. 272. Swansea, cockle-women at, i. 292. Swayne, Rev. Mr., his delight with "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," i. 311. Switzerland, letters during residence in 1849, i. 151-179. Sympathy, with other women, iii. 100; the necessity of, ii. 269; recovery of, iii. 293. Tauchnitz offers for "Clerical Life," ii. 52; offers £100 for German reprint of "Adam Bede," 115. Taylor, Isaac, influence of, i. 51. Taylor, Mrs. Peter, i. 196; sympathy with, 197; letters to, 218, 219; generous letter from, with reply, 293, 294; on her domestic position, ii. 213, 214; letter to, on Christmas at Weybridge, iii. 159; on difficulties of note writing, 181; on the Lewes Studentship, 273. Taylor, Professor Tom, i. 201. Tenby, zoological delights, i. 293; St. Catherine's Rock, 295; work done here, 295; Mr. Pigott's visit, 296; leave and return to Richmond, 297. Tennyson, appreciation of, iii. 229. "Terror" in religious education, iii. 48. Thackeray, Miss, "The Story of Elizabeth," ii. 299; her marriage, iii. 225. Thackeray's "Esmond," i. 214; opinion of "Gilfil's Love-Story," 323; favorable opinion of "Clerical Life," ii. 10. "The Impressions of Theophrastus Such," MS. sent to publishers, iii. 245; publication postponed, 252; third edition about sold out, 268. Theism, objection to, i. 339, 340. Thirlwall, Bishop, story of, iii. 228. Thompson, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, iii. 149. Thorns in actual fame, ii. 90. Thorwaldsen's Christ scourged, i. 126. "Thoughts in Aid of Faith," by Miss Hennell, ii. 186, 188, 195; favorable view of, by Miss Nightingale and Miss Julia Smith, 190. "Thoughts in Aid of Faith," ii. 73. Thoughts on death, iii. 100; on early death, ii. 290. Tichborne trial, the, iii. 106; Coleridge's address, 107. _Times_ reviews "Adam Bede," ii. 73; letter to, denying Liggin's authorship, 74. Titian's paintings, ii. 43, 45. "Too good to be true," i. 140. Torquay, visit to, iii. 25. Toulon to Nice, drive from, ii. 216, 217. Town life, depression of, ii. 203. Tragedy, notes on, iii. 32. Translator's difficulties, a, i. 99. Traunstein, our fellow-travellers at, ii. 35. Trèves, a visit to, iii. 122. Trollope, Anthony, his "Orley Farm," delightful letter from, ii. 246. Truth, desire for, i. 77. Truth of feeling a bond of union, i. 88. Tryan, Rev. Mr., an ideal character, i. 332. Tulloch, Principal, his "Pascal," iii. 235. Turguenieff, M., iii. 209. Turin: Count Cavour, ii. 122; Prince de Carignan, 122. Tylor's "Primitive Culture," iii. 118. Tyndall, Professor, "On the Constitution of the Universe," ii. 299. University and public school education, iii. 309. Use of irregular verses, iii. 40. "Utopias," poem on, ii. 286. Venice: the Grand Canal by moonlight, ii. 172; San Marco and Doge's Palace, 173; pictures in the palace, 173; interior of St. Mark's, 174; "Death of Peter the Martyr," 175; the Scuola di San Rocco, 176; Tintoretto and Titian, 176; Giovanni Bellini and Palma Vecchio, 177; sunset on the Lagoon, 177; Piazza of San Marco, 178; a remarkable picture, 178. Verona, the church of San Zenone, ii. 179; the tombs of the Scaligers, 179. Veronese, his "Finding of Moses," etc., ii. 44. Via Mala, its grand scenery, ii. 182. Vienna: Belvedere pictures, ii. 39; the Liechtenstein collection, 39; Hyrtl, the anatomist, 39; journey to Prague, 40. "Villette," i. 220. Vision of others' needs, iii. 177. Vision-seeing subjective, iii. 116. "Visiting my Relations," a volume of poetry from the authoress of, ii. 97. Wales, visit to, iii. 189. Wallace's "Eastern Archipelago," iii. 118. Wallington, Miss, her school at Nuneaton, i. 15. Walt Whitman, motto from, iii. 200. Wandsworth, takes new house at, ii. 59. Warwickshire magistrate, correspondence with, ii. 97. "Waverley," writes out, i. 16. Weimar recollections: interview with Strauss, i. 240; the Dichter Zimmer, 240; Scholl, 240; excursion to Ettersburg, 241; Arthur Helps, 242; Goethe's beech, 242; expedition to Ilmenau, 242; Wagner's operas, 243; "Der Freischütz," 243; Schiller's house, 244; Goethe's house, 244; his study, 245; the _Gartenhaus_, 246; the _Webicht_, 247; Marquis de Ferrière, 247; Liszt on Spontoni, 248; breakfast with, 249; his playing, 250; his trophies, 250; our expenses, 251; work at and books read, 268-271; wrote article on "Madame de Sablé," 268; remarks on books read, 269-271; return to England, 271. _Westminster_, the, on "Essays and Reviews," ii. 200. _Westminster Review_, assistant editor of, i. 186; heavy work, 193; its difficulties, 227; wishes to give up editorship, 229. _Westminster_ reviewers, i. 199, 200, 205, 210. Weybridge, Christmas visit to, iii. 71, 140, 159. Wharton's "Summary of the Laws relating to Women," i. 220. Whitby, visit to, iii. 85. Wicksteed's review of Strauss's translation in "Prospective," i. 109. Wilberforce, emulation of, i. 31. Wildbad to Brussels, iii. 295. Will, power of the, iii. 179. Wilson, Andrew, the "Abode of Snow," iii. 190. Witley, house bought at, iii. 215; life at, 240; Sunday receptions, 241. Wolseley, Sir Garnet, iii. 198. Woman's duty, yearning for a, i. 173; earnings, 282; full experience, iii. 63; constancy, on, 92, 93. Womanhood, her ideal of, iii. 308. Women's Colleges, iii. 309. Woolwich Arsenal, a visit to, iii. 176. Wordsworth's Poems, i. 45. Wordsworth's Thoughts on Humanity, iii. 280. Work at Weimar and Berlin, i. 268. World of light and speech, iii. 185. Writing under difficulties, ii. 307. Young, discontent of the, iii. 213. Young Englandism, no sympathy with, i. 124. Young men, desire to influence, iii. 18. Yorkshire, visit to, iii. 41. Zoological Gardens, pleasure in, ii. 209; friendship with the Shoebill, 209. THE END. GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS. 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17780	----	GEORGE ELIOT Scenes of Clerical Life INTRODUCTION BY GRACE RHYS DENT London EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain This edition was first published in Everyman's Library in 1910 INTRODUCTION George Eliot, or Mary Ann Evans, was born at Arbury Farm, in the parish of Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, on the 22nd of November, 1819. She was the fifth and last child of her father by his second wife--of that father whose sound sense and integrity she so keenly appreciated, and who was to a certain extent the original of her famous characters of Adam Bede and Caleb Garth. Both during and after her schooldays George Eliot's history was that of a mind continually out-growing its conditions. She became an excellent housewife and a devoted daughter, but her nature was too large for so cramped a life. 'You may try,' she writes in Daniel Deronda, 'but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.' While her powers were growing she necessarily passed through many phases. She became deeply religious, and wrote poetry, pious and sweet, fair of its kind. Music was a passion with her; in a characteristic letter written at the age of twenty to a friend she tries but fails to describe her experience on hearing the 'Messiah' of Birmingham: 'With a stupid, drowsy sensation, produced by standing sentinel over damson cheese and a warm stove, I cannot do better than ask you to read, if accessible, Wordsworth's short poem on the "Power of Sound."' There you have a concise history of George Eliot's life at this period, divided as it was between music, literature, and damson cheese. Sixteen years of mental work and effort then lay between her and her first achievement; years during which she read industriously and thought more than she read. The classics, French, German, and Italian literature, she laid them all under contribution. She had besides the art of fortunate friendship: her mind naturally chose out the greater intelligences among those she encountered; it was through a warm and enduring friendship with Herbert Spencer that she met at last with George Henry Lewes whose wife she became. In this way she served no trifling apprenticeship. Natural genius, experience of life, culture, and great companionship had joined to make her what she was, a philosopher both natural and developed; and, what is more rare, a philosopher with a sense of humour and a perception of the dramatic. Thus when her chance came she was fully equipped to meet it. It came when, at the age of thirty-six she began to write 'Amos Barton,' her first attempt at fiction, and one that fixed her career. The story appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and was followed by 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story' and 'Janet's Repentance.' Of the three, 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story' is perhaps the most finished and artistic; while 'Amos Barton' has qualities of humour and tenderness that have not often been equalled. 'Janet's Repentance,' strong though it is, and containing the remarkable sketch of Mr. Tryan, is perhaps less surely attractive. The stories, all three of them, have a particular value as records of an English country life that is rapidly passing away. Moreover, it is country life seen through the medium of a powerful and right-judging personality. It is her intimate and thorough knowledge of big things and small, of literature and damson cheese, enabling her and us to see all round her characters, that provides these characters with their ample background of light and shade. It is well to realise that since George Eliot's day the fashion of writing, the temper of the modern mind, are quite changed; it is a curious fact that the more sophisticated we become the simpler grows our speech. Nowadays we talk as nearly as we may in words of one syllable. Our style is stripped more and more of its Latinity. Our writers are more and more in love with French methods--with the delicate clearness of short phrases in which every word tells; with the rejection of all intellectual ambulations round about a subject. To the fanatics of this modern method the style of George Eliot appears strange, impossible. It does not occur to them that her method has virtues which lack to theirs. They may give us a little laboured masterpiece of art in which the vital principle is wanting. George Eliot was great because she gave us passages from life as it was lived in her day which will be vital so long as they are sympathetically read. George Eliot can be simple enough when she goes straight forward with her narrative, as, for instance, in the scene of Milly Barton's death; then her English is clear and sweet for she writes from the heart. But take the opening chapter of the same story, and then you find her philosophical Latinity in full swing: the curious and interesting thing being that this otherwise ponderous work, which is quite of a sort to alarm a Frenchman, is entirely suffused by humour, and enshrines moreover the most charming character studies. These lively and acute portraits drawn from English country life give its abiding value to George Eliot's work. Take the character of Mr. Pilgrim the doctor who 'is never so comfortable as when relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent farmhouses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly;' or of Mrs. Hackit, 'a thin woman with a chronic liver complaint which would have secured her Mr. Pilgrim's entire regard and unreserved good word, even if he had not been in awe of her tongue.' Or take Mrs. Patten, 'a pretty little old woman of eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face,' whose function is 'quiescence in an easy-chair under the sense of compound interest gradually accumulating,' and who 'does her malevolence gently;' or Mr. Hackit, a shrewd, substantial man, 'who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind by a jocose compliment.' Where but in George Eliot would you get a tea-party described with such charming acceptance of whim? George Eliot wrote poems at various times which showed she never could have won fame as a poet; but there are moments of her prose that prove she shared at times the poet's vision. Such a moment is that when the half broken-hearted little Catarina looks out on a windy night landscape lit by moonlight: 'The trees are harassed by that tossing motion when they would like to be at rest; the shivering grass makes her quake with sympathetic cold; the willows by the pool, _bent low and white under that invisible harshness_, seem agitated and helpless like herself.' The italicised sentence represents the high-water mark of George Eliot's prose; that passage alone should vindicate her imaginative power. G. R. CONTENTS The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton Mr. Gilfil's Love Story Janet's Repentance SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON Chapter 1 Shepperton Church was a very different-looking building five-and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days; but in everything else what changes! Now there is a wide span of slated roof flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the outer doors are resplendent with oak-graining, the inner doors reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize; and the walls, you are convinced, no lichen will ever again effect a settlement on--they are smooth and innutrient as the summit of the Rev. Amos Barton's head, after ten years of baldness and supererogatory soap. Pass through the baize doors and you will see the nave filled with well-shaped benches, understood to be free seats; while in certain eligible corners, less directly under the fire of the clergyman's eye, there are pews reserved for the Shepperton gentility. Ample galleries are supported on iron pillars, and in one of them stands the crowning glory, the very clasp or aigrette of Shepperton church-adornment--namely, an organ, not very much out of repair, on which a collector of small rents, differentiated by the force of circumstances into an organist, will accompany the alacrity of your departure after the blessing, by a sacred minuet or an easy 'Gloria'. Immense improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly rejoices in the New Police, the Tithe Commutation Act, the penny-post, and all guarantees of human advancement, and has no moments when conservative-reforming intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the sly, revelling in regret that dear, old, brown, crumbling, picturesque inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless diagrams, plans, elevations, and sections, but alas! no picture. Mine, I fear, is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors. So it is not surprising that I recall with a fond sadness Shepperton Church as it was in the old days, with its outer coat of rough stucco, its red-tiled roof, its heterogeneous windows patched with desultory bits of painted glass, and its little flight of steps with their wooden rail running up the outer wall, and leading to the school-children's gallery. Then inside, what dear old quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight, even when I was so crude a members of the congregation, that my nurse found it necessary to provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling bread-and-butter into the sacred edifice. There was the chancel, guarded by two little cherubims looking uncomfortably squeezed between arch and wall, and adorned with the escutcheons of the Oldinport family, which showed me inexhaustible possibilities of meaning in their blood-red hands, their death's-heads and cross-bones, their leopards' paws, and Maltese crosses. There were inscriptions on the panels of the singing-gallery, telling of benefactions to the poor of Shepperton, with an involuted elegance of capitals and final flourishes, which my alphabetic erudition traced with ever-new delight. No benches in those days; but huge roomy pews, round which devout church-goers sat during 'lessons', trying to look anywhere else than into each other's eyes. No low partitions allowing you, with a dreary absence of contrast and mystery, to see everything at all moments; but tall dark panels, under whose shadow I sank with a sense of retirement through the Litany, only to feel with more intensity my burst into the conspicuousness of public life when I was made to stand up on the seat during the psalms or the singing. And the singing was no mechanical affair of official routine; it had a drama. As the moment of psalmody approached, by some process to me as mysterious and untraceable as the opening of the flowers or the breaking-out of the stars, a slate appeared in front of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the psalm about to be sung, lest the sonorous announcement of the clerk should still leave the bucolic mind in doubt on that head. Then followed the migration of the clerk to the gallery, where, in company with a bassoon, two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have an amazing power of singing 'counter', and two lesser musical stars, he formed the complement of a choir regarded in Shepperton as one of distinguished attraction, occasionally known to draw hearers from the next parish. The innovation of hymn-books was as yet undreamed of; even the New Version was regarded with a sort of melancholy tolerance, as part of the common degeneracy in a time when prices had dwindled, and a cotton gown was no longer stout enough to last a lifetime; for the lyrical taste of the best heads in Shepperton had been formed on Sternhold and Hopkins. But the greatest triumphs of the Shepperton choir were reserved for the Sundays when the slate announced an ANTHEM, with a dignified abstinence from particularization, both words and music lying far beyond the reach of the most ambitious amateur in the congregation: an anthem in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them. As for the clergyman, Mr. Gilfil, an excellent old gentleman, who smoked very long pipes and preached very short sermons, I must not speak of him, or I might be tempted to tell the story of his life, which had its little romance, as most lives have between the ages of teetotum and tobacco. And at present I am concerned with quite another sort of clergyman--the Rev. Amos Barton, who did not come to Shepperton until long after Mr. Gilfil had departed this life--until after an interval in which Evangelicalism and the Catholic Question had begun to agitate the rustic mind with controversial debates. A Popish blacksmith had produced a strong Protestant reaction by declaring that, as soon as the Emancipation Bill was passed, he should do a great stroke of business in gridirons; and the disinclination of the Shepperton parishioners generally to dim the unique glory of St Lawrence, rendered the Church and Constitution an affair of their business and bosoms. A zealous Evangelical preacher had made the old sounding-board vibrate with quite a different sort of elocution from Mr. Gilfil's; the hymn-book had almost superseded the Old and New Versions; and the great square pews were crowded with new faces from distant corners of the parish--perhaps from Dissenting chapels. You are not imagining, I hope, that Amos Barton was the incumbent of Shepperton. He was no such thing. Those were days when a man could hold three small livings, starve a curate a-piece on two of them, and live badly himself on the third. It was so with the Vicar of Shepperton; a vicar given to bricks and mortar, and thereby running into debt far away in a northern county--who executed his vicarial functions towards Shepperton by pocketing the sum of thirty-five pounds ten per annum, the net surplus remaining to him from the proceeds of that living, after the disbursement of eighty pounds as the annual stipend of his curate. And now, pray, can you solve me the following problem? Given a man with a wife and six children: let him be obliged always to exhibit himself when outside his own door in a suit of black broadcloth, such as will not undermine the foundations of the Establishment by a paltry plebeian glossiness or an unseemly whiteness at the edges; in a snowy cravat, which is a serious investment of labour in the hemming, starching, and ironing departments; and in a hat which shows no symptom of taking to the hideous doctrine of expediency, and shaping itself according to circumstances; let him have a parish large enough to create an external necessity for abundant shoe-leather, and an internal necessity for abundant beef and mutton, as well as poor enough to require frequent priestly consolation in the shape of shillings and sixpences; and, lastly, let him be compelled, by his own pride and other people's, to dress his wife and children with gentility from bonnet-strings to shoe-strings. By what process of division can the sum of eighty pounds per annum be made to yield a quotient which will cover that man's weekly expenses? This was the problem presented by the position of the Rev. Amos Barton, as curate of Shepperton, rather more than twenty years ago. What was thought of this problem, and of the man who had to work it out, by some of the well-to-do inhabitants of Shepperton, two years or more after Mr. Barton's arrival among them, you shall hear, if you will accompany me to Cross Farm, and to the fireside of Mrs. Patten, a childless old lady, who had got rich chiefly by the negative process of spending nothing. Mrs. Patten's passive accumulation of wealth, through all sorts of 'bad times', on the farm of which she had been sole tenant since her husband's death, her epigrammatic neighbour, Mrs. Hackit, sarcastically accounted for by supposing that 'sixpences grew on the bents of Cross Farm;' while Mr. Hackit, expressing his views more literally, reminded his wife that 'money breeds money'. Mr. and Mrs. Hackit, from the neighbouring farm, are Mrs. Patten's guests this evening; so is Mr. Pilgrim, the doctor from the nearest market-town, who, though occasionally affecting aristocratic airs, and giving late dinners with enigmatic side-dishes and poisonous port, is never so comfortable as when he is relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent farmhouses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly. And he is at this moment in clover. For the flickering of Mrs. Patten's bright fire is reflected in her bright copper tea-kettle, the home-made muffins glisten with an inviting succulence, and Mrs. Patten's niece, a single lady of fifty, who has refused the most ineligible offers out of devotion to her aged aunt, is pouring the rich cream into the fragrant tea with a discreet liberality. Reader! _did_ you ever taste such a cup of tea as Miss Gibbs is this moment handing to Mr. Pilgrim? Do you know the dulcet strength, the animating blandness of tea sufficiently blended with real farmhouse cream? No--most likely you are a miserable town-bred reader, who think of cream as a thinnish white fluid, delivered in infinitesimal pennyworths down area steps; or perhaps, from a presentiment of calves' brains, you refrain from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with unmitigated bohea. You have a vague idea of a milch cow as probably a white-plaster animal standing in a butterman's window, and you know nothing of the sweet history of genuine cream, such as Miss Gibbs's: how it was this morning in the udders of the large sleek beasts, as they stood lowing a patient entreaty under the milking-shed; how it fell with a pleasant rhythm into Betty's pail, sending a delicious incense into the cool air; how it was carried into that temple of moist cleanliness, the dairy, where it quietly separated itself from the meaner elements of milk, and lay in mellowed whiteness, ready for the skimming-dish which transferred it to Miss Gibbs's glass cream-jug. If I am right in my conjecture, you are unacquainted with the highest possibilities of tea; and Mr. Pilgrim, who is holding that cup in his hands, has an idea beyond you. Mrs. Hackit declines cream; she has so long abstained from it with an eye to the weekly butter-money, that abstinence, wedded to habit, has begotten aversion. She is a thin woman with a chronic liver-complaint, which would have secured her Mr. Pilgrim's entire regard and unreserved good word, even if he had not been in awe of her tongue, which was as sharp as his own lancet. She has brought her knitting--no frivolous fancy knitting, but a substantial woollen stocking; the click-click of her knitting-needles is the running accompaniment to all her conversation, and in her utmost enjoyment of spoiling a friend's self-satisfaction, she was never known to spoil a stocking. Mrs. Patten does not admire this excessive click-clicking activity. Quiescence in an easy-chair, under the sense of compound interest perpetually accumulating, has long seemed an ample function to her, and she does her malevolence gently. She is a pretty little old woman of eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face, as natty and unsoiled and invariable as the waxen image of a little old lady under a glass-case; once a lady's-maid, and married for her beauty. She used to adore her husband, and now she adores her money, cherishing a quiet blood-relation's hatred for her niece, Janet Gibbs, who, she knows, expects a large legacy, and whom she is determined to disappoint. Her money shall all go in a lump to a distant relation of her husband's, and Janet shall be saved the trouble of pretending to cry, by finding that she is left with a miserable pittance. Mrs. Patten has more respect for her neighbour Mr. Hackit than for most people. Mr. Hackit is a shrewd substantial man, whose advice about crops is always worth listening to, and who is too well off to want to borrow money. And now that we are snug and warm with this little tea-party, while it is freezing with February bitterness outside, we will listen to what they are talking about. 'So,' said Mr. Pilgrim, with his mouth only half empty of muffin, 'you had a row in Shepperton Church last Sunday. I was at Jim Hood's, the bassoon-man's, this morning, attending his wife, and he swears he'll be revenged on the parson--a confounded, methodistical, meddlesome chap, who must be putting his finger in every pie. What was it all about?' 'O, a passill o' nonsense,' said Mr. Hackit, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other--for he was but moderately given to 'the cups that cheer but not inebriate', and had already finished his tea; 'they began to sing the wedding psalm for a new-married couple, as pretty a psalm an' as pretty a tune as any in the prayer-book. It's been sung for every new-married couple since I was a boy. And what can be better?' Here Mr. Hackit stretched out his left arm, threw back his head, and broke into melody-- 'O what a happy thing it is, And joyful for to see, Brethren to dwell together in Friendship and unity. But Mr. Barton is all for th' hymns, and a sort o' music as I can't join in at all.' 'And so,' said Mr. Pilgrim, recalling Mr. Hackit from lyrical reminiscences to narrative, 'he called out Silence! did he? when he got into the pulpit; and gave a hymn out himself to some meeting-house tune?' 'Yes,' said Mrs. Hackit, stooping towards the candle to pick up a stitch, 'and turned as red as a turkey-cock. I often say, when he preaches about meekness, he gives himself a slap in the face. He's like me--he's got a temper of his own.' 'Rather a low-bred fellow, I think, Barton,' said Mr. Pilgrim, who hated the Reverend Amos for two reasons--because he had called in a new doctor, recently settled in Shepperton; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr. Pilgrim's. 'They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he's half a Dissenter himself. Why, doesn't he preach extempore in that cottage up here, of a Sunday evening?' 'Tchuh!'--this was Mr. Hackit's favourite interjection--'that preaching without book's no good, only when a man has a gift, and has the Bible at his fingers' ends. It was all very well for Parry--he'd a gift; and in my youth I've heard the Ranters out o' doors in Yorkshire go on for an hour or two on end, without ever sticking fast a minute. There was one clever chap, I remember, as used to say, "You're like the woodpigeon; it says do, do, do all day, and never sets about any work itself." That's bringing it home to people. But our parson's no gift at all that way; he can preach as good a sermon as need be heard when he writes it down. But when he tries to preach wi'out book, he rambles about, and doesn't stick to his text; and every now and then he flounders about like a sheep as has cast itself, and can't get on'ts legs again. You wouldn't like that, Mrs. Patten, if you was to go to church now?' 'Eh, dear,' said Mrs. Patten, falling back in her chair, and lifting up her little withered hands, 'what 'ud Mr. Gilfil say, if he was worthy to know the changes as have come about i' the Church these last ten years? I don't understand these new sort o' doctrines. When Mr. Barton comes to see me, he talks about nothing but my sins and my need o' marcy. Now, Mr. Hackit, I've never been a sinner. From the fust beginning, when I went into service, I al'ys did my duty by my emplyers. I was a good wife as any in the county--never aggravated my husband. The cheese-factor used to say my cheese was al'ys to be depended on. I've known women, as their cheeses swelled a shame to be seen, when their husbands had counted on the cheese-money to make up their rent; and yet they'd three gowns to my one. If I'm not to be saved, I know a many as are in a bad way. But it's well for me as I can't go to church any longer, for if th' old singers are to be done away with, there'll be nothing left as it was in Mr. Patten's time; and what's more, I hear you've settled to pull the church down and build it up new?' Now the fact was that the Rev. Amos Barton, on his last visit to Mrs. Patten, had urged her to enlarge her promised subscription of twenty pounds, representing to her that she was only a steward of her riches, and that she could not spend them more for the glory of God than by giving a heavy subscription towards the rebuilding of Shepperton Church--a practical precept which was not likely to smooth the way to her acceptance of his theological doctrine. Mr. Hackit, who had more doctrinal enlightenment than Mrs. Patten, had been a little shocked by the heathenism of her speech, and was glad of the new turn given to the subject by this question, addressed to him as church-warden and an authority in all parochial matters. 'Ah,' he answered, 'the parson's bothered us into it at last, and we're to begin pulling down this spring. But we haven't got money enough yet. I was for waiting till we'd made up the sum, and, for my part, I think the congregation's fell off o' late; though Mr. Barton says that's because there's been no room for the people when they've come. You see, the congregation got so large in Parry's time, the people stood in the aisles; but there's never any crowd now, as I can see.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Hackit, whose good-nature began to act now that it was a little in contradiction with the dominant tone of the conversation, '_I_ like Mr. Barton. I think he's a good sort o' man, for all he's not overburthen'd i' th' upper storey; and his wife's as nice a lady-like woman as I'd wish to see. How nice she keeps her children! and little enough money to do't with; and a delicate creatur'--six children, and another a-coming. I don't know how they make both ends meet, I'm sure, now her aunt has left 'em. But I sent 'em a cheese and a sack o' potatoes last week; that's something towards filling the little mouths.' 'Ah!' said Mr. Hackit, 'and my wife makes Mr. Barton a good stiff glass o' brandy-and-water, when he comes into supper after his cottage preaching. The parson likes it; it puts a bit o' colour into 'is face, and makes him look a deal handsomer.' This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters, now that the tea was cleared away; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty years ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be perpetually athirst, and 'something to drink' was as necessary a 'condition of thought' as Time and Space. 'Now, that cottage preaching,' said Mr. Pilgrim, mixing himself a strong glass of 'cold without,' 'I was talking about it to our Parson Ely the other day, and he doesn't approve of it at all. He said it did as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious teaching. That was what Ely said--it does as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious teaching.' Mr. Pilgrim generally spoke with an intermittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever man had a 'pediment' in his speech. But when he came to what he conceived the pith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo semiquavers to fortissimo crotchets. He thought this speech of Mr. Ely's particularly metaphysical and profound, and the more decisive of the question because it was a generality which represented no particulars to his mind. 'Well, I don't know about that,' said Mrs. Hackit, who had always the courage of her opinion, 'but I know, some of our labourers and stockingers as used never to come to church, come to the cottage, and that's better than never hearing anything good from week's end to week's end. And there's that Track Society's as Mr. Barton has begun--I've seen more o' the poor people with going tracking, than all the time I've lived in the parish before. And there'd need be something done among 'em; for the drinking at them Benefit Clubs is shameful. There's hardly a steady man or steady woman either, but what's a dissenter.' During this speech of Mrs. Hackit's, Mr. Pilgrim had emitted a succession of little snorts, something like the treble grunts of a guinea-pig, which were always with him the sign of suppressed disapproval. But he never contradicted Mrs. Hackit--a woman whose 'pot-luck' was always to be relied on, and who on her side had unlimited reliance on bleeding, blistering, and draughts. Mrs. Patten, however, felt equal disapprobation, and had no reasons for suppressing it. 'Well,' she remarked, 'I've heared of no good from interfering with one's neighbours, poor or rich. And I hate the sight o' women going about trapesing from house to house in all weathers, wet or dry, and coming in with their petticoats dagged and their shoes all over mud. Janet wanted to join in the tracking, but I told her I'd have nobody tracking out o' my house; when I'm gone, she may do as she likes. I never dagged my petticoats in _my_ life, and I've no opinion o' that sort o' religion.' 'No,' said Mr. Hackit, who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind with a jocose compliment, 'you held your petticoats so high, to show your tight ankles: it isn't everybody as likes to show her ankles.' This joke met with general acceptance, even from the snubbed Janet, whose ankles were only tight in the sense of looking extremely squeezed by her boots. But Janet seemed always to identify herself with her aunt's personality, holding her own under protest. Under cover of the general laughter the gentlemen replenished their glasses, Mr. Pilgrim attempting to give his the character of a stirrup-cup by observing that he 'must be going'. Miss Gibbs seized this opportunity of telling Mrs. Hackit that she suspected Betty, the dairymaid, of frying the best bacon for the shepherd, when he sat up with her to 'help brew'; whereupon Mrs. Hackit replied that she had always thought Betty false; and Mrs. Patten said there was no bacon stolen when _she_ was able to manage. Mr. Hackit, who often complained that he 'never saw the like to women with their maids--he never had any trouble with his men', avoided listening to this discussion, by raising the question of vetches with Mr. Pilgrim. The stream of conversation had thus diverged: and no more was said about the Rev. Amos Barton, who is the main object of interest to us just now. So we may leave Cross Farm without waiting till Mrs. Hackit, resolutely donning her clogs and wrappings, renders it incumbent on Mr. Pilgrim also to fulfil his frequent threat of going. Chapter 2 It was happy for the Rev. Amos Barton that he did not, like us, overhear the conversation recorded in the last chapter. Indeed, what mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence! The very capacity for good would go out of us. For, tell the most impassioned orator, suddenly, that his wig is awry, or his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tickling people by the oddity of his person, instead of thrilling them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be wrought without faith--without the worker's faith in himself, as well as the recipient's faith in him. And the greater part of the worker's faith in himself is made up of the faith that others believe in him. Let me be persuaded that my neighbour Jenkins considers me a blockhead, and I shall never shine in conversation with him any more. Let me discover that the lovely Phoebe thinks my squint intolerable, and I shall never be able to fix her blandly with my disengaged eye again. Thank heaven, then, that a little illusion is left to us, to enable us to be useful and agreeable--that we don't know exactly what our friends think of us--that the world is not made of looking-glass, to show us just the figure we are making, and just what is going on behind our backs! By the help of dear friendly illusion, we are able to dream that we are charming and our faces wear a becoming air of self-possession; we are able to dream that other men admire our talents--and our benignity is undisturbed; we are able to dream that we are doing much good--and we do a little. Thus it was with Amos Barton on that very Thursday evening, when he was the subject of the conversation at Cross Farm. He had been dining at Mr. Farquhar's, the secondary squire of the parish, and, stimulated by unwonted gravies and port-wine, had been delivering his opinion on affairs parochial and otherwise with considerable animation. And he was now returning home in the moonlight--a little chill, it is true, for he had just now no greatcoat compatible with clerical dignity, and a fur boa round one's neck, with a waterproof cape over one's shoulders, doesn't frighten away the cold from one's legs; but entirely unsuspicious, not only of Mr. Hackit's estimate of his oratorical powers, but also of the critical remarks passed on him by the Misses Farquhar as soon as the drawing-room door had closed behind him. Miss Julia had observed that she _never_ heard any one sniff so frightfully as Mr. Barton did--she had a great mind to offer him her pocket-handkerchief; and Miss Arabella wondered why he always said he was going _for_ to do a thing. He, excellent man! was meditating fresh pastoral exertions on the morrow; he would set on foot his lending library; in which he had introduced some books that would be a pretty sharp blow to the Dissenters--one especially, purporting to be written by a working man who, out of pure zeal for the welfare of his class, took the trouble to warn them in this way against those hypocritical thieves, the Dissenting preachers. The Rev. Amos Barton profoundly believed in the existence of that working man, and had thoughts of writing to him. Dissent, he considered, would have its head bruised in Shepperton, for did he not attack it in two ways? He preached Low-Church doctrine--as evangelical as anything to be heard in the Independent Chapel; and he made a High-Church assertion of ecclesiastical powers and functions. Clearly, the Dissenters would feel that 'the parson' was too many for them. Nothing like a man who combines shrewdness with energy. The wisdom of the serpent, Mr. Barton considered, was one of his strong points. Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons, as it flits past the pale gravestones. He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once--that is to say, by the robust maid-of-all-work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular complexion--even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have been of a mongrel, indefinite kind--with features of no particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression is surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and down by the red firelight, holding in her arms little Walter, the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small stockings lying unmended on the table. She was a lovely woman--Mrs. Amos Barton, a large, fair, gentle Madonna, with thick, close, chestnut curls beside her well-rounded cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing lines of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's _gros de Naples_. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off her head, utterly heavy and hideous--for in those days even fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of fifteen; she blushed crimson if any one appealed to her opinion; yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation of timidity. Soothing, unspeakable charm of gentle womanhood! which supersedes all acquisitions, all accomplishments. You would never have asked, at any period of Mrs. Amos Barton's life, if she sketched or played the piano. You would even perhaps have been rather scandalized if she had descended from the serene dignity of _being_ to the assiduous unrest of _doing_. Happy the man, you would have thought, whose eye will rest on her in the pauses of his fireside reading--whose hot aching forehead will be soothed by the contact of her cool soft hand--who will recover himself from dejection at his mistakes and failures in the loving light of her unreproaching eyes! You would not, perhaps, have anticipated that this bliss would fall to the share of precisely such a man as Amos Barton, whom you have already surmised not to have the refined sensibilities for which you might have imagined Mrs. Barton's qualities to be destined by pre-established harmony. But I, for one, do not grudge Amos Barton this sweet wife. I have all my life had a sympathy for mongrel ungainly dogs, who are nobody's pets; and I would rather surprise one of them by a pat and a pleasant morsel, than meet the condescending advances of the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by my lady's chair. That, to be sure, is not the way of the world: if it happens to see a fellow of fine proportions and aristocratic mien, who makes no _faux pas_, and wins golden opinions from all sorts of men, it straightway picks out for him the loveliest of unmarried women, and says, _There_ would be a proper match! Not at all, say I: let that successful, well-shapen, discreet and able gentleman put up with something less than the best in the matrimonial department; and let the sweet woman go to make sunshine and a soft pillow for the poor devil whose legs are not models, whose efforts are often blunders, and who in general gets more kicks than halfpence. She--the sweet woman--will like it as well; for her sublime capacity of loving will have all the more scope; and I venture to say, Mrs. Barton's nature would never have grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would perhaps have had in your eye for her--a man with sufficient income and abundant personal eclat. Besides, Amos was an affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his best treasure. But now he has shut the door behind him, and said, 'Well, Milly!' 'Well, dear!' was the corresponding greeting, made eloquent by a smile. 'So that young rascal won't go to sleep! Can't you give him to Nanny?' 'Why, Nanny has been busy ironing this evening; but I think I'll take him to her now.' And Mrs. Barton glided towards the kitchen, while her husband ran up-stairs to put on his maize-coloured dressing-gown, in which costume he was quietly filling his long pipe when his wife returned to the sitting-room. Maize is a colour that decidedly did _not_ suit his complexion, and it is one that soon soils; why, then, did Mr. Barton select it for domestic wear? Perhaps because he had a knack of hitting on the wrong thing in garb as well as in grammar. Mrs. Barton now lighted her candle, and seated herself before her heap of stockings. She had something disagreeable to tell her husband, but she would not enter on it at once. 'Have you had a nice evening, dear?' 'Yes, pretty well. Ely was there to dinner, but went away rather early. Miss Arabella is setting her cap at him with a vengeance. But I don't think he's much smitten. I've a notion Ely's engaged to some one at a distance, and will astonish all the ladies who are languishing for him here, by bringing home his bride one of these days. Ely's a sly dog; he'll like that.' 'Did the Farquhars say anything about the singing last Sunday?' 'Yes; Farquhar said he thought it was time there was some improvement in the choir. But he was rather scandalized at my setting the tune of "Lydia." He says he's always hearing it as he passes the Independent meeting.' Here Mr. Barton laughed--he had a way of laughing at criticisms that other people thought damaging--and thereby showed the remainder of a set of teeth which, like the remnants of the Old Guard, were few in number, and very much the worse for wear. 'But,' he continued, 'Mrs. Farquhar talked the most about Mr. Bridmain and the Countess. She has taken up all the gossip about them, and wanted to convert me to her opinion, but I told her pretty strongly what I thought.' 'Dear me! why will people take so much pains to find out evil about others? I have had a note from the Countess since you went, asking us to dine with them on Friday.' Here Mrs. Barton reached the note from the mantelpiece, and gave it to her husband. We will look over his shoulder while he reads it:-- "Sweetest Milly, Bring your lovely face with your husband to dine with us on Friday at seven--do. If not, I will be sulky with you till Sunday, when I shall be obliged to see you, and shall long to kiss you that very moment. Yours, according to your answer, Caroline Czerlaski." 'Just like her, isn't it?' said Mrs. Barton. 'I suppose we can go?' 'Yes; I have no engagement. The Clerical Meeting is tomorrow, you know.' 'And, dear, Woods the butcher called, to say he must have some money next week. He has a payment to make up.' This announcement made Mr. Barton thoughtful. He puffed more rapidly, and looked at the fire. 'I think I must ask Hackit to lend me twenty pounds, for it is nearly two months till Lady-day, and we can't give Woods our last shilling.' 'I hardly like you to ask Mr. Hackit, dear--he and Mrs. Hackit have been so very kind to us; they have sent us so many things lately.' 'Then I must ask Oldinport. I'm going to write to him tomorrow morning, for to tell him the arrangement I've been thinking of about having service in the workhouse while the church is being enlarged. If he agrees to attend service there once or twice, the other people will come. Net the large fish, and you're sure to have the small fry.' 'I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don't see how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I couldn't let him go to Mrs. Bond's yesterday because his toes were peeping out, dear child! and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.' Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers. Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which, before she left, had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to leave off tight pantaloons, because if he would wear the ordinary gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would suspect the sex of the tailor. But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment putting him in the little cot by his mother's bedside; the head, with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is given to the infantile peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny could now join in the short evening prayer, and all could go to bed. Mrs. Barton carried up-stairs the remainder of her heap of stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of love that would care for husband and babes better than she could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round her bed--and angels might be glad of such an office they saw Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just, light her candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at the breakfast-table, busy cutting bread-and-butter for five hungry mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk-and-water. Nearest her mother sits the nine-year-old Patty, the eldest child, whose sweet fair face is already rather grave sometimes, and who always wants to run up-stairs to save mamma's legs, which get so tired of an evening. Then there are four other blond heads--two boys and two girls, gradually decreasing in size down to Chubby, who is making a round O of her mouth to receive a bit of papa's 'baton'. Papa's attention was divided between petting Chubby, rebuking the noisy Fred, which he did with a somewhat excessive sharpness, and eating his own breakfast. He had not yet looked at Mamma, and did not know that her cheek was paler than usual. But Patty whispered, 'Mamma, have you the headache?' Happily coal was cheap in the neighbourhood of Shepperton, and Mr. Hackit would any time let his horses draw a load for 'the parson' without charge; so there was a blazing fire in the sitting-room, and not without need, for the vicarage garden, as they looked out on it from the bow-window, was hard with black frost, and the sky had the white woolly look that portends snow. Breakfast over, Mr. Barton mounted to his study, and occupied himself in the first place with his letter to Mr. Oldinport. It was very much the same sort of letter as most clergymen would have written under the same circumstances, except that instead of perambulate, the Rev. Amos wrote preambulate, and instead of 'if haply', 'if happily', the contingency indicated being the reverse of happy. Mr. Barton had not the gift of perfect accuracy in English orthography and syntax, which was unfortunate, as he was known not to be a Hebrew scholar, and not in the least suspected of being an accomplished Grecian. These lapses, in a man who had gone through the Eleusinian mysteries of a university education, surprised the young ladies of his parish extremely; especially the Misses Farquhar, whom he had once addressed in a letter as Dear Mads., apparently an abbreviation for Madams. The persons least surprised at the Rev. Amos's deficiencies were his clerical brethren, who had gone through the mysteries themselves. At eleven o'clock, Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, with the sleet driving in his face, to read prayers at the workhouse, euphemistically called the 'College'. The College was a huge square stone building, standing on the best apology for an elevation of ground that could be seen for about ten miles around Shepperton. A flat ugly district this; depressing enough to look at even on the brightest days. The roads are black with coal-dust, the brick houses dingy with smoke; and at that time--the time of handloom weavers--every other cottage had a loom at its window, where you might see a pale, sickly-looking man or woman pressing a narrow chest against a board, and doing a sort of treadmill work with legs and arms. A troublesome district for a clergyman; at least to one who, like Amos Barton, understood the 'cure of souls' in something more than an official sense; for over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm-labourers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers in an acrid Radicalism and Dissent. Indeed, Mrs. Hackit often observed that the colliers, who many of them earned better wages than Mr. Barton, 'passed their time in doing nothing but swilling ale and smoking, like the beasts that perish' (speaking, we may presume, in a remotely analogical sense); and in some of the alehouse corners the drink was flavoured by a dingy kind of infidelity, something like rinsings of Tom Paine in ditch-water. A certain amount of religious excitement created by the popular preaching of Mr. Parry, Amos's predecessor, had nearly died out, and the religious life of Shepperton was falling back towards low-water mark. Here, you perceive, was a terrible stronghold of Satan; and you may well pity the Rev. Amos Barton, who had to stand single-handed and summon it to surrender. We read, indeed, that the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of trumpets; but we nowhere hear that those trumpets were hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway-horn, which shows praiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled. He often missed the right note both in public and private exhortation, and got a little angry in consequence. For though Amos thought himself strong, he did not _feel_ himself strong. Nature had given him the opinion, but not the sensation. Without that opinion he would probably never have worn cambric bands, but would have been an excellent cabinetmaker and deacon of an Independent church, as his father was before him (he was not a shoemaker, as Mr. Pilgrim had reported). He might then have sniffed long and loud in the corner of his pew in Gun Street Chapel; he might have indulged in halting rhetoric at prayer-meetings, and have spoken faulty English in private life; and these little infirmities would not have prevented him, honest faithful man that he was, from being a shining light in the dissenting circle of Bridgeport. A tallow dip, of the long-eight description, is an excellent thing in the kitchen candlestick, and Betty's nose and eye are not sensitive to the difference between it and the finest wax; it is only when you stick it in the silver candlestick, and introduce it into the drawing-room, that it seems plebeian, dim, and ineffectual. Alas for the worthy man who, like that candle, gets himself into the wrong place! It is only the very largest souls who will be able to appreciate and pity him--who will discern and love sincerity of purpose amid all the bungling feebleness of achievement. But now Amos Barton has made his way through the sleet as far as the College, has thrown off his hat, cape, and boa, and is reading, in the dreary stone-floored dining-room, a portion of the morning service to the inmates seated on the benches before him. Remember, the New Poor-law had not yet come into operation, and Mr. Barton was not acting as paid chaplain of the Union, but as the pastor who had the cure of all souls in his parish, pauper as well as other. After the prayers he always addressed to them a short discourse on some subject suggested by the lesson for the day, striving if by this means some edifying matter might find its way into the pauper mind and conscience--perhaps a task as trying as you could well imagine to the faith and patience of any honest clergyman. For, on the very first bench, these were the faces on which his eye had to rest, watching whether there was any stirring under the stagnant surface. Right in front of him--probably because he was stone-deaf, and it was deemed more edifying to hear nothing at a short distance than at a long one--sat 'Old Maxum', as he was familiarly called, his real patronymic remaining a mystery to most persons. A fine philological sense discerns in this cognomen an indication that the pauper patriarch had once been considered pithy and sententious in his speech; but now the weight of ninety-five years lay heavy on his tongue as well as in his ears, and he sat before the clergyman with protruded chin, and munching mouth, and eyes that seemed to look at emptiness. Next to him sat Poll Fodge--known to the magistracy of her county as Mary Higgins--a one-eyed woman, with a scarred and seamy face, the most notorious rebel in the workhouse, said to have once thrown her broth over the master's coat-tails, and who, in spite of nature's apparent safeguards against that contingency, had contributed to the perpetuation of the Fodge characteristics in the person of a small boy, who was behaving naughtily on one of the back benches. Miss Fodge fixed her one sore eye on Mr. Barton with a sort of hardy defiance. Beyond this member of the softer sex, at the end of the bench, sat 'Silly Jim', a young man afflicted with hydrocephalus, who rolled his head from side to side, and gazed at the point of his nose. These were the supporters of Old Maxum on his right. On his left sat Mr. Fitchett, a tall fellow, who had once been a footman in the Oldinport family, and in that giddy elevation had enunciated a contemptuous opinion of boiled beef, which had been traditionally handed down in Shepperton as the direct cause of his ultimate reduction to pauper commons. His calves were now shrunken, and his hair was grey without the aid of powder; but he still carried his chin as if he were conscious of a stiff cravat; he set his dilapidated hat on with a knowing inclination towards the left ear; and when he was on field-work, he carted and uncarted the manure with a sort of flunkey grace, the ghost of that jaunty demeanour with which he used to usher in my lady's morning visitors. The flunkey nature was nowhere completely subdued but in his stomach, and he still divided society into gentry, gentry's flunkeys, and the people who provided for them. A clergyman without a flunkey was an anomaly, belonging to neither of these classes. Mr. Fitchett had an irrepressible tendency to drowsiness under spiritual instruction, and in the recurrent regularity with which he dozed off until he nodded and awaked himself, he looked not unlike a piece of mechanism, ingeniously contrived for measuring the length of Mr. Barton's discourse. Perfectly wide-awake, on the contrary, was his left-hand neighbour, Mrs. Brick, one of those hard undying old women, to whom age seems to have given a network of wrinkles, as a coat of magic armour against the attacks of winters, warm or cold. The point on which Mrs. Brick was still sensitive--the theme on which you might possibly excite her hope and fear--was snuff. It seemed to be an embalming powder, helping her soul to do the office of salt. And now, eke out an audience of which this front benchful was a sample, with a certain number of refractory children, over whom Mr. Spratt, the master of the workhouse, exercised an irate surveillance, and I think you will admit that the university-taught clergyman, whose office it is to bring home the gospel to a handful of such souls, has a sufficiently hard task. For, to have any chance of success, short of miraculous intervention, he must bring his geographical, chronological, exegetical mind pretty nearly to the pauper point of view, or of no view; he must have some approximate conception of the mode in which the doctrines that have so much vitality in the plenum of his own brain will comport themselves _in vacuo_--that is to say, in a brain that is neither geographical, chronological, nor exegetical. It is a flexible imagination that can take such a leap as that, and an adroit tongue that can adapt its speech to so unfamiliar a position. The Rev. Amos Barton had neither that flexible imagination, nor that adroit tongue. He talked of Israel and its sins, of chosen vessels, of the Paschal lamb, of blood as a medium of reconciliation; and he strove in this way to convey religious truth within reach of the Fodge and Fitchett mind. This very morning, the first lesson was the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and Mr. Barton's exposition turned on unleavened bread. Nothing in the world more suited to the simple understanding than instruction through familiar types and symbols! But there is always this danger attending it, that the interest or comprehension of your hearers may stop short precisely at the point where your spiritual interpretation begins. And Mr. Barton this morning succeeded in carrying the pauper imagination to the dough-tub, but unfortunately was not able to carry it upwards from that well-known object to the unknown truths which it was intended to shadow forth. Alas! a natural incapacity for teaching, finished by keeping 'terms' at Cambridge, where there are able mathematicians, and butter is sold by the yard, is not apparently the medium through which Christian doctrine will distil as welcome dew on withered souls. And so, while the sleet outside was turning to unquestionable snow, and the stony dining-room looked darker and drearier, and Mr. Fitchett was nodding his lowest, and Mr. Spratt was boxing the boys' ears with a constant _rinforzando_, as he felt more keenly the approach of dinner-time, Mr. Barton wound up his exhortation with something of the February chill at his heart as well as his feet. Mr. Fitchett, thoroughly roused now the instruction was at an end, obsequiously and gracefully advanced to help Mr. Barton in putting on his cape, while Mrs. Brick rubbed her withered forefinger round and round her little shoe-shaped snuff-box, vainly seeking for the fraction of a pinch. I can't help thinking that if Mr. Barton had shaken into that little box a small portion of Scotch high-dried, he might have produced something more like an amiable emotion in Mrs. Brick's mind than anything she had felt under his morning's exposition of the unleavened bread. But our good Amos laboured under a deficiency of small tact as well as of small cash; and when he observed the action of the old woman's forefinger, he said, in his brusque way, 'So your snuff is all gone, eh?' Mrs. Brick's eyes twinkled with the visionary hope that the parson might be intending to replenish her box, at least mediately, through the present of a small copper. 'Ah, well! you'll soon be going where there is no more snuff. You'll be in need of mercy then. You must remember that you may have to seek for mercy and not find it, just as you're seeking for snuff.' At the first sentence of this admonition, the twinkle subsided from Mrs. Brick's eyes. The lid of her box went 'click!' and her heart was shut up at the same moment. But now Mr. Barton's attention was called for by Mr. Spratt, who was dragging a small and unwilling boy from the rear. Mr. Spratt was a small-featured, small-statured man, with a remarkable power of language, mitigated by hesitation, who piqued himself on expressing unexceptionable sentiments in unexceptional language on all occasions. 'Mr. Barton, sir--aw--aw--excuse my trespassing on your time--aw--to beg that you will administer a rebuke to this boy; he is--aw--aw--most inveterate in ill-behaviour during service-time.' The inveterate culprit was a boy of seven, vainly contending against 'candles' at his nose by feeble sniffing. But no sooner had Mr. Spratt uttered his impeachment, than Miss Fodge rushed forward and placed herself between Mr. Barton and the accused. 'That's _my_ child, Muster Barton,' she exclaimed, further manifesting her maternal instincts by applying her apron to her offspring's nose. 'He's al'ys a-findin' faut wi' him, and a-poundin' him for nothin'. Let him goo an' eat his roost goose as is a-smellin' up in our noses while we're a-swallering them greasy broth, an' let my boy alooan.' Mr. Spratt's small eyes flashed, and he was in danger of uttering sentiments not unexceptionable before the clergyman; but Mr. Barton, foreseeing that a prolongation of this episode would not be to edification, said 'Silence!' in his severest tones. 'Let me hear no abuse. Your boy is not likely to behave well, if you set him the example of being saucy.' Then stooping down to Master Fodge, and taking him by the shoulder, 'Do you like being beaten?' 'No-a.' 'Then what a silly boy you are to be naughty. If you were not naughty, you wouldn't be beaten. But if you are naughty, God will be angry, as well as Mr. Spratt; and God can burn you for ever. That will be worse than being beaten.' Master Fodge's countenance was neither affirmative nor negative of this proposition. 'But,' continued Mr. Barton, 'if you will be a good boy, God will love you, and you will grow up to be a good man. Now, let me hear next Thursday that you have been a good boy.' Master Fodge had no distinct vision of the benefit that would accrue to him from this change of courses. But Mr. Barton, being aware that Miss Fodge had touched on a delicate subject in alluding to the roast goose, was determined to witness no more polemics between her and Mr. Spratt, so, saying good morning to the latter, he hastily left the College. The snow was falling in thicker and thicker flakes, and already the vicarage-garden was cloaked in white as he passed through the gate. Mrs. Barton heard him open the door, and ran out of the sitting-room to meet him. 'I'm afraid your feet are very wet, dear. What a terrible morning! Let me take your hat. Your slippers are at the fire.' Mr. Barton was feeling a little cold and cross. It is difficult, when you have been doing disagreeable duties, without praise, on a snowy day, to attend to the very minor morals. So he showed no recognition of Milly's attentions, but simply said, 'Fetch me my dressing-gown, will you?' 'It is down, dear. I thought you wouldn't go into the study, because you said you would letter and number the books for the Lending Library. Patty and I have been covering them, and they are all ready in the sitting-room.' 'Oh, I can't do those this morning,' said Mr. Barton, as he took off his boots and put his feet into the slippers Milly had brought him; 'you must put them away into the parlour.' The sitting-room was also the day nursery and schoolroom; and while Mamma's back was turned, Dickey, the second boy, had insisted on superseding Chubby in the guidance of a headless horse, of the red-wafered species, which she was drawing round the room, so that when Papa opened the door Chubby was giving tongue energetically. 'Milly, some of these children must go away. I want to be quiet.' 'Yes, dear. Hush, Chubby; go with Patty, and see what Nanny is getting for our dinner. Now, Fred and Sophy and Dickey, help me to carry these books into the parlour. There are three for Dickey. Carry them steadily.' Papa meanwhile settled himself in his easy-chair, and took up a work on Episcopacy, which he had from the Clerical Book Society; thinking he would finish it and return it this afternoon, as he was going to the Clerical Meeting at Milby Vicarage, where the Book Society had its headquarters. The Clerical Meetings and Book Society, which had been founded some eight or ten months, had had a noticeable effect on the Rev. Amos Barton. When he first came to Shepperton he was simply an evangelical clergyman, whose Christian experiences had commenced under the teaching of the Rev. Mr. Johns, of Gun Street Chapel, and had been consolidated at Cambridge under the influence of Mr. Simeon. John Newton and Thomas Scott were his doctrinal ideals; he would have taken in the "Christian Observer" and the "Record," if he could have afforded it; his anecdotes were chiefly of the pious-jocose kind, current in dissenting circles; and he thought an Episcopalian Establishment unobjectionable. But by this time the effect of the Tractarian agitation was beginning to be felt in backward provincial regions, and the Tractarian satire on the Low-Church party was beginning to tell even on those who disavowed or resisted Tractarian doctrines. The vibration of an intellectual movement was felt from the golden head to the miry toes of the Establishment; and so it came to pass that, in the district round Milby, the market-town close to Shepperton, the clergy had agreed to have a clerical meeting every month, wherein they would exercise their intellects by discussing theological and ecclesiastical questions, and cement their brotherly love by discussing a good dinner. A Book Society naturally suggested itself as an adjunct of this agreeable plan; and thus, you perceive, there was provision made for ample friction of the clerical mind. Now, the Rev. Amos Barton was one of those men who have a decided will and opinion of their own; he held himself bolt upright, and had no self-distrust. He would march very determinedly along the road he thought best; but then it was wonderfully easy to convince him which was the best road. And so a very little unwonted reading and unwonted discussion made him see that an Episcopalian Establishment was much more than unobjectionable, and on many other points he began to feel that he held opinions a little too far-sighted and profound to be crudely and suddenly communicated to ordinary minds. He was like an onion that has been rubbed with spices; the strong original odour was blended with something new and foreign. The Low-Church onion still offended refined High Church nostrils, and the new spice was unwelcome to the palate of the genuine onion-eater. We will not accompany him to the Clerical Meeting today, because we shall probably want to go thither some day when he will be absent. And just now I am bent on introducing you to Mr. Bridmain and the Countess Czerlaski, with whom Mr. and Mrs. Barton are invited to dine tomorrow. Chapter 3 Outside, the moon is shedding its cold light on the cold snow, and the white-bearded fir-trees round Camp Villa are casting a blue shadow across the white ground, while the Rev. Amos Barton, and his wife are audibly crushing the crisp snow beneath their feet, as, about seven o'clock on Friday evening, they approach the door of the above-named desirable country residence, containing dining, breakfast, and drawing rooms, etc., situated only half a mile from the market-town of Milby. Inside, there is a bright fire in the drawing-room, casting a pleasant but uncertain light on the delicate silk dress of a lady who is reclining behind a screen in the corner of the sofa, and allowing you to discern that the hair of the gentleman who is seated in the arm-chair opposite, with a newspaper over his knees, is becoming decidedly grey. A little 'King Charles', with a crimson ribbon round his neck, who has been lying curled up in the very middle of the hearth-rug, has just discovered that that zone is too hot for him, and is jumping on the sofa, evidently with the intention of accommodating his person on the silk gown. On the table there are two wax-candles, which will be lighted as soon as the expected knock is heard at the door. The knock is heard, the candles are lighted, and presently Mr. and Mrs. Barton are ushered in--Mr. Barton erect and clerical, in a faultless tie and shining cranium; Mrs. Barton graceful in a newly-turned black silk. 'Now this is charming of you,' said the Countess Czerlaski, advancing to meet them, and embracing Milly with careful elegance. 'I am really ashamed of my selfishness in asking my friends to come and see me in this frightful weather.' Then, giving her hand to Amos, 'And you, Mr. Barton, whose time is so precious! But I am doing a good deed in drawing you away from your labours. I have a plot to prevent you from martyrizing yourself.' While this greeting was going forward, Mr. Bridmain, and Jet the spaniel, looked on with the air of actors who had no idea of by-play. Mr. Bridmain, a stiff and rather thick-set man, gave his welcome with a laboured cordiality. It was astonishing how very little he resembled his beautiful sister. For the Countess Czerlaski was undeniably beautiful. As she seated herself by Mrs. Barton on the sofa, Milly's eyes, indeed, rested--must it be confessed?--chiefly on the details of the tasteful dress, the rich silk of a pinkish lilac hue (the Countess always wore delicate colours in an evening), the black lace pelerine, and the black lace veil falling at the back of the small closely-braided head. For Milly had one weakness--don't love her any the less for it, it was a pretty woman's weakness--she was fond of dress; and often, when she was making up her own economical millinery, she had romantic visions how nice it would be to put on really handsome stylish things--to have very stiff balloon sleeves, for example, without which a woman's dress was nought in those days. You and I, too, reader, have our weakness, have we not? which makes us think foolish things now and then. Perhaps it may lie in an excessive admiration for small hands and feet, a tall lithe figure, large dark eyes, and dark silken braided hair. All these the Countess possessed, and she had, moreover, a delicately-formed nose, the least bit curved, and a clear brunette complexion. Her mouth it must be admitted, receded too much from her nose and chin and to a prophetic eye threatened 'nut-crackers' in advanced age. But by the light of fire and wax candles that age seemed very far off indeed, and you would have said that the Countess was not more than thirty. Look at the two women on the sofa together! The large, fair, mild-eyed Milly is timid even in friendship: it is not easy to her to speak of the affection of which her heart is full. The lithe, dark, thin-lipped Countess is racking her small brain for caressing words and charming exaggerations. 'And how are all the cherubs at home?' said the Countess, stooping to pick up Jet, and without waiting for an answer. 'I have been kept in-doors by a cold ever since Sunday, or I should not have rested without seeing you. What have you done with those wretched singers, Mr. Barton?' 'O, we have got a new choir together, which will go on very well with a little practice. I was quite determined that the old set of singers should be dismissed. I had given orders that they should not sing the wedding psalm, as they call it, again, to make a new-married couple look ridiculous, and they sang it in defiance of me. I could put them into the Ecclesiastical Court, if I chose for to do so, for lifting up their voices in church in opposition to the clergyman.' 'And a most wholesome discipline that would be,' said the Countess, 'indeed, you are too patient and forbearing, Mr. Barton. For my part, _I_ lose _my_ temper when I see how far you are from being appreciated in that miserable Shepperton.' If, as is probable, Mr. Barton felt at a loss what to say in reply to the insinuated compliment, it was a relief to him that dinner was announced just then, and that he had to offer his arm to the Countess. As Mr. Bridmain was leading Mrs. Barton to the dining-room, he observed, 'The weather is very severe.' 'Very, indeed,' said Milly. Mr. Bridmain studied conversation as an art. To ladies he spoke of the weather, and was accustomed to consider it under three points of view: as a question of climate in general, comparing England with other countries in this respect; as a personal question, inquiring how it affected his lady interlocutor in particular; and as a question of probabilities, discussing whether there would be a change or a continuance of the present atmospheric conditions. To gentlemen he talked politics, and he read two daily papers expressly to qualify himself for this function. Mr. Barton thought him a man of considerable political information, but not of lively parts. 'And so you are always to hold your Clerical Meetings at Mr. Ely's?' said the Countess, between her spoonfuls of soup. (The soup was a little over-spiced. Mrs. Short of Camp Villa, who was in the habit of letting her best apartments, gave only moderate wages to her cook.) 'Yes,' said Mr. Barton; 'Milby is a central place, and there are many conveniences in having only one point of meeting.' 'Well,' continued the Countess, 'every one seems to agree in giving the precedence to Mr. Ely. For my part, I _cannot_ admire him. His preaching is too cold for me. It has no fervour--no heart. I often say to my brother, it is a great comfort to me that Shepperton Church is not too far off for us to go to; don't I, Edmund?' 'Yes,' answered Mr. Bridmain; 'they show us into such a bad pew at Milby--just where there is a draught from that door. I caught a stiff neck the first time I went there.' 'O, it is the cold in the pulpit that affects me, not the cold in the pew. I was writing to my friend Lady Porter this morning, and telling her all about my feelings. She and I think alike on such matters. She is most anxious that when Sir William has an opportunity of giving away the living at their place, Dippley, they should have a thoroughly zealous clever man there. I have been describing a certain friend of mine to her, who, I think, would be just to her mind. And there is such a pretty rectory, Milly; shouldn't I like to see you the mistress of it?' Milly smiled and blushed slightly. The Rev. Amos blushed very red, and gave a little embarrassed laugh--he could rarely keep his muscles within the limits of a smile. At this moment John, the man-servant, approached Mrs. Barton with a gravy-tureen, and also with a slight odour of the stable, which usually adhered to him through his in-door functions. John was rather nervous; and the Countess happening to speak to him at this inopportune moment, the tureen slipped and emptied itself on Mrs. Barton's newly-turned black silk. 'O, horror! Tell Alice to come directly and rub Mrs. Barton's dress,' said the Countess to the trembling John, carefully abstaining from approaching the gravy-sprinkled spot on the floor with her own lilac silk. But Mr. Bridmain, who had a strictly private interest in silks, good-naturedly jumped up and applied his napkin at once to Mrs. Barton's gown. Milly felt a little inward anguish, but no ill-temper, and tried to make light of the matter for the sake of John as well as others. The Countess felt inwardly thankful that her own delicate silk had escaped, but threw out lavish interjections of distress and indignation. 'Dear saint that you are,' she said, when Milly laughed, and suggested that, as her silk was not very glossy to begin with, the dim patch would not be much seen; 'you don't mind about these things, I know. Just the same sort of thing happened to me at the Princess Wengstein's one day, on a pink satin. I was in an agony. But you are so indifferent to dress; and well you may be. It is you who make dress pretty, and not dress that makes you pretty.' Alice, the buxom lady's-maid, wearing a much better dress than Mrs. Barton's, now appeared to take Mr. Bridmain's place in retrieving the mischief, and after a great amount of supplementary rubbing, composure was restored, and the business of dining was continued. When John was recounting his accident to the cook in the kitchen, he observed, 'Mrs. Barton's a hamable woman; I'd a deal sooner ha' throwed the gravy o'er the Countess's fine gownd. But laws! what tantrums she'd ha' been in arter the visitors was gone.' 'You'd a deal sooner not ha' throwed it down at all, _I_ should think,' responded the unsympathetic cook, to whom John did _not_ make love. 'Who d'you think's to mek gravy anuff, if you're to baste people's gownds wi' it?' 'Well,' suggested John, humbly, 'you should wet the bottom of the _duree_ a bit, to hold it from slippin'.' 'Wet your granny!' returned the cook; a retort which she probably regarded in the light of a _reductio ad absurdum_, and which in fact reduced John to silence. Later on in the evening, while John was removing the tea things from the drawing-room, and brushing the crumbs from the table-cloth with an accompanying hiss, such as he was wont to encourage himself with in rubbing down Mr. Bridmain's horse, the Rev. Amos Barton drew from his pocket a thin green-covered pamphlet, and, presenting it to the Countess, said,--'You were pleased, I think, with my sermon on Christmas Day. It has been printed in "The Pulpit," and I thought you might like a copy.' 'That indeed I shall. I shall quite value the opportunity of reading that sermon. There was such depth in it!--such argument! It was not a sermon to be heard only once. I am delighted that it should become generally known, as it will be now it is printed in "The Pulpit."' 'Yes,' said Milly, innocently, 'I was so pleased with the editor's letter.' And she drew out her little pocket-book, where she carefully treasured the editorial autograph, while Mr. Barton laughed and blushed, and said, 'Nonsense, Milly!' 'You see,' she said, giving the letter to the Countess, 'I am very proud of the praise my husband gets.' The sermon in question, by the by, was an extremely argumentative one on the Incarnation; which, as it was preached to a congregation not one of whom had any doubt of that doctrine, and to whom the Socinians therein confuted were as unknown as the Arimaspians, was exceedingly well adapted to trouble and confuse the Sheppertonian mind. 'Ah,' said the Countess, returning the editor's letter, 'he may well say he will be glad of other sermons from the same source. But I would rather you should publish your sermons in an independent volume, Mr. Barton; it would be so desirable to have them in that shape. For instance, I could send a copy to the Dean of Radborough. And there is Lord Blarney, whom I knew before he was chancellor. I was a special favourite of his, and you can't think what sweet things he used to say to me. I shall not resist the temptation to write to him one of these days _sans facon_, and tell him how he ought to dispose of the next vacant living in his gift.' Whether Jet the spaniel, being a much more knowing dog than was suspected, wished to express his disapproval of the Countess's last speech, as not accordant with his ideas of wisdom and veracity, I cannot say; but at this moment he jumped off her lap, and, turning his back upon her, placed one paw on the fender, and held the other up to warm, as if affecting to abstract himself from the current of conversation. But now Mr. Bridmain brought out the chess-board, and Mr. Barton accepted his challenge to play a game, with immense satisfaction. The Rev. Amos was very fond of chess, as most people are who can continue through many years to create interesting vicissitudes in the game, by taking long-meditated moves with their knights, and subsequently discovering that they have thereby exposed their queen. Chess is a silent game; and the Countess's chat with Milly is in quite an under-tone--probably relating to women's matters that it would be impertinent for us to listen to; so we will leave Camp Villa, and proceed to Milby Vicarage, where Mr. Farquhar has sat out two other guests with whom he has been dining at Mr. Ely's, and is now rather wearying that reverend gentleman by his protracted small-talk. Mr. Ely was a tall, dark-haired, distinguished-looking man of three-and-thirty. By the laity of Milby and its neighbourhood he was regarded as a man of quite remarkable powers and learning, who must make a considerable sensation in London pulpits and drawing-rooms on his occasional visit to the metropolis; and by his brother clergy he was regarded as a discreet and agreeable fellow. Mr. Ely never got into a warm discussion; he suggested what might be thought, but rarely said what he thought himself; he never let either men or women see that he was laughing at them, and he never gave any one an opportunity of laughing at _him_. In one thing only he was injudicious. He parted his dark wavy hair down the middle; and as his head was rather flat than otherwise, that style of coiffure was not advantageous to him. Mr. Farquhar, though not a parishioner of Mr. Ely's, was one of his warmest admirers, and thought he would make an unexceptionable son-in-law, in spite of his being of no particular 'family'. Mr. Farquhar was susceptible on the point of 'blood'--his own circulating fluid, which animated a short and somewhat flabby person, being, he considered, of very superior quality. 'By the by,' he said, with a certain pomposity counteracted by a lisp, 'what an ath Barton makth of himthelf, about that Bridmain and the Counteth, ath she callth herthelf. After you were gone the other evening, Mithith Farquhar wath telling him the general opinion about them in the neighbourhood, and he got quite red and angry. Bleth your thoul, he believth the whole thtory about her Polish huthband and hith wonderful ethcapeth; and ath for her--why, he thinkth her perfection, a woman of motht refined fellingth, and no end of thtuff.' Mr. Ely smiled. 'Some people would say our friend Barton was not the best judge of refinement. Perhaps the lady flatters him a little, and we men are susceptible. She goes to Shepperton Church every Sunday--drawn there, let us suppose, by Mr. Barton's eloquence.' 'Pshaw,' said Mr. Farquhar: 'Now, to my mind, you have only to look at that woman to thee what she ith--throwing her eyth about when she comth into church, and drething in a way to attract attention. I should thay, she'th tired of her brother Bridmain, and looking out for another brother with a thtronger family likeneth. Mithith Farquhar ith very fond of Mithith Barton, and ith quite dithtrethed that she should athothiate with thuch a woman, tho she attacked him on the thubject purpothly. But I tell her it'th of no uthe, with a pig-headed fellow like him. Barton'th well-meaning enough, but _tho_ contheited. I've left off giving him my advithe.' Mr. Ely smiled inwardly and said to himself, 'What a punishment!' But to Mr. Farquhar he said, 'Barton might be more judicious, it must be confessed.' He was getting tired, and did not want to develop the subject. 'Why, nobody vithit-th them but the Bartonth,' continued Mr. Farquhar, 'and why should thuch people come here, unleth they had particular reathonth for preferring a neighbourhood where they are not known? Pooh! it lookth bad on the very fathe of it. _You_ called on them, now; how did you find them?' 'O!--Mr. Bridmain strikes me as a common sort of man, who is making an effort to seem wise and well-bred. He comes down on one tremendously with political information, and seems knowing about the king of the French. The Countess is certainly a handsome woman, but she puts on the grand air a little too powerfully. Woodcock was immensely taken with her, and insisted on his wife's calling on her and asking her to dinner; but I think Mrs. Woodcock turned restive after the first visit, and wouldn't invite her again.' 'Ha, ha! Woodcock hath alwayth a thoft place in hith heart for a pretty fathe. It'th odd how he came to marry that plain woman, and no fortune either.' 'Mysteries of the tender passion,' said Mr. Ely. 'I am not initiated yet, you know.' Here Mr. Farquhar's carriage was announced, and as we have not found his conversation particularly brilliant under the stimulus of Mr. Ely's exceptional presence, we will not accompany him home to the less exciting atmosphere of domestic life. Mr. Ely threw himself with a sense of relief into his easiest chair, set his feet on the hobs, and in this attitude of bachelor enjoyment began to read Bishop Jebb's Memoirs. Chapter 4 I am by no means sure that if the good people of Milby had known the truth about the Countess Czerlaski, they would not have been considerably disappointed to find that it was very far from being as bad as they imagined. Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. Besides, think of all the virtuous declamation, all the penetrating observation, which had been built up entirely on the fundamental position that the Countess was a very objectionable person indeed, and which would be utterly overturned and nullified by the destruction of that premiss. Mrs. Phipps, the banker's wife, and Mrs. Landor, the attorney's wife, had invested part of their reputation for acuteness in the supposition that Mr. Bridmain was not the Countess's brother. Moreover, Miss Phipps was conscious that if the Countess was not a disreputable person, she, Miss Phipps, had no compensating superiority in virtue to set against the other lady's manifest superiority in personal charms. Miss Phipps's stumpy figure and unsuccessful attire, instead of looking down from a mount of virtue with an aureole round its head, would then be seen on the same level and in the same light as the Countess Czerlaski's Diana-like form and well-chosen drapery. Miss Phipps, for her part, didn't like dressing for effect--she had always avoided that style of appearance which was calculated to create a sensation. Then what amusing innuendoes of the Milby gentlemen over their wine would have been entirely frustrated and reduced to nought, if you had told them that the Countess had really been guilty of no misdemeanours which demanded her exclusion from strictly respectable society; that her husband had been the veritable Count Czerlaski, who had had wonderful escapes, as she said, and who, as she did _not_ say, but as was said in certain circulars once folded by her fair hands, had subsequently given dancing lessons in the metropolis; that Mr. Bridmain was neither more nor less than her half-brother, who, by unimpeached integrity and industry, had won a partnership in a silk-manufactory, and thereby a moderate fortune, that enabled him to retire, as you see, to study politics, the weather, and the art of conversation at his leisure. Mr. Bridmain, in fact, quadragenarian bachelor as he was, felt extremely well pleased to receive his sister in her widowhood, and to shine in the reflected light of her beauty and title. Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other. Mr. Bridmain had put his neck under the yoke of his handsome sister, and though his soul was a very little one--of the smallest description indeed--he would not have ventured to call it his own. He might be slightly recalcitrant now and then, as is the habit of long-eared pachyderms, under the thong of the fair Countess's tongue; but there seemed little probability that he would ever get his neck loose. Still, a bachelor's heart is an outlying fortress that some fair enemy may any day take either by storm or stratagem; and there was always the possibility that Mr. Bridmain's first nuptials might occur before the Countess was quite sure of her second. As it was, however, he submitted to all his sister's caprices, never grumbled because her dress and her maid formed a considerable item beyond her own little income of sixty pounds per annum, and consented to lead with her a migratory life, as personages on the debatable ground between aristocracy and commonalty, instead of settling in some spot where his five hundred a-year might have won him the definite dignity of a parochial magnate. The Countess had her views in choosing a quiet provincial place like Milby. After three years of widowhood, she had brought her feelings to contemplate giving a successor to her lamented Czerlaski, whose fine whiskers, fine air, and romantic fortunes had won her heart ten years ago, when, as pretty Caroline Bridmain, in the full bloom of five-and-twenty, she was governess to Lady Porter's daughters, whom he initiated into the mysteries of the _pas de bas_, and the lancers' quadrilles. She had had seven years of sufficiently happy matrimony with Czerlaski, who had taken her to Paris and Germany, and introduced her there to many of his old friends with large titles and small fortunes. So that the fair Caroline had had considerable experience of life, and had gathered therefrom, not, indeed, any very ripe and comprehensive wisdom, but much external polish, and certain practical conclusions of a very decided kind. One of these conclusions was, that there were things more solid in life than fine whiskers and a title, and that, in accepting a second husband, she would regard these items as quite subordinate to a carriage and a settlement. Now, she had ascertained, by tentative residences, that the kind of bite she was angling for was difficult to be met with at watering-places, which were already preoccupied with abundance of angling beauties, and were chiefly stocked with men whose whiskers might be dyed, and whose incomes were still more problematic; so she had determined on trying a neighbourhood where people were extremely well acquainted with each other's affairs, and where the women were mostly ill-dressed and ugly. Mr. Bridmain's slow brain had adopted his sister's views, and it seemed to him that a woman so handsome and distinguished as the Countess must certainly make a match that might lift himself into the region of county celebrities, and give him at least a sort of cousinship to the quarter-sessions. All this, which was the simple truth, would have seemed extremely flat to the gossips of Milby, who had made up their minds to something much more exciting. There was nothing here so very detestable. It is true, the Countess was a little vain, a little ambitious, a little selfish, a little shallow and frivolous, a little given to white lies.--But who considers such slight blemishes, such moral pimples as these, disqualifications for entering into the most respectable society! Indeed, the severest ladies in Milby would have been perfectly aware that these characteristics would have created no wide distinction between the Countess Czerlaski and themselves; and since it was clear there _was_ a wide distinction--why, it must lie in the possession of some vices from which they were undeniably free. Hence it came to pass that Milby respectability refused to recognize the Countess Czerlaski, in spite of her assiduous church-going, and the deep disgust she was known to have expressed at the extreme paucity of the congregations on Ash-Wednesdays. So she began to feel that she had miscalculated the advantages of a neighbourhood where people are well acquainted with each other's private affairs. Under these circumstances, you will imagine how welcome was the perfect credence and admiration she met with from Mr. and Mrs. Barton. She had been especially irritated by Mr. Ely's behaviour to her; she felt sure that he was not in the least struck with her beauty, that he quizzed her conversation, and that he spoke of her with a sneer. A woman always knows where she is utterly powerless, and shuns a coldly satirical eye as she would shun a Gorgon. And she was especially eager for clerical notice and friendship, not merely because that is quite the most respectable countenance to be obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that quarter. She had serious intentions of becoming _quite_ pious--without any reserves--when she had once got her carriage and settlement. Let us do this one sly trick, says Ulysses to Neoptolemus, and we will be perfectly honest ever after-- [Greek: all edu gar toi ktema tes uikes labien tolma dikaioi d' authis ekphanoumetha.] The Countess did not quote Sophocles, but she said to herself, 'Only this little bit of pretence and vanity, and then I will be _quite_ good, and make myself quite safe for another world.' And as she had by no means such fine taste and insight in theological teaching as in costume, the Rev. Amos Barton seemed to her a man not only of learning--_that_ is always understood with a clergyman--but of much power as a spiritual director. As for Milly, the Countess really loved her as well as the preoccupied state of her affections would allow. For you have already perceived that there was one being to whom the Countess was absorbingly devoted, and to whose desires she made everything else subservient--namely, Caroline Czerlaski, _nee_ Bridmain. Thus there was really not much affectation in her sweet speeches and attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Barton. Still their friendship by no means adequately represented the object she had in view when she came to Milby, and it had been for some time clear to her that she must suggest a new change of residence to her brother. The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way we have imagined to ourselves. The Countess did actually leave Camp Villa before many months were past, but under circumstances which had not at all entered into her contemplation. Chapter 5 The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable,--a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that complaint favourably many years ago. 'An utterly uninteresting character!' I think I hear a lady reader exclaim--Mrs. Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a 'character'. But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people--many of them--bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance--in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share? Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to pursue my story farther; and you will easily find reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season. Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife, will be glad to learn that Mr. Oldinport lent the twenty pounds. But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due as back payment to the butcher, and when the possession of eight extra sovereigns in February weather is an irresistible temptation to order a new greatcoat. And though Mr. Bridmain so far departed from the necessary economy entailed on him by the Countess's elegant toilette and expensive maid, as to choose a handsome black silk, stiff, as his experienced eye discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture, and not with the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs. Barton, in retrieval of the accident that had occurred at his table, yet, dear me--as every husband has heard--what is the present of a gown when you are deficiently furnished with the et-ceteras of apparel, and when, moreover, there are six children whose wear and tear of clothes is something incredible to the non-maternal mind? Indeed, the equation of income and expenditure was offering new and constantly accumulating difficulties to Mr. and Mrs. Barton; for shortly after the birth of little Walter, Milly's aunt, who had lived with her ever since her marriage, had withdrawn herself, her furniture, and her yearly income, to the household of another niece; prompted to that step, very probably, by a slight 'tiff' with the Rev. Amos, which occurred while Milly was upstairs, and proved one too many for the elderly lady's patience and magnanimity. Mr. Barton's temper was a little warm, but, on the other hand, elderly maiden ladies are known to be susceptible; so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his side--the less so, as he had every motive for humouring an inmate whose presence kept the wolf from the door. It was now nearly a year since Miss Jackson's departure, and, to a fine ear, the howl of the wolf was audibly approaching. It was a sad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted, when the purple and yellow crocuses were coming up in the garden, and the old church was already half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her lips look pale, and rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not exert herself for some time. Mr. Brand, the Shepperton doctor so obnoxious to Mr. Pilgrim, ordered her to drink port-wine, and it was quite necessary to have a charwoman very often, to assist Nanny in all the extra work that fell upon her. Mrs. Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and nearest neighbour, Mrs. Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at the vicarage one morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes as she saw Milly seated pale and feeble in the parlour, unable to persevere in sewing the pinafore that lay on the table beside her. Little Dickey, a boisterous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with Mamma, and was squatting quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his little red black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit, in a severe mood, had pronounced 'stocky' (a word that etymologically in all probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory); but seeing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her kindest smile, and stooping down, suggested a kiss--a favour which Dicky resolutely declined. 'Now _do_ you take nourishing things enough?' was one of Mrs. Hackit's first questions, and Milly endeavoured to make it appear that no woman was ever so much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent habits as herself. But Mrs. Hackit gathered one fact from her replies, namely, that Mr. Brand had ordered port-wine. While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause came, his mother said, smilingly, 'Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey?' 'It id to yovely,' answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly backward in his pronunciation. Mrs. Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with peculiar tenderness and pity of the 'stocky boy'. The next day there came a hamper with Mrs. Hackit's respects; and on being opened it was found to contain half-a-dozen of port-wine and two couples of fowls. Mrs. Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs. Barton's rejecting all arrowroot but hers, which was genuine Indian, and carried away Sophy and Fred to stay with her a fortnight. These and other good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly's illness more bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr. Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing his case to a certain charity for the relief of needy curates. Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more likely to have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material aid, than that they needed his spiritual aid,--not the best state of things in this age and country, where faith in men solely on the ground of their spiritual gifts has considerably diminished, and especially unfavourable to the influence of the Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts would not have had a very commanding power even in an age of faith. But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her friends all this time? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in visiting her 'sweet Milly', and sitting with her for hours together. It may seem remarkable to you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly's probable wants; but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cannot be expected to surmise the details of poverty. She put a great deal of eau-de-Cologne on Mrs. Barton's pocket-handkerchief, rearranged her pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen abroad. When Mr. Barton joined them she talked of Tractarianism, of her determination not to re-enter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety to see him in a sphere large enough for his talents. Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth quite charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a vague consciousness that he had risen into aristocratic life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and parenthetic manner. However, as the days brightened, Milly's cheeks and lips brightened too; and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have seen that activity was not easy to her. Mrs. Hackit's eyes were of that kind, and one day, when Mr. and Mrs. Barton had been dining with her for the first time since Milly's illness, she observed to her husband--'That poor thing's dreadful weak an' delicate; she won't stan' havin' many more children. Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his vocation. He had preached two extemporary sermons every Sunday at the workhouse, where a room had been fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in the church; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extremity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more extemporary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and perspiration. After all these labours you will easily conceive that he was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o'clock in the evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner's, with a glass, or even two glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement. Mr. Barton was not at all an ascetic; he thought the benefits of fasting were entirely confined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of relaxing himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other ladies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr. Barton did not more uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh. Thin ladies, who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear stimulants, are so extremely critical about one's personal habits! And, after all, the Rev. Amos never came near the borders of a vice. His very faults were middling--he was not _very_ ungrammatical. It was not in his nature to be superlative in anything; unless, indeed, he was superlatively middling, the quintessential extract of mediocrity. If there was any one point on which he showed an inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness and ability in practical matters, so that he was very full of plans which were something like his moves in chess--admirably well calculated, supposing the state of the case were otherwise. For example, that notable plan of introducing anti-dissenting books into his Lending Library did not in the least appear to have bruised the head of Dissent, though it had certainly made Dissent strongly inclined to bite the Rev. Amos's heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his churchwardens and influential parishioners by his fertile suggestiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and other ecclesiastical secularities. 'I never saw the like to parsons,' Mr. Hackit said one day in conversation with his brother churchwarden, Mr. Bond; 'they're al'ys for meddling with business, an they know no more about it than my black filly.' 'Ah,' said Mr. Bond, 'they're too high learnt to have much common-sense.' 'Well,' remarked Mr. Hackit, in a modest and dubious tone, as if throwing out a hypothesis which might be considered bold, 'I should say that's a bad sort of eddication as makes folks onreasonable.' So that, you perceive, Mr. Barton's popularity was in that precarious condition, in that toppling and contingent state, in which a very slight push from a malignant destiny would utterly upset it. That push was not long in being given, as you shall hear. One fine May morning, when Amos was out on his parochial visits, and the sunlight was streaming through the bow-window of the sitting-room, where Milly was seated at her sewing, occasionally looking up to glance at the children playing in the garden, there came a loud rap at the door, which she at once recognized as the Countess's, and that well-dressed lady presently entered the sitting-room, with her veil drawn over her face. Milly was not at all surprised or sorry to see her; but when the Countess threw up her veil, and showed that her eyes were red and swollen, she was both surprised and sorry. 'What can be the matter, dear Caroline?' Caroline threw down Jet, who gave a little yelp; then she threw her arms round Milly's neck, and began to sob; then she threw herself on the sofa, and begged for a glass of water; then she threw off her bonnet and shawl; and by the time Milly's imagination had exhausted itself in conjuring up calamities, she said,--'Dear, how shall I tell you? I am the most wretched woman. To be deceived by a brother to whom I have been so devoted--to see him degrading himself--giving himself utterly to the dogs!' 'What can it be?' said Milly, who began to picture to herself the sober Mr. Bridmain taking to brandy and betting. 'He is going to be married--to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice, to whom I have been the most indulgent mistress. Did you ever hear of anything so disgraceful? so mortifying? so disreputable?' 'And has he only just told you of it?' said Milly, who, having really heard of worse conduct, even in her innocent life, avoided a direct answer. 'Told me of it! he had not even the grace to do that. I went into the dining-room suddenly and found him kissing her--disgusting at his time of life, is it not?--and when I reproved her for allowing such liberties, she turned round saucily, and said she was engaged to be married to my brother, and she saw no shame in allowing him to kiss her. Edmund is a miserable coward, you know, and looked frightened; but when she asked him to say whether it was not so, he tried to summon up courage and say yes. I left the room in disgust, and this morning I have been questioning Edmund, and find that he is bent on marrying this woman, and that he has been putting off telling me--because he was ashamed of himself, I suppose. I couldn't possibly stay in the house after this, with my own maid turned mistress. And now, Milly, I am come to throw myself on your charity for a week or two. _Will_ you take me in?' 'That we will,' said Milly, 'if you will only put up with our poor rooms and way of living. It will be delightful to have you!' 'It will soothe me to be with you and Mr. Barton a little while. I feel quite unable to go among my other friends just at present. What those two wretched people will do I don't know--leave the neighbourhood at once, I hope. I entreated my brother to do so, before he disgraced himself.' When Amos came home, he joined his cordial welcome and sympathy to Milly's. By-and-by the Countess's formidable boxes, which she had carefully packed before her indignation drove her away from Camp Villa, arrived at the vicarage, and were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in two closets, not spare, which Milly emptied for their reception. A week afterwards, the excellent apartments at Camp Villa, comprising dining and drawing rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing-room, were again to let, and Mr. Bridmain's sudden departure, together with the Countess Czerlaski's installation as a visitor at Shepperton Vicarage, became a topic of general conversation in the neighbourhood. The keen-sighted virtue of Milby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its worst suspicions, and pitied the Rev. Amos Barton's gullibility. But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without witnessing the Countess's departure--when summer and harvest had fled, and still left her behind them occupying the spare bedroom and the closets, and also a large proportion of Mrs. Barton's time and attention, new surmises of a very evil kind were added to the old rumours, and began to take the form of settled convictions in the minds even of Mr. Barton's most friendly parishioners. And now, here is an opportunity for an accomplished writer to apostrophize calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted with the most ingenious things which have been said on that subject in polite literature. But what is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An undefecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory is ill-furnished, and my notebook still worse, I am unable to show myself either erudite or eloquent apropos of the calumny whereof the Rev. Amos Barton was the victim. I can only ask my reader,--did you ever upset your ink-bottle, and watch, in helpless agony, the rapid spread of Stygian blackness over your fair manuscript or fairer table-cover? With a like inky swiftness did gossip now blacken the reputation of the Rev. Amos Barton, causing the unfriendly to scorn and even the friendly to stand aloof, at a time when difficulties of another kind were fast thickening around him. Chapter 6 One November morning, at least six months after the Countess Czerlaski had taken up her residence at the vicarage, Mrs. Hackit heard that her neighbour Mrs. Patten had an attack of her old complaint, vaguely called 'the spasms'. Accordingly, about eleven o'clock, she put on her velvet bonnet and cloth cloak, with a long boa and muff large enough to stow a prize baby in; for Mrs. Hackit regulated her costume by the calendar, and brought out her furs on the first of November; whatever might be the temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate herself to shilly-shally proceedings. If the season didn't know what it ought to do, Mrs. Hackit did. In her best days, it was always sharp weather at 'Gunpowder Plot', and she didn't like new fashions. And this morning the weather was very rationally in accordance with her costume, for as she made her way through the fields to Cross Farm, the yellow leaves on the hedge-girt elms, which showed bright and golden against the long-hanging purple clouds, were being scattered across the grassy path by the coldest of November winds. 'Ah,' Mrs. Hackit thought to herself, 'I daresay we shall have a sharp pinch this winter, and if we do, I shouldn't wonder if it takes the old lady off. They say a green Yule makes a fat churchyard; but so does a white Yule too, for that matter. When the stool's rotten enough, no matter who sits on it.' However, on her arrival at Cross Farm, the prospect of Mrs. Patten's decease was again thrown into the dim distance in her imagination, for Miss Janet Gibbs met her with the news that Mrs. Patten was much better, and led her, without any preliminary announcement, to the old lady's bedroom. Janet had scarcely reached the end of her circumstantial narrative how the attack came on and what were her aunt's sensations--a narrative to which Mrs. Patten, in her neatly-plaited nightcap, seemed to listen with a contemptuous resignation to her niece's historical inaccuracy, contenting herself with occasionally confounding Janet by a shake of the head--when the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the yard pavement announced the arrival of Mr. Pilgrim, whose large, top-booted person presently made its appearance upstairs. He found Mrs. Patten going on so well that there was no need to look solemn. He might glide from condolence into gossip without offence, and the temptation of having Mrs. Hackit's ear was irresistible. 'What a disgraceful business this is turning out of your parson's,' was the remark with which he made this agreeable transition, throwing himself back in the chair from which he had been leaning towards the patient. 'Eh, dear me!' said Mrs. Hackit, 'disgraceful enough. I stuck to Mr. Barton as long as I could, for his wife's sake; but I can't countenance such goings-on. It's hateful to see that woman coming with 'em to service of a Sunday, and if Mr. Hackit wasn't churchwarden and I didn't think it wrong to forsake one's own parish, I should go to Knebley Church. There's a many parish'ners as do.' 'I used to think Barton was only a fool,' observed Mr. Pilgrim, in a tone which implied that he was conscious of having been weakly charitable. 'I thought he was imposed upon and led away by those people when they first came. But that's impossible now.' 'O, it's as plain as the nose in your face,' said Mrs. Hackit, unreflectingly, not perceiving the equivoque in her comparison--'comin' to Milby, like a sparrow perchin' on a bough, as I may say, with her brother, as she called him; and then all on a sudden the brother goes off with himself, and she throws herself on the Bartons. Though what could make her take up with a poor notomise of a parson, as hasn't got enough to keep wife and children, there's One above knows--_I_ don't.' 'Mr. Barton may have attractions we don't know of,' said Mr. Pilgrim, who piqued himself on a talent for sarcasm. 'The Countess has no maid now, and they say Mr. Barton is handy in assisting at her toilette--laces her boots, and so forth.' 'Tilette, be fiddled!' said Mrs. Hackit, with indignant boldness of metaphor; 'an' there's that poor thing a-sewing her fingers to the bone for them children--an' another comin' on. What she must have to go through! It goes to my heart to turn my back on her. But she's i' the wrong to let herself be put upon i' that manner.' 'Ah! I was talking to Mrs. Farquhar about that the other day. She said, "I think Mrs. Barton a v-e-r-y w-e-a-k w-o-m-a-n".' (Mr. Pilgrim gave this quotation with slow emphasis, as if he thought Mrs. Farquhar had uttered a remarkable sentiment.) 'They find it impossible to invite her to their house while she has that equivocal person staying with her.' 'Well!' remarked Miss Gibbs, 'if I was a wife, nothing should induce me to bear what Mrs. Barton does.' 'Yes, it's fine talking,' said Mrs. Patten, from her pillow; 'old maids' husbands are al'ys well-managed. If you was a wife you'd be as foolish as your betters, belike.' 'All my wonder is,' observed Mrs. Hackit, 'how the Bartons make both ends meet. You may depend on it, _she's_ got nothing to give 'em; for I understand as he's been having money from some clergy charity. They said at fust as she stuffed Mr. Barton wi' notions about her writing to the Chancellor an' her fine friends, to give him a living. Howiver, I don't know what's true an' what's false. Mr. Barton keeps away from our house now, for I gave him a bit o' my mind one day. Maybe he's ashamed of himself. He seems to me to look dreadful thin an' harassed of a Sunday.' 'O, he must be aware he's getting into bad odour everywhere. The clergy are quite disgusted with his folly. They say Carpe would be glad to get Barton out of the curacy if he could; but he can't do that without coming to Shepperton himself, as Barton's a licensed curate; and he wouldn't like that, I suppose.' At this moment Mrs. Patten showed signs of uneasiness, which recalled Mr. Pilgrim to professional attentions; and Mrs. Hackit, observing that it was Thursday, and she must see after the butter, said good-bye, promising to look in again soon, and bring her knitting. This Thursday, by the by, is the first in the month--the day on which the Clerical Meeting is held at Milby Vicarage; and as the Rev. Amos Barton has reasons for not attending, he will very likely be a subject of conversation amongst his clerical brethren Suppose we go there, and hear whether Mr. Pilgrim has reported their opinion correctly. There is not a numerous party today, for it is a season of sore throats and catarrhs; so that the exegetical and theological discussions, which are the preliminary of dining, have not been quite so spirited as usual; and although a question relative to the Epistle of Jude has not been quite cleared up, the striking of six by the church clock, and the simultaneous announcement of dinner, are sounds that no one feels to be importunate. Pleasant (when one is not in the least bilious) to enter a comfortable dining-room, where the closely-drawn red curtains glow with the double light of fire and candle, where glass and silver are glittering on the pure damask, and a soup-tureen gives a hint of the fragrance that will presently rush out to inundate your hungry senses, and prepare them, by the delicate visitation of atoms, for the keen gusto of ampler contact! Especially if you have confidence in the dinner-giving capacity of your host--if you know that he is not a man who entertains grovelling views of eating and drinking as a mere satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and, dead to all the finer influences of the palate, expects his guest to be brilliant on ill-flavoured gravies and the cheapest Marsala. Mr. Ely was particularly worthy of such confidence, and his virtues as an Amphitryon had probably contributed quite as much as the central situation of Milby to the selection of his house as a clerical rendezvous. He looks particularly graceful at the head of his table, and, indeed, on all occasions where he acts as president or moderator: he is a man who seems to listen well, and is an excellent amalgam of dissimilar ingredients. At the other end of the table, as 'Vice', sits Mr. Fellowes, rector and magistrate, a man of imposing appearance, with a mellifluous voice and the readiest of tongues. Mr. Fellowes once obtained a living by the persuasive charms of his conversation, and the fluency with which he interpreted the opinions of an obese and stammering baronet, so as to give that elderly gentleman a very pleasing perception of his own wisdom. Mr. Fellowes is a very successful man, and has the highest character everywhere except in his own parish, where, doubtless because his parishioners happen to be quarrelsome people, he is always at fierce feud with a farmer or two, a colliery proprietor, a grocer who was once churchwarden, and a tailor who formerly officiated as clerk. At Mr. Ely's right hand you see a very small man with a sallow and somewhat puffy face, whose hair is brushed straight up, evidently with the intention of giving him a height somewhat less disproportionate to his sense of his own importance than the measure of five feet three accorded him by an oversight of nature. This is Rev. Archibald Duke, a very dyspeptic and evangelical man, who takes the gloomiest view of mankind and their prospects, and thinks the immense sale of the 'Pickwick Papers,' recently completed, one of the strongest proofs of original sin. Unfortunately, though Mr. Duke was not burdened with a family, his yearly expenditure was apt considerably to exceed his income; and the unpleasant circumstances resulting from this, together with heavy meat-breakfasts, may probably have contributed to his desponding views of the world generally. Next to him is seated Mr. Furness, a tall young man, with blond hair and whiskers, who was plucked at Cambridge entirely owing to his genius; at least I know that he soon afterwards published a volume of poems, which were considered remarkably beautiful by many young ladies of his acquaintance. Mr. Furness preached his own sermons, as any one of tolerable critical acumen might have certified by comparing them with his poems: in both, there was an exuberance of metaphor and simile entirely original, and not in the least borrowed from any resemblance in the things compared. On Mr. Furness's left you see Mr. Pugh, another young curate, of much less marked characteristics. He had not published any poems; he had not even been plucked; he had neat black whiskers and a pale complexion; read prayers and a sermon twice every Sunday, and might be seen any day sallying forth on his parochial duties in a white tie, a well-brushed hat, a perfect suit of black, and well-polished boots--an equipment which he probably supposed hieroglyphically to represent the spirit of Christianity to the parishioners of Whittlecombe. Mr. Pugh's _vis-a-vis_ is the Rev. Martin Cleves, a man about forty --middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with a negligently-tied cravat, large irregular features, and a large head, thickly covered with lanky brown hair. To a superficial glance, Mr. Cleves is the plainest and least clerical-looking of the party; yet, strange to say, _there_ is the true parish priest, the pastor beloved, consulted, relied on by his flock; a clergyman who is not associated with the undertaker, but thought of as the surest helper under a difficulty, as a monitor who is encouraging rather than severe. Mr. Cleves has the wonderful art of preaching sermons which the wheelwright and the blacksmith can understand; not because he talks condescending twaddle, but because he can call a spade a spade, and knows how to disencumber ideas of their wordy frippery. Look at him more attentively, and you will see that his face is a very interesting one --that there is a great deal of humour and feeling playing in his grey eyes, and about the corners of his roughly-cut mouth: a man, you observe, who has most likely sprung from the harder-working section of the middle class, and has hereditary sympathies with the checkered life of the people. He gets together the working men in his parish on a Monday evening, and gives them a sort of conversational lecture on useful practical matters, telling them stories, or reading some select passages from an agreeable book, and commenting on them; and if you were to ask the first labourer or artisan in Tripplegate what sort of man the parson was, he would say,--'a uncommon knowin', sensable, free-spoken gentleman; very kind an' good-natur'd too'. Yet for all this, he is perhaps the best Grecian of the party, if we except Mr. Baird, the young man on his left. Mr. Baird has since gained considerable celebrity as an original writer and metropolitan lecturer, but at that time he used to preach in a little church something like a barn, to a congregation consisting of three rich farmers and their servants, about fifteen labourers, and the due proportion of women and children. The rich farmers understood him to be 'very high learnt;' but if you had interrogated them for a more precise description, they would have said that he was 'a thinnish-faced man, with a sort o' cast in his eye, like'. Seven, altogether: a delightful number for a dinner-party, supposing the units to be delightful, but everything depends on that. During dinner Mr. Fellowes took the lead in the conversation, which set strongly in the direction of mangold-wurzel and the rotation of crops; for Mr. Fellowes and Mr. Cleves cultivated their own glebes. Mr. Ely, too, had some agricultural notions, and even the Rev. Archibald Duke was made alive to that class of mundane subjects by the possession of some potato-ground. The two young curates talked a little aside during these discussions, which had imperfect interest for their unbeneficed minds; and the transcendental and near-sighted Mr. Baird seemed to listen somewhat abstractedly, knowing little more of potatoes and mangold-wurzel than that they were some form of the 'Conditioned'. 'What a hobby farming is with Lord Watling!' said Mr. Fellowes, when the cloth was being drawn. 'I went over his farm at Tetterley with him last summer. It is really a model farm; first-rate dairy, grazing and wheat land, and such splendid farm-buildings! An expensive hobby, though. He sinks a good deal of money there, I fancy. He has a great whim for black cattle, and he sends that drunken old Scotch bailiff of his to Scotland every year, with hundreds in his pocket, to buy these beasts.' 'By the by,' said Mr. Ely, 'do you know who is the man to whom Lord Watling has given the Bramhill living?' 'A man named Sargent. I knew him at Oxford. His brother is a lawyer, and was very useful to Lord Watling in that ugly Brounsell affair. That's why Sargent got the living.' 'Sargent,' said Mr. Ely. 'I know him. Isn't he a showy, talkative fellow; has written travels in Mesopotamia, or something of that sort?' 'That's the man.' 'He was at Witherington once, as Bagshawe's curate. He got into rather bad odour there, through some scandal about a flirtation, I think.' 'Talking of scandal,' returned Mr. Fellowes, 'have you heard the last story about Barton? Nisbett was telling me the other day that he dines alone with the Countess at six, while Mrs. Barton is in the kitchen acting as cook.' 'Rather an apocryphal authority, Nisbett,' said Mr. Ely. 'Ah,' said Mr. Cleves, with good-natured humour twinkling in his eyes, 'depend upon it, that is a corrupt version. The original text is, that they all dined together _with_ six--meaning six children--and that Mrs. Barton is an excellent cook.' 'I wish dining alone together may be the worst of that sad business,' said the Rev. Archibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish was a strong figure of speech. 'Well,' said Mr. Fellowes, filling his glass and looking jocose, 'Barton is certain either the greatest gull in existence, or he has some cunning secret,--some philtre or other to make himself charming in the eyes of a fair lady. It isn't all of us that can make conquests when our ugliness is past its bloom.' 'The lady seemed to have made a conquest of him at the very outset,' said Mr. Ely. 'I was immensely amused one night at Granby's when he was telling us her story about her husband's adventures. He said, "When she told me the tale, I felt I don't know how,--I felt it from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet."' Mr. Ely gave these words dramatically, imitating the Rev. Amos's fervour and symbolic action, and every one laughed except Mr. Duke, whose after-dinner view of things was not apt to be jovial. He said,--'I think some of us ought to remonstrate with Mr. Barton on the scandal he is causing. He is not only imperilling his own soul, but the souls of his flock.' 'Depend upon it,' said Mr. Cleves, 'there is some simple explanation of the whole affair, if we only happened to know it. Barton has always impressed me as a right-minded man, who has the knack of doing himself injustice by his manner.' 'Now I never liked Barton,' said Mr. Fellowes. 'He's not a gentleman. Why, he used to be on terms of intimacy with that canting Prior, who died a little while ago;--a fellow who soaked himself with spirits, and talked of the Gospel through an inflamed nose.' 'The Countess has given him more refined tastes, I daresay,' said Mr. Ely. 'Well,' observed Mr. Cleves, 'the poor fellow must have a hard pull to get along, with his small income and large family. Let us hope the Countess does something towards making the pot boil.' 'Not she,' said Mr. Duke; 'there are greater signs of poverty about them than ever.' 'Well, come,' returned Mr. Cleves, who could be caustic sometimes, and who was not at all fond of his reverend brother, Mr. Duke, 'that's something in Barton's favour at all events. He might be poor _without_ showing signs of poverty.' Mr. Duke turned rather yellow, which was his way of blushing, and Mr. Ely came to his relief by observing,--'They're making a very good piece of work of Shepperton Church. Dolby, the architect, who has it in hand, is a very clever fellow.' 'It's he who has been doing Coppleton Church,' said Mr. Furness. 'They've got it in excellent order for the visitation.' This mention of the visitation suggested the Bishop, and thus opened a wide duct, which entirely diverted the stream of animadversion from that small pipe--that capillary vessel, the Rev. Amos Barton. The talk of the clergy about their Bishop belongs to the esoteric part of their profession; so we will at once quit the dining-room at Milby Vicarage, lest we should happen to overhear remarks unsuited to the lay understanding, and perhaps dangerous to our repose of mind. Chapter 7 I dare say the long residence of the Countess Czerlaski at Shepperton Vicarage is very puzzling to you also, dear reader, as well as to Mr. Barton's clerical brethren; the more so, as I hope you are not in the least inclined to put that very evil interpretation on it which evidently found acceptance with the sallow and dyspeptic Mr. Duke, and with the florid and highly peptic Mr. Fellowes. You have seen enough, I trust, of the Rev. Amos Barton, to be convinced that he was more apt to fall into a blunder than into a sin--more apt to be deceived than to incur a necessity for being deceitful: and if you have a keen eye for physiognomy, you will have detected that the Countess Czerlaski loved herself far too well to get entangled in an unprofitable vice. How then, you will say, could this fine lady choose to quarter herself on the establishment of a poor curate, where the carpets were probably falling into holes, where the attendance was limited to a maid of all work, and where six children were running loose from eight o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock in the evening? Surely you must be misrepresenting the facts. Heaven forbid! For not having a lofty imagination, as you perceive, and being unable to invent thrilling incidents for your amusement, my only merit must lie in the truth with which I represent to you the humble experience of an ordinary fellow-mortal. I wish to stir your sympathy with commonplace troubles--to win your tears for real sorrow: sorrow such as may live next door to you--such as walks neither in rags nor in velvet, but in very ordinary decent apparel. Therefore, that you may dismiss your suspicions of my veracity, I will beg you to consider, that at the time the Countess Czerlaski left Camp Villa in dudgeon, she had only twenty pounds in her pocket, being about one-third of the income she possessed independently of her brother. You will then perceive that she was in the extremely inconvenient predicament of having quarrelled, not indeed with her bread and cheese, but certainly with her chicken and tart--a predicament all the more inconvenient to her, because the habit of idleness had quite unfitted her for earning those necessary superfluities, and because, with all her fascinations, she had not secured any enthusiastic friends whose houses were open to her, and who were dying to see her. Thus she had completely checkmated herself, unless she could resolve on one unpleasant move--namely, to humble herself to her brother, and recognize his wife. This seemed quite impossible to her as long as she entertained the hope that he would make the first advances; and in this flattering hope she remained month after month at Shepperton Vicarage, gracefully overlooking the deficiencies of accommodation, and feeling that she was really behaving charmingly. 'Who indeed,' she thought to herself, 'could do otherwise, with a lovely, gentle creature like Milly? I shall really be sorry to leave the poor thing.' So, though she lay in bed till ten, and came down to a separate breakfast at eleven, she kindly consented to dine as early as five, when a hot joint was prepared, which coldly furnished forth the children's table the next day; she considerately prevented Milly from devoting herself too closely to the children, by insisting on reading, talking, and walking with her; and she even began to embroider a cap for the next baby, which must certainly be a girl, and be named Caroline. After the first month or two of her residence at the Vicarage, the Rev. Amos Barton became aware--as, indeed, it was unavoidable that he should--of the strong disapprobation it drew upon him, and the change of feeling towards him which it was producing in his kindest parishioners. But, in the first place, he still believed in the Countess as a charming and influential woman, disposed to befriend him, and, in any case, he could hardly hint departure to a lady guest who had been kind to him and his, and who might any day spontaneously announce the termination of her visit; in the second place, he was conscious of his own innocence, and felt some contemptuous indignation towards people who were ready to imagine evil of him; and, lastly, he had, as I have already intimated, a strong will of his own, so that a certain obstinacy and defiance mingled itself with his other feelings on the subject. The one unpleasant consequence which was not to be evaded or counteracted by any mere mental state, was the increasing drain on his slender purse for household expenses, to meet which the remittance he had received from the clerical charity threatened to be quite inadequate. Slander may be defeated by equanimity; but courageous thoughts will not pay your baker's bill, and fortitude is nowhere considered legal tender for beef. Month after month the financial aspect of the Rev. Amos's affairs became more and more serious to him, and month after month, too, wore away more and more of that armour of indignation and defiance with which he had at first defended himself from the harsh looks of faces that were once the friendliest. But quite the heaviest pressure of the trouble fell on Milly--on gentle, uncomplaining Milly--whose delicate body was becoming daily less fit for all the many things that had to be done between rising up and lying down. At first, she thought the Countess's visit would not last long, and she was quite glad to incur extra exertion for the sake of making her friend comfortable. I can hardly bear to think of all the rough work she did with those lovely hands--all by the sly, without letting her husband know anything about it, and husbands are not clairvoyant: how she salted bacon, ironed shirts and cravats, put patches on patches, and re-darned darns. Then there was the task of mending and eking out baby-linen in prospect, and the problem perpetually suggesting itself how she and Nanny should manage when there was another baby, as there would be before very many months were past. When time glided on, and the Countess's visit did not end, Milly was not blind to any phase of their position. She knew of the slander; she was aware of the keeping aloof of old friends; but these she felt almost entirely on her husband's account. A loving woman's world lies within the four walls of her own home; and it is only through her husband that she is in any electric communication with the world beyond. Mrs. Simpkins may have looked scornfully at her, but baby crows and holds out his little arms none the less blithely; Mrs. Tomkins may have left off calling on her, but her husband comes home none the less to receive her care and caresses; it has been wet and gloomy out of doors today, but she has looked well after the shirt buttons, has cut out baby's pinafores, and half finished Willy's blouse. So it was with Milly. She was only vexed that her husband should be vexed--only wounded because he was misconceived. But the difficulty about ways and means she felt in quite a different manner. Her rectitude was alarmed lest they should have to make tradesmen wait for their money; her motherly love dreaded the diminution of comforts for the children; and the sense of her own failing health gave exaggerated force to these fears. Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, that the Countess was inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit farther prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds, which ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task. In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shepperton--weary of waiting for her brother's overtures which never came; so, one fine morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely 'that woman' didn't make the poor man happy. In this amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, and addressed it to Mr. Bridmain, through his banker. Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny's, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny adored her mistress: she had been heard to say, that she was 'ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on'; and Walter, she considered, was _her_ baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover. But she had, from the first, very slight admiration for the Countess Czerlaski. That lady, from Nanny's point of view, was a personage always 'drawed out i' fine clothes', the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cooking of dinners. It was a perpetually heightening 'aggravation' to Nanny that she and her mistress had to 'slave' more than ever, because there was this fine lady in the house. 'An, she pays nothin' for't neither,' observed Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally--simply out of a taste for dialogue--looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. 'I know the master's shorter o' money than iver, an' it meks no end o' difference i' th' housekeepin'--her bein' here, besides bein' obliged to have a charwoman constant.' 'There's fine stories i' the village about her,' said Mr. Tomms. 'They say as Muster Barton's great wi' her, or else she'd niver stop here.' 'Then they say a passill o' lies, an' you ought to be ashamed to go an' tell 'em o'er again. Do you think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, 'ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o' goods like that Countess, as isn't fit to black the missis's shoes? I'm none so fond o' the master, but I know better on him nor that.' 'Well, I didn't b'lieve it,' said Mr. Tomms, humbly. 'B'lieve it? you'd ha' been a ninny if yer did. An' she's a nasty, stingy thing, that Countess. She's niver giv me a sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin' here's she's been. A-lyin' a bed an a-comin' down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!' If such was the state of Nanny's mind as early as the end of August, when this dialogue with Mr. Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very slight spark might any day cause the long-smouldering anger to flame forth in open indignation. That spark happened to fall the very morning that Mrs. Hackit paid the visit to Mrs. Patten, recorded in the last chapter. Nanny's dislike of the Countess extended to the innocent dog Jet, whom she 'couldn't a-bear to see made a fuss wi' like a Christian. An' the little ouzle must be washed, too, ivery Saturday, as if there wasn't children enoo to wash, wi'out washin' dogs.' Now this particular morning it happened that Milly was quite too poorly to get up, and Mr. Barton observed to Nanny, on going out, that he would call and tell Mr. Brand to come. These circumstances were already enough to make Nanny anxious and susceptible. But the Countess, comfortably ignorant of them, came down as usual about eleven o'clock to her separate breakfast, which stood ready for her at that hour in the parlour; the kettle singing on the hob that she might make her own tea. There was a little jug of cream, taken according to custom from last night's milk, and specially saved for the Countess's breakfast. Jet always awaited his mistress at her bedroom door, and it was her habit to carry him down stairs. 'Now, my little Jet,' she said, putting him down gently on the hearth-rug, 'you shall have a nice, nice breakfast.' Jet indicated that he thought that observation extremely pertinent and well-timed, by immediately raising himself on his hind-legs, and the Countess emptied the cream-jug into the saucer. Now there was usually a small jug of milk standing on the tray by the side of the cream, and destined for Jet's breakfast, but this morning Nanny, being 'moithered', had forgotten that part of the arrangements, so that when the Countess had made her tea, she perceived there was no second jug, and rang the bell. Nanny appeared, looking very red and heated--the fact was, she had been 'doing up' the kitchen fire, and that is a sort of work which by no means conduces to blandness of temper. 'Nanny, you have forgotten Jet's milk; will you bring me some more cream, please?' This was just a little too much for Nanny's forbearance. 'Yes, I dare say. Here am I wi' my hands full o' the children an' the dinner, and missis ill a-bed, and Mr. Brand a-comin'; and I must run o'er the village to get more cream, 'cause you've give it to that nasty little blackamoor.' 'Is Mrs. Barton ill?' 'Ill--yes--I should think she is ill, an' much you care. She's likely to be ill, moithered as _she_ is from mornin' to night, wi' folks as had better be elsewhere.' 'What do you mean by behaving in this way?' 'Mean? Why I mean as the missis is a slavin' her life out an' a-sittin' up o'nights, for folks as are better able to wait of _her_, i'stid o' lyin' a-bed an' doin' nothin' all the blessed day, but mek work.' 'Leave the room and don't be insolent.' 'Insolent! I'd better be insolent than like what some folks is,--a-livin' on other folks, an' bringin' a bad name on 'em into the bargain.' Here Nanny flung out of the room, leaving the lady to digest this unexpected breakfast at her leisure. The Countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall Nanny's words, there was no possibility of avoiding very unpleasant conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the Vicarage in an entirely new light. The interpretation too of Nanny's allusion to a 'bad name' did not lie out of the reach of the Countess's imagination, and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay. Still, she would like to wait for her brother's letter--no--she would ask Milly to forward it to her--still better, she would go at once to London, inquire her brother's address at his banker's, and go to see him without preliminary. She went up to Milly's room, and, after kisses and inquiries, said--'I find, on consideration, dear Milly, from the letter I had yesterday, that I must bid you good-bye and go up to London at once. But you must not let me leave you ill, you naughty thing.' 'Oh no,' said Milly, who felt as if a load had been taken off her back, 'I shall be very well in an hour or two. Indeed, I'm much better now. You will want me to help you to pack. But you won't go for two or three days?' 'Yes, I must go to-morrow. But I shall not let you help me to pack, so don't entertain any unreasonable projects, but lie still. Mr. Brand is coming, Nanny says.' The news was not an unpleasant surprise to Mr. Barton when he came home, though he was able to express more regret at the idea of parting than Milly could summon to her lips. He retained more of his original feeling for the Countess than Milly did, for women never betray themselves to men as they do to each other; and the Rev. Amos had not a keen instinct for character. But he felt that he was being relieved from a difficulty, and in the way that was easiest for him. Neither he nor Milly suspected that it was Nanny who had cut the knot for them, for the Countess took care to give no sign on that subject. As for Nanny, she was perfectly aware of the relation between cause and effect in the affair, and secretly chuckled over her outburst of 'sauce' as the best morning's work she had ever done. So, on Friday morning, a fly was seen standing at the Vicarage gate with the Countess's boxes packed upon it; and presently that lady herself was seen getting into the vehicle. After a last shake of the hand to Mr. Barton, and last kisses to Milly and the children, the door was closed; and as the fly rolled off, the little party at the Vicarage gate caught a last glimpse of the handsome Countess leaning and waving kisses from the carriage window. Jet's little black phiz was also seen, and doubtless he had his thoughts and feelings on the occasion, but he kept them strictly within his own bosom. The schoolmistress opposite witnessed this departure, and lost no time in telling it to the schoolmaster, who again communicated the news to the landlord of 'The Jolly Colliers', at the close of the morning school-hours. Nanny poured the joyful tidings into the ear of Mr. Farquhar's footman, who happened to call with a letter, and Mr. Brand carried them to all the patients he visited that morning, after calling on Mrs. Barton. So that, before Sunday, it was very generally known in Shepperton parish that the Countess Czerlaski had left the Vicarage. The Countess had left, but alas, the bills she had contributed to swell still remained; so did the exiguity of the children's clothing, which also was partly an indirect consequence of her presence; and so, too, did the coolness and alienation in the parishioners, which could not at once vanish before the fact of her departure. The Rev. Amos was not exculpated--the past was not expunged. But what was worse than all, Milly's health gave frequent cause for alarm, and the prospect of baby's birth was overshadowed by more than the usual fears. The birth came prematurely, about six weeks after the Countess's departure, but Mr. Brand gave favourable reports to all inquirers on the following day, which was Saturday. On Sunday, after morning service, Mrs. Hackit called at the Vicarage to inquire how Mrs. Barton was, and was invited up-stairs to see her. Milly lay placid and lovely in her feebleness, and held out her hand to Mrs. Hackit with a beaming smile. It was very pleasant to her to see her old friend unreserved and cordial once more. The seven months' baby was very tiny and very red, but 'handsome is that handsome does'--he was pronounced to be 'doing well', and Mrs. Hackit went home gladdened at heart to think that the perilous hour was over. Chapter 8 The following Wednesday, when Mr. and Mrs. Hackit were seated comfortably by their bright hearth, enjoying the long afternoon afforded by an early dinner, Rachel, the housemaid, came in and said,--'If you please 'm, the shepherd says, have you heard as Mrs. Barton's wuss, and not expected to live?' Mrs. Hackit turned pale, and hurried out to question the shepherd, who, she found, had heard the sad news at an ale-house in the village. Mr. Hackit followed her out and said, 'Thee'dst better have the pony-chaise, and go directly.' 'Yes,' said Mrs. Hackit, too much overcome to utter any exclamations. 'Rachel, come an' help me on wi' my things.' When her husband was wrapping her cloak round her feet in the pony-chaise, she said,--'If I don't come home to-night, I shall send back the pony-chaise, and you'll know I'm wanted there.' 'Yes, yes.' It was a bright frosty day, and by the time Mrs. Hackit arrived at the Vicarage, the sun was near its setting. There was a carriage and pair standing at the gate, which she recognized as Dr Madeley's, the physician from Rotherby. She entered at the kitchen door that she might avoid knocking, and quietly question Nanny. No one was in the kitchen, but, passing on, she saw the sitting-room door open, and Nanny, with Walter in her arms, removing the knives and forks, which had been laid for dinner three hours ago. 'Master says he can't eat no dinner,' was Nanny's first word. 'He's never tasted nothin' sin' yesterday mornin', but a cup o' tea.' 'When was your missis took worse?' 'O' Monday night. They sent for Dr Madeley i' the middle o' the day yisterday, an' he's here again now.' 'Is the baby alive?' 'No, it died last night. The children's all at Mrs. Bond's. She come and took 'em away last night, but the master says they must be fetched soon. He's up-stairs now, wi' Dr Madeley and Mr. Brand.' At this moment Mrs. Hackit heard the sound of a heavy, slow foot, in the passage; and presently Amos Barton entered, with dry despairing eyes, haggard and unshaven. He expected to find the sitting-room as he left it, with nothing to meet his eyes but Milly's work-basket in the corner of the sofa, and the children's toys overturned in the bow-window. But when he saw Mrs. Hackit come towards him with answering sorrow in her face, the pent-up fountain of tears was opened; he threw himself on the sofa, hid his face, and sobbed aloud. 'Bear up, Mr. Barton,' Mrs. Hackit ventured to say at last; 'bear up, for the sake o' them dear children.' 'The children,' said Amos, starting up. 'They must be sent for. Some one must fetch them. Milly will want to ...' He couldn't finish the sentence, but Mrs. Hackit understood him, and said, 'I'll send the man with the pony-carriage for 'em.' She went out to give the order, and encountered Dr Madeley and Mr. Brand, who were just going. Mr. Brand said: 'I am very glad to see you are here, Mrs. Hackit. No time must be lost in sending for the children. Mrs. Barton wants to see them.' 'Do you quite give her up then?' 'She can hardly live through the night. She begged us to tell her how long she had to live; and then asked for the children.' The pony-carriage was sent; and Mrs. Hackit, returning to Mr. Barton, said she would like to go up-stairs now. He went up-stairs with her and opened the door. The chamber fronted the west; the sun was just setting, and the red light fell full upon the bed, where Milly lay with the hand of death visibly upon her. The feather-bed had been removed, and she lay low on a mattress, with her head slightly raised by pillows. Her long fair neck seemed to be struggling with a painful effort; her features were pallid and pinched, and her eyes were closed. There was no one in the room but the nurse, and the mistress of the free school, who had come to give her help from the beginning of the change. Amos and Mrs. Hackit stood beside the bed, and Milly opened her eyes. 'My darling, Mrs. Hackit is come to see you.' Milly smiled and looked at her with that strange, far-off look which belongs to ebbing life. 'Are the children coming?' she said, painfully. 'Yes, they will be here directly.' She closed her eyes again. Presently the pony-carriage was heard; and Amos, motioning to Mrs. Hackit to follow him, left the room. On their way downstairs she suggested that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterwards, and Amos assented. There they stood in the melancholy sitting-room--the five sweet children, from Patty to Chubby--all, with their mother's eyes--all, except Patty, looking up with a vague fear at their father as he entered. Patty understood the great sorrow that was come upon them, and tried to check her sobs as she heard her papa's footsteps. 'My children,' said Amos, taking Chubby in his arms, 'God is going to take away your dear mamma from us. She wants to see you to say good-bye. You must try to be very good and not cry.' He could say no more, but turned round to see if Nanny was there with Walter, and then led the way up-stairs, leading Dickey with the other hand. Mrs. Hackit followed with Sophy and Patty, and then came Nanny with Walter and Fred. It seemed as if Milly had heard the little footsteps on the stairs, for when Amos entered her eyes were wide open, eagerly looking towards the door. They all stood by the bedside--Amos nearest to her, holding Chubby and Dickey. But she motioned for Patty to come first, and clasping the poor pale child by the hand, said,--'Patty, I'm going away from you. Love your papa. Comfort him; and take care of your little brothers and sisters. God will help you.' Patty stood perfectly quiet, and said, 'Yes, mamma.' The mother motioned with her pallid lips for the dear child to lean towards her and kiss her; and then Patty's great anguish overcame her, and she burst into sobs. Amos drew her towards him and pressed her head gently to him, while Milly beckoned Fred and Sophy, and said to them more faintly,--'Patty will try to be your mamma when I am gone, my darlings. You will be good and not vex her.' They leaned towards her, and she stroked their fair heads, and kissed their tear-stained cheeks. They cried because mamma was ill and papa looked so unhappy; but they thought, perhaps next week things would be as they used to be again. The little ones were lifted on the bed to kiss her. Little Walter said, 'Mamma, mamma', and stretched out his fat arms and smiled; and Chubby seemed gravely wondering; but Dickey, who had been looking fixedly at her, with lip hanging down, ever since he came into the room, now seemed suddenly pierced with the idea that mamma was going away somewhere; his little heart swelled and he cried aloud. Then Mrs. Hackit and Nanny took them all away. Patty at first begged to stay at home and not go to Mrs. Bond's again; but when Nanny reminded her that she had better go to take care of the younger ones, she submitted at once, and they were all packed in the pony-carriage once more. Milly kept her eyes shut for some time after the children were gone. Amos had sunk on his knees, and was holding her hand while he watched her face. By-and-by she opened her eyes, and, drawing him close to her, whispered slowly,--'My dear--dear--husband--you have been--very--good to me. You--have--made me--very--happy.' She spoke no more for many hours. They watched her breathing becoming more and more difficult, until evening deepened into night, and until midnight was past. About half-past twelve she seemed to be trying to speak, and they leaned to catch her words. 'Music--music--didn't you hear it?' Amos knelt by the bed and held her hand in his. He did not believe in his sorrow. It was a bad dream. He did not know when she was gone. But Mr. Brand, whom Mrs. Hackit had sent for before twelve o'clock, thinking that Mr. Barton might probably need his help, now came up to him, and said,--'She feels no more pain now. Come, my dear sir, come with me.' 'She isn't _dead_?' shrieked the poor desolate man, struggling to shake off Mr. Brand, who had taken him by the arm. But his weary weakened frame was not equal to resistance, and he was dragged out of the room. Chapter 9 They laid her in the grave--the sweet mother with her baby in her arms--while the Christmas snow lay thick upon the graves. It was Mr. Cleves who buried her. On the first news of Mr. Barton's calamity, he had ridden over from Tripplegate to beg that he might be made of some use, and his silent grasp of Amos's hand had penetrated like the painful thrill of life-recovering warmth to the poor benumbed heart of the stricken man. The snow lay thick upon the graves, and the day was cold and dreary; but there was many a sad eye watching that black procession as it passed from the vicarage to the church, and from the church to the open grave. There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin; but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with respectful pity. All the children were there, for Amos had willed it so, thinking that some dim memory of that sacred moment might remain even with little Walter, and link itself with what he would hear of his sweet mother in after years. He himself led Patty and Dickey; then came Sophy and Fred; Mr. Brand had begged to carry Chubby, and Nanny followed with Walter. They made a circle round the grave while the coffin was being lowered. Patty alone of all the children felt that mamma was in that coffin, and that a new and sadder life had begun for papa and herself. She was pale and trembling, but she clasped his hand more firmly as the coffin went down, and gave no sob. Fred and Sophy, though they were only two and three years younger, and though they had seen mamma in her coffin, seemed to themselves to be looking at some strange show. They had not learned to decipher that terrible handwriting of human destiny, illness and death. Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes, until he was told that it would be naughty to mamma not to put them on, when he at once submitted; and now, though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in heaven, he had a vague notion that she would come home again tomorrow, and say he had been a good boy and let him empty her work-box. He stood close to his father, with great rosy cheeks, and wide open blue eyes, looking first up at Mr. Cleves and then down at the coffin, and thinking he and Chubby would play at that when they got home. The burial was over, and Amos turned with his children to re-enter the house--the house where, an hour ago, Milly's dear body lay, where the windows were half darkened, and sorrow seemed to have a hallowed precinct for itself, shut out from the world. But now she was gone; the broad snow-reflected daylight was in all the rooms; the Vicarage again seemed part of the common working-day world, and Amos, for the first time, felt that he was alone--that day after day, month after month, year after year, would have to be lived through without Milly's love. Spring would come, and she would not be there; summer, and she would not be there; and he would never have her again with him by the fireside in the long evenings. The seasons all seemed irksome to his thoughts; and how dreary the sunshiny days that would be sure to come! She was gone from him; and he could never show her his love any more, never make up for omissions in the past by filling future days with tenderness. O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know. Amos Barton had been an affectionate husband, and while Milly was with him, he was never visited by the thought that perhaps his sympathy with her was not quick and watchful enough; but now he re-lived all their life together, with that terrible keenness of memory and imagination which bereavement gives, and he felt as if his very love needed a pardon for its poverty and selfishness. No outward solace could counteract the bitterness of this inward woe. But outward solace came. Cold faces looked kind again, and parishioners turned over in their minds what they could best do to help their pastor. Mr. Oldinport wrote to express his sympathy, and enclosed another twenty-pound note, begging that he might be permitted to contribute in this way to the relief of Mr. Barton's mind from pecuniary anxieties, under the pressure of a grief which all his parishioners must share; and offering his interest towards placing the two eldest girls in a school expressly founded for clergymen's daughters. Mr. Cleves succeeded in collecting thirty pounds among his richer clerical brethren, and, adding ten pounds himself, sent the sum to Amos, with the kindest and most delicate words of Christian fellowship and manly friendship. Miss Jackson forgot old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly's children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small income. These were substantial helps, which relieved Amos from the pressure of his money difficulties; and the friendly attentions, the kind pressure of the hand, the cordial looks he met with everywhere in his parish, made him feel that the fatal frost which had settled on his pastoral duties, during the Countess's residence at the Vicarage, was completely thawed, and that the hearts of his parishioners were once more open to him. No one breathed the Countess's name now; for Milly's memory hallowed her husband, as of old the place was hallowed on which an angel from God had alighted. When the spring came, Mrs. Hackit begged that she might have Dickey to stay with her, and great was the enlargement of Dickey's experience from that visit. Every morning he was allowed--being well wrapt up as to his chest by Mrs. Hackit's own hands, but very bare and red as to his legs--to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey-cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and other transcendental matters. Then Mr. Hackit would take Dickey up on horseback when he rode round his farm, and Mrs. Hackit had a large plumcake in cut, ready to meet incidental attacks of hunger. So that Dickey had considerably modified his views as to the desirability of Mrs. Hackit's kisses. The Misses Farquhar made particular pets of Fred and Sophy, to whom they undertook to give lessons twice a-week in writing and geography; and Mrs. Farquhar devised many treats for the little ones. Patty's treat was to stay at home, or walk about with her papa; and when he sat by the fire in an evening, after the other children were gone to bed, she would bring a stool, and, placing it against his feet, would sit down upon it and lean her head against his knee. Then his hand would rest on that fair head, and he would feel that Milly's love was not quite gone out of his life. So the time wore on till it was May again, and the church was quite finished and reopened in all its new splendour, and Mr. Barton was devoting himself with more vigour than ever to his parochial duties. But one morning--it was a very bright morning, and evil tidings sometimes like to fly in the finest weather--there came a letter for Mr. Barton, addressed in the Vicar's handwriting. Amos opened it with some anxiety--somehow or other he had a presentiment of evil. The letter contained the announcement that Mr. Carpe had resolved on coming to reside at Shepperton, and that, consequently, in six months from that time Mr. Barton's duties as curate in that parish would be closed. O, it was hard! Just when Shepperton had become the place where he most wished to stay--where he had friends who knew his sorrows--where he lived close to Milly's grave. To part from that grave seemed like parting with Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung to all the material links between his mind and the past. His imagination was not vivid, and required the stimulus of actual perception. It roused some bitter feeling, too, to think that Mr. Carpe's wish to reside at Shepperton was merely a pretext for removing Mr. Barton, in order that he might ultimately give the curacy of Shepperton to his own brother-in-law, who was known to be wanting a new position. Still, it must be borne; and the painful business of seeking another curacy must be set about without loss of time. After the lapse of some months, Amos was obliged to renounce the hope of getting one at all near Shepperton, and he at length resigned himself to accepting one in a distant county. The parish was in a large manufacturing town, where his walks would lie among noisy streets and dingy alleys, and where the children would have no garden to play in, no pleasant farm-houses to visit. It was another blow inflicted on the bruised man. Chapter 10 At length the dreaded week was come, when Amos and his children must leave Shepperton. There was general regret among the parishioners at his departure: not that any one of them thought his spiritual gifts pre-eminent, or was conscious of great edification from his ministry. But his recent troubles had called out their better sympathies, and that is always a source of love. Amos failed to touch the spring of goodness by his sermons, but he touched it effectually by his sorrows; and there was now a real bond between him and his flock. 'My heart aches for them poor motherless children,' said Mrs. Hackit to her husband, 'a-going among strangers, and into a nasty town, where there's no good victuals to be had, and you must pay dear to get bad uns.' Mrs. Hackit had a vague notion of a town life as a combination of dirty backyards, measly pork, and dingy linen. The same sort of sympathy was strong among the poorer class of parishioners. Old stiff-jointed Mr. Tozer, who was still able to earn a little by gardening 'jobs', stopped Mrs. Cramp, the charwoman, on her way home from the Vicarage, where she had been helping Nanny to pack up the day before the departure, and inquired very particularly into Mr. Barton's prospects. 'Ah, poor mon,' he was heard to say, 'I'm sorry for un. He hedn't much here, but he'll be wuss off theer. Half a loaf's better nor ne'er un.' The sad good-byes had all been said before that last evening; and after all the packing was done and all the arrangements were made, Amos felt the oppression of that blank interval in which one has nothing left to think of but the dreary future--the separation from the loved and familiar, and the chilling entrance on the new and strange. In every parting there is an image of death. Soon after ten o'clock, when he had sent Nanny to bed, that she might have a good night's rest before the fatigues of the morrow, he stole softly out to pay a last visit to Milly's grave. It was a moonless night, but the sky was thick with stars, and their light was enough to show that the grass had grown long on the grave, and that there was a tombstone telling in bright letters, on a dark ground, that beneath were deposited the remains of Amelia, the beloved wife of Amos Barton, who died in the thirty-fifth year of her age, leaving a husband and six children to lament her loss. The final words of the inscription were, 'Thy will be done.' The husband was now advancing towards the dear mound from which he was so soon to be parted, perhaps for ever. He stood a few minutes reading over and over again the words on the tombstone, as if to assure himself that all the happy and unhappy past was a reality. For love is frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish. Gradually, as his eye dwelt on the words, 'Amelia, the beloved wife,' the waves of feeling swelled within his soul, and he threw himself on the grave, clasping it with his arms, and kissing the cold turf. 'Milly, Milly, dost thou hear me? I didn't love thee enough--I wasn't tender enough to thee--but I think of it all now.' The sobs came and choked his utterance, and the warm tears fell. CONCLUSION Only once again in his life has Amos Barton visited Milly's grave. It was in the calm and softened light of an autumnal afternoon, and he was not alone. He held on his arm a young woman, with a sweet, grave face, which strongly recalled the expression of Mrs. Barton's, but was less lovely in form and colour. She was about thirty, but there were some premature lines round her mouth and eyes, which told of early anxiety. Amos himself was much changed. His thin circlet of hair was nearly white, and his walk was no longer firm and upright. But his glance was calm, and even cheerful, and his neat linen told of a woman's care. Milly did not take all her love from the earth when she died. She had left some of it in Patty's heart. All the other children were now grown up, and had gone their several ways. Dickey, you will be glad to hear, had shown remarkable talents as an engineer. His cheeks are still ruddy, in spite of mixed mathematics, and his eyes are still large and blue; but in other respects his person would present no marks of identification for his friend Mrs. Hackit, if she were to see him; especially now that her eyes must be grown very dim, with the wear of more than twenty additional years. He is nearly six feet high, and has a proportionately broad chest; he wears spectacles, and rubs his large white hands through a mass of shaggy brown hair. But I am sure you have no doubt that Mr. Richard Barton is a thoroughly good fellow, as well as a man of talent, and you will be glad any day to shake hands with him, for his own sake as well as his mother's. Patty alone remains by her father's side, and makes the evening sunshine of his life. MR. GILFIL'S LOVE STORY Chapter 1 When old Mr. Gilfil died, thirty years ago, there was general sorrow in Shepperton; and if black cloth had not been hung round the pulpit and reading-desk, by order of his nephew and principal legatee, the parishioners would certainly have subscribed the necessary sum out of their own pockets, rather than allow such a tribute of respect to be wanting. All the farmers' wives brought out their black bombasines; and Mrs. Jennings, at the Wharf, by appearing the first Sunday after Mr. Gilfil's death in her salmon-coloured ribbons and green shawl, excited the severest remark. To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things. 'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' _my_ family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!' 'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.' Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of. Even dirty Dame Fripp, who was a very rare church-goer, had been to Mrs. Hackit to beg a bit of old crape, and with this sign of grief pinned on her little coal-scuttle bonnet, was seen dropping her curtsy opposite the reading-desk. This manifestation of respect towards Mr. Gilfil's memory on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever. It was due to an event which had occurred some years back, and which, I am sorry to say, had left that grimy old lady as indifferent to the means of grace as ever. Dame Fripp kept leeches, and was understood to have such remarkable influence over those wilful animals in inducing them to bite under the most unpromising circumstances, that though her own leeches were usually rejected, from a suspicion that they had lost their appetite, she herself was constantly called in to apply the more lively individuals furnished from Mr. Pilgrim's surgery, when, as was very often the case, one of that clever man's paying patients was attacked with inflammation. Thus Dame Fripp, in addition to 'property' supposed to yield her no less than half-a-crown a-week, was in the receipt of professional fees, the gross amount of which was vaguely estimated by her neighbours as 'pouns an' pouns'. Moreover, she drove a brisk trade in lollipop with epicurean urchins, who recklessly purchased that luxury at the rate of two hundred per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour. 'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!' Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt. 'Why, Mrs. Fripp,' said the Vicar, 'I didn't know you had such a fine pig. You'll have some rare flitches at Christmas!' 'Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two 'ear ago, an' he's been company to me iver sin'. I couldn't find i' my heart to part wi'm, if I niver knowed the taste o' bacon-fat again.' 'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?' 'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.' Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-bye to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again. So, when Mr. Gilfil died, Dame Fripp manifested her gratitude and reverence in the simply dingy fashion I have mentioned. You already suspect that the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and having preached one of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church, with a checkered pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks, with coats of arms in clusters on the lofty roof, marble warriors and their wives without noses occupying a large proportion of the area, and the twelve apostles, with their heads very much on one side, holding didactic ribbons, painted in fresco on the walls. Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone, Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission by feeling something mysteriously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk. But the Knebley farmers would as soon have thought of criticizing the moon as their pastor. He belonged to the course of nature, like markets and toll-gates and dirty bank-notes; and being a vicar, his claim on their veneration had never been counteracted by an exasperating claim on their pockets. Some of them, who did not indulge in the superfluity of a covered cart without springs, had dined half an hour earlier than usual--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--in order to have time for their long walk through miry lanes, and present themselves duly in their places at two o'clock, when Mr. Oldinport and Lady Felicia, to whom Knebley Church was a sort of family temple, made their way among the bows and curtsies of their dependants to a carved and canopied pew in the chancel, diffusing as they went a delicate odour of Indian roses on the unsusceptible nostrils of the congregation. The farmers' wives and children sat on the dark oaken benches, but the husbands usually chose the distinctive dignity of a stall under one of the twelve apostles, where, when the alternation of prayers and responses had given place to the agreeable monotony of the sermon, Paterfamilias might be seen or heard sinking into a pleasant doze, from which he infallibly woke up at the sound of the concluding doxology. And then they made their way back again through the miry lanes, perhaps almost as much the better for this simple weekly tribute to what they knew of good and right, as many a more wakeful and critical congregation of the present day. Mr. Gilfil, too, used to make his way home in the later years of his life, for he had given up the habit of dining at Knebley Abbey on a Sunday, having, I am sorry to say, had a very bitter quarrel with Mr. Oldinport, the cousin and predecessor of the Mr. Oldinport who flourished in the Rev. Amos Barton's time. That quarrel was a sad pity, for the two had had many a good day's hunting together when they were younger, and in those friendly times not a few members of the hunt envied Mr. Oldinport the excellent terms he was on with his vicar; for, as Sir Jasper Sitwell observed, 'next to a man's wife, there's nobody can be such an infernal plague to you as a parson, always under your nose on your own estate.' I fancy the original difference which led to the rupture was very slight; but Mr. Gilfil was of an extremely caustic turn, his satire having a flavour of originality which was quite wanting in his sermons; and as Mr. Oldinport's armour of conscious virtue presented some considerable and conspicuous gaps, the Vicar's keen-edged retorts probably made a few incisions too deep to be forgiven. Such, at least, was the view of the case presented by Mr. Hackit, who knew as much of the matter as any third person. For, the very week after the quarrel, when presiding at the annual dinner of the Association for the Prosecution of Felons, held at the Oldinport Arms, he contributed an additional zest to the conviviality on that occasion by informing the company that 'the parson had given the squire a lick with the rough side of his tongue.' The detection of the person or persons who had driven off Mr. Parrot's heifer, could hardly have been more welcome news to the Shepperton tenantry, with whom Mr. Oldinport was in the worst odour as a landlord, having kept up his rents in spite of falling prices, and not being in the least stung to emulation by paragraphs in the provincial newspapers, stating that the Honourable Augustus Purwell, or Viscount Blethers, had made a return of ten per cent on their last rent-day. The fact was, Mr. Oldinport had not the slightest intention of standing for Parliament, whereas he had the strongest intention of adding to his unentailed estate. Hence, to the Shepperton farmers it was as good as lemon with their grog to know that the Vicar had thrown out sarcasms against the Squire's charities, as little better than those of the man who stole a goose, and gave away the giblets in alms. For Shepperton, you observe, was in a state of Attic culture compared with Knebley; it had turnpike roads and a public opinion, whereas, in the Boeotian Knebley, men's minds and waggons alike moved in the deepest of ruts, and the landlord was only grumbled at as a necessary and unalterable evil, like the weather, the weevils, and the turnip-fly. Thus in Shepperton this breach with Mr. Oldinport tended only to heighten that good understanding which the Vicar had always enjoyed with the rest of his parishioners, from the generation whose children he had christened a quarter of a century before, down to that hopeful generation represented by little Tommy Bond, who had recently quitted frocks and trousers for the severe simplicity of a tight suit of corduroys, relieved by numerous brass buttons. Tommy was a saucy boy, impervious to all impressions of reverence, and excessively addicted to humming-tops and marbles, with which recreative resources he was in the habit of immoderately distending the pockets of his corduroys. One day, spinning his top on the garden-walk, and seeing the Vicar advance directly towards it, at that exciting moment when it was beginning to 'sleep' magnificently, he shouted out with all the force of his lungs--'Stop! don't knock my top down, now!' From that day 'little Corduroys' had been an especial favourite with Mr. Gilfil, who delighted to provoke his ready scorn and wonder by putting questions which gave Tommy the meanest opinion of his intellect. 'Well, little Corduroys, have they milked the geese today?' 'Milked the geese! why, they don't milk the geese, you silly!' 'No! dear heart! why, how do the goslings live, then?' The nutriment of goslings rather transcending Tommy's observations in natural history, he feigned to understand this question in an exclamatory rather than an interrogatory sense, and became absorbed in winding up his top. 'Ah, I see you don't know how the goslings live! But did you notice how it rained sugar-plums yesterday?' (Here Tommy became attentive.) 'Why, they fell into my pocket as I rode along. You look in my pocket and see if they didn't.' Tommy, without waiting to discuss the alleged antecedent, lost no time in ascertaining the presence of the agreeable consequent, for he had a well-founded belief in the advantages of diving into the Vicar's pocket. Mr. Gilfil called it his wonderful pocket, because, as he delighted to tell the 'young shavers' and 'two-shoes'--so he called all little boys and girls--whenever he put pennies into it, they turned into sugar-plums or gingerbread, or some other nice thing. Indeed, little Bessie Parrot, a flaxen-headed 'two-shoes', very white and fat as to her neck, always had the admirable directness and sincerity to salute him with the question--'What zoo dot in zoo pottet?' You can imagine, then, that the christening dinners were none the less merry for the presence of the parson. The farmers relished his society particularly, for he could not only smoke his pipe, and season the details of parish affairs with abundance of caustic jokes and proverbs, but, as Mr. Bond often said, no man knew more than the Vicar about the breed of cows and horses. He had grazing-land of his own about five miles off, which a bailiff, ostensibly a tenant, farmed under his direction; and to ride backwards and forwards, and look after the buying and selling of stock, was the old gentleman's chief relaxation, now his hunting days were over. To hear him discussing the respective merits of the Devonshire breed and the short-horns, or the last foolish decision of the magistrates about a pauper, a superficial observer might have seen little difference, beyond his superior shrewdness, between the Vicar and his bucolic parishioners; for it was his habit to approximate his accent and mode of speech to theirs, doubtless because he thought it a mere frustration of the purposes of language to talk of 'shear-hogs' and 'ewes' to men who habitually said 'sharrags' and 'yowes'. Nevertheless the farmers themselves were perfectly aware of the distinction between them and the parson, and had not at all the less belief in him as a gentleman and a clergyman for his easy speech and familiar manners. Mrs. Parrot smoothed her apron and set her cap right with the utmost solicitude when she saw the Vicar coming, made him her deepest curtsy, and every Christmas had a fat turkey ready to send him with her 'duty'. And in the most gossiping colloquies with Mr. Gilfil, you might have observed that both men and women 'minded their words', and never became indifferent to his approbation. The same respect attended him in his strictly clerical functions. The benefits of baptism were supposed to be somehow bound up with Mr. Gilfil's personality, so metaphysical a distinction as that between a man and his office being, as yet, quite foreign to the mind of a good Shepperton Churchman, savouring, he would have thought, of Dissent on the very face of it. Miss Selina Parrot put off her marriage a whole month when Mr. Gilfil had an attack of rheumatism, rather than be married in a makeshift manner by the Milby curate. 'We've had a very good sermon this morning', was the frequent remark, after hearing one of the old yellow series, heard with all the more satisfaction because it had been heard for the twentieth time; for to minds on the Shepperton level it is repetition, not novelty, that produces the strongest effect; and phrases, like tunes, are a long time making themselves at home in the brain. Mr. Gilfil's sermons, as you may imagine, were not of a highly doctrinal, still less of a polemical, cast. They perhaps did not search the conscience very powerfully; for you remember that to Mrs. Patten, who had listened to them thirty years, the announcement that she was a sinner appeared an uncivil heresy; but, on the other hand, they made no unreasonable demand on the Shepperton intellect--amounting, indeed, to little more than an expansion of the concise thesis, that those who do wrong will find it the worse for them, and those who do well will find it the better for them; the nature of wrong-doing being exposed in special sermons against lying, backbiting, anger, slothfulness, and the like; and well-doing being interpreted as honesty, truthfulness, charity, industry, and other common virtues, lying quite on the surface of life, and having very little to do with deep spiritual doctrine. Mrs. Patten understood that if she turned out ill-crushed cheeses, a just retribution awaited her; though, I fear, she made no particular application of the sermon on backbiting. Mrs. Hackit expressed herself greatly edified by the sermon on honesty, the allusion to the unjust weight and deceitful balance having a peculiar lucidity for her, owing to a recent dispute with her grocer; but I am not aware that she ever appeared to be much struck by the sermon on anger. As to any suspicion that Mr. Gilfil did not dispense the pure Gospel, or any strictures on his doctrine and mode of delivery, such thoughts never visited the minds of the Shepperton parishioners--of those very parishioners who, ten or fifteen years later, showed themselves extremely critical of Mr. Barton's discourses and demeanour. But in the interim they had tasted that dangerous fruit of the tree of knowledge--innovation which is well known to open the eyes, even in an uncomfortable manner. At present, to find fault with the sermon was regarded as almost equivalent to finding fault with religion itself. One Sunday, Mr. Hackit's nephew, Master Tom Stokes, a flippant town youth, greatly scandalized his excellent relatives by declaring that he could write as good a sermon as Mr. Gilfil's; whereupon Mr. Hackit sought to reduce the presumptuous youth to utter confusion, by offering him a sovereign if he would fulfil his vaunt. The sermon was written, however; and though it was not admitted to be anywhere within reach of Mr. Gilfil's, it was yet so astonishingly like a sermon, having a text, three divisions, and a concluding exhortation beginning 'And now, my brethren', that the sovereign, though denied formally, was bestowed informally, and the sermon was pronounced, when Master Stokes's back was turned, to be 'an uncommon cliver thing'. The Rev. Mr. Pickard, indeed, of the Independent Meeting, had stated, in a sermon preached at Rotheby, for the reduction of a debt on New Zion, built, with an exuberance of faith and a deficiency of funds, by seceders from the original Zion, that he lived in a parish where the Vicar was very 'dark', and in the prayers he addressed to his own congregation, he was in the habit of comprehensively alluding to the parishioners outside the chapel walls, as those who, 'Gallio-like, cared for none of these things'. But I need hardly say that no church-goer ever came within earshot of Mr. Pickard. It was not to the Shepperton farmers only that Mr. Gilfil's society was acceptable; he was a welcome guest at some of the best houses in that part of the country. Old Sir Jasper Sitwell would have been glad to see him every week; and if you had seen him conducting Lady Sitwell in to dinner, or had heard him talking to her with quaint yet graceful gallantry, you would have inferred that the earlier period of his life had been passed in more stately society than could be found in Shepperton, and that his slipshod chat and homely manners were but like weather-stains on a fine old block of marble, allowing you still to see here and there the fineness of the grain, and the delicacy of the original tint. But in his later years these visits became a little too troublesome to the old gentleman, and he was rarely to be found anywhere of an evening beyond the bounds of his own parish--most frequently, indeed, by the side of his own sitting-room fire, smoking his pipe, and maintaining the pleasing antithesis of dryness and moisture by an occasional sip of gin-and-water. Here I am aware that I have run the risk of alienating all my refined lady-readers, and utterly annihilating any curiosity they may have felt to know the details of Mr. Gilfil's love-story. 'Gin-and-water! foh! you may as well ask us to interest ourselves in the romance of a tallow-chandler, who mingles the image of his beloved with short dips and moulds.' But in the first place, dear ladies, allow me to plead that gin-and-water, like obesity, or baldness, or the gout, does not exclude a vast amount of antecedent romance, any more than the neatly-executed 'fronts' which you may some day wear, will exclude your present possession of less expensive braids. Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes--there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight. In the second place, let me assure you that Mr. Gilfil's potations of gin-and-water were quite moderate. His nose was not rubicund; on the contrary, his white hair hung around a pale and venerable face. He drank it chiefly, I believe, because it was cheap; and here I find myself alighting on another of the Vicar's weaknesses, which, if I had cared to paint a flattering portrait rather than a faithful one, I might have chosen to suppress. It is undeniable that, as the years advanced, Mr. Gilfil became, as Mr. Hackit observed, more and more 'close-fisted', though the growing propensity showed itself rather in the parsimony of his personal habits, than in withholding help from the needy. He was saving--so he represented the matter to himself--for a nephew, the only son of a sister who had been the dearest object, all but one, in his life. 'The lad,' he thought, 'will have a nice little fortune to begin life with, and will bring his pretty young wife some day to see the spot where his old uncle lies. It will perhaps be all the better for his hearth that mine was lonely.' Mr. Gilfil was a bachelor, then? That is the conclusion to which you would probably have come if you had entered his sitting-room, where the bare tables, the large old-fashioned horse-hair chairs, and the threadbare Turkey carpet perpetually fumigated with tobacco, seemed to tell a story of wifeless existence that was contradicted by no portrait, no piece of embroidery, no faded bit of pretty triviality, hinting of taper-fingers and small feminine ambitions. And it was here that Mr. Gilfil passed his evenings, seldom with other society than that of Ponto, his old brown setter, who, stretched out at full length on the rug with his nose between his fore-paws, would wrinkle his brows and lift up his eyelids every now and then, to exchange a glance of mutual understanding with his master. But there was a chamber in Shepperton Vicarage which told a different story from that bare and cheerless dining-room--a chamber never entered by any one besides Mr. Gilfil and old Martha the housekeeper, who, with David her husband as groom and gardener, formed the Vicar's entire establishment. The blinds of this chamber were always down, except once a-quarter, when Martha entered that she might air and clean it. She always asked Mr. Gilfil for the key, which he kept locked up in his bureau, and returned it to him when she had finished her task. It was a touching sight that the daylight streamed in upon, as Martha drew aside the blinds and thick curtains, and opened the Gothic casement of the oriel window! On the little dressing-table there was a dainty looking-glass in a carved and gilt frame; bits of wax-candle were still in the branched sockets at the sides, and on one of these branches hung a little black lace kerchief; a faded satin pin-cushion, with the pins rusted in it, a scent-bottle, and a large green fan, lay on the table; and on a dressing-box by the side of the glass was a work-basket, and an unfinished baby-cap, yellow with age, lying in it. Two gowns, of a fashion long forgotten, were hanging on nails against the door, and a pair of tiny red slippers, with a bit of tarnished silver embroidery on them, were standing at the foot of the bed. Two or three water-colour drawings, views of Naples, hung upon the walls; and over the mantelpiece, above some bits of rare old china, two miniatures in oval frames. One of these miniatures represented a young man about seven-and-twenty, with a sanguine complexion, full lips, and clear candid grey eyes. The other was the likeness of a girl probably not more than eighteen, with small features, thin cheeks, a pale southern-looking complexion, and large dark eyes. The gentleman wore powder; the lady had her dark hair gathered away from her face, and a little cap, with a cherry-coloured bow, set on the top of her head--a coquettish head-dress, but the eyes spoke of sadness rather than of coquetry. Such were the things that Martha had dusted and let the air upon, four times a-year, ever since she was a blooming lass of twenty; and she was now, in this last decade of Mr. Gilfil's life, unquestionably on the wrong side of fifty. Such was the locked-up chamber in Mr. Gilfil's house: a sort of visible symbol of the secret chamber in his heart, where he had long turned the key on early hopes and early sorrows, shutting up for ever all the passion and the poetry of his life. There were not many people in the parish, besides Martha, who had any very distinct remembrance of Mr. Gilfil's wife, or indeed who knew anything of her, beyond the fact that there was a marble tablet, with a Latin inscription in memory of her, over the vicarage pew. The parishioners who were old enough to remember her arrival were not generally gifted with descriptive powers, and the utmost you could gather from them was, that Mrs. Gilfil looked like a 'furriner, wi' such eyes, you can't think, an' a voice as went through you when she sung at church.' The one exception was Mrs. Patten, whose strong memory and taste for personal narrative made her a great source of oral tradition in Shepperton. Mr. Hackit, who had not come into the parish until ten years after Mrs. Gilfil's death, would often put old questions to Mrs. Patten for the sake of getting the old answers, which pleased him in the same way as passages from a favourite book, or the scenes of a familiar play, please more accomplished people. 'Ah, you remember well the Sunday as Mrs. Gilfil first come to church, eh, Mrs. Patten?' 'To be sure I do. It was a fine bright Sunday as ever was seen, just at the beginnin' o' hay harvest. Mr. Tarbett preached that day, and Mr. Gilfil sat i' the pew with his wife. I think I see him now, a-leading her up the aisle, an' her head not reachin' much above his elber: a little pale woman, with eyes as black as sloes, an' yet lookin' blank-like, as if she see'd nothing with 'em.' 'I warrant she had her weddin' clothes on?' said Mr. Hackit. 'Nothin' partikler smart--on'y a white hat tied down under her chin, an' a white Indy muslin gown. But you don't know what Mr. Gilfil was in those times. He was fine an' altered before you come into the parish. He'd a fresh colour then, an' a bright look wi' his eyes, as did your heart good to see. He looked rare and happy that Sunday; but somehow, I'd a feelin' as it wouldn't last long. I've no opinion o' furriners, Mr. Hackit, for I've travelled i' their country with my lady in my time, an' seen enough o' their victuals an' their nasty ways.' 'Mrs. Gilfil come from It'ly, didn't she?' 'I reckon she did, but I niver could rightly hear about that. Mr. Gilfil was niver to be spoke to about her, and nobody else hereabout knowed anythin'. Howiver, she must ha' come over pretty young, for she spoke English as well as you an' me. It's them Italians as has such fine voices, an' Mrs. Gilfil sung, you never heared the like. He brought her here to have tea with me one afternoon, and says he, in his jovial way, "Now, Mrs. Patten, I want Mrs. Gilfil to see the neatest house, and drink the best cup o' tea, in all Shepperton; you must show her your dairy and your cheese-room, and then she shall sing you a song." An' so she did; an' her voice seemed sometimes to fill the room; an' then it went low an' soft, as if it was whisperin' close to your heart like.' 'You never heared her again, I reckon?' 'No; she was sickly then, and she died in a few months after. She wasn't in the parish much more nor half a year altogether. She didn't seem lively that afternoon, an' I could see she didn't care about the dairy, nor the cheeses, on'y she pretended, to please him. As for him, I niver see'd a man so wrapt up in a woman. He looked at her as if he was worshippin' her, an' as if he wanted to lift her off the ground ivery minute, to save her the trouble o' walkin'. Poor man, poor man! It had like to ha' killed him when she died, though he niver gev way, but went on ridin' about and preachin'. But he was wore to a shadder, an' his eyes used to look as dead--you wouldn't ha' knowed 'em.' 'She brought him no fortune?' 'Not she. All Mr. Gilfil's property come by his mother's side. There was blood an' money too, there. It's a thousand pities as he married i' that way--a fine man like him, as might ha' had the pick o' the county, an' had his grandchildren about him now. An' him so fond o' children, too.' In this manner Mrs. Patten usually wound up her reminiscences of the Vicar's wife, of whom, you perceive, she knew but little. It was clear that the communicative old lady had nothing to tell of Mrs. Gilfil's history previous to her arrival in Shepperton, and that she was unacquainted with Mr. Gilfil's love-story. But I, dear reader, am quite as communicative as Mrs. Patten, and much better informed; so that, if you care to know more about the Vicar's courtship and marriage, you need only carry your imagination back to the latter end of the last century, and your attention forward into the next chapter. Chapter 2 It is the evening of the 21st of June 1788. The day has been bright and sultry, and the sun will still be more than an hour above the horizon, but his rays, broken by the leafy fretwork of the elms that border the park, no longer prevent two ladies from carrying out their cushions and embroidery, and seating themselves to work on the lawn in front of Cheverel Manor. The soft turf gives way even under the fairy tread of the younger lady, whose small stature and slim figure rest on the tiniest of full-grown feet. She trips along before the elder, carrying the cushions, which she places in the favourite spot, just on the slope by a clump of laurels, where they can see the sunbeams sparkling among the water-lilies, and can be themselves seen from the dining-room windows. She has deposited the cushions, and now turns round, so that you may have a full view of her as she stands waiting the slower advance of the elder lady. You are at once arrested by her large dark eyes, which, in their inexpressive unconscious beauty, resemble the eyes of a fawn, and it is only by an effort of attention that you notice the absence of bloom on her young cheek, and the southern yellowish tint of her small neck and face, rising above the little black lace kerchief which prevents the too immediate comparison of her skin with her white muslin gown. Her large eyes seem all the more striking because the dark hair is gathered away from her face, under a little cap set at the top of her head, with a cherry-coloured bow on one side. The elder lady, who is advancing towards the cushions, is cast in a very different mould of womanhood. She is tall, and looks the taller because her powdered hair is turned backward over a toupee, and surmounted by lace and ribbons. She is nearly fifty, but her complexion is still fresh and beautiful, with the beauty of an auburn blond; her proud pouting lips, and her head thrown a little backward as she walks, give an expression of hauteur which is not contradicted by the cold grey eye. The tucked-in kerchief, rising full over the low tight bodice of her blue dress, sets off the majestic form of her bust, and she treads the lawn as if she were one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' stately ladies, who had suddenly stepped from her frame to enjoy the evening cool. 'Put the cushions lower, Caterina, that we may not have so much sun upon us,' she called out, in a tone of authority, when still at some distance. Caterina obeyed, and they sat down, making two bright patches of red and white and blue on the green background of the laurels and the lawn, which would look none the less pretty in a picture because one of the women's hearts was rather cold and the other rather sad. And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool--on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue. Seen from the great Gothic windows of the dining-room, they had much more definiteness of outline, and were distinctly visible to the three gentlemen sipping their claret there, as two fair women in whom all three had a personal interest. These gentlemen were a group worth considering attentively; but any one entering that dining-room for the first time, would perhaps have had his attention even more strongly arrested by the room itself, which was so bare of furniture that it impressed one with its architectural beauty like a cathedral. A piece of matting stretched from door to door, a bit of worn carpet under the dining-table, and a sideboard in a deep recess, did not detain the eye for a moment from the lofty groined ceiling, with its richly-carved pendants, all of creamy white, relieved here and there by touches of gold. On one side, this lofty ceiling was supported by pillars and arches, beyond which a lower ceiling, a miniature copy of the higher one, covered the square projection which, with its three large pointed windows, formed the central feature of the building. The room looked less like a place to dine in than a piece of space enclosed simply for the sake of beautiful outline; and the small dining-table, with the party round it, seemed an odd and insignificant accident, rather than anything connected with the original purpose of the apartment. But, examined closely, that group was far from insignificant; for the eldest, who was reading in the newspaper the last portentous proceedings of the French parliaments, and turning with occasional comments to his young companions, was as fine a specimen of the old English gentleman as could well have been found in those venerable days of cocked-hats and pigtails. His dark eyes sparkled under projecting brows, made more prominent by bushy grizzled eyebrows; but any apprehension of severity excited by these penetrating eyes, and by a somewhat aquiline nose, was allayed by the good-natured lines about the mouth, which retained all its teeth and its vigour of expression in spite of sixty winters. The forehead sloped a little from the projecting brows, and its peaked outline was made conspicuous by the arrangement of the profusely-powdered hair, drawn backward and gathered into a pigtail. He sat in a small hard chair, which did not admit the slightest approach to a lounge, and which showed to advantage the flatness of his back and the breadth of his chest. In fact, Sir Christopher Cheverel was a splendid old gentleman, as any one may see who enters the saloon at Cheverel Manor, where his full-length portrait, taken when he was fifty, hangs side by side with that of his wife, the stately lady seated on the lawn. Looking at Sir Christopher, you would at once have been inclined to hope that he had a full-grown son and heir; but perhaps you would have wished that it might not prove to be the young man on his right hand, in whom a certain resemblance to the Baronet, in the contour of the nose and brow, seemed to indicate a family relationship. If this young man had been less elegant in his person, he would have been remarked for the elegance of his dress. But the perfections of his slim well-proportioned figure were so striking that no one but a tailor could notice the perfections of his velvet coat; and his small white hands, with their blue veins and taper fingers, quite eclipsed the beauty of his lace ruffles. The face, however--it was difficult to say why--was certainly not pleasing. Nothing could be more delicate than the blond complexion--its bloom set off by the powdered hair--than the veined overhanging eye-lids, which gave an indolent expression to the hazel eyes; nothing more finely cut than the transparent nostril and the short upper-lip. Perhaps the chin and lower jaw were too small for an irreproachable profile, but the defect was on the side of that delicacy and _finesse_ which was the distinctive characteristic of the whole person, and which was carried out in the clear brown arch of the eyebrows, and the marble smoothness of the sloping forehead. Impossible to say that this face was not eminently handsome; yet, for the majority both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had a tendency to clumsiness in the nose and ankles, were inclined to think this Antinous in a pig-tail a 'confounded puppy'. I fancy that was frequently the inward interjection of the Rev. Maynard Gilfil, who was seated on the opposite side of the dining-table, though Mr. Gilfil's legs and profile were not at all of a kind to make him peculiarly alive to the impertinence and frivolity of personal advantages. His healthy open face and robust limbs were after an excellent pattern for everyday wear, and, in the opinion of Mr. Bates, the north-country gardener, would have become regimentals 'a fain saight' better than the 'peaky' features and slight form of Captain Wybrow, notwithstanding that this young gentleman, as Sir Christopher's nephew and destined heir, had the strongest hereditary claim on the gardener's respect, and was undeniably 'clean-limbed'. But alas! human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow. Mr. Gilfil was not sensitive to Mr. Bates's opinion, whereas he was sensitive to the opinion of another person, who by no means shared Mr. Bates's preference. Who the other person was it would not have required a very keen observer to guess, from a certain eagerness in Mr. Gilfil's glance as that little figure in white tripped along the lawn with the cushions. Captain Wybrow, too, was looking in the same direction, but his handsome face remained handsome--and nothing more. 'Ah,' said Sir Christopher, looking up from his paper, 'there's my lady. Ring for coffee, Anthony; we'll go and join her, and the little monkey Tina shall give us a song.' The coffee presently appeared, brought not as usual by the footman, in scarlet and drab, but by the old butler, in threadbare but well-brushed black, who, as he was placing it on the table, said--'If you please, Sir Christopher, there's the widow Hartopp a-crying i' the still room, and begs leave to see your honour.' 'I have given Markham full orders about the widow Hartopp,' said Sir Christopher, in a sharp decided tone. 'I have nothing to say to her.' 'Your honour,' pleaded the butler, rubbing his hands, and putting on an additional coating of humility, 'the poor woman's dreadful overcome, and says she can't sleep a wink this blessed night without seeing your honour, and she begs you to pardon the great freedom she's took to come at this time. She cries fit to break her heart.' 'Ay, ay; water pays no tax. Well, show her into the library.' Coffee despatched, the two young men walked out through the open window, and joined the ladies on the lawn, while Sir Christopher made his way to the library, solemnly followed by Rupert, his pet bloodhound, who, in his habitual place at the Baronet's right hand, behaved with great urbanity during dinner; but when the cloth was drawn, invariably disappeared under the table, apparently regarding the claret-jug as a mere human weakness, which he winked at, but refused to sanction. The library lay but three steps from the dining-room, on the other side of a cloistered and matted passage. The oriel window was overshadowed by the great beech, and this, with the flat heavily-carved ceiling and the dark hue of the old books that lined the walls, made the room look sombre, especially on entering it from the dining-room, with its aerial curves and cream-coloured fretwork touched with gold. As Sir Christopher opened the door, a jet of brighter light fell on a woman in a widow's dress, who stood in the middle of the room, and made the deepest of curtsies as he entered. She was a buxom woman approaching forty, her eyes red with the tears which had evidently been absorbed by the handkerchief gathered into a damp ball in her right hand. 'Now. Mrs. Hartopp,' said Sir Christopher, taking out his gold snuff-box and tapping the lid, 'what have you to say to me? Markham has delivered you a notice to quit, I suppose?' 'O yis, your honour, an' that's the reason why I've come. I hope your honour 'll think better on it, an' not turn me an' my poor children out o' the farm, where my husband al'ys paid his rent as reglar as the day come.' 'Nonsense! I should like to know what good it will do you and your children to stay on a farm and lose every farthing your husband has left you, instead of selling your stock and going into some little place where you can keep your money together. It is very well known to every tenant of mine that I never allow widows to stay on their husbands' farms.' 'O, Sir Christifer, if you _would_ consider--when I've sold the hay, an' corn, an' all the live things, an' paid the debts, an' put the money out to use, I shall have hardly enough to keep our souls an' bodies together. An' how can I rear my boys and put 'em 'prentice? They must go for dey-labourers, an' their father a man wi' as good belongings as any on your honour's estate, an' niver threshed his wheat afore it was well i' the rick, nor sold the straw off his farm, nor nothin'. Ask all the farmers round if there was a stiddier, soberer man than my husband as attended Ripstone market. An' he says, "Bessie," says he--them was his last words--"you'll mek a shift to manage the farm, if Sir Christifer 'ull let you stay on."' 'Pooh, pooh!' said Sir Christopher, Mrs. Hartopp's sobs having interrupted her pleadings, 'now listen to me, and try to understand a little common sense. You are about as able to manage the farm as your best milch cow. You'll be obliged to have some managing man, who will either cheat you out of your money or wheedle you into marrying him.' 'O, your honour, I was never that sort o' woman, an' nobody has known it on me.' 'Very likely not, because you were never a widow before. A woman's always silly enough, but she's never quite as great a fool as she can be until she puts on a widow's cap. Now, just ask yourself how much the better you will be for staying on your farm at the end of four years, when you've got through your money, and let your farm run down, and are in arrears for half your rent; or, perhaps, have got some great hulky fellow for a husband, who swears at you and kicks your children.' 'Indeed, Sir Christifer, I know a deal o' farmin,' an' was brought up i' the thick on it, as you may say. An' there was my husband's great-aunt managed a farm for twenty year, an' left legacies to all her nephys an' nieces, an' even to my husband, as was then a babe unborn.' 'Psha! a woman six feet high, with a squint and sharp elbows, I daresay--a man in petticoats. Not a rosy-cheeked widow like you, Mrs. Hartopp.' 'Indeed, your honour, I never heard of her squintin', an' they said as she might ha' been married o'er and o'er again, to people as had no call to hanker after her money.' 'Ay, ay, that's what you all think. Every man that looks at you wants to marry you, and would like you the better the more children you have and the less money. But it is useless to talk and cry. I have good reasons for my plans, and never alter them. What you have to do is to take the best of your stock, and to look out for some little place to go to, when you leave The Hollows. Now, go back to Mrs. Bellamy's room, and ask her to give you a dish of tea.' Mrs. Hartopp, understanding from Sir Christopher's tone that he was not to be shaken, curtsied low and left the library, while the Baronet, seating himself at his desk in the oriel window, wrote the following letter: Mr. Markham,--Take no steps about letting Crowsfoot Cottage, as I intend to put in the widow Hartopp when she leaves her farm; and if you will be here at eleven on Saturday morning, I will ride round with you, and settle about making some repairs, and see about adding a bit of land to the take, as she will want to keep a cow and some pigs.--Yours faithfully, Christopher Cheverel After ringing the bell and ordering this letter to be sent, Sir Christopher walked out to join the party on the lawn. But finding the cushions deserted, he walked on to the eastern front of the building, where, by the side of the grand entrance, was the large bow-window of the saloon, opening on to the gravel-sweep, and looking towards a long vista of undulating turf, bordered by tall trees, which, seeming to unite itself with the green of the meadows and a grassy road through a plantation, only terminated with the Gothic arch of a gateway in the far distance. The bow-window was open, and Sir Christopher, stepping in, found the group he sought, examining the progress of the unfinished ceiling. It was in the same style of florid pointed Gothic as the dining-room, but more elaborate in its tracery, which was like petrified lace-work picked out with delicate and varied colouring. About a fourth of its still remained uncoloured, and under this part were scaffolding, ladders, and tools; otherwise the spacious saloon was empty of furniture, and seemed to be a grand Gothic canopy for the group of five human figures standing in the centre. 'Francesco has been getting on a little better the last day or two,' said Sir Christopher, as he joined the party: 'he's a sad lazy dog, and I fancy he has a knack of sleeping as he stands, with his brushes in his hands. But I must spur him on, or we may not have the scaffolding cleared away before the bride comes, if you show dexterous generalship in your wooing, eh, Anthony? and take your Magdeburg quickly.' 'Ah, sir, a siege is known to be one of the most tedious operations in war,' said Captain Wybrow, with an easy smile. 'Not when there's a traitor within the walls in the shape of a soft heart. And that there will be, if Beatrice has her mother's tenderness as well as her mother's beauty.' 'What do you think, Sir Christopher,' said Lady Cheverel, who seemed to wince a little under her husband's reminiscences, 'of hanging Guercino's "Sibyl" over that door when we put up the pictures? It is rather lost in my sitting-room.' 'Very good, my love,' answered Sir Christopher, in a tone of punctiliously polite affection; 'if you like to part with the ornament from your own room, it will show admirably here. Our portraits, by Sir Joshua, will hang opposite the window, and the "Transfiguration" at that end. You see, Anthony, I am leaving no good places on the walls for you and your wife. We shall turn you with your faces to the wall in the gallery, and you may take your revenge on us by-and-by.' While this conversation was going on, Mr. Gilfil turned to Caterina and said,--'I like the view from this window better than any other in the house.' She made no answer, and he saw that her eyes were filling with tears; so he added, 'Suppose we walk out a little; Sir Christopher and my lady seem to be occupied.' Caterina complied silently, and they turned down one of the gravel walks that led, after many windings under tall trees and among grassy openings, to a large enclosed flower-garden. Their walk was perfectly silent, for Maynard Gilfil knew that Caterina's thoughts were not with him, and she had been long used to make him endure the weight of those moods which she carefully hid from others. They reached the flower-garden, and turned mechanically in at the gate that opened, through a high thick hedge, on an expanse of brilliant colour, which, after the green shades they had passed through, startled the eye like flames. The effect was assisted by an undulation of the ground, which gradually descended from the entrance-gate, and then rose again towards the opposite end, crowned by an orangery. The flowers were glowing with their evening splendours; verbenas and heliotropes were sending up their finest incense. It seemed a gala where all was happiness and brilliancy, and misery could find no sympathy. This was the effect it had on Caterina. As she wound among the beds of gold and blue and pink, where the flowers seemed to be looking at her with wondering elf-like eyes, knowing nothing of sorrow, the feeling of isolation in her wretchedness overcame her, and the tears, which had been before trickling slowly down her pale cheeks, now gushed forth accompanied with sobs. And yet there was a loving human being close beside her, whose heart was aching for hers, who was possessed by the feeling that she was miserable, and that he was helpless to soothe her. But she was too much irritated by the idea that his wishes were different from hers, that he rather regretted the folly of her hopes than the probability of their disappointment, to take any comfort in his sympathy. Caterina, like the rest of us, turned away from sympathy which she suspected to be mingled with criticism, as the child turns away from the sweetmeat in which it suspects imperceptible medicine. 'Dear Caterina, I think I hear voices,' said Mr. Gilfil; 'they may be coming this way.' She checked herself like one accustomed to conceal her emotions, and ran rapidly to the other end of the garden, where she seemed occupied in selecting a rose. Presently Lady Cheverel entered, leaning on the arm of Captain Wybrow, and followed by Sir Christopher. The party stopped to admire the tiers of geraniums near the gate; and in the mean time Caterina tripped back with a moss rose-bud in her hand, and, going up to Sir Christopher, said--'There, Padroncello--there is a nice rose for your button-hole.' 'Ah, you black-eyed monkey,' he said, fondly stroking her cheek; 'so you have been running off with Maynard, either to torment or coax him an inch or two deeper into love. Come, come, I want you to sing us "_Ho perduto_" before we sit down to picquet. Anthony goes tomorrow, you know; you must warble him into the right sentimental lover's mood, that he may acquit himself well at Bath.' He put her little arm under his, and calling to Lady Cheverel, 'Come, Henrietta!' led the way towards the house. The party entered the drawing-room, which, with its oriel window, corresponded to the library in the other wing, and had also a flat ceiling heavy with carving and blazonry; but the window being unshaded, and the walls hung with full-length portraits of knights and dames in scarlet, white, and gold, it had not the sombre effect of the library. Here hung the portrait of Sir Anthony Cheverel, who in the reign of Charles II. was the renovator of the family splendour, which had suffered some declension from the early brilliancy of that Chevreuil who came over with the Conqueror. A very imposing personage was this Sir Anthony, standing with one arm akimbo, and one fine leg and foot advanced, evidently with a view to the gratification of his contemporaries and posterity. You might have taken off his splendid peruke, and his scarlet cloak, which was thrown backward from his shoulders, without annihilating the dignity of his appearance. And he had known how to choose a wife, too, for his lady, hanging opposite to him, with her sunny brown hair drawn away in bands from her mild grave face, and falling in two large rich curls on her snowy gently-sloping neck, which shamed the harsher hue and outline of her white satin robe, was a fit mother of 'large-acred' heirs. In this room tea was served; and here, every evening, as regularly as the great clock in the court-yard with deliberate bass tones struck nine, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel sat down to picquet until half-past ten, when Mr. Gilfil read prayers to the assembled household in the chapel. But now it was not near nine, and Caterina must sit down to the harpsichord and sing Sir Christopher's favourite airs from Gluck's 'Orfeo', an opera which, for the happiness of that generation, was then to be heard on the London stage. It happened this evening that the sentiment of these airs, '_Che faro senza Eurydice?_' and '_Ho perduto il bel sembiante_', in both of which the singer pours out his yearning after his lost love, came very close to Caterina's own feeling. But her emotion, instead of being a hindrance to her singing, gave her additional power. Her singing was what she could do best; it was her one point of superiority, in which it was probable she would excel the highborn beauty whom Anthony was to woo; and her love, her jealousy, her pride, her rebellion against her destiny, made one stream of passion which welled forth in the deep rich tones of her voice. She had a rare contralto, which Lady Cheverel, who had high musical taste, had been careful to preserve her from straining. 'Excellent, Caterina,' said Lady Cheverel, as there was a pause after the wonderful linked sweetness of '_Che faro_'. 'I never heard you sing that so well. Once more!' It was repeated; and then came, 'Ho perduto', which Sir Christopher encored, in spite of the clock, just striking nine. When the last note was dying out he said--'There's a clever black-eyed monkey. Now bring out the table for picquet.' Caterina drew out the table and placed the cards; then, with her rapid fairy suddenness of motion, threw herself on her knees, and clasped Sir Christopher's knee. He bent down, stroked her cheek and smiled. 'Caterina, that is foolish,' said Lady Cheverel. 'I wish you would leave off those stage-players' antics.' She jumped up, arranged the music on the harpsichord, and then, seeing the Baronet and his lady seated at picquet, quietly glided out of the room. Captain Wybrow had been leaning near the harpsichord during the singing, and the chaplain had thrown himself on a sofa at the end of the room. They both now took up a book. Mr. Gilfil chose the last number of the 'Gentleman's Magazine'; Captain Wybrow, stretched on an ottoman near the door, opened 'Faublas'; and there was perfect silence in the room which, ten minutes before, was vibrating to the passionate tones of Caterina. She had made her way along the cloistered passages, now lighted here and there by a small oil-lamp, to the grand-staircase, which led directly to a gallery running along the whole eastern side of the building, where it was her habit to walk when she wished to be alone. The bright moonlight was streaming through the windows, throwing into strange light and shadow the heterogeneous objects that lined the long walls Greek statues and busts of Roman emperors; low cabinets filled with curiosities, natural and antiquarian; tropical birds and huge horns of beasts; Hindoo gods and strange shells; swords and daggers, and bits of chain-armour; Roman lamps and tiny models of Greek temples; and, above all these, queer old family portraits--of little boys and girls, once the hope of the Cheverels, with close-shaven heads imprisoned in stiff ruffs--of faded, pink-faced ladies, with rudimentary features and highly-developed head-dresses--of gallant gentlemen, with high hips, high shoulders, and red pointed beards. Here, on rainy days, Sir Christopher and his lady took their promenade, and here billiards were played; but, in the evening, it was forsaken by all except Caterina--and, sometimes, one other person. She paced up and down in the moonlight, her pale face and thin white-robed form making her look like the ghost of some former Lady Cheverel come to revisit the glimpses of the moon. By-and-by she paused opposite the broad window above the portico, and looked out on the long vista of turf and trees now stretching chill and saddened in the moonlight. Suddenly a breath of warmth and roses seemed to float towards her, and an arm stole gently round her waist, while a soft hand took up her tiny fingers. Caterina felt an electric thrill, and was motionless for one long moment; then she pushed away the arm and hand, and, turning round, lifted up to the face that hung over her eyes full of tenderness and reproach. The fawn-like unconsciousness was gone, and in that one look were the ground tones of poor little Caterina's nature--intense love and fierce jealousy. 'Why do you push me away, Tina?' said Captain Wybrow in a half-whisper; 'are you angry with me for what a hard fate puts upon me? Would you have me cross my uncle--who has done so much for us both--in his dearest wish? You know I have duties--we both have duties--before which feeling must be sacrificed.' 'Yes, yes,' said Caterina, stamping her foot, and turning away her head; 'don't tell me what I know already.' There was a voice speaking in Caterina's mind to which she had never yet given vent. That voice said continually. 'Why did he make me love him--why did he let me know he loved me, if he knew all the while that he couldn't brave everything for my sake?' Then love answered, 'He was led on by the feeling of the moment, as you have been, Caterina; and now you ought to help him to do what is right.' Then the voice rejoined, 'It was a slight matter to him. He doesn't much mind giving you up. He will soon love that beautiful woman, and forget a poor little pale thing like you.' Thus love, anger, and jealousy were struggling in that young soul. 'Besides, Tina,' continued Captain Wybrow in still gentler tones, 'I shall not succeed. Miss Assher very likely prefers some one else; and you know I have the best will in the world to fail. I shall come back a hapless bachelor--perhaps to find you already married to the good-looking chaplain, who is over head and ears in love with you. Poor Sir Christopher has made up his mind that you're to have Gilfil. 'Why will you speak so? You speak from your own want of feeling. Go away from me.' 'Don't let us part in anger, Tina. All this may pass away. It's as likely as not that I may never marry any one at all. These palpitations may carry me off, and you may have the satisfaction of knowing that I shall never be anybody's bride-groom. Who knows what may happen? I may be my own master before I get into the bonds of holy matrimony, and be able to choose my little singing-bird. Why should we distress ourselves before the time?' 'It is easy to talk so when you are not feeling,' said Caterina, the tears flowing fast. 'It is bad to bear now, whatever may come after. But you don't care about my misery.' 'Don't I, Tina?' said Anthony in his tenderest tones, again stealing his arm round her waist, and drawing her towards him. Poor Tina was the slave of this voice and touch. Grief and resentment, retrospect and foreboding, vanished--all life before and after melted away in the bliss of that moment, as Anthony pressed his lips to hers. Captain Wybrow thought, 'Poor little Tina! it would make her very happy to have me. But she is a mad little thing.' At that moment a loud bell startled Caterina from her trance of bliss. It was the summons to prayers in the chapel, and she hastened away, leaving Captain Wybrow to follow slowly. It was a pretty sight, that family assembled to worship in the little chapel, where a couple of wax-candles threw a mild faint light on the figures kneeling there. In the desk was Mr. Gilfil, with his face a shade graver than usual. On his right hand, kneeling on their red velvet cushions, were the master and mistress of the household, in their elderly dignified beauty. On his left, the youthful grace of Anthony and Caterina, in all the striking contrast of their colouring--he, with his exquisite outline and rounded fairness, like an Olympian god; she, dark and tiny, like a gypsy changeling. Then there were the domestics kneeling on red-covered forms,--the women headed by Mrs. Bellamy, the natty little old housekeeper, in snowy cap and apron, and Mrs. Sharp, my lady's maid, of somewhat vinegar aspect and flaunting attire; the men by Mr. Bellamy the butler, and Mr. Warren, Sir Christopher's venerable valet. A few collects from the Evening Service was what Mr. Gilfil habitually read, ending with the simple petition, 'Lighten our darkness.' And then they all rose, the servants turning to curtsy and bow as they went out. The family returned to the drawing-room, said good-night to each other, and dispersed--all to speedy slumber except two. Caterina only cried herself to sleep after the clock had struck twelve. Mr. Gilfil lay awake still longer, thinking that very likely Caterina was crying. Captain Wybrow, having dismissed his valet at eleven, was soon in a soft slumber, his face looking like a fine cameo in high relief on the slightly indented pillow. Chapter 3 The last chapter has given the discerning reader sufficient insight into the state of things at Cheverel Manor in the summer of 1788. In that summer, we know, the great nation of France was agitated by conflicting thoughts and passions, which were but the beginning of sorrows. And in our Caterina's little breast, too, there were terrible struggles. The poor bird was beginning to flutter and vainly dash its soft breast against the hard iron bars of the inevitable, and we see too plainly the danger, if that anguish should go on heightening instead of being allayed, that the palpitating heart may be fatally bruised. Meanwhile, if, as I hope, you feel some interest in Caterina and her friends at Cheverel Manor, you are perhaps asking, How came she to be there? How was it that this tiny, dark-eyed child of the south, whose face was immediately suggestive of olive-covered hills and taper-lit shrines, came to have her home in that stately English manor-house, by the side of the blonde matron, Lady Cheverel--almost as if a humming-bird were found perched on one of the elm-trees in the park, by the side of her ladyship's handsomest pouter-pigeon? Speaking good English, too, and joining in Protestant prayers! Surely she must have been adopted and brought over to England at a very early age. She was. During Sir Christopher's last visit to Italy with his lady, fifteen years before, they resided for some time at Milan, where Sir Christopher, who was an enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and was then entertaining the project of metamorphosing his plain brick family mansion into the model of a Gothic manor-house, was bent on studying the details of that marble miracle, the Cathedral. Here Lady Cheverel, as at other Italian cities where she made any protracted stay, engaged a _maestro_ to give her lessons in singing, for she had then not only fine musical taste, but a fine soprano voice. Those were days when very rich people used manuscript music, and many a man who resembled Jean Jacques in nothing else, resembled him in getting a livelihood 'a copier la musique a tant la page'. Lady Cheverel having need of this service, Maestro Albani told her he would send her a poveraccio of his acquaintance, whose manuscript was the neatest and most correct he knew of. Unhappily, the poveraccio was not always in his best wits, and was sometimes rather slow in consequence; but it would be a work of Christian charity worthy of the beautiful Signora to employ poor Sarti. The next morning, Mrs. Sharp, then a blooming abigail of three-and-thirty, entered her lady's private room and said, 'If you please, my lady, there's the frowsiest, shabbiest man you ever saw, outside, and he's told Mr. Warren as the singing-master sent him to see your ladyship. But I think you'll hardly like him to come in here. Belike he's only a beggar.' 'O yes, show him in immediately.' Mrs. Sharp retired, muttering something about 'fleas and worse'. She had the smallest possible admiration for fair Ausonia and its natives, and even her profound deference for Sir Christopher and her lady could not prevent her from expressing her amazement at the infatuation of gentlefolks in choosing to sojourn among 'Papises, in countries where there was no getting to air a bit o' linen, and where the people smelt o' garlick fit to knock you down.' However she presently reappeared, ushering in a small meagre man, sallow and dingy, with a restless wandering look in his dull eyes, and an excessive timidity about his deep reverences, which gave him the air of a man who had been long a solitary prisoner. Yet through all this squalor and wretchedness there were some traces discernible of comparative youth and former good looks. Lady Cheverel, though not very tender-hearted, still less sentimental, was essentially kind, and liked to dispense benefits like a goddess, who looks down benignly on the halt, the maimed, and the blind that approach her shrine. She was smitten with some compassion at the sight of poor Sarti, who struck her as the mere battered wreck of a vessel that might have once floated gaily enough on its outward voyage to the sound of pipes and tabors. She spoke gently as she pointed out to him the operatic selections she wished him to copy, and he seemed to sun himself in her auburn, radiant presence, so that when he made his exit with the music-books under his arm, his bow, though not less reverent, was less timid. It was ten years at least since Sarti had seen anything so bright and stately and beautiful as Lady Cheverel. For the time was far off in which he had trod the stage in satin and feathers, the _primo tenore_ of one short season. He had completely lost his voice in the following winter, and had ever since been little better than a cracked fiddle, which is good for nothing but firewood. For, like many Italian singers, he was too ignorant to teach, and if it had not been for his one talent of penmanship, he and his young helpless wife might have starved. Then, just after their third child was born, fever came, swept away the sickly mother and the two eldest children, and attacked Sarti himself, who rose from his sick-bed with enfeebled brain and muscle, and a tiny baby on his hands, scarcely four months old. He lodged over a fruit-shop kept by a stout virago, loud of tongue and irate in temper, but who had had children born to her, and so had taken care of the tiny yellow, black-eyed _bambinetto_, and tended Sarti himself through his sickness. Here he continued to live, earning a meagre subsistence for himself and his little one by the work of copying music, put into his hands chiefly by Maestro Albani. He seemed to exist for nothing but the child: he tended it, he dandled it, he chatted to it, living with it alone in his one room above the fruit-shop, only asking his landlady to take care of the marmoset during his short absences in fetching and carrying home work. Customers frequenting that fruit-shop might often see the tiny Caterina seated on the floor with her legs in a heap of pease, which it was her delight to kick about; or perhaps deposited, like a kitten, in a large basket out of harm's way. Sometimes, however, Sarti left his little one with another kind of protectress. He was very regular in his devotions, which he paid thrice a-week in the great cathedral, carrying Caterina with him. Here, when the high morning sun was warming the myriad glittering pinnacles without, and struggling against the massive gloom within, the shadow of a man with a child on his arm might be seen flitting across the more stationary shadows of pillar and mullion, and making its way towards a little tinsel Madonna hanging in a retired spot near the choir. Amid all the sublimities of the mighty cathedral, poor Sarti had fixed on this tinsel Madonna as the symbol of divine mercy and protection,--just as a child, in the presence of a great landscape, sees none of the glories of wood and sky, but sets its heart on a floating feather or insect that happens to be on a level with its eye. Here, then, Sarti worshipped and prayed, setting Caterina on the floor by his side; and now and then, when the cathedral lay near some place where he had to call, and did not like to take her, he would leave her there in front of the tinsel Madonna, where she would sit, perfectly good, amusing herself with low crowing noises and see-sawings of her tiny body. And when Sarti came back, he always found that the Blessed Mother had taken good care of Caterina. That was briefly the history of Sarti, who fulfilled so well the orders Lady Cheverel gave him, that she sent him away again with a stock of new work. But this time, week after week passed, and he neither reappeared nor sent home the music intrusted to him. Lady Cheverel began to be anxious, and was thinking of sending Warren to inquire at the address Sarti had given her, when one day, as she was equipped for driving out, the valet brought in a small piece of paper, which, he said, had been left for her ladyship by a man who was carrying fruit. The paper contained only three tremulous lines, in Italian:--'Will the Eccelentissima, for the love of God, have pity on a dying man, and come to him?' Lady Cheverel recognized the handwriting as Sarti's in spite of its tremulousness, and, going down to her carriage, ordered the Milanese coachman to drive to Strada Quinquagesima, Numero 10. The coach stopped in a dirty narrow street opposite La Pazzini's fruit-shop, and that large specimen of womanhood immediately presented herself at the door, to the extreme disgust of Mrs. Sharp, who remarked privately to Mr. Warren that La Pazzini was a 'hijeous porpis'. The fruit-woman, however, was all smiles and deep curtsies to the Eccelentissima, who, not very well understanding her Milanese dialect, abbreviated the conversation by asking to be shown at once to Signor Sarti. La Pazzini preceded her up the dark narrow stairs, and opened a door through which she begged her ladyship to enter. Directly opposite the door lay Sarti, on a low miserable bed. His eyes were glazed, and no movement indicated that he was conscious of their entrance. On the foot of the bed was seated a tiny child, apparently not three years old, her head covered by a linen cap, her feet clothed with leather boots, above which her little yellow legs showed thin and naked. A frock, made of what had once been a gay flowered silk, was her only other garment. Her large dark eyes shone from out her queer little face, like two precious stones in a grotesque image carved in old ivory. She held an empty medicine-bottle in her hand, and was amusing herself with putting the cork in and drawing it out again, to hear how it would pop. La Pazzini went up to the bed and said, 'Ecco la nobilissima donna;' but directly after screamed out, 'Holy mother! he is dead!' It was so. The entreaty had not been sent in time for Sarti to carry out his project of asking the great English lady to take care of his Caterina. That was the thought which haunted his feeble brain as soon as he began to fear that his illness would end in death. She had wealth--she was kind--she would surely do something for the poor orphan. And so, at last, he sent that scrap of paper which won the fulfilment of his prayer, though he did not live to utter it. Lady Cheverel gave La Pazzini money that the last decencies might be paid to the dead man, and carried away Caterina, meaning to consult Sir Christopher as to what should be done with her. Even Mrs. Sharp had been so smitten with pity by the scene she had witnessed when she was summoned up-stairs to fetch Caterina, as to shed a small tear, though she was not at all subject to that weakness; indeed, she abstained from it on principle, because, as she often said, it was known to be the worst thing in the world for the eyes. On the way back to her hotel, Lady Cheverel turned over various projects in her mind regarding Caterina, but at last one gained the preference over all the rest. Why should they not take the child to England, and bring her up there? They had been married twelve years, yet Cheverel Manor was cheered by no children's voices, and the old house would be all the better for a little of that music. Besides, it would be a Christian work to train this little Papist into a good Protestant, and graft as much English fruit as possible on the Italian stem. Sir Christopher listened to this plan with hearty acquiescence. He loved children, and took at once to the little black-eyed monkey--his name for Caterina all through her short life. But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim. So Mrs. Sharp had to procure new clothes, to replace the linen cap, flowered frock, and leathern boots; and now, strange to say, little Caterina, who had suffered many unconscious evils in her existence of thirty moons, first began to know conscious troubles. 'Ignorance,' says Ajax, 'is a painless evil;' so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it. At any rate, cleanliness is sometimes a painful good, as any one can vouch who has had his face washed the wrong way, by a pitiless hand with a gold ring on the third finger. If you, reader, have not known that initiatory anguish, it is idle to expect that you will form any approximate conception of what Caterina endured under Mrs. Sharp's new dispensation of soap-and-water. Happily, this purgatory came presently to be associated in her tiny brain with a passage straightway to a seat of bliss--the sofa in Lady Cheverel's sitting-room, where there were toys to be broken, a ride was to be had on Sir Christopher's knee, and a spaniel of resigned temper was prepared to undergo small tortures without flinching. Chapter 4 In three months from the time of Caterina's adoption--namely, in the late autumn of 1773--the chimneys of Cheverel Manor were sending up unwonted smoke, and the servants were awaiting in excitement the return of their master and mistress after a two years' absence. Great was the astonishment of Mrs. Bellamy, the housekeeper, when Mr. Warren lifted a little black-eyed child out of the carriage, and great was Mrs. Sharp's sense of superior information and experience, as she detailed Caterina's history, interspersed with copious comments, to the rest of the upper servants that evening, as they were taking a comfortable glass of grog together in the housekeeper's room. A pleasant room it was as any party need desire to muster in on a cold November evening. The fireplace alone was a picture: a wide and deep recess with a low brick altar in the middle, where great logs of dry wood sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in old English letters, 'Fear God and honour the King'. And beyond the party, who formed a half-moon with their chairs and well-furnished table round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in! Stretching across the far end of the room, what an oak table, high enough surely for Homer's gods, standing on four massive legs, bossed and bulging like sculptured urns! and, lining the distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive of inexhaustible apricot jam and promiscuous butler's perquisites! A stray picture or two had found their way down there, and made agreeable patches of dark brown on the buff-coloured walls. High over the loud-resounding double door hung one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness, might, by a great synthetic effort, be pronounced a Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the similitude of a hat and feathers, with portions of a ruff, stated by Mrs. Bellamy to represent Sir Francis Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and, in her opinion, 'might ha' been better emplyed.' But this evening the mind is but slightly arrested by the great Verulam, and is in the humour to think a dead philosopher less interesting than a living gardener, who sits conspicuous in the half-circle round the fireplace. Mr. Bates is habitually a guest in the housekeeper's room of an evening, preferring the social pleasures there--the feast of gossip and the flow of grog--to a bachelor's chair in his charming thatched cottage on a little island, where every sound is remote, but the cawing of rooks and the screaming of wild geese, poetic sounds, doubtless, but, humanly speaking, not convivial. Mr. Bates was by no means an average person, to be passed without special notice. He was a sturdy Yorkshireman, approaching forty, whose face Nature seemed to have coloured when she was in a hurry, and had no time to attend to _nuances_, for every inch of him visible above his neckcloth was of one impartial redness; so that when he was at some distance your imagination was at liberty to place his lips anywhere between his nose and chin. Seen closer, his lips were discerned to be of a peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than provincial. Mr. Bates was further distinguished from the common herd by a perpetual blinking of the eyes; and this, together with the red-rose tint of his complexion, and a way he had of hanging his head forward, and rolling it from side to side as he walked, gave him the air of a Bacchus in a blue apron, who, in the present reduced circumstances of Olympus, had taken to the management of his own vines. Yet, as gluttons are often thin, so sober men are often rubicund; and Mr. Bates was sober, with that manly, British, churchman-like sobriety which can carry a few glasses of grog without any perceptible clarification of ideas. 'Dang my boottons!' observed Mr. Bates, who, at the conclusion of Mrs. Sharp's narrative, felt himself urged to his strongest interjection, 'it's what I shouldn't ha' looked for from Sir Cristhifer an' my ledy, to bring a furrin child into the coonthry; an' depend on't, whether you an' me lives to see't or noo, it'll coom to soom harm. The first sitiation iver I held--it was a hold hancient habbey, wi' the biggest orchard o' apples an' pears you ever see--there was a French valet, an' he stool silk stoockins, an' shirts, an' rings, an' iverythin' he could ley his hands on, an' run awey at last wi' th' missis's jewl-box. They're all alaike, them furriners. It roons i' th' blood.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Sharp, with the air of a person who held liberal views, but knew where to draw the line, 'I'm not a-going to defend the furriners, for I've as good reason to know what they are as most folks, an' nobody'll ever hear me say but what they're next door to heathens, and the hile they eat wi' their victuals is enough to turn any Christian's stomach. But for all that--an' for all as the trouble in respect o' washin' and managin' has fell upo' me through the journey--I can't say but what I think as my Lady an' Sir Cristifer's done a right thing by a hinnicent child as doesn't know its right hand from its left, i' bringing it where it'll learn to speak summat better nor gibberish, and be brought up i' the true religion. For as for them furrin churches as Sir Cristifer is so unaccountable mad after, wi' pictures o' men an' women a-showing themselves just for all the world as God made 'em. I think, for my part, as it's welly a sin to go into 'em.' 'You're likely to have more foreigners, however,' said Mr. Warren, who liked to provoke the gardener, 'for Sir Christopher has engaged some Italian workmen to help in the alterations in the house.' 'Olterations!' exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy, in alarm. 'What olterations!' 'Why,' answered Mr. Warren, 'Sir Christopher, as I understand, is going to make a new thing of the old Manor-house both inside and out. And he's got portfolios full of plans and pictures coming. It is to be cased with stone, in the Gothic style--pretty near like the churches, you know, as far as I can make out; and the ceilings are to be beyond anything that's been seen in the country. Sir Christopher's been giving a deal of study to it.' 'Dear heart alive!' said Mrs. Bellamy, 'we shall be pisoned wi' lime an' plaster, an' hev the house full o' workmen colloguing wi' the maids, an' makin' no end o' mischief.' 'That ye may ley your life on, Mrs. Bellamy,' said Mr. Bates. 'Howiver, I'll noot denay that the Goothic stayle's prithy anoof, an' it's woonderful how near them stoon-carvers cuts oot the shapes o' the pine apples, an' shamrucks, an' rooses. I dare sey Sir Cristhifer'll meck a naice thing o' the Manor, an' there woon't be many gentlemen's houses i' the coonthry as'll coom up to't, wi' sich a garden an' pleasure-groons an' wall-fruit as King George maight be prood on.' 'Well, I can't think as the house can be better nor it is, Gothic or no Gothic,' said Mrs. Bellamy; 'an' I've done the picklin' and preservin' in it fourteen year Michaelmas was a three weeks. But what does my lady say to't?' 'My lady knows better than cross Sir Cristifer in what he's set his mind on,' said Mr. Bellamy, who objected to the critical tone of the conversation. 'Sir Cristifer'll hev his own way, _that_ you may tek your oath. An' i' the right on't too. He's a gentleman born, an's got the money. But come, Mester Bates, fill your glass, an' we'll drink health an' happiness to his honour an' my lady, and then you shall give us a song. Sir Cristifer doesn't come hum from Italy ivery night.' This demonstrable position was accepted without hesitation as ground for a toast; but Mr. Bates, apparently thinking that his song was not an equally reasonable sequence, ignored the second part of Mr. Bellamy's proposal. So Mrs. Sharp, who had been heard to say that she had no thoughts at all of marrying Mr. Bates, though he was 'a sensable fresh-coloured man as many a woman 'ud snap at for a husband,' enforced Mr. Bellamy's appeal. 'Come, Mr. Bates, let us hear "Roy's Wife." I'd rether hear a good old song like that, nor all the fine Italian toodlin.' Mr. Bates, urged thus flatteringly, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair with his head in that position in which he could look directly towards the zenith, and struck up a remarkably _staccato_ rendering of 'Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch'. This melody may certainly be taxed with excessive iteration, but that was precisely its highest recommendation to the present audience, who found it all the easier to swell the chorus. Nor did it at all diminish their pleasure that the only particular concerning 'Roy's Wife', which Mr. Bates's enunciation allowed them to gather, was that she 'chated' him,--whether in the matter of garden stuff or of some other commodity, or why her name should, in consequence, be repeatedly reiterated with exultation, remaining an agreeable mystery. Mr. Bates's song formed the climax of the evening's good-fellowship, and the party soon after dispersed--Mrs. Bellamy perhaps to dream of quicklime flying among her preserving-pans, or of love-sick housemaids reckless of unswept corners--and Mrs. Sharp to sink into pleasant visions of independent housekeeping in Mr. Bates's cottage, with no bells to answer, and with fruit and vegetables_ ad libitum_. Caterina soon conquered all prejudices against her foreign blood; for what prejudices will hold out against helplessness and broken prattle? She became the pet of the household, thrusting Sir Christopher's favourite bloodhound of that day, Mrs. Bellamy's two canaries, and Mr. Bates's largest Dorking hen, into a merely secondary position. The consequence was, that in the space of a summer's day she went through a great cycle of experiences, commencing with the somewhat acidulated goodwill of Mrs. Sharp's nursery discipline. Then came the grave luxury of her ladyship's sitting-room, and, perhaps, the dignity of a ride on Sir Christopher's knee, sometimes followed by a visit with him to the stables, where Caterina soon learned to hear without crying the baying of the chained bloodhounds, and say, with ostentatious bravery, clinging to Sir Christopher's leg all the while, 'Dey not hurt Tina.' Then Mrs. Bellamy would perhaps be going out to gather the rose-leaves and lavender, and Tina was made proud and happy by being allowed to carry a handful in her pinafore; happier still, when they were spread out on sheets to dry, so that she could sit down like a frog among them, and have them poured over her in fragrant showers. Another frequent pleasure was to take a journey with Mr. Bates through the kitchen-gardens and the hothouses, where the rich bunches of green and purple grapes hung from the roof, far out of reach of the tiny yellow hand that could not help stretching itself out towards them; though the hand was sure at last to be satisfied with some delicate-flavoured fruit or sweet-scented flower. Indeed, in the long monotonous leisure of that great country-house, you may be sure there was always some one who had nothing better to do than to play with Tina. So that the little southern bird had its northern nest lined with tenderness, and caresses, and pretty things. A loving sensitive nature was too likely, under such nurture, to have its susceptibility heightened into unfitness for an encounter with any harder experience; all the more, because there were gleams of fierce resistance to any discipline that had a harsh or unloving aspect. For the only thing in which Caterina showed any precocity was a certain ingenuity in vindictiveness. When she was five years old she had revenged herself for an unpleasant prohibition by pouring the ink into Mrs. Sharp's work-basket; and once, when Lady Cheverel took her doll from her, because she was affectionately licking the paint off its face, the little minx straightway climbed on a chair and threw down a flower-vase that stood on a bracket. This was almost the only instance in which her anger overcame her awe of Lady Cheverel, who had the ascendancy always belonging to kindness that never melts into caresses, and is severely but uniformly beneficent. By-and-by the happy monotony of Cheverel Manor was broken in upon in the way Mr. Warren had announced. The roads through the park were cut up by waggons carrying loads of stone from a neighbouring quarry, the green courtyard became dusty with lime, and the peaceful house rang with the sound of tools. For the next ten years Sir Christopher was occupied with the architectural metamorphosis of his old family mansion; thus anticipating, through the prompting of his individual taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in his cellar, and reduce his stud to two old coach-horses and a hack, for the sake of riding a hobby, and playing the architect. Their wives did not see so much to blame in the matter of the cellar and stables, but they were eloquent in pity for poor Lady Cheverel, who had to live in no more than three rooms at once, and who must be distracted with noises, and have her constitution undermined by unhealthy smells. It was as bad as having a husband with an asthma. Why did not Sir Christopher take a house for her at Bath, or, at least, if he must spend his time in overlooking workmen, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Manor? This pity was quite gratuitous, as the most plentiful pity always is; for though Lady Cheverel did not share her husband's architectural enthusiasm, she had too rigorous a view of a wife's duties, and too profound a deference for Sir Christopher, to regard submission as a grievance. As for Sir Christopher, he was perfectly indifferent to criticism. 'An obstinate, crotchety man,' said his neighbours. But I, who have seen Cheverel Manor, as he bequeathed it to his heirs, rather attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of his, conceived and carried out through long years of systematic personal exertion, to something of the fervour of genius, as well as inflexibility of will; and in walking through those rooms, with their splendid ceilings and their meagre furniture, which tell how all the spare money had been absorbed before personal comfort was thought of, I have felt that there dwelt in this old English baronet some of that sublime spirit which distinguishes art from luxury, and worships beauty apart from self-indulgence. While Cheverel Manor was growing from ugliness into beauty, Caterina too was growing from a little yellow bantling into a whiter maiden, with no positive beauty indeed, but with a certain light airy grace, which, with her large appealing dark eyes, and a voice that, in its low-toned tenderness, recalled the love-notes of the stock-dove, gave her a more than usual charm. Unlike the building, however, Caterina's development was the result of no systematic or careful appliances. She grew up very much like the primroses, which the gardener is not sorry to see within his enclosure, but takes no pains to cultivate. Lady Cheverel taught her to read and write, and say her catechism; Mr. Warren, being a good accountant, gave her lessons in arithmetic, by her ladyship's desire; and Mrs. Sharp initiated her in all the mysteries of the needle. But, for a long time, there was no thought of giving her any more elaborate education. It is very likely that to her dying day Caterina thought the earth stood still, and that the sun and stars moved round it; but so, for the matter of that, did Helen, and Dido, and Desdemona, and Juliet; whence I hope you will not think my Caterina less worthy to be a heroine on that account. The truth is, that, with one exception, her only talent lay in loving; and there, it is probable, the most astronomical of women could not have surpassed her. Orphan and protegee though she was, this supreme talent of hers found plenty of exercise at Cheverel Manor, and Caterina had more people to love than many a small lady and gentleman affluent in silver mugs and blood relations. I think the first place in her childish heart was given to Sir Christopher, for little girls are apt to attach themselves to the finest-looking gentleman at hand, especially as he seldom has anything to do with discipline. Next to the Baronet came Dorcas, the merry rosy-cheeked damsel who was Mrs. Sharp's lieutenant in the nursery, and thus played the part of the raisins in a dose of senna. It was a black day for Caterina when Dorcas married the coachman, and went, with a great sense of elevation in the world, to preside over a 'public' in the noisy town of Sloppeter. A little china-box, bearing the motto 'Though lost to sight, to memory dear', which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance, was among Caterina's treasures ten years after. The one other exceptional talent, you already guess, was music. When the fact that Caterina had a remarkable ear for music, and a still more remarkable voice, attracted Lady Cheverel's notice, the discovery was very welcome both to her and Sir Christopher. Her musical education became at once an object of interest. Lady Cheverel devoted much time to it; and the rapidity of Tina's progress surpassing all hopes, an Italian singing-master was engaged, for several years, to spend some months together at Cheverel Manor. This unexpected gift made a great alteration in Caterina's position. After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all. 'And the raight on't too,' said Mr. Bates, 'for she hasn't the cut of a gell as must work for her bread; she's as nesh an' dilicate as a paich-blossom--welly laike a linnet, wi' on'y joost body anoof to hold her voice.' But long before Tina had reached this stage of her history, a new era had begun for her, in the arrival of a younger companion than any she had hitherto known. When she was no more than seven, a ward of Sir Christopher's--a lad of fifteen, Maynard Gilfil by name--began to spend his vacations at Cheverel Manor, and found there no playfellow so much to his mind as Caterina. Maynard was an affectionate lad, who retained a propensity to white rabbits, pet squirrels, and guinea-pigs, perhaps a little beyond the age at which young gentlemen usually look down on such pleasures as puerile. He was also much given to fishing, and to carpentry, considered as a fine art, without any base view to utility. And in all these pleasures it was his delight to have Caterina as his companion, to call her little pet names, answer her wondering questions, and have her toddling after him as you may have seen a Blenheim spaniel trotting after a large setter. Whenever Maynard went back to school, there was a little scene of parting. 'You won't forget me, Tina, before I come back again? I shall leave you all the whip-cord we've made; and don't you let Guinea die. Come, give me a kiss, and promise not to forget me.' As the years wore on, and Maynard passed from school to college, and from a slim lad to a stalwart young man, their companionship in the vacations necessarily took a different form, but it retained a brotherly and sisterly familiarity. With Maynard the boyish affection had insensibly grown into ardent love. Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide. And Maynard Gilfil's love was of a kind to make him prefer being tormented by Caterina to any pleasure, apart from her, which the most benevolent magician could have devised for him. It is the way with those tall large-limbed men, from Samson downwards. As for Tina, the little minx was perfectly well aware that Maynard was her slave; he was the one person in the world whom she did as she pleased with; and I need not tell you that this was a symptom of her being perfectly heart-whole so far as he was concerned: for a passionate woman's love is always overshadowed by fear. Maynard Gilfil did not deceive himself in his interpretation of Caterina's feelings, but he nursed the hope that some time or other she would at least care enough for him to accept his love. So he waited patiently for the day when he might venture to say, 'Caterina, I love you!' You see, he would have been content with very little, being one of those men who pass through life without making the least clamour about themselves; thinking neither the cut of his coat, nor the flavour of his soup, nor the precise depth of a servant's bow, at all momentous. He thought--foolishly enough, as lovers _will_ think--that it was a good augury for him when he came to be domesticated at Cheverel Manor in the quality of chaplain there, and curate of a neighbouring parish; judging falsely, from his own case, that habit and affection were the likeliest avenues to love. Sir Christopher satisfied several feelings in installing Maynard as chaplain in his house. He liked the old-fashioned dignity of that domestic appendage; he liked his ward's companionship; and, as Maynard had some private fortune, he might take life easily in that agreeable home, keeping his hunter, and observing a mild regimen of clerical duty, until the Cumbermoor living should fall in, when he might be settled for life in the neighbourhood of the manor. 'With Caterina for a wife, too,' Sir Christopher soon began to think; for though the good Baronet was not at all quick to suspect what was unpleasant and opposed to his views of fitness, he was quick to see what would dovetail with his own plans; and he had first guessed, and then ascertained, by direct inquiry, the state of Maynard's feelings. He at once leaped to the conclusion that Caterina was of the same mind, or at least would be, when she was old enough. But these were too early days for anything definite to be said or done. Meanwhile, new circumstances were arising, which, though they made no change in Sir Christopher's plans and prospects, converted Mr. Gilfil's hopes into anxieties, and made it clear to him not only that Caterina's heart was never likely to be his, but that it was given entirely to another. Once or twice in Caterina's childhood, there had been another boy-visitor at the manor, younger than Maynard Gilfil--a beautiful boy with brown curls and splendid clothes, on whom Caterina had looked with shy admiration. This was Anthony Wybrow, the son of Sir Christopher's youngest sister, and chosen heir of Cheverel Manor. The Baronet had sacrificed a large sum, and even straitened the resources by which he was to carry out his architectural schemes, for the sake of removing the entail from his estate, and making this boy his heir--moved to the step, I am sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister; for a power of forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher's virtues. At length, on the death of Anthony's mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed boy, but a tall young man, with a captain's commission, Cheverel Manor became _his_ home too, whenever he was absent from his regiment. Caterina was then a little woman, between sixteen and seventeen, and I need not spend many words in explaining what you perceive to be the most natural thing in the world. There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have been much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay her attentions--to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little flutter of pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the momentary timid glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing, leaning at her side over the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that chaplain with his large calves! What idle man can withstand the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man to eclipse?--especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by? At the end of eighteen months, however, during which Captain Wybrow had spent much of his time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a point which he had not at all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to tender words, and tender words had called forth a response of looks which made it impossible not to carry on the _crescendo_ of love-making. To find one's self adored by a little, graceful, dark-eyed, sweet-singing woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable sensation, comparable to smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some return of tenderness as a duty. Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it would be ridiculous to dream of his marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless libertine to win her affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a young man of calm passions, who was rarely led into any conduct of which he could not give a plausible account to himself; and the tiny fragile Caterina was a woman who touched the imagination and the affections rather than the senses. He really felt very kindly towards her, and would very likely have loved her--if he had been able to love any one. But nature had not endowed him with that capability. She had given him an admirable figure, the whitest of hands, the most delicate of nostrils, and a large amount of serene self-satisfaction; but, as if to save such a delicate piece of work from any risk of being shattered, she had guarded him from the liability to a strong emotion. There was no list of youthful misdemeanours on record against him, and Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel thought him the best of nephews, the most satisfactory of heirs, full of grateful deference to themselves, and, above all things, guided by a sense of duty. Captain Wybrow always did the thing easiest and most agreeable to him from a sense of duty: he dressed expensively, because it was a duty he owed to his position; from a sense of duty he adapted himself to Sir Christopher's inflexible will, which it would have been troublesome as well as useless to resist; and, being of a delicate constitution, he took care of his health from a sense of duty. His health was the only point on which he gave anxiety to his friends; and it was owing to this that Sir Christopher wished to see his nephew early married, the more so as a match after the Baronet's own heart appeared immediately attainable. Anthony had seen and admired Miss Assher, the only child of a lady who had been Sir Christopher's earliest love, but who, as things will happen in this world, had married another baronet instead of him. Miss Assher's father was now dead, and she was in possession of a pretty estate. If, as was probable, she should prove susceptible to the merits of Anthony's person and character, nothing could make Sir Christopher so happy as to see a marriage which might be expected to secure the inheritance of Cheverel Manor from getting into the wrong hands. Anthony had already been kindly received by Lady Assher as the nephew of her early friend; why should he not go to Bath, where she and her daughter were then residing, follow up the acquaintance, and win a handsome, well-born, and sufficiently wealthy bride? Sir Christopher's wishes were communicated to his nephew, who at once intimated his willingness to comply with them--from a sense of duty. Caterina was tenderly informed by her lover of the sacrifice demanded from them both; and three days afterwards occurred the parting scene you have witnessed in the gallery, on the eve of Captain Wybrow's departure for Bath. Chapter 5 The inexorable ticking of the clock is like the throb of pain to sensations made keen by a sickening fear. And so it is with the great clockwork of nature. Daisies and buttercups give way to the brown waving grasses, tinged with the warm red sorrel; the waving grasses are swept away, and the meadows lie like emeralds set in the bushy hedgerows; the tawny-tipped corn begins to bow with the weight of the full ear; the reapers are bending amongst it, and it soon stands in sheaves, then presently, the patches of yellow stubble lie side by side with streaks of dark-red earth, which the plough is turning up in preparation for the new-thrashed seed. And this passage from beauty to beauty, which to the happy is like the flow of a melody, measures for many a human heart the approach of foreseen anguish--seems hurrying on the moment when the shadow of dread will be followed up by the reality of despair. How cruelly hasty that summer of 1788 seemed to Caterina! Surely the roses vanished earlier, and the berries on the mountain-ash were more impatient to redden, and bring on the autumn, when she would be face to face with her misery, and witness Anthony giving all his gentle tones, tender words, and soft looks to another. Before the end of July, Captain Wybrow had written word that Lady Assher and her daughter were about to fly from the heat and gaiety of Bath to the shady quiet of their place at Farleigh, and that he was invited to join the party there. His letters implied that he was on an excellent footing with both the ladies, and gave no hint of a rival; so that Sir Christopher was more than usually bright and cheerful after reading them. At length, towards the close of August, came the announcement that Captain Wybrow was an accepted lover, and after much complimentary and congratulatory correspondence between the two families, it was understood that in September Lady Assher and her daughter would pay a visit to Cheverel Manor, when Beatrice would make the acquaintance of her future relatives, and all needful arrangements could be discussed. Captain Wybrow would remain at Farleigh till then, and accompany the ladies on their journey. In the interval, every one at Cheverel Manor had something to do by way of preparing for the visitors. Sir Christopher was occupied in consultations with his steward and lawyer, and in giving orders to every one else, especially in spurring on Francesco to finish the saloon. Mr. Gilfil had the responsibility of procuring a lady's horse, Miss Assher being a great rider. Lady Cheverel had unwonted calls to make and invitations to deliver. Mr. Bates's turf, and gravel, and flower-beds were always at such a point of neatness and finish that nothing extraordinary could be done in the garden, except a little extraordinary scolding of the under-gardener, and this addition Mr. Bates did not neglect. Happily for Caterina, she too had her task, to fill up the long dreary daytime: it was to finish a chair-cushion which would complete the set of embroidered covers for the drawing-room, Lady Cheverel's year-long work, and the only noteworthy bit of furniture in the Manor. Over this embroidery she sat with cold lips and a palpitating heart, thankful that this miserable sensation throughout the daytime seemed to counteract the tendency to tears which returned with night and solitude. She was most frightened when Sir Christopher approached her. The Baronet's eye was brighter and his step more elastic than ever, and it seemed to him that only the most leaden or churlish souls could be otherwise than brisk and exulting in a world where everything went so well. Dear old gentleman! he had gone through life a little flushed with the power of his will, and now his latest plan was succeeding, and Cheverel Manor would be inherited by a grand-nephew, whom he might even yet live to see a fine young fellow with at least the down on his chin. Why not? one is still young at sixty. Sir Christopher had always something playful to say to Caterina. 'Now, little monkey, you must be in your best voice: you're the minstrel of the Manor, you know, and be sure you have a pretty gown and a new ribbon. You must not be dressed in russet, though you are a singing-bird.' Or perhaps, 'It is your turn to be courted next, Tina. But don't you learn any naughty proud airs. I must have Maynard let off easily.' Caterina's affection for the old Baronet helped her to summon up a smile as he stroked her cheek and looked at her kindly, but that was the moment at which she felt it most difficult not to burst out crying. Lady Cheverel's conversation and presence were less trying; for her ladyship felt no more than calm satisfaction in this family event; and besides, she was further sobered by a little jealousy at Sir Christopher's anticipation of pleasure in seeing Lady Assher, enshrined in his memory as a mild-eyed beauty of sixteen, with whom he had exchanged locks before he went on his first travels. Lady Cheverel would have died rather than confess it, but she couldn't help hoping that he would be disappointed in Lady Assher, and rather ashamed of having called her so charming. Mr. Gilfil watched Caterina through these days with mixed feelings. Her suffering went to his heart; but, even for her sake, he was glad that a love which could never come to good should be no longer fed by false hopes; and how could he help saying to himself, 'Perhaps, after a while, Caterina will be tired of fretting about that cold-hearted puppy, and then . . .' At length the much-expected day arrived, and the brightest of September suns was lighting up the yellowing lime-trees, as about five o'clock Lady Assher's carriage drove under the portico. Caterina, seated at work in her own room, heard the rolling of the wheels, followed presently by the opening and shutting of doors, and the sound of voices in the corridors. Remembering that the dinner-hour was six, and that Lady Cheverel had desired her to be in the drawing-room early, she started up to dress, and was delighted to find herself feeling suddenly brave and strong. Curiosity to see Miss Assher--the thought that Anthony was in the house--the wish not to look unattractive, were feelings that brought some colour to her lips, and made it easy to attend to her toilette. They would ask her to sing this evening, and she would sing well. Miss Assher should not think her utterly insignificant. So she put on her grey silk gown and her cherry coloured ribbon with as much care as if she had been herself the betrothed; not forgetting the pair of round pearl earrings which Sir Christopher had told Lady Cheverel to give her, because Tina's little ears were so pretty. Quick as she had been, she found Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel in the drawing-room chatting with Mr. Gilfil, and telling him how handsome Miss Assher was, but how entirely unlike her mother--apparently resembling her father only. 'Aha!' said Sir Christopher, as he turned to look at Caterina, 'what do you think of this, Maynard? Did you ever see Tina look so pretty before? Why, that little grey gown has been made out of a bit of my lady's, hasn't it? It doesn't take anything much larger than a pocket-handkerchief to dress the little monkey.' Lady Cheverel, too, serenely radiant in the assurance a single glance had given her of Lady Assher's inferiority, smiled approval, and Caterina was in one of those moods of self possession and indifference which come as the ebb-tide between the struggles of passion. She retired to the piano, and busied herself with arranging her music, not at all insensible to the pleasure of being looked at with admiration the while, and thinking that, the next time the door opened, Captain Wybrow would enter, and she would speak to him quite cheerfully. But when she heard him come in, and the scent of roses floated towards her, her heart gave one great leap. She knew nothing till he was pressing her hand, and saying, in the old easy way, 'Well, Caterina, how do you do? You look quite blooming.' She felt her cheeks reddening with anger that he could speak and look with such perfect nonchalance. Ah! he was too deeply in love with some one else to remember anything he had felt for _her_. But the next moment she was conscious of her folly;--'as if he could show any feeling then!' This conflict of emotions stretched into a long interval the few moments that elapsed before the door opened again, and her own attention, as well as that of all the rest, was absorbed by the entrance of the two ladies. The daughter was the more striking, from the contrast she presented to her mother, a round-shouldered, middle-sized woman, who had once had the transient pink-and-white beauty of a blonde, with ill-defined features and early embonpoint. Miss Assher was tall, and gracefully though substantially formed, carrying herself with an air of mingled graciousness and self-confidence; her dark-brown hair, untouched by powder, hanging in bushy curls round her face, and falling in long thick ringlets nearly to her waist. The brilliant carmine tint of her well-rounded cheeks, and the finely-cut outline of her straight nose, produced an impression of splendid beauty, in spite of commonplace brown eyes, a narrow forehead, and thin lips. She was in mourning, and the dead black of her crape dress, relieved here and there by jet ornaments, gave the fullest effect to her complexion, and to the rounded whiteness of her arms, bare from the elbow. The first coup d'oeil was dazzling, and as she stood looking down with a gracious smile on Caterina, whom Lady Cheverel was presenting to her, the poor little thing seemed to herself to feel, for the first time, all the folly of her former dream. 'We are enchanted with your place, Sir Christopher,' said Lady Assher, with a feeble kind of pompousness, which she seemed to be copying from some one else: 'I'm sure your nephew must have thought Farleigh wretchedly out of order. Poor Sir John was so very careless about keeping up the house and grounds. I often talked to him about it, but he said, "Pooh pooh! as long as my friends find a good dinner and a good bottle of wine, they won't care about my ceilings being rather smoky." He was so very hospitable, was Sir John.' 'I think the view of the house from the park, just after we passed the bridge, particularly fine,' said Miss Assher, interposing rather eagerly, as if she feared her mother might be making infelicitous speeches, 'and the pleasure of the first glimpse was all the greater because Anthony would describe nothing to us beforehand. He would not spoil our first impressions by raising false ideas. I long to go over the house, Sir Christopher, and learn the history of all your architectural designs, which Anthony says have cost you so much time and study.' 'Take care how you set an old man talking about the past, my dear,' said the Baronet; 'I hope we shall find something pleasanter for you to do than turning over my old plans and pictures. Our friend Mr. Gilfil here has found a beautiful mare for you and you can scour the country to your heart's content. Anthony has sent us word what a horsewoman you are.' Miss Assher turned to Mr. Gilfil with her most beaming smile, and expressed her thanks with the elaborate graciousness of a person who means to be thought charming, and is sure of success. 'Pray do not thank me,' said Mr. Gilfil, 'till you have tried the mare. She has been ridden by Lady Sara Linter for the last two years; but one lady's taste may not be like another's in horses, any more than in other matters.' While this conversation was passing, Captain Wybrow was leaning against the mantelpiece, contenting himself with responding from under his indolent eyelids to the glances Miss Assher was constantly directing towards him as she spoke. 'She is very much in love with him,' thought Caterina. But she was relieved that Anthony remained passive in his attentions. She thought, too, that he was looking paler and more languid than usual. 'If he didn't love her very much--if he sometimes thought of the past with regret, I think I could bear it all, and be glad to see Sir Christopher made happy.' During dinner there was a little incident which confirmed these thoughts. When the sweets were on the table, there was a mould of jelly just opposite Captain Wybrow, and being inclined to take some himself, he first invited Miss Assher, who coloured, and said, in rather a sharper key than usual, 'Have you not learned by this time that I never take jelly?' 'Don't you?' said Captain Wybrow, whose perceptions were not acute enough for him to notice the difference of a semitone. 'I should have thought you were fond of it. There was always some on the table at Farleigh, I think.' 'You don't seem to take much interest in my likes and dislikes.' 'I'm too much possessed by the happy thought that you like me,' was the _ex officio_ reply, in silvery tones. This little episode was unnoticed by every one but Caterina. Sir Christopher was listening with polite attention to Lady Assher's history of her last man-cook, who was first-rate at gravies, and for that reason pleased Sir John--he was so particular about his gravies, was Sir John: and so they kept the man six years in spite of his bad pastry. Lady Cheverel and Mr. Gilfil were smiling at Rupert the bloodhound, who had pushed his great head under his master's arm, and was taking a survey of the dishes, after snuffing at the contents of the Baronet's plate. When the ladies were in the drawing-room again, Lady Assher was soon deep in a statement to Lady Cheverel of her views about burying people in woollen. 'To be sure, you must have a woollen dress, because it's the law, you know; but that need hinder no one from putting linen underneath. I always used to say, "If Sir John died tomorrow, I would bury him in his shirt;" and I did. And let me advise you to do so by Sir Christopher. You never saw Sir John, Lady Cheverel. He was a large tall man, with a nose just like Beatrice, and so very particular about his shirts.' Miss Assher, meanwhile, had seated herself by Caterina, and, with that smiling affability which seems to say, 'I am really not at all proud, though you might expect it of me,' said,--'Anthony tells me you sing so very beautifully. I hope we shall hear you this evening.' 'O yes,' said Caterina, quietly, without smiling; 'I always sing when I am wanted to sing.' 'I envy you such a charming talent. Do you know, I have no ear; I cannot hum the smallest tune, and I delight in music so. Is it not unfortunate? But I shall have quite a treat while I am here; Captain Wybrow says you will give us some music every day.' 'I should have thought you wouldn't care about music if you had no ear,' said Caterina, becoming epigrammatic by force of grave simplicity. 'O, I assure you, I doat on it; and Anthony is so fond of it; it would be so delightful if I could play and sing to him; though he says he likes me best not to sing, because it doesn't belong to his idea of me. What style of music do you like best?' 'I don't know. I like all beautiful music.' 'And are you as fond of riding as of music?' 'No; I never ride. I think I should be very frightened.' 'O no! indeed you would not, after a little practice. I have never been in the least timid. I think Anthony is more afraid for me than I am for myself; and since I have been riding with him, I have been obliged to be more careful, because he is so nervous about me.' Caterina made no reply; but she said to herself, 'I wish she would go away and not talk to me. She only wants me to admire her good-nature, and to talk about Anthony.' Miss Assher was thinking at the same time, 'This Miss Sarti seems a stupid little thing. Those musical people often are. But she is prettier than I expected; Anthony said she was not pretty.' Happily at this moment Lady Assher called her daughter's attention to the embroidered cushions, and Miss Assher, walking to the opposite sofa, was soon in conversation with Lady Cheverel about tapestry and embroidery in general, while her mother, feeling herself superseded there, came and placed herself beside Caterina. 'I hear you are the most beautiful singer,' was of course the opening remark. 'All Italians sing so beautifully. I travelled in Italy with Sir John when we were first married, and we went to Venice, where they go about in gondolas, you know. You don't wear powder, I see. No more will Beatrice; though many people think her curls would look all the better for powder. She has so much hair, hasn't she? Our last maid dressed it much better than this; but, do you know, she wore Beatrice's stockings before they went to the wash, and we couldn't keep her after that, could we?' Caterina, accepting the question as a mere bit of rhetorical effect, thought it superfluous to reply, till Lady Assher repeated, 'Could we, now?' as if Tina's sanction were essential to her repose of mind. After a faint 'No', she went on. 'Maids are so very troublesome, and Beatrice is so particular, you can't imagine. I often say to her, "My dear, you can't have perfection." That very gown she has on--to be sure, it fits her beautifully now--but it has been unmade and made up again twice. But she is like poor Sir John--he was so very particular about his own things, was Sir John. Is Lady Cheverel particular?' 'Rather. But Mrs. Sharp has been her maid twenty years.' 'I wish there was any chance of our keeping Griffin twenty years. But I am afraid we shall have to part with her because her health is so delicate; and she is so obstinate, she will not take bitters as I want her. _You_ look delicate, now. Let me recommend you to take camomile tea in a morning, fasting. Beatrice is so strong and healthy, she never takes any medicine; but if I had had twenty girls, and they had been delicate, I should have given them all camomile tea. It strengthens the constitution beyond anything. Now, will you promise me to take camomile tea?' 'Thank you: I'm not at all ill,' said Caterina. 'I've always been pale and thin.' Lady Assher was sure camomile tea would make all the difference in the world--Caterina must see if it wouldn't--and then went dribbling on like a leaky shower-bath, until the early entrance of the gentlemen created a diversion, and she fastened on Sir Christopher, who probably began to think that, for poetical purposes, it would be better not to meet one's first love again, after a lapse of forty years. Captain Wybrow, of course, joined his aunt and Miss Assher, and Mr. Gilfil tried to relieve Caterina from the awkwardness of sitting aloof and dumb, by telling her how a friend of his had broken his arm and staked his horse that morning, not at all appearing to heed that she hardly listened, and was looking towards the other side of the room. One of the tortures of jealousy is, that it can never turn its eyes away from the thing that pains it. 'By-and-by every one felt the need of a relief from chit-chat--Sir Christopher perhaps the most of all--and it was he who made the acceptable proposition-- 'Come, Tina, are we to have no music to-night before we sit down to cards? Your ladyship plays at cards, I think?' he added, recollecting himself, and turning to Lady Assher. 'O yes! Poor dear Sir John would have a whist-table every night.' Caterina sat down to the harpsichord at once, and had no sooner begun to sing than she perceived with delight that Captain Wybrow was gliding towards the harpsichord, and soon standing in the old place. This consciousness gave fresh strength to her voice; and when she noticed that Miss Assher presently followed him with that air of ostentatious admiration which belongs to the absence of real enjoyment, her closing _bravura_ was none the worse for being animated by a little triumphant contempt. 'Why, you are in better voice than ever, Caterina,' said Captain Wybrow, when she had ended. 'This is rather different from Miss Hibbert's small piping that we used to be glad of at Farleigh, is it not, Beatrice?' 'Indeed it is. You are a most enviable creature, Miss Sarti--Caterina--may I not call you Caterina? for I have heard Anthony speak of you so often, I seem to know you quite well. You will let me call you Caterina?' 'O yes, every one calls me Caterina, only when they call me Tina.' 'Come, come, more singing, more singing, little monkey,' Sir Christopher called out from the other side of the room. 'We have not had half enough yet.' Caterina was ready enough to obey, for while she was singing she was queen of the room, and Miss Assher was reduced to grimacing admiration. Alas! you see what jealousy was doing in this poor young soul. Caterina, who had passed her life as a little unobtrusive singing-bird, nestling so fondly under the wings that were outstretched for her, her heart beating only to the peaceful rhythm of love, or fluttering with some easily stifled fear, had begun to know the fierce palpitations of triumph and hatred. When the singing was over, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel sat down to whist with Lady Assher and Mr. Gilfil, and Caterina placed herself at the Baronet's elbow, as if to watch the game, that she might not appear to thrust herself on the pair of lovers. At first she was glowing with her little triumph, and felt the strength of pride; but her eye _would_ steal to the opposite side of the fireplace, where Captain Wybrow had seated himself close to Miss Assher, and was leaning with his arm over the back of the chair, in the most lover-like position. Caterina began to feel a choking sensation. She could see, almost without looking, that he was taking up her arm to examine her bracelet; their heads were bending close together, her curls touching his cheek--now he was putting his lips to her hand. Caterina felt her cheeks burn--she could sit no longer. She got up, pretended to be gliding about in search of something, and at length slipped out of the room. Outside, she took a candle, and, hurrying along the passages and up the stairs to her own room, locked the door. 'O, I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it!' the poor thing burst out aloud, clasping her little fingers, and pressing them back against her forehead, as if she wanted to break them. Then she walked hurriedly up and down the room. 'And this must go on for days and days, and I must see it.' She looked about nervously for something to clutch. There was a muslin kerchief lying on the table; she took it up and tore it into shreds as she walked up and down, and then pressed it into hard balls in her hand. 'And Anthony,' she thought, 'he can do this without caring for what I feel. O, he can forget everything: how he used to say he loved me--how he used to take my hand in his as we walked--how he used to stand near me in the evenings for the sake of looking into my eyes.' 'Oh, it is cruel, it is cruel!' she burst out again aloud, as all those love-moments in the past returned upon her. Then the tears gushed forth, she threw herself on her knees by the bed, and sobbed bitterly. She did not know how long she had been there, till she was startled by the prayer-bell; when, thinking Lady Cheverel might perhaps send some one to inquire after her, she rose, and began hastily to undress, that there might be no possibility of her going down again. She had hardly unfastened her hair, and thrown a loose gown about her, before there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Sharp's voice said--'Miss Tina, my lady wants to know if you're ill.' Caterina opened the door and said, 'Thank you, dear Mrs. Sharp; I have a bad headache; please tell my lady I felt it come on after singing.' 'Then, goodness me! why arn't you in bed, istid o' standing shivering there, fit to catch your death? Come, let me fasten up your hair and tuck you up warm.' 'O no, thank you; I shall really be in bed very soon. Good-night, dear Sharpy; don't scold; I will be good, and get into bed.' Caterina kissed her old friend coaxingly, but Mrs. Sharp was not to be 'come over' in that way, and insisted on seeing her former charge in bed, taking away the candle which the poor child had wanted to keep as a companion. But it was impossible to lie there long with that beating heart; and the little white figure was soon out of bed again, seeking relief in the very sense of chill and uncomfort. It was light enough for her to see about her room, for the moon, nearly at full, was riding high in the heavens among scattered hurrying clouds. Caterina drew aside the window-curtain; and, sitting with her forehead pressed against the cold pane, looked out on the wide stretch of park and lawn. How dreary the moonlight is! robbed of all its tenderness and repose by the hard driving wind. The trees are harassed by that tossing motion, when they would like to be at rest; the shivering grass makes her quake with sympathetic cold; and the willows by the pool, bent low and white under that invisible harshness, seem agitated and helpless like herself. But she loves the scene the better for its sadness: there is some pity in it. It is not like that hard unfeeling happiness of lovers, flaunting in the eyes of misery. She set her teeth tight against the window-frame, and the tears fell thick and fast. She was so thankful she could cry, for the mad passion she had felt when her eyes were dry frightened her. If that dreadful feeling were to come on when Lady Cheverel was present, she should never be able to contain herself. Then there was Sir Christopher--so good to her--so happy about Anthony's marriage; and all the while she had these wicked feelings. 'O, I cannot help it, I cannot help it!' she said in a loud whisper between her sobs. 'O God, have pity upon me!' In this way Tina wore out the long hours of the windy moon-light, till at last, with weary aching limbs, she lay down in bed again, and slept from mere exhaustion. While this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening onward. The astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were labouring over the waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our little Tina and her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering life in the waterdrop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty. Chapter 6 The next morning, when Caterina was waked from her heavy sleep by Martha bringing in the warm water, the sun was shining, the wind had abated, and those hours of suffering in the night seemed unreal and dreamlike, in spite of weary limbs and aching eyes. She got up and began to dress with a strange feeling of insensibility, as if nothing could make her cry again; and she even felt a sort of longing to be down-stairs in the midst of company, that she might get rid of this benumbed condition by contact. There are few of us that are not rather ashamed of our sins and follies as we look out on the blessed morning sunlight, which comes to us like a bright-winged angel beckoning us to quit the old path of vanity that stretches its dreary length behind us; and Tina, little as she knew about doctrines and theories, seemed to herself to have been both foolish and wicked yesterday. Today she would try to be good; and when she knelt down to say her short prayer--the very form she had learned by heart when she was ten years old--she added, 'O God, help me to bear it!' That day the prayer seemed to be answered, for after some remarks on her pale looks at breakfast, Caterina passed the morning quietly, Miss Assher and Captain Wybrow being out on a riding excursion. In the evening there was a dinner-party, and after Caterina had sung a little, Lady Cheverel remembering that she was ailing, sent her to bed, where she soon sank into a deep sleep. Body and mind must renew their force to suffer as well as to enjoy. On the morrow, however, it was rainy, and every one must stay in-doors; so it was resolved that the guests should be taken over the house by Sir Christopher, to hear the story of the architectural alterations, the family portraits, and the family relics. All the party, except Mr. Gilfil, were in the drawing-room when the proposition was made; and when Miss Assher rose to go, she looked towards Captain Wybrow, expecting to see him rise too; but he kept his seat near the fire, turning his eyes towards the newspaper which he had been holding unread in his hand. 'Are you not coming, Anthony?' said Lady Cheverel, noticing Miss Assher's look of expectation. 'I think not, if you'll excuse me,' he answered, rising and opening the door; 'I feel a little chilled this morning, and I am afraid of the cold rooms and draughts.' Miss Assher reddened, but said nothing, and passed on, Lady Cheverel accompanying her. Caterina was seated at work in the oriel window. It was the first time she and Anthony had been alone together, and she had thought before that he wished to avoid her. But now, surely, he wanted to speak to her--he wanted to say something kind. Presently he rose from his seat near the fire, and placed himself on the ottoman opposite to her. 'Well, Tina, and how have you been all this long time?' Both the tone and the words were an offence to her; the tone was so different from the old one, the words were so cold and unmeaning. She answered, with a little bitterness,--'I think you needn't ask. It doesn't make much difference to you.' 'Is that the kindest thing you have to say to me after my long absence?' 'I don't know why you should expect me to say kind things.' Captain Wybrow was silent. He wished very much to avoid allusions to the past or comments on the present. And yet he wished to be well with Caterina. He would have liked to caress her, make her presents, and have her think him very kind to her. But these women are plaguy perverse! There's no bringing them to look rationally at anything. At last he said, 'I hoped you would think all the better of me, Tina, for doing as I have done, instead of bearing malice towards me. I hoped you would see that it is the best thing for every one--the best for your happiness too.' 'O pray don't make love to Miss Assher for the sake of my happiness,' answered Tina. At this moment the door opened, and Miss Assher entered, to fetch her reticule, which lay on the harpsichord. She gave a keen glance at Caterina, whose face was flushed, and saying to Captain Wybrow with a slight sneer, 'Since you are so chill I wonder you like to sit in the window,' left the room again immediately. The lover did not appear much discomposed, but sat quiet a little longer, and then, seating himself on the music-stool, drew it near to Caterina, and, taking her hand, said, 'Come, Tina, look kindly at me, and let us be friends. I shall always be your friend.' 'Thank you,' said Caterina, drawing away her hand. 'You are very generous. But pray move away. Miss Assher may come in again.' 'Miss Assher be hanged!' said Anthony, feeling the fascination of old habit returning on him in his proximity to Caterina. He put his arm round her waist, and leaned his cheek down to hers. The lips couldn't help meeting after that; but the next moment, with heart swelling and tears rising, Caterina burst away from him, and rushed out of the room. Chapter 7 Caterina tore herself from Anthony with the desperate effort of one who has just self-recollection enough left to be conscious that the fumes of charcoal will master his senses unless he bursts a way for himself to the fresh air; but when she reached her own room, she was still too intoxicated with that momentary revival of old emotions, too much agitated by the sudden return of tenderness in her lover, to know whether pain or pleasure predominated. It was as if a miracle had happened in her little world of feeling, and made the future all vague--a dim morning haze of possibilities, instead of the sombre wintry daylight and clear rigid outline of painful certainty. She felt the need of rapid movement. She must walk out in spite of the rain. Happily, there was a thin place in the curtain of clouds which seemed to promise that now, about noon, the day had a mind to clear up. Caterina thought to herself, 'I will walk to the Mosslands, and carry Mr. Bates the comforter I have made for him, and then Lady Cheverel will not wonder so much at my going out.' At the hall door she found Rupert, the old bloodhound, stationed on the mat, with the determination that the first person who was sensible enough to take a walk that morning should have the honour of his approbation and society. As he thrust his great black and tawny head under her hand, and wagged his tail with vigorous eloquence, and reached the climax of his welcome by jumping up to lick her face, which was at a convenient licking height for him, Caterina felt quite grateful to the old dog for his friendliness. Animals are such agreeable friends--they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. The 'Mosslands' was a remote part of the grounds, encircled by the little stream issuing from the pool; and certainly, for a wet day, Caterina could hardly have chosen a less suitable walk, for though the rain was abating, and presently ceased altogether, there was still a smart shower falling from the trees which arched over the greater part of her way. But she found just the desired relief from her feverish excitement in labouring along the wet paths with an umbrella that made her arm ache. This amount of exertion was to her tiny body what a day's hunting often was to Mr. Gilfil, who at times had _his_ fits of jealousy and sadness to get rid of, and wisely had recourse to nature's innocent opium--fatigue. When Caterina reached the pretty arched wooden bridge which formed the only entrance to the Mosslands for any but webbed feet, the sun had mastered the clouds, and was shining through the boughs of the tall elms that made a deep nest for the gardener's cottage--turning the raindrops into diamonds, and inviting the nasturtium flowers creeping over the porch and low-thatched roof to lift up their flame-coloured heads once more. The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently--by a remarkable approximation to human intelligence--finding great conversational resources in the change of weather. The mossy turf, studded with the broad blades of marsh-loving plants, told that Mr. Bates's nest was rather damp in the best of weather; but he was of opinion that a little external moisture would hurt no man who was not perversely neglectful of that obvious and providential antidote, rum-and-water. Caterina loved this nest. Every object in it, every sound that haunted it, had been familiar to her from the days when she had been carried thither on Mr. Bates's arm, making little cawing noises to imitate the rooks, clapping her hands at the green frogs leaping in the moist grass, and fixing grave eyes on the gardener's fowls cluck-clucking under their pens. And now the spot looked prettier to her than ever; it was so out of the way of Miss Assher, with her brilliant beauty, and personal claims, and small civil remarks. She thought Mr. Bates would not be come into his dinner yet, so she would sit down and wait for him. But she was mistaken. Mr. Bates was seated in his arm-chair, with his pocket-handkerchief thrown over his face, as the most eligible mode of passing away those superfluous hours between meals when the weather drives a man in-doors. Roused by the furious barking of his chained bulldog, he descried his little favourite approaching, and forthwith presented himself at the doorway, looking disproportionately tall compared with the height of his cottage. The bulldog, meanwhile, unbent from the severity of his official demeanour, and commenced a friendly interchange of ideas with Rupert. Mr. Bates's hair was now grey, but his frame was none the less stalwart, and his face looked all the redder, making an artistic contrast with the deep blue of his cotton neckerchief, and of his linen apron twisted into a girdle round his waist. 'Why, dang my boottons, Miss Tiny,' he exclaimed, 'hoo coom ye to coom oot dabblin' your faet laike a little Muscovy duck, sich a day as this? Not but what ai'm delaighted to sae ye. Here Hesther,' he called to his old humpbacked house-keeper, 'tek the young ledy's oombrella an' spread it oot to dray. Coom, coom in, Miss Tiny, an' set ye doon by the faire an' dray yer faet, an' hev summat warm to kape ye from ketchin' coold.' Mr. Bates led the way, stooping under the doorplaces, into his small sitting-room, and, shaking the patchwork cushion in his arm-chair, moved it to within a good roasting distance of the blazing fire. 'Thank you, uncle Bates' (Caterina kept up her childish epithets for her friends, and this was one of them); 'not quite so close to the fire, for I am warm with walking.' 'Eh, but yer shoes are faine an' wet, an' ye must put up yer faet on the fender. Rare big faet, baint 'em?--aboot the saize of a good big spoon. I woonder ye can mek a shift to stan' on 'em. Now, what'll ye hev to warm yer insaide?--a drop o' hot elder wain, now?' 'No, not anything to drink, thank you; it isn't very long since breakfast,' said Caterina, drawing out the comforter from her deep pocket. Pockets were capacious in those days. 'Look here, uncle Bates, here is what I came to bring you. I made it on purpose for you. You must wear it this winter, and give your red one to old Brooks.' 'Eh, Miss Tiny, this _is_ a beauty. An' ye made it all wi' yer little fingers for an old feller laike mae! I tek it very kaind on ye, an' I belave ye I'll wear it, and be prood on't too. These sthraipes, blue an' whaite, now, they mek it uncommon pritty.' 'Yes, that will suit your complexion, you know, better than the old scarlet one. I know Mrs. Sharp will be more in love with you than ever when she sees you in the new one.' 'My complexion, ye little roogue! ye're a laughin' at me. But talkin' o' complexions, what a beautiful colour the bride as is to be has on her cheeks! Dang my boottons! she looks faine and handsome o' hossback--sits as upraight as a dart, wi' a figure like a statty! Misthress Sharp has promised to put me behaind one o' the doors when the ladies are comin' doon to dinner, so as I may sae the young un i' full dress, wi' all her curls an' that. Misthress Sharp says she's almost beautifuller nor my ledy was when she was yoong; an' I think ye'll noot faind man i' the counthry as'll coom up to that.' 'Yes, Miss Assher is very handsome,' said Caterina, rather faintly, feeling the sense of her own insignificance returning at this picture of the impression Miss Assher made on others. 'Well, an' I hope she's good too, an'll mek a good naice to Sir Cristhifer an' my ledy. Misthress Griffin, the maid, says as she's rether tatchy and find-fautin' aboot her cloothes, laike. But she's yoong--she's yoong; that'll wear off when she's got a hoosband, an' children, an' summat else to think on. Sir Cristhifer's fain an' delaighted, I can see. He says to me th' other mornin', says he, "Well, Bates, what do you think of your young misthress as is to be?" An' I says, "Whay, yer honour, I think she's as fain a lass as iver I set eyes on; an' I wish the Captain luck in a fain family, an' your honour laife an' health to see't." Mr. Warren says as the masther's all for forrardin' the weddin', an' it'll very laike be afore the autumn's oot.' As Mr. Bates ran on, Caterina felt something like a painful contraction at her heart. 'Yes,' she said, rising, 'I dare say it will. Sir Christopher is very anxious for it. But I must go, uncle Bates; Lady Cheverel will be wanting me, and it is your dinner-time.' 'Nay, my dinner doon't sinnify a bit; but I moosn't kaep ye if my ledy wants ye. Though I hevn't thanked ye half anoof for the comfiter--the wrapraskil, as they call't. My feckins, it's a beauty. But ye look very whaite and sadly, Miss Tiny; I doubt ye're poorly; an' this walking i' th' wet isn't good for ye.' 'O yes, it is indeed,' said Caterina, hastening out, and taking up her umbrella from the kitchen floor. 'I must really go now; so good-bye.' She tripped off, calling Rupert, while the good gardener, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, stood looking after her and shaking his head with rather a melancholy air. 'She gets moor nesh and dillicat than iver,' he said, half to himself and half to Hester. 'I shouldn't woonder if she fades away laike them cyclamens as I transplanted. She puts me i' maind on 'em somehow, hangin' on their little thin stalks, so whaite an' tinder.' The poor little thing made her way back, no longer hungering for the cold moist air as a counteractive of inward excitement, but with a chill at her heart which made the outward chill only depressing. The golden sunlight beamed through the dripping boughs like a Shechinah, or visible divine presence, and the birds were chirping and trilling their new autumnal songs so sweetly, it seemed as if their throats, as well as the air, were all the clearer for the rain; but Caterina moved through all this joy and beauty like a poor wounded leveret painfully dragging its little body through the sweet clover-tufts--for it, sweet in vain. Mr. Bates's words about Sir Christopher's joy, Miss Assher's beauty, and the nearness of the wedding, had come upon her like the pressure of a cold hand, rousing her from confused dozing to a perception of hard, familiar realities. It is so with emotional natures whose thoughts are no more than the fleeting shadows cast by feeling: to them words are facts, and even when known to be false, have a mastery over their smiles and tears. Caterina entered her own room again, with no other change from her former state of despondency and wretchedness than an additional sense of injury from Anthony. His behaviour towards her in the morning was a new wrong. To snatch a caress when she justly claimed an expression of penitence, of regret, of sympathy, was to make more light of her than ever. Chapter 8 That evening Miss Assher seemed to carry herself with unusual haughtiness, and was coldly observant of Caterina. There was unmistakably thunder in the air. Captain Wybrow appeared to take the matter very easily, and was inclined to brave it out by paying more than ordinary attention to Caterina. Mr. Gilfil had induced her to play a game at draughts with him, Lady Assher being seated at picquet with Sir Christopher, and Miss Assher in determined conversation with Lady Cheverel. Anthony, thus left as an odd unit, sauntered up to Caterina's chair, and leaned behind her, watching the game. Tina, with all the remembrances of the morning thick upon her, felt her cheeks becoming more and more crimson, and at last said impatiently, 'I wish you would go away.' This happened directly under the view of Miss Assher, who saw Caterina's reddening cheeks, saw that she said something impatiently, and that Captain Wybrow moved away in consequence. There was another person, too, who had noticed this incident with strong interest, and who was moreover aware that Miss Assher not only saw, but keenly observed what was passing. That other person was Mr. Gilfil, and he drew some painful conclusions which heightened his anxiety for Caterina. The next morning, in spite of the fine weather, Miss Assher declined riding, and Lady Cheverel, perceiving that there was something wrong between the lovers, took care that they should be left together in the drawing-room. Miss Assher, seated on the sofa near the fire, was busy with some fancy-work, in which she seemed bent on making great progress this morning. Captain Wybrow sat opposite with a newspaper in his hand, from which he obligingly read extracts with an elaborately easy air, wilfully unconscious of the contemptuous silence with which she pursued her filigree work. At length he put down the paper, which he could no longer pretend not to have exhausted, and Miss Assher then said,--'You seem to be on very intimate terms with Miss Sarti.' 'With Tina? oh yes; she has always been the pet of the house, you know. We have been quite brother and sister together.' 'Sisters don't generally colour so very deeply when their brothers approach them.' 'Does she colour? I never noticed it. But she's a timid little thing.' 'It would be much better if you would not be so hypocritical, Captain Wybrow. I am confident there has been some flirtation between you. Miss Sarti, in her position, would never speak to you with the petulance she did last night, if you had not given her some kind of claim on you.' 'My dear Beatrice, now do be reasonable; do ask yourself what earthly probability there is that I should think of flirting with poor little Tina. _Is_ there anything about her to attract that sort of attention? She is more child than woman. One thinks of her as a little girl to be petted and played with.' 'Pray, what were you playing at with her yesterday morning, when I came in unexpectedly, and her cheeks were flushed, and her hands trembling? 'Yesterday morning?--O, I remember. You know I always tease her about Gilfil, who is over head and ears in love with her; and she is angry at that,--perhaps, because she likes him. They were old playfellows years before I came here, and Sir Christopher has set his heart on their marrying.' 'Captain Wybrow, you are very false. It had nothing to do with Mr. Gilfil that she coloured last night when you leaned over her chair. You might just as well be candid. If your own mind is not made up, pray do no violence to yourself. I am quite ready to give way to Miss Sarti's superior attractions. Understand that, so far as I am concerned, you are perfectly at liberty. I decline any share in the affection of a man who forfeits my respect by duplicity.' In saying this Miss Assher rose, and was sweeping haughtily out of the room, when Captain Wybrow placed himself before her, and took her hand. 'Dear, dear Beatrice, be patient; do not judge me so rashly. Sit down again, sweet,' he added in a pleading voice, pressing both her hands between his, and leading her back to the sofa, where he sat down beside her. Miss Assher was not unwilling to be led back or to listen, but she retained her cold and haughty expression. 'Can you not trust me, Beatrice? Can you not believe me, although there may be things I am unable to explain?' 'Why should there be anything you are unable to explain? An honourable man will not be placed in circumstances which he cannot explain to the woman he seeks to make his wife. He will not ask her to _believe_ that he acts properly; he will let her _know_ that he does so. Let me go, sir.' She attempted to rise, but he passed his hand round her waist and detained her. 'Now, Beatrice dear,' he said imploringly, 'can you not understand that there are things a man doesn't like to talk about--secrets that he must keep for the sake of others, and not for his own sake? Everything that relates to myself you may ask me, but do not ask me to tell other people's secrets. Don't you understand me?' 'O yes,' said Miss Assher scornfully, 'I understand. Whenever you make love to a woman--that is her secret, which you are bound to keep for her. But it is folly to be talking in this way, Captain Wybrow. It is very plain that there is some relation more than friendship between you and Miss Sarti. Since you cannot explain that relation, there is no more to be said between us.' 'Confound it, Beatrice! you'll drive me mad. Can a fellow help a girl's falling in love with him? Such things are always happening, but men don't talk of them. These fancies will spring up without the slightest foundation, especially when a woman sees few people; they die out again when there is no encouragement. If you could like me, you ought not to be surprised that other people can; you ought to think the better of them for it.' 'You mean to say, then, that Miss Sarti is in love with you, without your ever having made love to her.' 'Do not press me to say such things, dearest. It is enough that you know I love you--that I am devoted to you. You naughty queen, you, you know there is no chance for any one else where you are. You are only tormenting me, to prove your power over me. But don't be too cruel; for you know they say I have another heart-disease besides love, and these scenes bring on terrible palpitations.' 'But I must have an answer to this one question,' said Miss Assher, a little softened: 'Has there been, or is there, any love on your side towards Miss Sarti? I have nothing to do with her feelings, but I have a right to know yours.' 'I like Tina very much; who would not like such a little simple thing? You would not wish me not to like her? But love--that is a very different affair. One has a brotherly affection for such a woman as Tina; but it is another sort of woman that one loves.' These last words were made doubly significant by a look of tenderness, and a kiss imprinted on the hand Captain Wybrow held in his. Miss Assher was conquered. It was so far from probable that Anthony should love that pale insignificant little thing--so highly probable that he should adore the beautiful Miss Assher. On the whole, it was rather gratifying that other women should be languishing for her handsome lover; he really was an exquisite creature. Poor Miss Sarti! Well, she would get over it. Captain Wybrow saw his advantage. 'Come, sweet love,' he continued, 'let us talk no more about unpleasant things. You will keep Tina's secret, and be very kind to her--won't you?--for my sake. But you will ride out now? See what a glorious day it is for riding. Let me order the horses. I'm terribly in want of the air. Come, give me one forgiving kiss, and say you will go.' Miss Assher complied with the double request, and then went to equip herself for the ride, while her lover walked to the stables. Chapter 9 Meanwhile Mr. Gilfil, who had a heavy weight on his mind, had watched for the moment when, the two elder ladies having driven out, Caterina would probably be alone in Lady Cheverel's sitting-room. He went up and knocked at the door. 'Come in,' said the sweet mellow voice, always thrilling to him as the sound of rippling water to the thirsty. He entered and found Caterina standing in some confusion as if she had been startled from a reverie. She felt relieved when she saw it was Maynard, but, the next moment, felt a little pettish that he should have come to interrupt and frighten her. 'Oh, it is you, Maynard! Do you want Lady Cheverel?' 'No, Caterina,' he answered gravely; 'I want you. I have something very particular to say to you. Will you let me sit down with you for half an hour?' 'Yes, dear old preacher,' said Caterina, sitting down with an air of weariness; 'what is it?' Mr. Gilfil placed himself opposite to her, and said, 'I hope you will not be hurt, Caterina, by what I am going to say to you. I do not speak from any other feelings than real affection and anxiety for you. I put everything else out of the question. You know you are more to me than all the world; but I will not thrust before you a feeling which you are unable to return. I speak to you as a brother--the old Maynard that used to scold you for getting your fishing-line tangled ten years ago. You will not believe that I have any mean, selfish motive in mentioning things that are painful to you?' 'No; I know you are very good,' said Caterina, abstractedly. 'From what I saw yesterday evening,' Mr. Gilfil went on, hesitating and colouring slightly, 'I am led to fear--pray forgive me if I am wrong, Caterina--that you--that Captain Wybrow is base enough still to trifle with your feelings, that he still allows himself to behave to you as no man ought who is the declared lover of another woman.' 'What do you mean, Maynard?' said Caterina, with anger flashing from her eyes. 'Do you mean that I let him make love to me? What right have you to think that of me? What do you mean that you saw yesterday evening?' 'Do not be angry, Caterina. I don't suspect you of doing wrong. I only suspect that heartless puppy of behaving so as to keep awake feelings in you that not only destroy your own peace of mind, but may lead to very bad consequences with regard to others. I want to warn you that Miss Assher has her eyes open on what passes between you and Captain Wybrow, and I feel sure she is getting jealous of you. Pray be very careful, Caterina, and try to behave with politeness and indifference to him. You must see by this time that he is not worth the feeling you have given him. He's more disturbed at his pulse beating one too many in a minute, than at all the misery he has caused you by his foolish tritling.' 'You ought not to speak so of him, Maynard,' said Caterina, passionately. 'He is not what you think. He _did_ care for me; he _did_ love me; only he wanted to do what his uncle wished.' 'O to be sure! I know it is only from the most virtuous motives that he does what is convenient to himself.' Mr. Gilfil paused. He felt that he was getting irritated, and defeating his own object. Presently he continued in a calm and affectionate tone. 'I will say no more about what I think of him, Caterina. But whether he loved you or not, his position now with Miss Assher is such that any love you may cherish for him can bring nothing but misery. God knows, I don't expect you to leave off loving him at a moment's notice. Time and absence, and trying to do what is right, are the only cures. If it were not that Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel would be displeased and puzzled at your wishing to leave home just now, I would beg you to pay a visit to my sister. She and her husband are good creatures, and would make their house a home to you. But I could not urge the thing just now without giving a special reason; and what is most of all to be dreaded is the raising of any suspicion in Sir Christopher's mind of what has happened in the past, or of your present feelings. You think so too, don't you, Tina?' Mr. Gilfil paused again, but Caterina said nothing. She was looking away from him, out of the window, and her eyes were filling with tears. He rose, and, advancing a little towards her, held out his hand and said, --'Forgive me, Caterina, for intruding on your feelings in this way. I was so afraid you might not be aware how Miss Assher watched you. Remember, I entreat you, that the peace of the whole family depends on your power of governing yourself. Only say you forgive me before I go.' 'Dear, good Maynard,' she said, stretching out her little hand, and taking two of his large fingers in her grasp, while her tears flowed fast; 'I am very cross to you. But my heart is breaking. I don't know what I do. Good-bye.' He stooped down, kissed the little hand, and then left the room. 'The cursed scoundrel!' he muttered between his teeth, as he closed the door behind him. 'If it were not for Sir Christopher, I should like to pound him into paste to poison puppies like himself.' Chapter 10 That evening Captain Wybrow, returning from a long ride with Miss Assher, went up to his dressing-room, and seated himself with an air of considerable lassitude before his mirror. The reflection there presented of his exquisite self was certainly paler and more worn than usual, and might excuse the anxiety with which he first felt his pulse, and then laid his hand on his heart. 'It's a devil of a position this for a man to be in,' was the train of his thought, as he kept his eyes fixed on the glass, while he leaned back in his chair, and crossed his hands behind his head; 'between two jealous women, and both of them as ready to take fire as tinder. And in my state of health, too! I should be glad enough to run away from the whole affair, and go off to some lotos-eating place or other where there are no women, or only women who are too sleepy to be jealous. Here am I, doing nothing to please myself, trying to do the best thing for everybody else, and all the comfort I get is to have fire shot at me from women's eyes, and venom spirted at me from women's tongues. If Beatrice takes another jealous fit into her head--and it's likely enough, Tina is so unmanageable--I don't know what storm she may raise. And any hitch in this marriage, especially of that sort, might be a fatal business for the old gentleman. I wouldn't have such a blow fall upon him for a great deal. Besides, a man must be married some time in his life, and I could hardly do better than marry Beatrice. She's an uncommonly fine woman, and I'm really very fond of her; and as I shall let her have her own way, her temper won't signify much. I wish the wedding was over and done with, for this fuss doesn't suit me at all. I haven't been half so well lately. That scene about Tina this morning quite upset me. Poor little Tina! What a little simpleton it was, to set her heart on me in that way! But she ought to see how impossible it is that things should be different. If she would but understand how kindly I feel towards her, and make up her mind to look on me as a friend;--but that it what one never can get a woman to do. Beatrice is very good-natured; I'm sure she would be kind to the little thing. It would be a great comfort if Tina would take to Gilfil, if it were only in anger against me. He'd make her a capital husband, and I should like to see the little grass-hopper happy. If I had been in a different position, I would certainly have married her myself: hut that was out of the question with my responsibilities to Sir Christopher. I think a little persuasion from my uncle would bring her to accept Gilfil; I know she would never be able to oppose my uncle's wishes. And if they were once married, she's such a loving little thing, she would soon be billing and cooing with him as if she had never known me. It would certainly be the best thing for her happiness if that marriage were hastened. Heigho! Those are lucky fellows that have no women falling in love with them. It's a confounded responsibility.' At this point in his meditations he turned his head a little, so as to get a three-quarter view of his face. Clearly it was the '_dono infelice della bellezza_' that laid these onerous duties upon him--an idea which naturally suggested that he should ring for his valet. For the next few days, however, there was such a cessation of threatening symptoms as to allay the anxiety both of Captain Wybrow and Mr. Gilfil. All earthly things have their lull: even on nights when the most unappeasable wind is raging, there will be a moment of stillness before it crashes among the boughs again, and storms against the windows, and howls like a thousand lost demons through the keyholes. Miss Assher appeared to be in the highest good-humour; Captain Wybrow was more assiduous than usual, and was very circumspect in his behaviour to Caterina, on whom Miss Assher bestowed unwonted attentions. The weather was brilliant; there were riding excursions in the mornings and dinner-parties in the evenings. Consultations in the library between Sir Christopher and Lady Assher seemed to be leading to a satisfactory result; and it was understood that this visit at Cheverel Manor would terminate in another fortnight, when the preparations for the wedding would be carried forward with all despatch at Farleigh. The Baronet seemed every day more radiant. Accustomed to view people who entered into his plans by the pleasant light which his own strong will and bright hopefulness were always casting on the future, he saw nothing hut personal charms and promising domestic qualities in Miss Assher, whose quickness of eye and taste in externals formed a real ground of sympathy between her and Sir Christopher. Lady Cheverel's enthusiasm never rose above the temperate mark of calm satisfaction, and, having quite her share of the critical acumen which characterizes the mutual estimates of the fair sex, she had a more moderate opinion of Miss Assher's qualities. She suspected that the fair Beatrice had a sharp and imperious temper; and being herself, on principle and by habitual self-command, the most deferential of wives, she noticed with disapproval Miss Assher's occasional air of authority towards Captain Wybrow. A proud woman who has learned to submit, carries all her pride to the reinforcement of her submission, and looks down with severe superiority on all feminine assumption as 'unbecoming'. Lady Cheverel, however, confined her criticisms to the privacy of her own thoughts, and, with a reticence which I fear may seem incredible, did not use them as a means of disturbing her husband's complacency. And Caterina? How did she pass these sunny autumn days, in which the skies seemed to be smiling on the family gladness? To her the change in Miss Assher's manner was unaccountable. Those compassionate attentions, those smiling condescensions, were torture to Caterina, who was constantly tempted to repulse them with anger. She thought, 'Perhaps Anthony has told her to be kind to poor Tina.' This was an insult. He ought to have known that the mere presence of Miss Assher was painful to her, that Miss Assher's smiles scorched her, that Miss Assher's kind words were like poison stings inflaming her to madness. And he--Anthony --he was evidently repenting of the tenderness he had been betrayed into that morning in the drawing-room. He was cold and distant and civil to her, to ward off Beatrice's suspicions, and Beatrice could be so gracious now, because she was sure of Anthony's entire devotion. Well! and so it ought to be--and she ought not to wish it otherwise. And yet--oh, he _was_ cruel to her. She could never have behaved so to him. To make her love him so--to speak such tender words--to give her such caresses, and then to behave as if such things had never been. He had given her the poison that seemed so sweet while she was drinking it, and now it was in her blood, and she was helpless.' With this tempest pent up in her bosom, the poor child went up to her room every night, and there it all burst forth. There, with loud whispers and sobs, restlessly pacing up and down, lying on the hard floor, courting cold and weariness, she told to the pitiful listening night the anguish which she could pour into no mortal ear. But always sleep came at last, and always in the morning the reactive calm that enabled her to live through the day. It is amazing how long a young frame will go on battling with this sort of secret wretchedness, and yet show no traces of the conflict for any but sympathetic eyes. The very delicacy of Caterina's usual appearance, her natural paleness and habitually quiet mouse-like ways, made any symptoms of fatigue and suffering less noticeable. And her singing--the one thing in which she ceased to be passive, and became prominent--lost none of its energy. She herself sometimes wondered how it was that, whether she felt sad or angry, crushed with the sense of Anthony's indifference, or burning with impatience under Miss Assher's attentions, it was always a relief to her to sing. Those full deep notes she sent forth seemed to be lifting the pain from her heart--seemed to be carrying away the madness from her brain. Thus Lady Cheverel noticed no change in Caterina, and it was only Mr. Gilfil who discerned with anxiety the feverish spot that sometimes rose on her cheek, the deepening violet tint under her eyes, and the strange absent glance, the unhealthy glitter of the beautiful eyes themselves. But those agitated nights were producing a more fatal effect than was represented by these slight outward changes. Chapter 11 The following Sunday, the morning being rainy, it was determined that the family should not go to Cumbermoor Church as usual, but that Mr. Gilfil, who had only an afternoon service at his curacy, should conduct the morning service in the chapel. Just before the appointed hour of eleven, Caterina came down into the drawing-room, looking so unusually ill as to call forth an anxious inquiry from Lady Cheverel, who, on learning that she had a severe headache, insisted that she should not attend service, and at once packed her up comfortably on a sofa near the fire, putting a volume of Tillotson's Sermons into her hands--as appropriate reading, if Caterina should feel equal to that means of edification. Excellent medicine for the mind are the good Archbishop's sermons, but a medicine, unhappily, not suited to Tina's case. She sat with the book open on her knees, her dark eyes fixed vacantly on the portrait of that handsome Lady Cheverel, wife of the notable Sir Anthony. She gazed at the picture without thinking of it, and the fair blonde dame seemed to look down on her with that benignant unconcern, that mild wonder, with which happy self-possessed women are apt to look down on their agitated and weaker sisters. Caterina was thinking of the near future--of the wedding that was so soon to come--of all she would have to live through in the next months. 'I wish I could be very ill, and die before then,' she thought. 'When people get very ill, they don't mind about things. Poor Patty Richards looked so happy when she was in a decline. She didn't seem to care any more about her lover that she was engaged to be married to, and she liked the smell of the flowers so, that I used to take her. O, if I could but like anything--if I could but think about anything else! If these dreadful feelings would go away, I wouldn't mind about not being happy. I wouldn't want anything--and I could do what would please Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel. But when that rage and anger comes into me, I don't know what to do. I don't feel the ground under me; I only feel my head and heart beating, and it seems as if I must do something dreadful. O! I wonder if any one ever felt like me before. I must be very wicked. But God will have pity on me; He knows all I have to bear.' In this way the time wore on till Tina heard the sound of voices along the passage, and became conscious that the volume of Tillotson had slipped on the floor. She had only just picked it up, and seen with alarm that the pages were bent, when Lady Assher, Beatrice, and Captain Wybrow entered, all with that brisk and cheerful air which a sermon is often observed to produce when it is quite finished. Lady Assher at once came and seated herself by Caterina. Her ladyship had been considerably refreshed by a doze, and was in great force for monologue. 'Well, my dear Miss Sarti, and how do you feel now?--a little better, I see. I thought you would be, sitting quietly here. These headaches, now, are all from weakness. You must not over-exert yourself, and you must take bitters. I used to have just the same sort of headaches when I was your age, and old Dr Samson used to say to my mother, "Madam, what your daughter suffers from is weakness." He was such a curious old man, was Dr Samson. But I wish you could have heard the sermon this morning. Such an excellent sermon! It was about the ten virgins: five of them were foolish, and five were clever, you know; and Mr. Gilfil explained all that. What a very pleasant young man he is! so very quiet and agreeable, and such a good hand at whist. I wish we had him at Farleigh. Sir John would have liked him beyond anything; he is so good-tempered at cards, and he was such a man for cards, was Sir John. And our rector is a very irritable man; he can't bear to lose his money at cards. I don't think a clergyman ought to mind about losing his money; do you?--do you now?' 'O pray, Lady Assher,' interposed Beatrice, in her usual tone of superiority, 'do not weary poor Caterina with such uninteresting questions. Your head seems very bad still, dear,' she continued, in a condoling tone, to Caterina; 'do take my vinaigrette, and keep it in your pocket. It will perhaps refresh you now and then.' 'No, thank you,' answered Caterina; 'I will not take it away from you.' 'Indeed, dear, I never use it; you must take it,' Miss Assher persisted, holding it close to Tina's hand. Tina coloured deeply, pushed the vinaigrette away with some impatience, and said, 'Thank you, I never use those things. I don't like vinaigrettes.' Miss Assher returned the vinaigrette to her pocket in surprise and haughty silence, and Captain Wybrow, who had looked on in some alarm, said hastily, 'See! it is quite bright out of doors now. There is time for a walk before luncheon. Come, Beatrice, put on your hat and cloak, and let us have half an hour's walk on the gravel.' 'Yes, do, my dear,' said Lady Assher, 'and I will go and see if Sir Christopher is having his walk in the gallery.' As soon as the door had closed behind the two ladies, Captain Wybrow, standing with his back to the fire, turned towards Caterina, and said in a tone of earnest remonstrance, 'My dear Caterina. Let me beg of you to exercise more control over your feelings; you are really rude to Miss Assher, and I can see that she is quite hurt. Consider how strange your behaviour must appear to her. She will wonder what can be the cause of it. Come, dear Tina,' he added, approaching her, and attempting to take her hand; 'for your own sake let me entreat you to receive her attentions politely. She really feels very kindly towards you, and I should be so happy to see you friends.' Caterina was already in such a state of diseased susceptibility that the most innocent words from Captain Wybrow would have been irritating to her, as the whirr of the most delicate wing will afflict a nervous patient. But this tone of benevolent remonstrance was intolerable. He had inflicted a great and unrepented injury on her, and now he assumed an air of benevolence towards her. This was a new outrage. His profession of goodwill was insolence. Caterina snatched away her hand and said indignantly, 'Leave me to myself, Captain Wybrow! I do not disturb you.' 'Caterina, why will you be so violent--so unjust to me? It is for you that I feel anxious. Miss Assher has already noticed how strange your behaviour is both to her and me, and it puts me into a very difficult position. What can I say to her?' 'Say?' Caterina burst forth with intense bitterness, rising, and moving towards the door; 'say that I am a poor silly girl, and have fallen in love with you, and am jealous of her; but that you have never had any feeling but pity for me--you have never behaved with anything more than friendliness to me. Tell her that, and she will think all the better of you.' Tina uttered this as the bitterest sarcasm her ideas would furnish her with, not having the faintest suspicion that the sarcasm derived any of its bitterness from truth. Underneath all her sense of wrong, which was rather instinctive than reflective--underneath all the madness of her jealousy, and her ungovernable impulses of resentment and vindictiveness--underneath all this scorching passion there were still left some hidden crystal dews of trust, of self-reproof, of belief that Anthony was trying to do the right. Love had not all gone to feed the fires of hatred. Tina still trusted that Anthony felt more for her than he seemed to feel; she was still far from suspecting him of a wrong which a woman resents even more than inconstancy. And she threw out this taunt simply as the most intense expression she could find for the anger of the moment. As she stood nearly in the middle of the room, her little body trembling under the shock of passions too strong for it, her very lips pale, and her eyes gleaming, the door opened, and Miss Assher appeared, tall, blooming, and splendid, in her walking costume. As she entered, her face wore the smile appropriate to the exits and entrances of a young lady who feels that her presence is an interesting fact; but the next moment she looked at Caterina with grave surprise, and then threw a glance of angry suspicion at Captain Wybrow, who wore an air of weariness and vexation. 'Perhaps you are too much engaged to walk out, Captain Wybrow? I will go alone.' 'No, no, I am coming,' he answered, hurrying towards her, and leading her out of the room; leaving poor Caterina to feel all the reaction of shame and self-reproach after her outburst of passion. Chapter 12 'Pray, what is likely to be the next scene in the drama between you and Miss Sarti?' said Miss Assher to Captain Wybrow as soon as they were out on the gravel. 'It would be agreeable to have some idea of what is coming.' Captain Wybrow was silent. He felt out of humour, wearied, annoyed. There come moments when one almost determines never again to oppose anything but dead silence to an angry woman. 'Now then, confound it,' he said to himself, 'I'm going to be battered on the other flank.' He looked resolutely at the horizon, with something more like a frown on his face than Beatrice had ever seen there. After a pause of two or three minutes, she continued in a still haughtier tone, 'I suppose you are aware, Captain Wybrow, that I expect an explanation of what I have just seen.' 'I have no explanation, my dear Beatrice,' he answered at last, making a strong effort over himself, 'except what I have already given you. I hoped you would never recur to the subject.' 'Your explanation, however, is very far from satisfactory. I can only say that the airs Miss Sarti thinks herself entitled to put on towards you, are quite incompatible with your position as regards me. And her behaviour to me is most insulting. I shall certainly not stay in the house under such circumstances, and mamma must state the reasons to Sir Christopher.' 'Beatrice,' said Captain Wybrow, his irritation giving way to alarm, 'I beseech you to be patient, and exercise your good feelings in this affair. It is very painful, I know, but I am sure you would be grieved to injure poor Caterina--to bring down my uncle's anger upon her. Consider what a poor little dependent thing she is.' 'It is very adroit of you to make these evasions, but do not suppose that they deceive me. Miss Sarti would never dare to behave to you as she does, if you had not flirted with her, or made love to her. I suppose she considers your engagement to me a breach of faith to her. I am much obliged to you, certainly, for making me Miss Sarti's rival. You have told me a falsehood, Captain Wybrow.' 'Beatrice, I solemnly declare to you that Caterina is nothing more to me than a girl I naturally feel kindly to--as a favourite of my uncle's, and a nice little thing enough. I should be glad to see her married to Gilfil to-morrow; that's a good proof that I'm not in love with her, I should think. As to the past, I may have shown her little attentions, which she has exaggerated and misinterpreted. What man is not liable to that sort of thing?' 'But what can she found her behaviour on? What had she been saying to you this morning to make her tremble and turn pale in that way?' 'O, I don't know. I just said something about her behaving peevishly. With that Italian blood of hers, there's no knowing how she may take what one says. She's a fierce little thing, though she seems so quiet generally.' 'But she ought to be made to know how unbecoming and indelicate her conduct is. For my part, I wonder Lady Cheverel has not noticed her short answers and the airs she puts on.' 'Let me beg of you, Beatrice, not to hint anything of the kind to Lady Cheverel. You must have observed how strict my aunt is. It never enters her head that a girl can be in love with a man who has not made her an offer.' 'Well, I shall let Miss Sarti know myself that I have observed her conduct. It will be only a charity to her.' 'Nay, dear, that will be doing nothing but harm. Caterina's temper is peculiar. The best thing you can do will be to leave her to herself as much as possible. It will all wear off. I've no doubt she'll be married to Gilfil before long. Girls' fancies are easily diverted from one object to another. By jove, what a rate my heart is galloping at! These confounded palpitations get worse instead of better.' Thus ended the conversation, so far as it concerned Caterina, not without leaving a distinct resolution in Captain Wybrow's mind--a resolution carried into effect the next day, when he was in the library with Sir Christopher for the purpose of discussing some arrangements about the approaching marriage. 'By the by,' he said carelessly, when the business came to a pause, and he was sauntering round the room with his hands in his coat-pockets, surveying the backs of the books that lined the walls, 'when is the wedding between Gilfil and Caterina to come off, sir? I've a fellow-feeling for a poor devil so many fathoms deep in love as Maynard. Why shouldn't their marriage happen as soon as ours? I suppose he has come to an understanding with Tina?' 'Why,' said Sir Christopher, 'I did think of letting the thing be until old Crichley died; he can't hold out very long, poor fellow; and then Maynard might have entered into matrimony and the rectory both at once. But, after all, that really is no good reason for waiting. There is no need for them to leave the Manor when they are married. The little monkey is quite old enough. It would be pretty to see her a matron, with a baby about the size of a kitten in her arms.' 'I think that system of waiting is always bad. And if I can further any settlement you would like to make on Caterina, I shall be delighted to carry out your wishes.' 'My dear boy, that's very good of you; but Maynard will have enough; and from what I know of him--and I know him well--I think he would rather provide for Caterina himself. However, now you have put this matter into my head, I begin to blame myself for not having thought of it before. I've been so wrapt up in Beatrice and you, you rascal, that I had really forgotten poor Maynard. And he's older than you--it's high time he was settled in life as a family man.' Sir Christopher paused, took snuff in a meditative manner, and presently said, more to himself than to Anthony, who was humming a tune at the far end of the room, 'Yes, yes. It will be a capital plan to finish off all our family business at once.' Riding out with Miss Assher the same morning, Captain Wybrow mentioned to her incidentally, that Sir Christopher was anxious to bring about the wedding between Gilfil and Caterina as soon as possible, and that he, for his part, should do all he could to further the affair. It would be the best thing in the world for Tina, in whose welfare he was really interested. With Sir Christopher there was never any long interval between purpose and execution. He made up his mind promptly, and he acted promptly. On rising from luncheon, he said to Mr. Gilfil, 'Come with me into the library, Maynard. I want to have a word with you.' 'Maynard, my boy,' he began, as soon as they were seated, tapping his snuff-box, and looking radiant at the idea of the unexpected pleasure he was about to give, 'why shouldn't we have two happy couples instead of one, before the autumn is over, eh?' 'Eh?' he repeated, after a moment's pause, lengthening out the monosyllable, taking a slow pinch, and looking up at Maynard with a sly smile. 'I'm not quite sure that I understand you, sir,' answered Mr. Gilfil, who felt annoyed at the consciousness that he was turning pale. 'Not understand me, you rogue? You know very well whose happiness lies nearest to my heart after Anthony's. You know you let me into your secrets long ago, so there's no confession to make. Tina's quite old enough to be a grave little wife now; and though the Rectory's not ready for you, that's no matter. My lady and I shall feel all the more comfortable for having you with us. We should miss our little singing-bird if we lost her all at once.' Mr. Gilfil felt himself in a painfully difficult position. He dreaded that Sir Christopher should surmise or discover the true state of Caterina's feelings, and yet he was obliged to make those feelings the ground of his reply. 'My dear sir,' he at last said with some effort, 'you will not suppose that I am not alive to your goodness--that I am not grateful for your fatherly interest in my happiness; but I fear that Caterina's feelings towards me are not such as to warrant the hope that she would accept a proposal of marriage from me.' 'Have you ever asked her?' 'No, sir. But we often know these things too well without asking.' 'Pooh, pooh! the little monkey _must_ love you. Why, you were her first playfellow; and I remember she used to cry if you cut your finger. Besides, she has always silently admitted that you were her lover. You know I have always spoken of you to her in that light. I took it for granted you had settled the business between yourselves; so did Anthony. Anthony thinks she's in love with you, and he has young eyes, which are apt enough to see clearly in these matters. He was talking to me about it this morning, and pleased me very much by the friendly interest he showed in you and Tina.' The blood--more than was wanted--rushed back to Mr. Gilfil's face; he set his teeth and clenched his hands in the effort to repress a burst of indignation. Sir Christopher noticed the flush, but thought it indicated the fluctuation of hope and fear about Caterina. He went on:--'You're too modest by half, Maynard. A fellow who can take a five-barred gate as you can, ought not to be so faint-hearted. If you can't speak to her yourself, leave me to talk to her.' 'Sir Christopher,' said poor Maynard earnestly, 'I shall really feel it the greatest kindness you can possibly show me not to mention this subject to Caterina at present. I think such a proposal, made prematurely, might only alienate her from me.' Sir Christopher was getting a little displeased at this contradiction. His tone became a little sharper as he said, 'Have you any grounds to state for this opinion, beyond your general notion that Tina is not enough in love with you?' 'I can state none beyond my own very strong impression that she does not love me well enough to marry me.' 'Then I think that ground is worth nothing at all. I am tolerably correct in my judgement of people; and if I am not very much deceived in Tina, she looks forward to nothing else but to your being her husband. Leave me to manage the matter as I think best. You may rely on me that I shall do no harm to your cause, Maynard.' Mr. Gilfil, afraid to say more, yet wretched in the prospect of what might result from Sir Christopher's determination, quitted the library in a state of mingled indignation against Captain Wybrow, and distress for himself and Caterina. What would she think of him? She might suppose that _he_ had instigated or sanctioned Sir Christopher's proceeding. He should perhaps not have an opportunity of speaking to her on the subject in time; he would write her a note, and carry it up to her room after the dressing-bell had rung. No; that would agitate her, and unfit her for appearing at dinner, and passing the evening calmly. He would defer it till bed-time. After prayers, he contrived to lead her back to the drawing-room, and to put a letter in her hand. She carried it up to her own room, wondering, and there read,-- 'Dear Caterina, Do not suspect for a moment that anything Sir Christopher may say to you about our marriage has been prompted by me. I have done all I dare do to dissuade him from urging the subject, and have only been prevented from speaking more strongly by the dread of provoking questions which I could not answer without causing you fresh misery. I write this, both to prepare you for anything Sir Christopher may say, and to assure you--but I hope you already believe it--that your feelings are sacred to me. I would rather part with the dearest hope of my life than be the means of adding to your trouble. 'It is Captain Wybrow who has prompted Sir Christopher to take up the subject at this moment. I tell you this, to save you from hearing it suddenly when you are with Sir Christopher. You see now what sort of stuff that dastard's heart is made of. Trust in me always, dearest Caterina, as--whatever may come--your faithful friend and brother, 'Maynard Gilfil.' Caterina was at first too terribly stung by the words about Captain Wybrow to think of the difficulty which threatened her--to think either of what Sir Christopher would say to her, or of what she could say in reply. Bitter sense of injury, fierce resentment, left no room for fear. With the poisoned garment upon him, the victim writhes under the torture--he has no thought of the coming death. Anthony could do this!--Of this there could be no explanation but the coolest contempt for her feelings, the basest sacrifice of all the consideration and tenderness he owed her to the ease of his position with Miss Assher. No. It was worse than that: it was deliberate, gratuitous cruelty. He wanted to show her how he despised her; he wanted to make her feel her folly in having ever believed that he loved her. The last crystal drops of trust and tenderness, she thought, were dried up; all was parched, fiery hatred. Now she need no longer check her resentment by the fear of doing him an injustice: he _had_ trifled with her, as Maynard had said; he _had_ been reckless of her; and now he was base and cruel. She had cause enough for her bitterness and anger; they were not so wicked as they had seemed to her. As these thoughts were hurrying after each other like so many sharp throbs of fevered pain, she shed no tear. She paced restlessly to and fro, as her habit was--her hands clenched, her eyes gleaming fiercely and wandering uneasily, as if in search of something on which she might throw herself like a tigress. 'If I could speak to him,' she whispered, 'and tell him I hate him, I despise him, I loathe him!' Suddenly, as if a new thought had struck her, she drew a key from her pocket, and, unlocking an inlaid desk where she stored up her keepsakes, took from it a small miniature. It was in a very slight gold frame, with a ring to it, as if intended to be worn on a chain; and under the glass at the back were two locks of hair, one dark and the other auburn, arranged in a fantastic knot. It was Anthony's secret present to her a year ago a copy he had had made specially for her. For the last month she had not taken it from its hiding-place: there was no need to heighten the vividness of the past. But now she clutched it fiercely, and dashed it across the room against the bare hearth-stone. Will she crush it under her feet, and grind it under her high-heeled shoe, till every trace of those false cruel features is gone? Ah, no! She rushed across the room; but when she saw the little treasure she had cherished so fondly, so often smothered with kisses, so often laid under her pillow, and remembered with the first return of consciousness in the morning--when she saw this one visible relic of the too happy past lying with the glass shivered, the hair fallen out, the thin ivory cracked, there was a revulsion of the overstrained feeling: relenting came, and she burst into tears. Look at her stooping down to gather up her treasure, searching for the hair and replacing it, and then mournfully examining the crack that disfigures the once-loved image. Alas! there is no glass now to guard either the hair or the portrait; but see how carefully she wraps delicate paper round it, and locks it up again in its old place. Poor child! God send the relenting may always come before the worst irrevocable deed! This action had quieted her, and she sat down to read Maynard's letter again. She read it two or three times without seeming to take in the sense; her apprehension was dulled by the passion of the last hour, and she found it difficult to call up the ideas suggested by the words. At last she began to have a distinct conception of the impending interview with Sir Christopher. The idea of displeasing the Baronet, of whom every one at the Manor stood in awe, frightened her so much that she thought it would be impossible to resist his wish. He believed that she loved Maynard; he had always spoken as if he were quite sure of it. How could she tell him he was deceived--and what if he were to ask her whether she loved anybody else? To have Sir Christopher looking angrily at her, was more than she could bear, even in imagination. He had always been so good to her! Then she began to think of the pain she might give him, and the more selfish distress of fear gave way to the distress of affection. Unselfish tears began to flow, and sorrowful gratitude to Sir Christopher helped to awaken her sensibility to Mr. Gilfil's tenderness and generosity. 'Dear, good Maynard!--what a poor return I make him! If I could but have loved him instead--but I can never love or care for anything again. My heart is broken.' Chapter 13 The next morning the dreaded moment came. Caterina, stupified by the suffering of the previous night, with that dull mental aching which follows on acute anguish, was in Lady Cheverel's sitting-room, copying out some charity lists, when her ladyship came in, and said,--'Tina, Sir Christopher wants you; go down into the library.' She went down trembling. As soon as she entered, Sir Christopher, who was seated near his writing-table, said, 'Now, little monkey, come and sit down by me; I have something to tell you.' Caterina took a footstool, and seated herself on it at the Baronet's feet. It was her habit to sit on these low stools, and in this way she could hide her face better. She put her little arm round his leg, and leaned her cheek against his knee. 'Why, you seem out of spirits this morning, Tina. What's the matter, eh?' 'Nothing, Padroncello; only my head is bad.' 'Poor monkey! Well, now, wouldn't it do the head good if I were to promise you a good husband, and smart little wedding-gowns, and by-and-by a house of your own, where you would be a little mistress, and Padroncello would come and see you sometimes?' 'O no, no! I shouldn't like ever to be married. Let me always stay with you!' 'Pooh, pooh, little simpleton. I shall get old and tiresome, and there will be Anthony's children putting your nose out of joint. You will want some one to love you best of all, and you must have children of your own to love. I can't have you withering away into an old maid. I hate old maids: they make me dismal to look at them. I never see Sharp without shuddering. My little black-eyed monkey was never meant for anything so ugly. And there's Maynard Gilfil the best man in the county, worth his weight in gold, heavy as he is; he loves you better than his eyes. And you love him too, you silly monkey, whatever you may say about not being married.' 'No, no, dear Padroncello, do not say so; I could not marry him.' 'Why not, you foolish child? You don't know your own mind. Why, it is plain to everybody that you love him. My lady has all along said she was sure you loved him--she has seen what little princess airs you put on to him; and Anthony too, he thinks you are in love with Gilfil. Come, what has made you take it into your head that you wouldn't like to marry him?' Caterina was now sobbing too deeply to make any answer. Sir Christopher patted her on the back and said, 'Come, come; why, Tina, you are not well this morning. Go and rest, little one. You will see things in quite another light when you are well. Think over what I have said, and remember there is nothing, after Anthony's marriage, that I have set my heart on so much as seeing you and Maynard settled for life. I must have no whims and follies--no nonsense.' This was said with a slight severity; but he presently added, in a soothing tone, There, there, stop crying, and be a good little monkey. Go and lie down and get to sleep.' Caterina slipped from the stool on to her knees, took the old Baronet's hand, covered it with tears and kisses, and then ran out of the room. Before the evening, Captain Wybrow had heard from his uncle the result of the interview with Caterina. He thought, 'If I could have a long quiet talk with her, I could perhaps persuade her to look more reasonably at things. But there's no speaking to her in the house without being interrupted, and I can hardly see her anywhere else without Beatrice's finding it out.' At last he determined to make it a matter of confidence with Miss Assher--to tell her that he wished to talk to Caterina quietly for the sake of bringing her to a calmer state of mind, and persuade her to listen to Gilfil's affection. He was very much pleased with this judicious and candid plan, and in the course of the evening he had arranged with himself the time and place of meeting, and had communicated his purpose to Miss Assher, who gave her entire approval. Anthony, she thought, would do well to speak plainly and seriously to Miss Sarti. He was really very patient and kind to her, considering how she behaved. Tina had kept her room all that day, and had been carefully tended as an invalid, Sir Christopher having told her ladyship how matters stood. This tendance was so irksome to Caterina, she felt so uneasy under attentions and kindness that were based on a misconception, that she exerted herself to appear at breakfast the next morning, and declared herself well, though head and heart were throbbing. To be confined in her own room was intolerable; it was wretched enough to be looked at and spoken to, but it was more wretched to be left alone. She was frightened at her own sensations: she was frightened at the imperious vividness with which pictures of the past and future thrust themselves on her imagination. And there was another feeling, too, which made her want to be down-stairs and moving about. Perhaps she might have an opportunity of speaking to Captain Wybrow alone--of speaking those words of hatred and scorn that burned on her tongue. That opportunity offered itself in a very unexpected manner. Lady Cheverel having sent Caterina out of the drawing-room to fetch some patterns of embroidery from her sitting-room, Captain Wybrow presently walked out after her, and met her as she was returning down stairs. 'Caterina,' he said, laying his hand on her arm as she was hurrying on without looking at him, 'will you meet me in the Rookery at twelve o'clock? I must speak to you, and we shall be in privacy there. I cannot speak to you in the house.' To his surprise, there was a flash of pleasure across her face; she answered shortly and decidedly, 'Yes', then snatched her arm away from him, and passed down stairs. Miss Assher was this morning busy winding silks, being bent on emulating Lady Cheverel's embroidery, and Lady Assher chose the passive amusement of holding the skeins. Lady Cheverel had now all her working apparatus about her, and Caterina, thinking she was not wanted, went away and sat down to the harpsichord in the sitting-room. It seemed as if playing massive chords--bringing out volumes of sound, would be the easiest way of passing the long feverish moments before twelve o'clock. Handel's Messiah stood open on the desk, at the chorus 'All we like sheep', and Caterina threw herself at once into the impetuous intricacies of that magnificent fugue. In her happiest moments she could never have played it so well: for now all the passion that made her misery was hurled by a convulsive effort into her music, just as pain gives new force to the clutch of the sinking wrestler, and as terror gives farsounding intensity to the shriek of the feeble. But at half-past eleven she was interrupted by Lady Cheverel, who said, 'Tina, go down, will you, and hold Miss Assher's silks for her. Lady Assher and I have decided on having our drive before luncheon.' Caterina went down, wondering how she should escape from the drawing-room in time to be in the Rookery at twelve. Nothing should prevent her from going; nothing should rob her of this one precious moment--perhaps the last--when she could speak out the thoughts that were in her. After that, she would be passive; she would bear anything. But she had scarcely sat down with a skein of yellow silk on her hands, when Miss Assher said, graciously,--'I know you have an engagement with Captain Wybrow this morning. You must not let me detain you beyond the time.' 'So he has been talking to her about me,' thought Caterina. Her hands began to tremble as she held the skein. Miss Assher continued in the same gracious tone: 'It is tedious work holding these skeins. I am sure I am very much obliged to you.' 'No, you are not obliged to me,' said Caterina, completely mastered by her irritation; 'I have only done it because Lady Cheverel told me.' The moment was come when Miss Assher could no longer suppress her long latent desire to 'let Miss Sarti know the impropriety of her conduct.' With the malicious anger that assumes the tone of compassion, she said, --'Miss Sarti, I am really sorry for you, that you are not able to control yourself better. This giving way to unwarrantable feelings is lowering you--it is indeed.' 'What unwarrantable feelings?' said Caterina, letting her hands fall, and fixing her great dark eyes steadily on Miss Assher. 'It is quite unnecessary for me to say more. You must be conscious what I mean. Only summon a sense of duty to your aid. You are paining Captain Wybrow extremely by your want of self-control.' 'Did he tell you I pained him?' 'Yes, indeed, he did. He is very much hurt that you should behave to me as if you had a sort of enmity towards me. He would like you to make a friend of me. I assure you we both feel very kindly towards you, and are sorry you should cherish such feelings.' 'He is very good,' said Caterina, bitterly. 'What feelings did he say I cherished?' This bitter tone increased Miss Assher's irritation. There was still a lurking suspicion in her mind, though she would not admit it to herself, that Captain Wybrow had told her a falsehood about his conduct and feelings towards Caterina. It was this suspicion, more even than the anger of the moment, which urged her to say something that would test the truth of his statement. That she would be humiliating Caterina at the same time, was only an additional temptation. 'These are things I do not like to talk of, Miss Sarti. I cannot even understand how a woman can indulge a passion for a man who has never given her the least ground for it, as Captain Wybrow assures me is the case.' 'He told you that, did he?' said Caterina, in clear low tones, her lips turning white as she rose from her chair. 'Yes, indeed, he did. He was bound to tell it me after your strange behaviour.' Caterina said nothing, but turned round suddenly and left the room. See how she rushes noiselessly, like a pale meteor, along the passages and up the gallery stairs! Those gleaming eyes, those bloodless lips, that swift silent tread, make her look like the incarnation of a fierce purpose, rather than a woman. The mid-day sun is shining on the armour in the gallery, making mimic suns on bossed sword-hilts and the angles of polished breast-plates. Yes, there are sharp weapons in the gallery. There is a dagger in that cabinet; she knows it well. And as a dragon-fly wheels in its flight to alight for an instant on a leaf, she darts to the cabinet, takes out the dagger, and thrusts it into her pocket. In three minutes more she is out, in hat and cloak, on the gravel-walk, hurrying along towards the thick shades of the distant Rookery. She threads the windings of the plantations, not feeling the golden leaves that rain upon her, not feeling the earth beneath her feet. Her hand is in her pocket, clenching the handle of the dagger, which she holds half out of its sheath. She has reached the Rookery, and is under the gloom of the interlacing boughs. Her heart throbs as if it would burst her bosom--as if every next leap must be its last. Wait, wait, O heart!--till she has done this one deed. He will be there--he will be before her in a moment. He will come towards her with that false smile, thinking she does not know his baseness--she will plunge that dagger into his heart. Poor child! poor child! she who used to cry to have the fish put back into the water--who never willingly killed the smallest living thing--dreams now, in the madness of her passion, that she can kill the man whose very voice unnerves her. But what is that lying among the dank leaves on the path three yards before her? Good God! it is he--lying motionless--his hat fallen off. He is ill, then--he has fainted. Her hand lets go the dagger, and she rushes towards him. His eyes are fixed; he does not see her. She sinks down on her knees, takes the dear head in her arms, and kisses the cold forehead. 'Anthony, Anthony! speak to me--it is Tina--speak to me! O God, he is dead!' Chapter 14 'Yes, Maynard,' said Sir Christopher, chatting with Mr. Gilfil in the library, 'it really is a remarkable thing that I never in my life laid a plan, and failed to carry it out. I lay my plans well, and I never swerve from them--that's it. A strong will is the only magic. And next to striking out one's plans, the pleasantest thing in the world is to see them well accomplished. This year, now, will be the happiest of my life, all but the year '53, when I came into possession of the Manor, and married Henrietta. The last touch is given to the old house; Anthony's marriage--the thing I had nearest my heart--is settled to my entire satisfaction; and by-and-by you will be buying a little wedding-ring for Tina's finger. Don't shake your head in that forlorn way;--when I make prophecies they generally come to pass. But there's a quarter after twelve striking. I must be riding to the High Ash to meet Markham about felling some timber. My old oaks will have to groan for this wedding, but'-- The door burst open, and Caterina, ghastly and panting, her eyes distended with terror, rushed in, threw her arms round Sir Christopher's neck, and gasping out--'Anthony ... the Rookery ... dead ... in the Rookery', fell fainting on the floor. In a moment Sir Christopher was out of the room, and Mr. Gilfil was bending to raise Caterina in his arms. As he lifted her from the ground he felt something hard and heavy in her pocket. What could it be? The weight of it would be enough to hurt her as she lay. He carried her to the sofa, put his hand in her pocket, and drew forth the dagger. Maynard shuddered. Did she mean to kill herself, then, or ... or ... a horrible suspicion forced itself upon him. 'Dead--in the Rookery.' He hated himself for the thought that prompted him to draw the dagger from its sheath. No! there was no trace of blood, and he was ready to kiss the good steel for its innocence. He thrust the weapon into his own pocket; he would restore it as soon as possible to its well-known place in the gallery. Yet, why had Caterina taken this dagger? What was it that had happened in the Rookery? Was it only a delirious vision of hers? He was afraid to ring--afraid to summon any one to Caterina's assistance. What might she not say when she awoke from this fainting fit? She might be raving. He could not leave her, and yet he felt as if he were guilty for not following Sir Christopher to see what was the truth. It took but a moment to think and feel all this, but that moment seemed such a long agony to him that he began to reproach himself for letting it pass without seeking some means of reviving Caterina. Happily the decanter of water on Sir Christopher's table was untouched. He would at least try the effect of throwing that water over her. She might revive without his needing to call any one else. Meanwhile Sir Christopher was hurrying at his utmost speed towards the Rookery; his face, so lately bright and confident, now agitated by a vague dread. The deep alarmed bark of Rupert, who ran by his side, had struck the ear of Mr. Bates, then on his way homeward, as something unwonted, and, hastening in the direction of the sound, he met the Baronet just as he was approaching the entrance of the Rookery. Sir Christopher's look was enough. Mr. Bates said nothing, but hurried along by his side, while Rupert dashed forward among the dead leaves with his nose to the ground. They had scarcely lost sight of him a minute when a change in the tone of his bark told them that he had found something, and in another instant he was leaping back over one of the large planted mounds. They turned aside to ascend the mound, Rupert leading them; the tumultuous cawing of the rooks, the very rustling of the leaves, as their feet plunged among them, falling like an evil omen on the Baronet's ear. They had reached the summit of the mound, and had begun to descend. Sir Christopher saw something purple down on the path below among the yellow leaves. Rupert was already beside it, but Sir Christopher could not move faster. A tremor had taken hold of the firm limbs. Rupert came back and licked the trembling hand, as if to say 'Courage!' and then was down again snuffing the body. Yes, it was a body ... Anthony's body. There was the white hand with its diamond-ring clutching the dark leaves. His eyes were half open, but did not heed the gleam of sunlight that darted itself directly on them from between the boughs. Still he might only have fainted; it might only be a fit. Sir Christopher knelt down, unfastened the cravat, unfastened the waistcoat, and laid his hand on the heart. It might be syncope; it might not--it could not be death. No! that thought must be kept far off. 'Go, Bates, get help; we'll carry him to your cottage. Send some one to the house to tell Mr. Gilfil and Warren. Bid them send off for Doctor Hart, and break it to my lady and Miss Assher that Anthony is ill.' Mr. Bates hastened away, and the Baronet was left alone kneeling beside the body. The young and supple limbs, the rounded cheeks, the delicate ripe lips, the smooth white hands, were lying cold and rigid; and the aged face was bending over them in silent anguish; the aged deep-veined hands were seeking with tremulous inquiring touches for some symptom that life was not irrevocably gone. Rupert was there too, waiting and watching; licking first the dead and then the living hands; then running off on Mr. Bates's track as if he would follow and hasten his return, but in a moment turning back again, unable to quit the scene of his master's sorrow. Chapter 15 It is a wonderful moment, the first time we stand by one who has fainted, and witness the fresh birth of consciousness spreading itself over the blank features, like the rising sunlight on the alpine summits that lay ghastly and dead under the leaden twilight. A slight shudder, and the frost-bound eyes recover their liquid light; for an instant they show the inward semi-consciousness of an infant's; then, with a little start, they open wider and begin to look; the present is visible, but only as a strange writing, and the interpreter Memory is not yet there. Mr. Gilfil felt a trembling joy as this change passed over Caterina's face. He bent over her, rubbing her chill hands, and looking at her with tender pity as her dark eyes opened on him wonderingly. He thought there might be some wine in the dining-room close by. He left the room, and Caterina's eyes turned towards the window--towards Sir Christopher's chair. There was the link at which the chain of consciousness had snapped, and the events of the morning were beginning to recur dimly like a half-remembered dream, when Maynard returned with some wine. He raised her, and she drank it; but still she was silent, seeming lost in the attempt to recover the past, when the door opened, and Mr. Warren appeared with looks that announced terrible tidings. Mr. Gilfil, dreading lest he should tell them in Caterina's presence, hurried towards him with his finger on his lips, and drew him away into the dining-room on the opposite side of the passage. Caterina, revived by the stimulant, was now recovering the full consciousness of the scene in the Rookery. Anthony was lying there dead; she had left him to tell Sir Christopher; she must go and see what they were doing with him; perhaps he was not really dead--only in a trance; people did fall into trances sometimes. While Mr. Gilfil was telling Warren how it would be best to break the news to Lady Cheverel and Miss Assher, anxious himself to return to Caterina, the poor child had made her way feebly to the great entrance-door, which stood open. Her strength increased as she moved and breathed the fresh air, and with every increase of strength came increased vividness of emotion, increased yearning to be where her thought was--in the Rookery with Anthony. She walked more and more swiftly, and at last, gathering the artificial strength of passionate excitement, began to run. But now she heard the tread of heavy steps, and under the yellow shade near the wooden bridge she saw men slowly carrying something. Soon she was face to face with them. Anthony was no longer in the Rookery: they were carrying him stretched on a door, and there behind him was Sir Christopher, with the firmly-set mouth, the deathly paleness, and the concentrated expression of suffering in the eye, which mark the suppressed grief of the strong man. The sight of this face, on which Caterina had never before beheld the signs of anguish, caused a rush of new feeling which for the moment submerged all the rest. She went gently up to him, put her little hand in his, and walked in silence by his side. Sir Christopher could not tell her to leave him, and so she went on with that sad procession to Mr. Bates's cottage in the Mosslands, and sat there in silence, waiting and watching to know if Anthony were really dead. She had not yet missed the dagger from her pocket; she had not yet even thought of it. At the sight of Anthony lying dead, her nature had rebounded from its new bias of resentment and hatred to the old sweet habit of love. The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us; and the only past that linked itself with those glazed unconscious eyes, was the past when they beamed on her with tenderness. She forgot the interval of wrong and jealousy and hatred--all his cruelty, and all her thoughts of revenge--as the exile forgets the stormy passage that lay between home and happiness and the dreary land in which he finds himself desolate. Chapter 16 Before night all hope was gone. Dr Hart had said it was death; Anthony's body had been carried to the house, and every one there knew the calamity that had fallen on them. Caterina had been questioned by Dr Hart, and had answered briefly that she found Anthony lying in the Rookery. That she should have been walking there just at that time was not a coincidence to raise conjectures in any one besides Mr. Gilfil. Except in answering this question, she had not broken her silence. She sat mute in a corner of the gardener's kitchen shaking her head when Maynard entreated her to return with him, and apparently unable to think of anything but the possibility that Anthony might revive, until she saw them carrying away the body to the house. Then she followed by Sir Christopher's side again, so quietly, that even Dr Hart did not object to her presence. It was decided to lay the body in the library until after the coroner's inquest to-morrow; and when Caterina saw the door finally closed, she turned up the gallery stairs on her way to her own room, the place where she felt at home with her sorrows. It was the first time she had been in the gallery since that terrible moment in the morning, and now the spot and the objects around began to reawaken her half-stunned memory. The armour was no longer glittering in the sunlight, but there it hung dead and sombre above the cabinet from which she had taken the dagger. Yes! now it all came back to her--all the wretchedness and all the sin. But where was the dagger now? She felt in her pocket; it was not there. Could it have been her fancy--all that about the dagger? She looked in the cabinet; it was not there. Alas! no; it could not have been her fancy, and she _was_ guilty of that wickedness. But where could the dagger be now? Could it have fallen out of her pocket? She heard steps ascending the stairs, and hurried on to her room, where, kneeling by the bed, and burying her face to shut out the hateful light, she tried to recall every feeling and incident of the morning. It all came back; everything Anthony had done, and everything she had felt for the last month--for many months--ever since that June evening when he had last spoken to her in the gallery. She looked back on her storms of passion, her jealousy and hatred of Miss Assher, her thoughts of revenge on Anthony. O how wicked she had been! It was she who had been sinning; it was she who had driven him to do and say those things that had made her so angry. And if he had wronged her, what had she been on the verge of doing to him? She was too wicked ever to be pardoned. She would like to confess how wicked she had been, that they might punish her; she would like to humble herself to the dust before every one--before Miss Assher even. Sir Christopher would send her away--would never see her again, if he knew all; and she would be happier to be punished and frowned on, than to be treated tenderly while she had that guilty secret in her breast. But then, if Sir Christopher were to know all, it would add to his sorrow, and make him more wretched than ever. No! she could not confess it--she should have to tell about Anthony. But she could not stay at the Manor; she must go away; she could not bear Sir Christopher's eye, could not bear the sight of all these things that reminded her of Anthony and of her sin. Perhaps she should die soon: she felt very feeble; there could not be much life in her. She would go away and live humbly, and pray to God to pardon her, and let her die. The poor child never thought of suicide. No sooner was the storm of anger passed than the tenderness and timidity of her nature returned, and she could do nothing but love and mourn. Her inexperience prevented her from imagining the consequences of her disappearance from the Manor; she foresaw none of the terrible details of alarm and distress and search that must ensue. 'They will think I am dead,' she said to herself, 'and by-and-by they will forget me, and Maynard will get happy again, and love some one else.' She was roused from her absorption by a knock at the door. Mrs. Bellamy was there. She had come by Mr. Gilfil's request to see how Miss Sarti was, and to bring her some food and wine. 'You look sadly, my dear,' said the old housekeeper, 'an' you're all of a quake wi' cold. Get you to bed, now do. Martha shall come an' warm it, an' light your fire. See now, here's some nice arrowroot, wi' a drop o' wine in it. Take that, an' it'll warm you. I must go down again, for I can't awhile to stay. There's so many things to see to; an' Miss Assher's in hysterics constant, an' her maid's ill i' bed--a poor creachy thing--an' Mrs. Sharp's wanted every minute. But I'll send Martha up, an' do you get ready to go to bed, there's a dear child, an' take care o' yourself.' 'Thank you, dear mammy,' said Tina, kissing the little old woman's wrinkled cheek; 'I shall eat the arrowroot, and don't trouble about me any more to-night. I shall do very well when Martha has lighted my fire. Tell Mr. Gilfil I'm better. I shall go to bed by-and-by, so don't you come up again, because you may only disturb me.' 'Well, well, take care o' yourself, there's a good child, an' God send you may sleep.' Caterina took the arrowroot quite eagerly, while Martha was lighting her fire. She wanted to get strength for her journey, and she kept the plate of biscuits by her that she might put some in her pocket. Her whole mind was now bent on going away from the Manor, and she was thinking of all the ways and means her little life's experience could suggest. It was dusk now; she must wait till early dawn, for she was too timid to go away in the dark, but she must make her escape before any one was up in the house. There would be people watching Anthony in the library, but she could make her way out of a small door leading into the garden, against the drawing-room on the other side of the house. She laid her cloak, bonnet, and veil ready; then she lighted a candle, opened her desk, and took out the broken portrait wrapped in paper. She folded it again in two little notes of Anthony's, written in pencil, and placed it in her bosom. There was the little china box, too--Dorcas's present, the pearl ear-rings, and a silk purse, with fifteen seven-shilling pieces in it, the presents Sir Christopher had made her on her birthday, ever since she had been at the Manor. Should she take the earrings and the seven-shilling pieces? She could not bear to part with them; it seemed as if they had some of Sir Christopher's love in them. She would like them to be buried with her. She fastened the little round earrings in her ears, and put the purse with Dorcas's box in her pocket. She had another purse there, and she took it out to count her money, for she would never spend her seven-shilling pieces. She had a guinea and eight shillings; that would be plenty. So now she sat down to wait for the morning, afraid to lay herself on the bed lest she should sleep too long. If she could but see Anthony once more and kiss his cold forehead! But that could not be. She did not deserve it. She must go away from him, away from Sir Christopher, and Lady Cheverel, and Maynard, and everybody who had been kind to her, and thought her good while she was so wicked. Chapter 17 Some of Mrs. Sharp's earliest thoughts, the next morning, were given to Caterina whom she had not been able to visit the evening before, and whom, from a nearly equal mixture of affection and self-importance, she did not at all like resigning to Mrs. Bellamy's care. At half-past eight o'clock she went up to Tina's room, bent on benevolent dictation as to doses and diet and lying in bed. But on opening the door she found the bed smooth and empty. Evidently it had not been slept in. What could this mean? Had she sat up all night, and was she gone out to walk? The poor thing's head might be touched by what had happened yesterday; it was such a shock--finding Captain Wybrow in that way; she was perhaps gone out of her mind. Mrs. Sharp looked anxiously in the place where Tina kept her hat and cloak; they were not there, so that she had had at least the presence of mind to put them on. Still the good woman felt greatly alarmed, and hastened away to tell Mr. Gilfil, who, she knew, was in his study. 'Mr. Gilfil,' she said, as soon as she had closed the door behind her, 'my mind misgives me dreadful about Miss Sarti.' 'What is it?' said poor Maynard, with a horrible fear that Caterina had betrayed something about the dagger. 'She's not in her room, an' her bed's not been slept in this night, an' her hat an' cloak's gone.' For a minute or two Mr. Gilfil was unable to speak. He felt sure the worst had come: Caterina had destroyed herself. The strong man suddenly looked so ill and helpless that Mrs. Sharp began to be frightened at the effect of her abruptness. 'O, sir, I'm grieved to my heart to shock you so; but I didn't know who else to go to.' 'No, no, you were quite right.' He gathered some strength from his very despair. It was all over, and he had nothing now to do but to suffer and to help the suffering. He went on in a firmer voice--'Be sure not to breathe a word about it to any one. We must not alarm Lady Cheverel and Sir Christopher. Miss Sarti may be only walking in the garden. She was terribly excited by what she saw yesterday, and perhaps was unable to lie down from restlessness. Just go quietly through the empty rooms, and see whether she is in the house. I will go and look for her in the grounds.' He went down, and, to avoid giving any alarm in the house, walked at once towards the Mosslands in search of Mr. Bates, whom he met returning from his breakfast. To the gardener he confided his fear about Caterina, assigning as a reason for this fear the probability that the shock she had undergone yesterday had unhinged her mind, and begging him to send men in search of her through the gardens and park, and inquire if she had been seen at the lodges; and if she were not found or heard of in this way, to lose no time in dragging the waters round the Manor. 'God forbid it should be so, Bates, but we shall be the easier for having searched everywhere.' 'Troost to mae, troost to mae, Mr. Gilfil. Eh! but I'd ha' worked for day-wage all the rest o' my life, rether than anythin' should ha' happened to her.' The good gardener, in deep distress, strode away to the stables that he might send the grooms on horseback through the park. Mr. Gilfil's next thought was to search the Rookery: she might be haunting the scene of Captain Wybrow's death. He went hastily over every mound, looked round every large tree, and followed every winding of the walks. In reality he had little hope of finding her there; but the bare possibility fenced off for a time the fatal conviction that Caterina's body would be found in the water. When the Rookery had been searched in vain, he walked fast to the border of the little stream that bounded one side of the grounds. The stream was almost everywhere hidden among trees, and there was one place where it was broader and deeper than elsewhere--she would be more likely to come to that spot than to the pool. He hurried along with strained eyes, his imagination continually creating what he dreaded to see. There is something white behind that overhanging bough. His knees tremble under him. He seems to see part of her dress caught on a branch, and her dear dead face upturned. O God, give strength to thy creature, on whom thou hast laid this great agony! He is nearly up to the bough, and the white object is moving. It is a waterfowl, that spreads its wings and flies away screaming. He hardly knows whether it is a relief or a disappointment that she is not there. The conviction that she is dead presses its cold weight upon him none the less heavily. As he reached the great pool in front of the Manor, he saw Mr. Bates, with a group of men already there, preparing for the dreadful search which could only displace his vague despair by a definite horror; for the gardener, in his restless anxiety, had been unable to defer this until other means of search had proved vain. The pool was not now laughing with sparkles among the water-lilies. It looked black and cruel under the sombre sky, as if its cold depths held relentlessly all the murdered hope and joy of Maynard Gilfil's life. Thoughts of the sad consequences for others as well as himself were crowding on his mind. The blinds and shutters were all closed in front of the Manor, and it was not likely that Sir Christopher would be aware of anything that was passing outside; but Mr. Gilfil felt that Caterina's disappearance could not long be concealed from him. The coroner's inquest would be held shortly; she would be inquired for, and then it would be inevitable that the Baronet should know all. Chapter 18 At twelve o'clock, when all search and inquiry had been in vain, and the coroner was expected every moment, Mr. Gilfil could no longer defer the hard duty of revealing this fresh calamity to Sir Christopher, who must otherwise have it discovered to him abruptly. The Baronet was seated in his dressing-room, where the dark window-curtains were drawn so as to admit only a sombre light. It was the first time Mr. Gilfil had had an interview with him this morning, and he was struck to see how a single day and night of grief had aged the fine old man. The lines in his brow and about his mouth were deepened; his complexion looked dull and withered; there was a swollen ridge under his eyes; and the eyes themselves, which used to cast so keen a glance on the present, had the vacant expression which tells that vision is no longer a sense, but a memory. He held out his hand to Maynard, who pressed it, and sat down beside him in silence. Sir Christopher's heart began to swell at this unspoken sympathy; the tears would rise, would roll in great drops down his cheeks. The first tears he had shed since boyhood were for Anthony. Maynard felt as if his tongue were glued to the roof of his mouth. He could not speak first: he must wait until Sir Christopher said something which might lead on to the cruel words that must be spoken. At last the Baronet mastered himself enough to say, 'I'm very weak, Maynard--God help me! I didn't think anything would unman me in this way; but I'd built everything on that lad. Perhaps I've been wrong in not forgiving my sister. She lost one of _her_ sons a little while ago. I've been too proud and obstinate.' 'We can hardly learn humility and tenderness enough except by suffering,' said Maynard; 'and God sees we are in need of suffering, for it is falling more and more heavily on us. We have a new trouble this morning.' 'Tina?' said Sir Christopher, looking up anxiously--'is Tina ill?' 'I am in dreadful uncertainty about her. She was very much agitated yesterday--and with her delicate health--I am afraid to think what turn the agitation may have taken.' 'Is she delirious, poor dear little one?' 'God only knows how she is. We are unable to find her. When Mrs. Sharp went up to her room this morning, it was empty. She had not been in bed. Her hat and cloak were gone. I have had search made for her everywhere--in the house and garden, in the park, and--in the water. No one has seen her since Martha went up to light her fire at seven o'clock in the evening.' While Mr. Gilfil was speaking, Sir Christopher's eyes, which were eagerly turned on him, recovered some of their old keenness, and some sudden painful emotion, as at a new thought, flitted rapidly across his already agitated face, like the shadow of a dark cloud over the waves. When the pause came, he laid his hand on Mr. Gilfil's arm, and said in a lower voice,--'Maynard, did that poor thing love Anthony?' 'She did.' Maynard hesitated after these words, struggling between his reluctance to inflict a yet deeper wound on Sir Christopher, and his determination that no injustice should be done to Caterina. Sir Christopher's eyes were still fixed on him in solemn inquiry, and his own sunk towards the ground, while he tried to find the words that would tell the truth least cruelly. 'You must not have any wrong thoughts about Tina,' he said at length. 'I must tell you now, for her sake, what nothing but this should ever have caused to pass my lips. Captain Wybrow won her affections by attentions which, in his position, he was bound not to show her. Before his marriage was talked of, he had behaved to her like a lover.' Sir Christopher relaxed his hold of Maynard's arm, and looked away from him. He was silent for some minutes, evidently attempting to master himself, so as to be able to speak calmly. 'I must see Henrietta immediately,' he said at last, with something of his old sharp decision; 'she must know all; but we must keep it from every one else as far as possible. My dear boy,' he continued in a kinder tone, 'the heaviest burthen has fallen on you. But we may find her yet; we must not despair: there has not been time enough for us to be certain. Poor dear little one! God help me! I thought I saw everything, and was stone-blind all the while.' Chapter 19 The sad slow week was gone by at last. At the coroner's inquest a verdict of sudden death had been pronounced. Dr Hart, acquainted with Captain Wybrow's previous state of health, had given his opinion that death had been imminent from long-established disease of the heart, though it had probably been accelerated by some unusual emotion. Miss Assher was the only person who positively knew the motive that had led Captain Wybrow to the Rookery; but she had not mentioned Caterina's name, and all painful details or inquiries were studiously kept from her. Mr. Gilfil and Sir Christopher, however, knew enough to conjecture that the fatal agitation was due to an appointed meeting with Caterina. All search and inquiry after her had been fruitless, and were the more likely to be so because they were carried on under the prepossession that she had committed suicide. No one noticed the absence of the trifles she had taken from her desk; no one knew of the likeness, or that she had hoarded her seven-shilling pieces, and it was not remarkable that she should have happened to be wearing the pearl earrings. She had left the house, they thought, taking nothing with her; it seemed impossible she could have gone far; and she must have been in a state of mental excitement, that made it too probable she had only gone to seek relief in death. The same places within three or four miles of the Manor were searched again and again--every pond, every ditch in the neighbourhood was examined. Sometimes Maynard thought that death might have come on unsought, from cold and exhaustion; and not a day passed but he wandered through the neighbouring woods, turning up the heaps of dead leaves, as if it were possible her dear body could be hidden there. Then another horrible thought recurred, and before each night came he had been again through all the uninhabited rooms of the house, to satisfy himself once more that she was not hidden behind some cabinet, or door, or curtain--that he should not find her there with madness in her eyes, looking and looking, and yet not seeing him. But at last those five long days and nights were at an end, the funeral was over, and the carriages were returning through the park. When they had set out, a heavy rain was falling; but now the clouds were breaking up, and a gleam of sunshine was sparkling among the dripping boughs under which they were passing. This gleam fell upon a man on horseback who was jogging slowly along, and whom Mr. Gilfil recognized, in spite of diminished rotundity, as Daniel Knott, the coachman who had married the rosy-cheeked Dorcas ten years before. Every new incident suggested the same thought to Mr. Gilfil; and his eye no sooner fell on Knott than he said to himself 'Can he be come to tell us anything about Caterina?' Then he remembered that Caterina had been very fond of Dorcas, and that she always had some present ready to send her when Knott paid an occasional visit to the Manor. Could Tina have gone to Dorcas? But his heart sank again as he thought, very likely Knott had only come because he had heard of Captain Wybrow's death, and wanted to know how his old master had borne the blow. As soon as the carriage reached the house, he went up to his study and walked about nervously, longing, but afraid, to go down and speak to Knott, lest his faint hope should be dissipated. Any one looking at that face, usually so full of calm goodwill, would have seen that the last week's suffering had left deep traces. By day he had been riding or wandering incessantly, either searching for Caterina himself, or directing inquiries to be made by others. By night he had not known sleep--only intermittent dozing, in which he seemed to be finding Caterina dead, and woke up with a start from this unreal agony to the real anguish of believing that he should see her no more. The clear grey eyes looked sunken and restless, the full careless lips had a strange tension about them, and the brow, formerly so smooth and open, was contracted as if with pain. He had not lost the object of a few months' passion; he had lost the being who was bound up with his power of loving, as the brook we played by or the flowers we gathered in childhood are bound up with our sense of beauty. Love meant nothing for him but to love Caterina. For years, the thought of her had been present in everything, like the air and the light; and now she was gone, it seemed as if all pleasure had lost its vehicle: the sky, the earth, the daily ride, the daily talk might be there, but the loveliness and the joy that were in them had gone for ever. Presently, as he still paced backwards and forwards, he heard steps along the corridor, and there was a knock at his door. His voice trembled as he said 'Come in', and the rush of renewed hope was hardly distinguishable from pain when he saw Warren enter with Daniel Knott behind him. 'Knott is come, sir, with news of Miss Sarti. I thought it best to bring him to you first.' Mr. Gilfil could not help going up to the old coachman and wringing his hand; but he was unable to speak, and only motioned to him to take a chair, while Warren left the room. He hung upon Daniel's moon-face, and listened to his small piping voice, with the same solemn yearning expectation with which he would have given ear to the most awful messenger from the land of shades. 'It war Dorkis, sir, would hev me come; but we knowed nothin' o' what's happened at the Manor. She's frightened out on her wits about Miss Sarti, an' she would hev me saddle Blackbird this mornin', an' leave the ploughin', to come an' let Sir Christifer an' my lady know. P'raps you've heared, sir, we don't keep the Cross Keys at Sloppeter now; a uncle o' mine died three 'ear ago, an' left me a leggicy. He was bailiff to Squire Ramble, as hed them there big farms on his hans; an' so we took a little farm o' forty acres or thereabouts, becos Dorkis didn't like the public when she got moithered wi' children. As pritty a place as iver you see, sir, wi' water at the back convenent for the cattle.' 'For God's sake,' said Maynard, 'tell me what it is about Miss Sarti. Don't stay to tell me anything else now.' 'Well, sir,' said Knott, rather frightened by the parson's vehemence, 'she come t' our house i' the carrier's cart o' Wednesday, when it was welly nine o'clock at night; and Dorkis run out, for she heared the cart stop, an' Miss Sarti throwed her arms roun' Dorkis's neck an' says, "Tek me in, Dorkis, tek me in," an' went off into a swoond, like. An' Dorkis calls out to me,--"Dannel," she calls--an' I run out and carried the young miss in, an' she come roun' arter a hit, an' opened her eyes, and Dorkis got her to drink a spoonful o' rum-an'-water--we've got some capital rum as we brought from the Cross Keys, and Dorkis won't let nobody drink it. She says she keeps it for sickness; but for my part, I think it's a pity to drink good rum when your mouth's out o' taste; you may just as well hev doctor's stuff. However, Dorkis got her to bed, an' there she's lay iver sin', stoopid like, an' niver speaks, an' on'y teks little bits an' sups when Dorkis coaxes her. An' we begun to be frightened, and couldn't think what had made her come away from the Manor, and Dorkis was afeared there was summat wrong. So this mornin' she could hold no longer, an' would hev no nay but I must come an' see; an' so I've rode twenty mile upo' Blackbird, as thinks all the while he's a-ploughin', an' turns sharp roun', every thirty yards, as if he was at the end of a furrow. I've hed a sore time wi' him, I can tell you, sir.' 'God bless you, Knott, for coming!' said Mr. Gilfil, wringing the old coachman's hand again. 'Now go down and have something and rest yourself. You will stay here to-night, and by-and-by I shall come to you to learn the nearest way to your house. I shall get ready to ride there immediately, when I have spoken to Sir Christopher.' In an hour from that time Mr. Gilfil was galloping on a stout mare towards the little muddy village of Callam, five miles beyond Sloppeter. Once more he saw some gladness in the afternoon sunlight; once more it was a pleasure to see the hedgerow trees flying past him, and to be conscious of a 'good seat' while his black Kitty bounded beneath him, and the air whistled to the rhythm of her pace. Caterina was not dead; he had found her; his love and tenderness and long-suffering seemed so strong, they must recall her to life and happiness. After that week of despair, the rebound was so violent that it carried his hopes at once as far as the utmost mark they had ever reached. Caterina would come to love him at last; she would be his. They had been carried through all that dark and weary way that she might know the depth of his love. How he would cherish her--his little bird with the timid bright eye, and the sweet throat that trembled with love and music! She would nestle against him, and the poor little breast which had been so ruffled and bruised should be safe for evermore. In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee. It was twilight as he entered the village of Callam, and, asking a homeward-bound labourer the way to Daniel Knott's, learned that it was by the church, which showed its stumpy ivy-clad spire on a slight elevation of ground; a useful addition to the means of identifying that desirable homestead afforded by Daniel's description--'the prittiest place iver you see'--though a small cow-yard full of excellent manure, and leading right up to the door, without any frivolous interruption from garden or railing, might perhaps have been enough to make that description unmistakably specific. Mr. Gilfil had no sooner reached the gate leading into the cow-yard, than he was descried by a flaxen-haired lad of nine, prematurely invested with the _toga virilis_, or smock-frock, who ran forward to let in the unusual visitor. In a moment Dorcas was at the door, the roses on her cheeks apparently all the redder for the three pair of cheeks which formed a group round her, and for the very fat baby who stared in her arms, and sucked a long crust with calm relish. 'Is it Mr. Gilfil, sir?' said Dorcas, curtsying low as he made his way through the damp straw, after tying up his horse. 'Yes, Dorcas; I'm grown out of your knowledge. How is Miss Sarti?' 'Just for all the world the same, sir, as I suppose Dannel's told you; for I reckon you've come from the Manor, though you're come uncommon quick, to be sure.' 'Yes, he got to the Manor about one o'clock, and I set off as soon as I could. She's not worse, is she?' 'No change, sir, for better or wuss. Will you please to walk in, sir? She lies there takin' no notice o' nothin', no more nor a baby as is on'y a week old, an' looks at me as blank as if she didn't know me. O what can it be, Mr. Gilfil? How come she to leave the Manor? How's his honour an' my lady?' 'In great trouble, Dorcas. Captain Wybrow, Sir Christopher's nephew, you know, has died suddenly. Miss Sarti found him lying dead, and I think the shock has affected her mind.' 'Eh, dear! that fine young gentlemen as was to be th' heir, as Dannel told me about. I remember seein' him when he was a little un, a-visitin' at the Manor. Well-a-day, what a grief to his honour and my lady. But that poor Miss Tina--an' she found him a-lyin' dead? O dear, O dear!' Dorcas had led the way into the best kitchen, as charming a room as best kitchens used to be in farmhouses which had no parlours--the fire reflected in a bright row of pewter plates and dishes; the sand-scoured deal tables so clean you longed to stroke them; the salt-coffer in one chimney-corner, and a three-cornered chair in the other, the walls behind handsomely tapestried with flitches of bacon, and the ceiling ornamented with pendent hams. 'Sit ye down, sir--do,' said Dorcas, moving the three-cornered chair, 'an' let me get you somethin' after your long journey. Here, Becky, come an' tek the baby.' Becky, a red-armed damsel, emerged from the adjoining back-kitchen, and possessed herself of baby, whose feelings or fat made him conveniently apathetic under the transference. 'What'll you please to tek, sir, as I can give you? I'll get you a rasher o' bacon i' no time, an' I've got some tea, or be-like you'd tek a glass o' rum-an'-water. I know we've got nothin' as you're used t' eat and drink; but such as I hev, sir, I shall be proud to give you.' 'Thank you, Dorcas; I can't eat or drink anything. I'm not hungry or tired. Let us talk about Tina. Has she spoken at all?' 'Niver since the fust words. "Dear Dorkis," says she, "tek me in;" an' then went off into a faint, an' not a word has she spoken since. I get her t' eat little bits an' sups o' things, but she teks no notice o' nothin'. I've took up Bessie wi' me now an' then'--here Dorcas lifted to her lap a curly-headed little girl of three, who was twisting a corner of her mother's apron, and opening round eyes at the gentleman--'folks'll tek notice o' children sometimes when they won't o' nothin' else. An' we gathered the autumn crocuses out o' th' orchard, and Bessie carried 'em up in her hand, an' put 'em on the bed. I knowed how fond Miss Tina was o' flowers an' them things, when she was a little un. But she looked at Bessie an' the flowers just the same as if she didn't see 'em. It cuts me to th' heart to look at them eyes o' hers; I think they're bigger nor iver, an' they look like my poor baby's as died, when it got so thin--O dear, its little hands you could see thro' 'em. But I've great hopes if she was to see you, sir, as come from the Manor, it might bring back her mind, like.' Maynard had that hope too, but he felt cold mists of fear gathering round him after the few bright warm hours of joyful confidence which had passed since he first heard that Caterina was alive. The thought _would_ urge itself upon him that her mind and body might never recover the strain that had been put upon them--that her delicate thread of life had already nearly spun itself out. 'Go now, Dorcas, and see how she is, but don't say anything about my being here. Perhaps it would be better for me to wait till daylight before I see her, and yet it would be very hard to pass another night in this way.' Dorcas set down little Bessie, and went away. The three other children, including young Daniel in his smock-frock, were standing opposite to Mr. Gilfil, watching him still more shyly now they were without their mother's countenance. He drew little Bessie towards him, and set her on his knee. She shook her yellow curls out of her eyes, and looked up at him as she said,--'Zoo tome to tee ze yady? Zoo mek her peak? What zoo do to her? Tiss her?' 'Do you like to be kissed, Bessie?' 'Det,' said Bessie, immediately ducking down her head very low, in resistance to the expected rejoinder. 'We've got two pups,' said young Daniel, emboldened by observing the gentleman's amenities towards Bessie. 'Shall I show 'em yer? One's got white spots.' 'Yes, let me see them.' Daniel ran out, and presently reappeared with two blind puppies, eagerly followed by the mother, affectionate though mongrel, and an exciting scene was beginning when Dorcas returned and said,--'There's niver any difference in her hardly. I think you needn't wait, sir. She lies very still, as she al'ys does. I've put two candle i' the room, so as she may see you well. You'll please t' excuse the room, sir, an' the cap as she has on; it's one o' mine.' Mr. Gilfil nodded silently, and rose to follow her up-stairs. They turned in at the first door, their footsteps making little noise on the plaster floor. The red-checkered linen curtains were drawn at the head of the bed, and Dorcas had placed the candles on this side of the room, so that the light might not fall oppressively on Caterina's eyes. When she had opened the door, Dorcas whispered, 'I'd better leave you, sir, I think?' Mr. Gilfil motioned assent, and advanced beyond the curtain. Caterina lay with her eyes turned the other way, and seemed unconscious that any one had entered. Her eyes, as Dorcas had said, looked larger than ever, perhaps because her face was thinner and paler, and her hair quite gathered away under one of Dorcas's thick caps. The small hands, too, that lay listlessly on the outside of the bed-clothes were thinner than ever. She looked younger than she really was, and any one seeing the tiny face and hands for the first time might have thought they belonged to a little girl of twelve, who was being taken away from coming instead of past sorrow. When Mr. Gilfil advanced and stood opposite to her, the light fell full upon his face. A slight startled expression came over Caterina's eyes; she looked at him earnestly for a few moments, then lifted up her hand as if to beckon him to stoop down towards her, and whispered 'Maynard!' He seated himself on the bed, and stooped down towards her. She whispered again--'Maynard, did you see the dagger?' He followed his first impulse in answering her, and it was a wise one. 'Yes,' he whispered, 'I found it in your pocket, and put it back again in the cabinet.' He took her hand in his and held it gently, awaiting what she would say next. His heart swelled so with thankfulness that she had recognized him, he could hardly repress a sob. Gradually her eyes became softer and less intense in their gaze. The tears were slowly gathering, and presently some large hot drops rolled down her cheek. Then the flood-gates were opened, and the heart-easing stream gushed forth; deep sobs came; and for nearly an hour she lay without speaking, while the heavy icy pressure that withheld her misery from utterance was thus melting away. How precious these tears were to Maynard, who day after day had been shuddering at the continually recurring image of Tina with the dry scorching stare of insanity! By degrees the sobs subsided, she began to breathe calmly, and lay quiet with her eyes shut. Patiently Maynard sat, not heeding the flight of the hours, not heeding the old clock that ticked loudly on the landing. But when it was nearly ten, Dorcas, impatiently anxious to know the result of Mr. Gilfil's appearance, could not help stepping in on tip-toe. Without moving, he whispered in her ear to supply him with candles, see that the cow-boy had shaken down his mare, and go to bed--he would watch with Caterina--a great change had come over her. Before long, Tina's lips began to move. 'Maynard,' she whispered again. He leaned towards her, and she went on. 'You know how wicked I am, then? You know what I meant to do with the dagger?' 'Did you mean to kill yourself, Tina?' She shook her head slowly, and then was silent for a long while. At last, looking at him with solemn eyes, she whispered, 'To kill _him_.' 'Tina, my loved one, you would never have done it. God saw your whole heart; He knows you would never harm a living thing. He watches over His children, and will not let them do things they would pray with their whole hearts not to do. It was the angry thought of a moment, and He forgives you.' She sank into silence again till it was nearly midnight. The weary enfeebled spirit seemed to be making its slow way with difficulty through the windings of thought; and when she began to whisper again, it was in reply to Maynard's words. 'But I had had such wicked feelings for a long while. I was so angry, and I hated Miss Assher so, and I didn't care what came to anybody, because I was so miserable myself. I was full of bad passions. No one else was ever so wicked.' 'Yes, Tina, many are just as wicked. I often have very wicked feelings, and am tempted to do wrong things; but then my body is stronger than yours, and I can hide my feelings and resist them better. They do not master me so. You have seen the little birds when they are very young and just begin to fly, how all their feathers are ruffled when they are frightened or angry; they have no power over themselves left, and might fall into a pit from mere fright. You were like one of those little birds. Your sorrow and suffering had taken such hold of you, you hardly knew what you did.' He would not speak long. Lest he should tire her, and oppress her with too many thoughts. Long pauses seemed needful for her before she could concentrate her feelings in short words. 'But when I meant to do it,' was the next thing she whispered, 'it was as bad as if I had done it.' 'No, my Tina,' answered Maynard slowly, waiting a little between each sentence; 'we mean to do wicked things that we never could do, just as we mean to do good or clever things that we never could do. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better than we are. And God sees us as we are altogether, not in separate feelings or actions, as our fellow-men see us. We are always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or worse of each other than we deserve, because we only hear and see separate words and actions. We don't see each other's whole nature. But God sees that you could not have committed that crime.' Caterina shook her head slowly, and was silent. After a while,--'I don't know,' she said; 'I seemed to see him coming towards me, just as he would really have looked, and I meant--I meant to do it.' 'But when you saw him--tell me how it was, Tina?' 'I saw him lying on the ground and thought he was ill. I don't know how it was then; I forgot everything. I knelt down and spoke to him, and--and he took no notice of me, and his eyes were fixed, and I began to think he was dead.' 'And you have never felt angry since?' 'O no, no; it is I who have been more wicked than any one; it is I who have been wrong all through.' 'No, Tina; the fault has not all been yours; _he_ was wrong; he gave you provocation. And wrong makes wrong. When people use us ill, we can hardly help having ill feeling towards them. But that second wrong is more excusable. I am more sinful than you, Tina; I have often had very bad feelings towards Captain Wybrow; and if he had provoked me as he did you, I should perhaps have done something more wicked.' 'O, it was not so wrong in him; he didn't know how he hurt me. How was it likely he could love me as I loved him? And how could he marry a poor little thing like me?' Maynard made no reply to this, and there was again silence, till Tina said, 'Then I was so deceitful; they didn't know how wicked I was. Padroncello didn't know; his good little monkey he used to call me; and if he had known, O how naughty he would have thought me!' 'My Tina, we have all our secret sins; and if we knew ourselves, we should not judge each other harshly. Sir Christopher himself has felt, since this trouble came upon him, that he has been too severe and obstinate.' In this way--in these broken confessions and answering words of comfort--the hours wore on, from the deep black night to the chill early twilight, and from early twilight to the first yellow streak of morning parting the purple cloud. Mr. Gilfil felt as if in the long hours of that night the bond that united his love for ever and alone to Caterina had acquired fresh strength and sanctity. It is so with the human relations that rest on the deep emotional sympathy of affection: every new day and night of joy or sorrow is a new ground, a new consecration, for the love that is nourished by memories as well as hopes--the love to which perpetual repetition is not a weariness but a want, and to which a separated joy is the beginning of pain. The cocks began to crow; the gate swung; there was a tramp of footsteps in the yard, and Mr. Gilfil heard Dorcas stirring. These sounds seemed to affect Caterina, for she looked anxiously at him and said, 'Maynard, are you going away?' 'No, I shall stay here at Callam until you are better, and then you will go away too.' 'Never to the Manor again, O no! I shall live poorly, and get my own bread.' 'Well, dearest, you shall do what you would like best. But I wish you could go to sleep now. Try to rest quietly, and by-and-by you will perhaps sit up a little. God has kept you in life in spite of all this sorrow; it will be sinful not to try and make the best of His gift. Dear Tina, you will try;--and little Bessie brought you some crocuses once, you didn't notice the poor little thing; but you _will_ notice her when she comes again, will you not?' 'I will try,' whispered Tina humbly, and then closed her eyes. By the time the sun was above the horizon, scattering the clouds, and shining with pleasant morning warmth through the little leaded window, Caterina was asleep. Maynard gently loosed the tiny hand, cheered Dorcas with the good news, and made his way to the village inn, with a thankful heart that Tina had been so far herself again. Evidently the sight of him had blended naturally with the memories in which her mind was absorbed, and she had been led on to an unburthening of herself that might be the beginning of a complete restoration. But her body was so enfeebled--her soul so bruised--that the utmost tenderness and care would be necessary. The next thing to be done was to send tidings to Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel; then to write and summon his sister, under whose care he had determined to place Caterina. The Manor, even if she had been wishing to return thither, would, he knew, be the most undesirable home for her at present: every scene, every object there, was associated with still unallayed anguish. If she were domesticated for a time with his mild gentle sister, who had a peaceful home and a prattling little boy, Tina might attach herself anew to life, and recover, partly at least, the shock that had been given to her constitution. When he had written his letters and taken a hasty breakfast, he was soon in his saddle again, on his way to Sloppeter, where he would post them, and seek out a medical man, to whom he might confide the moral causes of Caterina's enfeebled condition. Chapter 20 In less than a week from that time, Caterina was persuaded to travel in a comfortable carriage, under the care of Mr. Gilfil and his sister, Mrs. Heron, whose soft blue eyes and mild manners were very soothing to the poor bruised child--the more so as they had an air of sisterly equality which was quite new to her. Under Lady Cheverel's uncaressing authoritative goodwill, Tina had always retained a certain constraint and awe; and there was a sweetness before unknown in having a young and gentle woman, like an elder sister, bending over her caressingly, and speaking in low loving tones. Maynard was almost angry with himself for feeling happy while Tina's mind and body were still trembling on the verge of irrecoverable decline; but the new delight of acting as her guardian angel, of being with her every hour of the day, of devising everything for her comfort, of watching for a ray of returning interest in her eyes, was too absorbing to leave room for alarm or regret. On the third day the carriage drove up to the door of Foxholm Parsonage, where the Rev. Arthur Heron presented himself on the door-step, eager to greet his returning Lucy, and holding by the hand a broad-chested tawny-haired boy of five, who was smacking a miniature hunting-whip with great vigour. Nowhere was there a lawn more smooth-shaven, walks better swept, or a porch more prettily festooned with creepers, than at Foxholm Parsonage, standing snugly sheltered by beeches and chestnuts half-way down the pretty green hill which was surmounted by the church, and overlooking a village that straggled at its ease among pastures and meadows, surrounded by wild hedgerows and broad shadowing trees, as yet unthreatened by improved methods of farming. Brightly the fire shone in the great parlour, and brightly in the little pink bedroom, which was to be Caterina's, because it looked away from the churchyard, and on to a farm homestead, with its little cluster of beehive ricks, and placid groups of cows, and cheerful matin sounds of healthy labour. Mrs. Heron, with the instinct of a delicate, impressible woman, had written to her husband to have this room prepared for Caterina. Contented speckled hens, industriously scratching for the rarely-found corn, may sometimes do more for a sick heart than a grove of nightingales; there is something irresistibly calming in the unsentimental cheeriness of top-knotted pullets, unpetted sheep-dogs, and patient cart-horses enjoying a drink of muddy water. In such a home as this parsonage, a nest of comfort, without any of the stateliness that would carry a suggestion of Cheverel Manor, Mr. Gilfil was not unreasonable in hoping that Caterina might gradually shake off the haunting vision of the past, and recover from the languor and feebleness which were the physical sign of that vision's blighting presence. The next thing to be done was to arrange an exchange of duties with Mr. Heron's curate, that Maynard might be constantly near Caterina, and watch over her progress. She seemed to like him to be with her, to look uneasily for his return; and though she seldom spoke to him, she was most contented when he sat by her, and held her tiny hand in his large protecting grasp. But Oswald, _alias_ Ozzy, the broad-chested boy, was perhaps her most beneficial companion. With something of his uncle's person, he had inherited also his uncle's early taste for a domestic menagerie, and was very imperative in demanding Tina's sympathy in the welfare of his guinea-pigs, squirrels, and dormice. With him she seemed now and then to have gleams of her childhood coming athwart the leaden clouds, and many hours of winter went by the more easily for being spent in Ozzy's nursery. Mrs. Heron was not musical, and had no instrument; but one of Mr. Gilfil's cares was to procure a harpsichord, and have it placed in the drawing-room, always open, in the hope that some day the spirit of music would be reawakened in Caterina, and she would be attracted towards the instrument. But the winter was almost gone by, and he had waited in vain. The utmost improvement in Tina had not gone beyond passiveness and acquiescence--a quiet grateful smile, compliance with Oswald's whims, and an increasing consciousness of what was being said and done around her. Sometimes she would take up a bit of woman's work, but she seemed too languid to persevere in it; her fingers soon dropped, and she relapsed into motionless reverie. At last--it was one of those bright days in the end of February, when the sun is shining with a promise of approaching spring. Maynard had been walking with her and Oswald round the garden to look at the snowdrops, and she was resting on the sofa after the walk. Ozzy, roaming about the room in quest of a forbidden pleasure, came to the harpsichord, and struck the handle of his whip on a deep bass note. The vibration rushed through Caterina like an electric shock: it seemed as if at that instant a new soul were entering into her, and filling her with a deeper, more significant life. She looked round, rose from the sofa, and walked to the harpsichord. In a moment her fingers were wandering with their old sweet method among the keys, and her soul was floating in its true familiar element of delicious sound, as the water-plant that lies withered and shrunken on the ground expands into freedom and beauty when once more bathed in its native flood. Maynard thanked God. An active power was re-awakened, and must make a new epoch in Caterina's recovery. Presently there were low liquid notes blending themselves with the harder tones of the instrument, and gradually the pure voice swelled into predominance. Little Ozzy stood in the middle of the room, with his mouth open and his legs very wide apart, struck with something like awe at this new power in 'Tin-Tin,' as he called her, whom he had been accustomed to think of as a playfellow not at all clever, and very much in need of his instruction on many subjects. A genie soaring with broad wings out of his milkjug would not have been more astonishing. Caterina was singing the very air from the _Orfeo_ which we heard her singing so many months ago at the beginning of her sorrows. It was '_Ho perduto_', Sir Christopher's favourite, and its notes seemed to carry on their wings all the tenderest memories of her life, when Cheverel Manor was still an untroubled home. The long happy days of childhood and girlhood recovered all their rightful predominance over the short interval of sin and sorrow. She paused, and burst into tears--the first tears she had shed since she had been at Foxholm. Maynard could not help hurrying towards her, putting his arm round her, and leaning down to kiss her hair. She nestled to him, and put up her little mouth to be kissed. The delicate-tendrilled plant must have something to cling to. The soul that was born anew to music was born anew to love. Chapter 21 On the 30th of May 1790, a very pretty sight was seen by the villagers assembled near the door of Foxholm Church. The sun was bright upon the dewy grass, the air was alive with the murmur of bees and the trilling of birds, the bushy blossoming chestnuts and the foamy flowering hedgerows seemed to be crowding round to learn why the church-bells were ringing so merrily, as Maynard Gilfil, his face bright with happiness, walked out of the old Gothic doorway with Tina on his arm. The little face was still pale, and there was a subdued melancholy in it, as of one who sups with friends for the last time, and has his ear open for the signal that will call him away. But the tiny hand rested with the pressure of contented affection on Maynard's arm, and the dark eyes met his downward glance with timid answering love. There was no train of bridesmaids; only pretty Mrs. Heron leaning on the arm of a dark-haired young man hitherto unknown in Foxholm, and holding by the other hand little Ozzy, who exulted less in his new velvet cap and tunic, than in the notion that he was bridesman to Tin-Tin. Last of all came a couple whom the villagers eyed yet more eagerly than the bride and bridegroom: a fine old gentleman, who looked round with keen glances that cowed the conscious scapegraces among them, and a stately lady in blue-and-white silk robes, who must surely be like Queen Charlotte. 'Well, that theer's whut I coal a pictur,' said old 'Mester' Ford, a true Staffordshire patriarch, who leaned on a stick and held his head very much on one side, with the air of a man who had little hope of the present generation, but would at all events give it the benefit of his criticism. 'Th' yoong men noo-a-deys, the're poor squashy things--the' looke well anoof, but the' woon't wear, the' woon't wear. Theer's ne'er un'll carry his 'ears like that Sir Cris'fer Chuvrell.' 'Ull bet ye two pots,' said another of the seniors, 'as that yoongster a-walkin' wi' th' parson's wife 'll be Sir Cris'fer's son--he fevours him.' 'Nay, yae'll bet that wi' as big a fule as yersen; hae's noo son at all. As I oonderstan', hae's the nevey as is' t' heir th' esteate. The coochman as puts oop at th' White Hoss tellt me as theer war another nevey, a deal finer chap t' looke at nor this un, as died in a fit, all on a soodden, an' soo this here yoong un's got upo' th' perch istid.' At the church gate Mr. Bates was standing in a new suit, ready to speak words of good omen as the bride and bridegroom approached. He had come all the way from Cheverel Manor on purpose to see Miss Tina happy once more, and would have been in a state of unmixed joy but for the inferiority of the wedding nosegays to what he could have furnished from the garden at the Manor. 'God A'maighty bless ye both, an' send ye long laife an' happiness,' were the good gardener's rather tremulous words. 'Thank you, uncle Bates; always remember Tina,' said the sweet low voice, which fell on Mr. Bates's ear for the last time. The wedding journey was to be a circuitous route to Shepperton, where Mr. Gilfil had been for several months inducted as vicar. This small living had been given him through the interest of an old friend who had some claim on the gratitude of the Oldinport family; and it was a satisfaction both to Maynard and Sir Christopher that a home to which he might take Caterina had thus readily presented itself at a distance from Cheverel Manor. For it had never yet been thought safe that she should revisit the scene of her sufferings, her health continuing too delicate to encourage the slightest risk of painful excitement. In a year or two, perhaps, by the time old Mr. Crichley, the rector of Cumbermoor, should have left a world of gout, and when Caterina would very likely be a happy mother, Maynard might safely take up his abode at Cumbermoor, and Tina would feel nothing but content at seeing a new 'little black-eyed monkey' running up and down the gallery and gardens of the Manor. A mother dreads no memories--those shadows have all melted away in the dawn of baby's smile. In these hopes, and in the enjoyment of Tina's nestling affection, Mr. Gilfil tasted a few months of perfect happiness. She had come to lean entirely on his love, and to find life sweet for his sake. Her continual languor and want of active interest was a natural consequence of bodily feebleness, and the prospect of her becoming a mother was a new ground for hoping the best. But the delicate plant had been too deeply bruised, and in the struggle to put forth a blossom it died. Tina died, and Maynard Gilfil's love went with her into deep silence for evermore. EPILOGUE This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet _Addio_ of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais. To those who were familiar only with the grey-haired Vicar, jogging leisurely along on his old chestnut cob, it would perhaps have been hard to believe that he had ever been the Maynard Gilfil who, with a heart full of passion and tenderness, had urged his black Kitty to her swiftest gallop on the way to Callam, or that the old gentleman of caustic tongue, and bucolic tastes, and sparing habits, had known all the deep secrets of devoted love, had struggled through its days and nights of anguish, and trembled under its unspeakable joys. And indeed the Mr. Gilfil of those late Shepperton days had more of the knots and ruggedness of poor human nature than there lay any clear hint of in the open-eyed loving Maynard. But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is withered. And so the dear old Vicar, though he had something of the knotted whimsical character of the poor lopped oak, had yet been sketched out by nature as a noble tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest; and in the grey-haired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children, whose most biting words were directed against the evil doing of the rich man, and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the highest level of his parishioners' respect, there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first and only love--the love of Tina. JANET'S REPENTANCE Chapter 1 'No!' said lawyer Dempster, in a loud, rasping, oratorical tone, struggling against chronic huskiness, 'as long as my Maker grants me power of voice and power of intellect, I will take every legal means to resist the introduction of demoralizing, methodistical doctrine into this parish; I will not supinely suffer an insult to be inflicted on our venerable pastor, who has given us sound instruction for half a century.' It was very warm everywhere that evening, but especially in the bar of the Red Lion at Milby, where Mr. Dempster was seated mixing his third glass of brandy-and-water. He was a tall and rather massive man, and the front half of his large surface was so well dredged' with snuff, that the cat, having inadvertently come near him, had been seized with a severe fit of sneezing--an accident which, being cruelly misunderstood, had caused her to be driven contumeliously from the bar. Mr. Dempster habitually held his chin tucked in, and his head hanging forward, weighed down, perhaps, by a preponderant occiput and a bulging forehead, between which his closely-clipped coronal surface lay like a flat and new-mown table-land. The only other observable features were puffy cheeks and a protruding yet lipless mouth. Of his nose I can only say that it was snuffy; and as Mr. Dempster was never caught in the act of looking at anything in particular, it would have been difficult to swear to the colour of his eyes. 'Well! I'll not stick at giving myself trouble to put down such hypocritical cant,' said Mr. Tomlinson, the rich miller. 'I know well enough what your Sunday evening lectures are good for--for wenches to meet their sweethearts, and brew mischief. There's work enough with the servant-maids as it is--such as I never heard the like of in my mother's time, and it's all along o' your schooling and newfangled plans. Give me a servant as can nayther read nor write, I say, and doesn't know the year o' the Lord as she was born in. I should like to know what good those Sunday schools have done, now. Why, the boys used to go a birds-nesting of a Sunday morning; and a capital thing too--ask any farmer; and very pretty it was to see the strings o' heggs hanging up in poor people's houses. You'll not see 'em nowhere now.' 'Pooh!' said Mr. Luke Byles, who piqued himself on his reading, and was in the habit of asking casual acquaintances if they knew anything of Hobbes; 'it is right enough that the lower orders should be instructed. But this sectarianism within the Church ought to be put down. In point of fact, these Evangelicals are not Churchmen at all; they're no better than Presbyterians.' 'Presbyterians? what are they?' inquired Mr. Tomlinson, who often said his father had given him 'no eddication, and he didn't care who knowed it; he could buy up most o' th' eddicated men he'd ever come across.' 'The Presbyterians,' said Mr. Dempster, in rather a louder tone than before, holding that every appeal for information must naturally be addressed to him, 'are a sect founded in the reign of Charles I., by a man named John Presbyter, who hatched all the brood of Dissenting vermin that crawl about in dirty alleys, and circumvent the lord of the manor in order to get a few yards of ground for their pigeon-house conventicles.' 'No, no, Dempster,' said Mr. Luke Byles, 'you're out there. Presbyterianism is derived from the word presbyter, meaning an elder.' 'Don't contradict _me_, sir!' stormed Dempster. 'I say the word presbyterian is derived from John Presbyter, a miserable fanatic who wore a suit of leather, and went about from town to village, and from village to hamlet, inoculating the vulgar with the asinine virus of dissent.' 'Come, Byles, that seems a deal more likely,' said Mr. Tomlinson, in a conciliatory tone, apparently of opinion that history was a process of ingenious guessing. 'It's not a question of likelihood; it's a known fact. I could fetch you my Encyclopaedia, and show it you this moment.' 'I don't care a straw, sir, either for you or your Encyclopaedia,' said Mr. Dempster; 'a farrago of false information, of which you picked up an imperfect copy in a cargo of waste paper. Will you tell _me_, sir, that I don't know the origin of Presbyterianism? I, sir, a man known through the county, intrusted with the affairs of half a score parishes; while you, sir, are ignored by the very fleas that infest the miserable alley in which you were bred.' A loud and general laugh, with 'You'd better let him alone Byles'; 'You'll not get the better of Dempster in a hurry', drowned the retort of the too well-informed Mr. Byles, who, white with rage, rose and walked out of the bar. 'A meddlesome, upstart, Jacobinical fellow, gentlemen', continued Mr. Dempster. 'I was determined to be rid of him. What does he mean by thrusting himself into our company? A man with about as much principle as he has property, which, to my knowledge, is considerably less than none. An insolvent atheist, gentlemen. A deistical prater, fit to sit in the chimney-corner of a pot-house, and make blasphemous comments on the one greasy newspaper fingered by beer-swilling tinkers. I will not suffer in my company a man who speaks lightly of religion. The signature of a fellow like Byles would be a blot on our protest.' 'And how do you get on with your signatures?' said Mr. Pilgrim, the doctor, who had presented his large top-booted person within the bar while Mr. Dempster was speaking. Mr. Pilgrim had just returned from one of his long day's rounds among the farm-houses, in the course of which he had sat down to two hearty meals that might have been mistaken for dinners if he had not declared them to be 'snaps'; and as each snap had been followed by a few glasses of 'mixture'; containing a less liberal proportion of water than the articles he himself labelled with that broadly generic name, he was in that condition which his groom indicated with poetic ambiguity by saying that 'master had been in the sunshine'. Under these circumstances, after a hard day, in which he had really had no regular meal, it seemed a natural relaxation to step into the bar of the Red Lion, where, as it was Saturday evening, he should be sure to find Dempster, and hear the latest news about the protest against the evening lecture. 'Have you hooked Ben Landor yet?' he continued, as he took two chairs, one for his body, and the other for his right leg. 'No,' said Mr. Budd, the churchwarden, shaking his head; 'Ben Landor has a way of keeping himself neutral in everything, and he doesn't like to oppose his father. Old Landor is a regular Tryanite. But we haven't got your name yet, Pilgrim.' 'Tut tut, Budd,' said Mr. Dempster, sarcastically, 'you don't expect Pilgrim to sign? He's got a dozen Tryanite livers under his treatment. Nothing like cant and methodism for producing a superfluity of bile.' 'O, I thought, as Pratt had declared himself a Tryanite, we should be sure to get Pilgrim on our side.' Mr. Pilgrim was not a man to sit quiet under a sarcasm, nature having endowed him with a considerable share of self-defensive wit. In his most sober moments he had an impediment in his speech, and as copious gin-and-water stimulated not the speech but the impediment, he had time to make his retort sufficiently bitter. 'Why, to tell you the truth, Budd,' he spluttered, 'there's a report all over the town that Deb Traunter swears you shall take her with you as one of the delegates, and they say there's to be a fine crowd at your door the morning you start, to see the row. Knowing your tenderness for that member of the fair sex, I thought you might find it impossible to deny her. I hang back a little from signing on that account, as Prendergast might not take the protest well if Deb Traunter went with you.' Mr. Budd was a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five-and-forty, whose scandalous life had long furnished his more moral neighbours with an after-dinner joke. He had no other striking characteristic, except that he was a currier of choleric temperament, so that you might wonder why he had been chosen as clergyman's churchwarden, if I did not tell you that he had recently been elected through Mr. Dempster's exertions, in order that his zeal against the threatened evening lecture might be backed by the dignity of office. 'Come, come, Pilgrim,' said Mr. Tomlinson, covering Mr. Budd's retreat, 'you know you like to wear the crier's coat,' green o' one side and red o' the other. You've been to hear Tryan preach at Paddiford Common--you know you have.' 'To be sure I have; and a capital sermon too. It's a pity you were not there. It was addressed to those "void of understanding."' 'No, no, you'll never catch me there,' returned Mr. Tomlinson, not in the least stung: 'he preaches without book, they say, just like a Dissenter. It must be a rambling sort of a concern.' 'That's not the worst,' said Mr. Dempster; 'he preaches against good works; says good works are not necessary to salvation--a sectarian, antinomian, anabaptist doctrine. Tell a man he is not to be saved by his works, and you open the flood-gates of all immorality. You see it in all these canting innovators; they're all bad ones by the sly; smooth-faced, drawling, hypocritical fellows, who pretend ginger isn't hot in their mouths, and cry down all innocent pleasures; their hearts are all the blacker for their sanctimonious outsides. Haven't we been warned against those who make clean the outside of the cup and the platter? There's this Tryan, now, he goes about praying with old women, and singing with charity children; but what has he really got his eye on all the while? A domineering ambitious Jesuit, gentlemen; all he wants is to get his foot far enough into the parish to step into Crewe's shoes when the old gentleman dies. Depend upon it, whenever you see a man pretending to be better than his neighbours, that man has either some cunning end to serve, or his heart is rotten with spiritual pride.' As if to guarantee himself against this awful sin, Mr. Dempster seized his glass of brandy-and-water, and tossed off the contents with even greater rapidity than usual. 'Have you fixed on your third delegate yet?' said Mr. Pilgrim, whose taste was for detail rather than for dissertation. 'That's the man,' answered Dempster, pointing to Mr. Tomlinson. 'We start for Elmstoke Rectory on Tuesday morning; so, if you mean to give us your signature, you must make up your mind pretty quickly, Pilgrim.' Mr. Pilgrim did not in the least mean it, so he only said, 'I shouldn't wonder if Tryan turns out too many for you, after all. He's got a well-oiled tongue of his own, and has perhaps talked over Prendergast into a determination to stand by him.' 'Ve-ry little fear of that,' said Dempster, in a confident tone. 'I'll soon bring him round. Tryan has got his match. I've plenty of rods in pickle for Tryan.' At this moment Boots entered the bar, and put a letter into the lawyer's hands, saying, 'There's Trower's man just come into the yard wi' a gig, sir, an' he's brought this here letter.' Mr. Dempster read the letter and said, 'Tell him to turn the gig--I'll be with him in a minute. Here, run to Gruby's and get this snuff-box filled --quick!' 'Trower's worse, I suppose; eh, Dempster? Wants you to alter his will, eh?' said Mr. Pilgrim. 'Business--business--business--I don't know exactly what,' answered the cautious Dempster, rising deliberately from his chair, thrusting on his low-crowned hat, and walking with a slow but not unsteady step out of the bar. 'I never see Dempster's equal; if I did I'll be shot,' said Mr. Tomlinson, looking after the lawyer admiringly. 'Why, he's drunk the best part of a bottle o' brandy since here we've been sitting, and I'll bet a guinea, when he's got to Trower's his head'll be as clear as mine. He knows more about law when he's drunk than all the rest on 'em when they're sober.' 'Ay, and other things too, besides law,' said Mr. Budd. 'Did you notice how he took up Byles about the Presbyterians? Bless your heart, he knows everything, Dempster does. He studied very hard when he was a young man.' Chapter 2 The conversation just recorded is not, I am aware, remarkably refined or witty; but if it had been, it could hardly have taken place in Milby when Mr. Dempster flourished there, and old Mr. Crewe, the curate, was yet alive. More than a quarter of a century has slipped by since then, and in the interval Milby has advanced at as rapid a pace as other market-towns in her Majesty's dominions. By this time it has a handsome railway station, where the drowsy London traveller may look out by the brilliant gas-light and see perfectly sober papas and husbands alighting with their leatherbags after transacting their day's business at the county town. There is a resident rector, who appeals to the consciences of his hearers with all the immense advantages of a divine who keeps his own carriage; the church is enlarged by at least five hundred sittings; and the grammar school, conducted on reformed principles, has its upper forms crowded with the genteel youth of Milby. The gentlemen there fall into no other excess at dinner-parties than the perfectly well-bred and virtuous excess of stupidity; and though the ladies are still said sometimes to take too much upon themselves, they are never known to take too much in any other way. The conversation is sometimes quite literary, for there is a flourishing book-club, and many of the younger ladies have carried their studies so far as to have forgotten a little German. In short, Milby is now a refined, moral, and enlightened town; no more resembling the Milby of former days than the huge, long-skirted, drab great-coat that embarrassed the ankles of our grandfathers resembled the light paletot in which we tread jauntily through the muddiest streets, or than the bottle-nosed Britons, rejoicing over a tankard, in the old sign of the Two Travellers at Milby, resembled the severe-looking gentleman in straps and high collars whom a modern artist has represented as sipping the imaginary port of that well-known commercial house. But pray, reader, dismiss from your mind all the refined and fashionable ideas associated with this advanced state of things, and transport your imagination to a time when Milby had no gas-lights; when the mail drove up dusty or bespattered to the door of the Red Lion; when old Mr. Crewe, the curate, in a brown Brutus wig, delivered inaudible sermons on a Sunday, and on a week-day imparted the education of a gentleman--that is to say, an arduous inacquaintance with Latin through the medium of the Eton Grammar--to three pupils in the upper grammar-school. If you had passed through Milby on the coach at that time, you would have had no idea what important people lived there, and how very high a sense of rank was prevalent among them. It was a dingy-looking town, with a strong smell of tanning up one street and a great shaking of hand-looms up another; and even in that focus of aristocracy, Friar's Gate, the houses would not have seemed very imposing to the hasty and superficial glance of a passenger. You might still less have suspected that the figure in light fustian and large grey whiskers, leaning against the grocer's door-post in High Street, was no less a person than Mr. Lowme, one of the most aristocratic men in Milby, said to have been 'brought up a gentleman', and to have had the gay habits accordant with that station, keeping his harriers and other expensive animals. He was now quite an elderly Lothario, reduced to the most economical sins; the prominent form of his gaiety being this of lounging at Mr. Gruby's door, embarrassing the servant-maids who came for grocery, and talking scandal with the rare passers-by. Still, it was generally understood that Mr. Lowme belonged to the highest circle of Milby society; his sons and daughters held up their heads very high indeed; and in spite of his condescending way of chatting and drinking with inferior people, he would himself have scorned any closer identification with them. It must be admitted that he was of some service to the town in this station at Mr. Gruby's door, for he and Mr. Landor's Newfoundland dog, who stretched himself and gaped on the opposite causeway, took something from the lifeless air that belonged to the High Street on every day except Saturday. Certainly, in spite of three assemblies and a charity ball in the winter, the occasional advent of a ventriloquist, or a company of itinerant players, some of whom were very highly thought of in London, and the annual three-days' fair in June, Milby might be considered dull by people of a hypochondriacal temperament; and perhaps this was one reason why many of the middle-aged inhabitants, male and female, often found it impossible to keep up their spirits without a very abundant supply of stimulants. It is true there were several substantial men who had a reputation for exceptional sobriety, so that Milby habits were really not as bad as possible; and no one is warranted in saying that old Mr. Crewe's flock could not have been worse without any clergyman at all. The well-dressed parishioners generally were very regular church-goers, and to the younger ladies and gentlemen I am inclined to think that the Sunday morning service was the most exciting event of the week; for few places could present a more brilliant show of out-door toilettes than might be seen issuing from Milby church at one o'clock. There were the four tall Miss Pittmans, old lawyer Pittman's daughters, with cannon curls surmounted by large hats, and long, drooping ostrich feathers of parrot green. There was Miss Phipps, with a crimson bonnet, very much tilted up behind, and a cockade of stiff feathers on the summit. There was Miss Landor, the belle of Milby, clad regally in purple and ermine, with a plume of feathers neither drooping nor erect, but maintaining a discreet medium. There were the three Miss Tomlinsons, who imitated Miss Landor, and also wore ermine and feathers; but their beauty was considered of a coarse order, and their square forms were quite unsuited to the round tippet which fell with such remarkable grace on Miss Landor's sloping shoulders. Looking at this plumed procession of ladies, you would have formed rather a high idea of Milby wealth; yet there was only one close carriage in the place, and that was old Mr. Landor's, the banker, who, I think, never drove more than one horse. These sumptuously-attired ladies flashed past the vulgar eye in one-horse chaises, by no means of a superior build. The young gentlemen, too, were not without their little Sunday displays of costume, of a limited masculine kind. Mr. Eustace Landor, being nearly of age, had recently acquired a diamond ring, together with the habit of rubbing his hand through his hair. He was tall and dark, and thus had an advantage which Mr. Alfred Phipps, who, like his sister, was blond and stumpy, found it difficult to overtake, even by the severest attention to shirt-studs, and the particular shade of brown that was best relieved by gilt buttons. The respect for the Sabbath, manifested in this attention to costume, was unhappily counterbalanced by considerable levity of behaviour during the prayers and sermon; for the young ladies and gentlemen of Milby were of a very satirical turn, Miss Landor especially being considered remarkably clever, and a terrible quiz; and the large congregation necessarily containing many persons inferior in dress and demeanour to the distinguished aristocratic minority, divine service offered irresistible temptations to joking, through the medium of telegraphic communications from the galleries to the aisles and back again. I remember blushing very much, and thinking Miss Landor was laughing at me, because I was appearing in coat-tails for the first time, when I saw her look down slyly towards where I sat, and then turn with a titter to handsome Mr. Bob Lowme, who had such beautiful whiskers meeting under his chin. But perhaps she was not thinking of me, after all; for our pew was near the pulpit, and there was almost always something funny about old Mr. Crewe. His brown wig was hardly ever put on quite right, and he had a way of raising his voice for three or four words, and lowering it again to a mumble, so that we could scarcely make out a word he said; though, as my mother observed, that was of no consequence in the prayers, since every one had a prayer-book; and as for the sermon, she continued with some causticity, we all of us heard more of it than we could remember when we got home. This youthful generation was not particularly literary. The young ladies who frizzed their hair, and gathered it all into large barricades in front of their heads, leaving their occipital region exposed without ornament, as if that, being a back view, was of no consequence, dreamed as little that their daughters would read a selection of German poetry, and be able to express an admiration for Schiller, as that they would turn all their hair the other way--that instead of threatening us with barricades in front, they would be most killing in retreat, 'And, like the Parthian, wound us as they fly.' Those charming well-frizzed ladies spoke French indeed with considerable facility, unshackled by any timid regard to idiom, and were in the habit of conducting conversations in that language in the presence of their less instructed elders; for according to the standard of those backward days, their education had been very lavish, such young ladies as Miss Landor, Miss Phipps, and the Miss Pittmans, having been 'finished' at distant and expensive schools. Old lawyer Pittman had once been a very important person indeed, having in his earlier days managed the affairs of several gentlemen in those parts, who had subsequently been obliged to sell everything and leave the country, in which crisis Mr. Pittman accommodatingly stepped in as a purchaser of their estates, taking on himself the risk and trouble of a more leisurely sale; which, however, happened to turn out very much to his advantage. Such opportunities occur quite unexpectedly in the way of business. But I think Mr. Pittman must have been unlucky in his later speculations, for now, in his old age, he had not the reputation of being very rich; and though he rode slowly to his office in Milby every morning on an old white hackney, he had to resign the chief profits, as well as the active business of the firm, to his younger partner, Dempster. No one in Milby considered old Pittman a virtuous man, and the elder townspeople were not at all backward in narrating the least advantageous portions of his biography in a very round unvarnished manner. Yet I could never observe that they trusted him any the less, or liked him any the worse. Indeed, Pittman and Dempster were the popular lawyers of Milby and its neighbourhood, and Mr. Benjamin Landor, whom no one had anything particular to say against, had a very meagre business in comparison. Hardly a landholder, hardly a farmer, hardly a parish within ten miles of Milby, whose affairs were not under the legal guardianship of Pittman and Dempster; and I think the clients were proud of their lawyers' unscrupulousness, as the patrons of the fancy's are proud of their champion's 'condition'. It was not, to be sure, the thing for ordinary life, but it was the thing to be bet on in a lawyer. Dempster's talent in 'bringing through' a client was a very common topic of conversation with the farmers, over an incidental glass of grog at the Red Lion. 'He's a long-headed feller, Dempster; why, it shows yer what a headpiece Dempster has, as he can drink a bottle o' brandy at a sittin', an' yit see further through a stone wall when he's done, than other folks 'll see through a glass winder.' Even Mr. Jerome, chief member of the congregation at Salem Chapel, an elderly man of very strict life, was one of Dempster's clients, and had quite an exceptional indulgence for his attorney's foibles, perhaps attributing them to the inevitable incompatibility of law and gospel. The standard of morality at Milby, you perceive, was not inconveniently high in those good old times, and an ingenuous vice or two was what every man expected of his neighbour. Old Mr. Crewe, the curate, for example, was allowed to enjoy his avarice in comfort, without fear of sarcastic parish demagogues; and his flock liked him all the better for having scraped together a large fortune out of his school and curacy, and the proceeds of the three thousand pounds he had with his little deaf wife. It was clear he must be a learned man, for he had once had a large private school in connection with the grammar school, and had even numbered a young nobleman or two among his pupils. The fact that he read nothing at all now, and that his mind seemed absorbed in the commonest matters, was doubtless due to his having exhausted the resources of erudition earlier in life. It is true he was not spoken of in terms of high respect, and old Crewe's stingy housekeeping was a frequent subject of jesting; but this was a good old-fashioned characteristic in a parson who had been part of Milby life for half a century: it was like the dents and disfigurements in an old family tankard, which no one would like to part with for a smart new piece of plate fresh from Birmingham. The parishioners saw no reason at all why it should be desirable to venerate the parson or any one else; they were much more comfortable to look down a little on their fellow-creatures. Even the Dissent in Milby was then of a lax and indifferent kind. The doctrine of adult baptism, struggling under a heavy load of debt, had let off half its chapel area as a ribbon-shop; and Methodism was only to be detected, as you detect curious larvae, by diligent search in dirty corners. The Independents were the only Dissenters of whose existence Milby gentility was at all conscious, and it had a vague idea that the salient points of their creed were prayer without book, red brick, and hypocrisy. The Independent chapel, known as Salem, stood red and conspicuous in a broad street; more than one pew-holder kept a brass-bound gig; and Mr. Jerome, a retired corn-factor, and the most eminent member of the congregation, was one of the richest men in the parish. But in spite of this apparent prosperity, together with the usual amount of extemporaneous preaching mitigated by furtive notes, Salem belied its name, and was not always the abode of peace. For some reason or other, it was unfortunate in the choice of its ministers. The Rev. Mr. Horner, elected with brilliant hopes, was discovered to be given to tippling and quarrelling with his wife; the Rev. Mr. Rose's doctrine was a little too 'high', verging on antinomianism; the Rev. Mr. Stickney's gift as a preacher was found to be less striking on a more extended acquaintance; and the Rev. Mr. Smith, a distinguished minister much sought after in the iron districts, with a talent for poetry, became objectionable from an inclination to exchange verses with the young ladies of his congregation. It was reasonably argued that such verses as Mr. Smith's must take a long time for their composition, and the habit alluded to might intrench seriously on his pastoral duties. These reverend gentlemen, one and all, gave it as their opinion that the Salem church members were among the least enlightened of the Lord's people, and that Milby was a low place, where they would have found it a severe lot to have their lines fall for any long period; though to see the smart and crowded congregation assembled on occasion of the annual charity sermon, any one might have supposed that the minister of Salem had rather a brilliant position in the ranks of Dissent. Several Church families used to attend on that occasion, for Milby, in those uninstructed days, had not yet heard that the schismatic ministers of Salem were obviously typified by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and many Church people there were of opinion that Dissent might be a weakness, but, after all, had no great harm in it. These lax Episcopalians were, I believe, chiefly tradespeople, who held that, inasmuch as Congregationalism consumed candles, it ought to be supported, and accordingly made a point of presenting themselves at Salem for the afternoon charity sermon, with the expectation of being asked to hold a plate. Mr. Pilgrim, too, was always there with his half-sovereign; for as there was no Dissenting doctor in Milby, Mr. Pilgrim looked with great tolerance on all shades of religious opinion that did not include a belief in cures by miracle. On this point he had the concurrence of Mr. Pratt, the only other medical man of the same standing in Milby. Otherwise, it was remarkable how strongly these two clever men were contrasted. Pratt was middle-sized, insinuating, and silvery-voiced; Pilgrim was tall, heavy, rough-mannered, and spluttering. Both were considered to have great powers of conversation, but Pratt's anecdotes were of the fine old crusted quality to be procured only of Joe Miller; Pilgrim's had the full fruity flavour of the most recent scandal. Pratt elegantly referred all diseases to debility, and, with a proper contempt for symptomatic treatment, went to the root of the matter with port wine and bark; Pilgrim was persuaded that the evil principle in the human system was plethora, and he made war against it with cupping, blistering, and cathartics. They had both been long established in Milby, and as each had a sufficient practice, there was no very malignant rivalry between them; on the contrary, they had that sort of friendly contempt for each other which is always conducive to a good understanding between professional men; and when any new surgeon attempted, in an ill-advised hour, to settle himself in the town, it was strikingly demonstrated how slight and trivial are theoretic differences compared with the broad basis of common human feeling. There was the most perfect unanimity between Pratt and Pilgrim in the determination to drive away the obnoxious and too probably unqualified intruder as soon as possible. Whether the first wonderful cure he effected was on a patient of Pratt's or of Pilgrim's, one was as ready as the other to pull the interloper by the nose, and both alike directed their remarkable powers of conversation towards making the town too hot for him. But by their respective patients these two distinguished men were pitted against each other with great virulence. Mrs. Lowme could not conceal her amazement that Mrs. Phipps should trust her life in the hands of Pratt, who let her feed herself up to that degree, it was really shocking to hear how short her breath was; and Mrs. Phipps had no patience with Mrs. Lowme, living, as she did, on tea and broth, and looking as yellow as any crow-flower, and yet letting Pilgrim bleed and blister her and give her lowering medicine till her clothes hung on her like a scarecrow's. On the whole, perhaps, Mr. Pilgrim's reputation was at the higher pitch, and when any lady under Mr. Pratt's care was doing ill, she was half disposed to think that a little more active treatment' might suit her better. But without very definite provocation no one would take so serious a step as to part with the family doctor, for in those remote days there were few varieties of human hatred more formidable than the medical. The doctor's estimate, even of a confiding patient, was apt to rise and fall with the entries in the day-book; and I have known Mr. Pilgrim discover the most unexpected virtues in a patient seized with a promising illness. At such times you might have been glad to perceive that there were some of Mr. Pilgrim's fellow-creatures of whom he entertained a high opinion, and that he was liable to the amiable weakness of a too admiring estimate. A good inflammation fired his enthusiasm, and a lingering dropsy dissolved him into charity. Doubtless this _crescendo_ of benevolence was partly due to feelings not at all represented by the entries in the day-book; for in Mr. Pilgrim's heart, too, there was a latent store of tenderness and pity which flowed forth at the sight of suffering. Gradually, however, as his patients became convalescent, his view of their characters became more dispassionate; when they could relish mutton-chops, he began to admit that they had foibles, and by the time they had swallowed their last dose of tonic, he was alive to their most inexcusable faults. After this, the thermometer of his regard rested at the moderate point of friendly back-biting, which sufficed to make him agreeable in his morning visits to the amiable and worthy persons who were yet far from convalescent. Pratt's patients were profoundly uninteresting to Pilgrim: their very diseases were despicable, and he would hardly have thought their bodies worth dissecting. But of all Pratt's patients, Mr. Jerome was the one on whom Mr. Pilgrim heaped the most unmitigated contempt. In spite of the surgeon's wise tolerance, Dissent became odious to him in the person of Mr. Jerome. Perhaps it was because that old gentleman, being rich, and having very large yearly bills for medical attendance on himself and his wife, nevertheless employed Pratt--neglected all the advantages of 'active treatment', and paid away his money without getting his system lowered. On any other ground it is hard to explain a feeling of hostility to Mr. Jerome, who was an excellent old gentleman, expressing a great deal of goodwill towards his neighbours, not only in imperfect English, but in loans of money to the ostensibly rich, and in sacks of potatoes to the obviously poor. Assuredly Milby had that salt of goodness which keeps the world together, in greater abundance than was visible on the surface: innocent babes were born there, sweetening their parents' hearts with simple joys; men and women withering in disappointed worldliness, or bloated with sensual ease, had better moments in which they pressed the hand of suffering with sympathy, and were moved to deeds of neighbourly kindness. In church and in chapel there were honest-hearted worshippers who strove to keep a conscience void of offence; and even up the dimmest alleys you might have found here and there a Wesleyan to whom Methodism was the vehicle of peace on earth and goodwill to men. To a superficial glance, Milby was nothing but dreary prose: a dingy town, surrounded by flat fields, lopped elms, and sprawling manufacturing villages, which crept on and on with their weaving-shops, till they threatened to graft themselves on the town. But the sweet spring came to Milby notwithstanding: the elm-tops were red with buds; the churchyard was starred with daisies; the lark showered his love-music on the flat fields; the rainbows hung over the dingy town, clothing the very roofs and chimneys in a strange transfiguring beauty. And so it was with the human life there, which at first seemed a dismal mixture of griping worldliness, vanity, ostrich feathers, and the fumes of brandy: looking closer, you found some purity, gentleness, and unselfishness, as you may have observed a scented geranium giving forth its wholesome odours amidst blasphemy and gin in a noisy pot-house. Little deaf Mrs. Crewe would often carry half her own spare dinner to the sick and hungry; Miss Phipps, with her cockade of red feathers, had a filial heart, and lighted her father's pipe with a pleasant smile; and there were grey-haired men in drab gaiters, not at all noticeable as you passed them in the street, whose integrity had been the basis of their rich neighbour's wealth. Such as the place was, the people there were entirely contented with it. They fancied life must be but a dull affair for that large portion of mankind who were necessarily shut out from an acquaintance with Milby families, and that it must be an advantage to London and Liverpool that Milby gentlemen occasionally visited those places on business. But the inhabitants became more intensely conscious of the value they set upon all their advantages, when innovation made its appearance in the person of the Rev. Mr. Tryan, the new curate, at the chapel-of-ease on Paddiford Common. It was soon notorious in Milby that Mr. Tryan held peculiar opinions; that he preached extempore; that he was founding a religious lending library in his remote corner of the parish; that he expounded the Scriptures in cottages; and that his preaching was attracting the Dissenters, and filling the very aisles of his church. The rumour sprang up that Evangelicalism had invaded Milby parish--a murrain or blight all the more terrible, because its nature was but dimly conjectured. Perhaps Milby was one of the last spots to be reached by the wave of a new movement and it was only now, when the tide was just on the turn, that the limpets there got a sprinkling. Mr. Tryan was the first Evangelical clergyman who had risen above the Milby horizon: hitherto that obnoxious adjective had been unknown to the townspeople of any gentility; and there were even many Dissenters who considered 'evangelical' simply a sort of baptismal name to the magazine which circulated among the congregation of Salem Chapel. But now, at length, the disease had been imported, when the parishioners were expecting it as little as the innocent Red Indians expected smallpox. As long as Mr. Tryan's hearers were confined to Paddiford Common--which, by the by, was hardly recognizable as a common at all, but was a dismal district where you heard the rattle of the handloom, and breathed the smoke of coal-pits--the 'canting parson' could be treated as a joke. Not so when a number of single ladies in the town appeared to be infected, and even one or two men of substantial property, with old Mr. Landor, the banker, at their head, seemed to be 'giving in' to the new movement--when Mr. Tryan was known to be well received in several good houses, where he was in the habit of finishing the evening with exhortation and prayer. Evangelicalism was no longer a nuisance existing merely in by-corners, which any well-clad person could avoid; it was invading the very drawing-rooms, mingling itself with the comfortable fumes of port-wine and brandy, threatening to deaden with its murky breath all the splendour of the ostrich feathers, and to stifle Milby ingenuousness, not pretending to be better than its neighbours, with a cloud of cant and lugubrious hypocrisy. The alarm reached its climax when it was reported that Mr. Tryan was endeavouring to obtain authority from Mr. Prendergast, the non-resident rector, to establish a Sunday evening lecture in the parish church, on the ground that old Mr. Crewe did not preach the Gospel. It now first appeared how surprisingly high a value Milby in general set on the ministrations of Mr. Crewe; how convinced it was that Mr. Crewe was the model of a parish priest, and his sermons the soundest and most edifying that had ever remained unheard by a church-going population. All allusions to his brown wig were suppressed, and by a rhetorical figure his name was associated with venerable grey hairs; the attempted intrusion of Mr. Tryan was an insult to a man deep in years and learning; moreover, it was an insolent effort to thrust himself forward in a parish where he was clearly distasteful to the superior portion of its inhabitants. The town was divided into two zealous parties, the Tryanites and anti-Tryanites; and by the exertions of the eloquent Dempster, the anti-Tryanite virulence was soon developed into an organized opposition. A protest against the meditated evening lecture was framed by that orthodox attorney, and, after being numerously signed, was to be carried to Mr. Prendergast by three delegates representing the intellect, morality, and wealth of Milby. The intellect, you perceive, was to be personified in Mr. Dempster, the morality in Mr. Budd, and the wealth in Mr. Tomlinson; and the distinguished triad was to set out on its great mission, as we have seen, on the third day from that warm Saturday evening when the conversation recorded in the previous chapter took place in the bar of the Red Lion. Chapter 3 It was quite as warm on the following Thursday evening, when Mr. Dempster and his colleagues were to return from their mission to Elmstoke Rectory; but it was much pleasanter in Mrs. Linnet's parlour than in the bar of the Red Lion. Through the open window came the scent of mignonette and honeysuckle; the grass-plot in front of the house was shaded by a little plantation of Gueldres roses, syringas, and laburnums; the noise of looms and carts and unmelodious voices reached the ear simply as an agreeable murmur, for Mrs. Linnet's house was situated quite on the outskirts of Paddiford Common; and the only sound likely to disturb the serenity of the feminine party assembled there, was the occasional buzz of intrusive wasps, apparently mistaking each lady's head for a sugar-basin. No sugar-basin was visible in Mrs. Linnet's parlour, for the time of tea was not yet, and the round table was littered with books which the ladies were covering with black canvass as a reinforcement of the new Paddiford Lending Library. Miss Linnet, whose manuscript was the neatest type of zigzag, was seated at a small table apart, writing on green paper tickets, which were to be pasted on the covers. Miss Linnet had other accomplishments besides that of a neat manuscript, and an index to some of them might be found in the ornaments of the room. She had always combined a love of serious and poetical reading with her skill in fancy-work, and the neatly-bound copies of Dryden's 'Virgil,' Hannah More's 'Sacred Dramas,' Falconer's 'Shipwreck,' Mason 'On Self-Knowledge,' 'Rasselas,' and Burke 'On the Sublime and Beautiful,' which were the chief ornaments of the bookcase, were all inscribed with her name, and had been bought with her pocket-money when she was in her teens. It must have been at least fifteen years since the latest of those purchases, but Miss Linnet's skill in fancy-work appeared to have gone through more numerous phases than her literary taste; for the japanned boxes, the alum and sealing-wax baskets, the fan-dolls, the 'transferred' landscapes on the fire-screens, and the recent bouquets of wax-flowers, showed a disparity in freshness which made them referable to widely different periods. Wax-flowers presuppose delicate fingers and robust patience, but there are still many points of mind and person which they leave vague and problematic; so I must tell you that Miss Linnet had dark ringlets, a sallow complexion, and an amiable disposition. As to her features, there was not much to criticize in them, for she had little nose, less lip, and no eyebrow; and as to her intellect, her friend Mrs. Pettifer often said: 'She didn't know a more sensible person to talk to than Mary Linnet. There was no one she liked better to come and take a quiet cup of tea with her, and read a little of Klopstock's 'Messiah.' Mary Linnet had often told her a great deal of her mind when they were sitting together: she said there were many things to bear in every condition of life, and nothing should induce her to marry without a prospect of happiness. Once, when Mrs. Pettifer admired her wax-flowers, she said, "Ah, Mrs. Pettifer, think of the beauties of nature!" She always spoke very prettily, did Mary Linnet; very different, indeed, from Rebecca.' Miss Rebecca Linnet, indeed, was not a general favourite. While most people thought it a pity that a sensible woman like Mary had not found a good husband--and even her female friends said nothing more ill-natured of her, than that her face was like a piece of putty with two Scotch pebbles stuck in it--Rebecca was always spoken of sarcastically, and it was a customary kind of banter with young ladies to recommend her as a wife to any gentleman they happened to be flirting with--her fat, her finery, and her thick ankles sufficing to give piquancy to the joke, notwithstanding the absence of novelty. Miss Rebecca, however, possessed the accomplishment of music, and her singing of 'Oh no, we never mention her', and 'The Soldier's Tear', was so desirable an accession to the pleasures of a tea-party that no one cared to offend her, especially as Rebecca had a high spirit of her own, and in spite of her expansively rounded contour, had a particularly sharp tongue. Her reading had been more extensive than her sister's, embracing most of the fiction in Mr. Procter's circulating library, and nothing but an acquaintance with the course of her studies could afford a clue to the rapid transitions in her dress, which were suggested by the style of beauty, whether sentimental, sprightly, or severe, possessed by the heroine of the three volumes actually in perusal. A piece of lace, which drooped round the edge of her white bonnet one week, had been rejected by the next; and her cheeks, which, on Whitsunday, loomed through a Turnerian haze of network, were, on Trinity Sunday, seen reposing in distinct red outline on her shelving bust, like the sun on a fog-bank. The black velvet, meeting with a crystal clasp, which one evening encircled her head, had on another descended to her neck, and on a third to her waist, suggesting to an active imagination either a magical contraction of the ornament, or a fearful ratio of expansion in Miss Rebecca's person. With this constant application of art to dress, she could have had little time for fancy-work, even if she had not been destitute of her sister's taste for that delightful and truly feminine occupation. And here, at least, you perceive the justice of the Milby opinion as to the relative suitability of the two Miss Linnets for matrimony. When a man is happy enough to win the affections of a sweet girl, who can soothe his cares with _crochet_, and respond to all his most cherished ideas with beaded urn-rugs and chair-covers in German wool, he has, at least, a guarantee of domestic comfort, whatever trials may await him out of doors. What a resource it is under fatigue and irritation to have your drawing-room well supplied with small mats, which would always be ready if you ever wanted to set anything on them! And what styptic for a bleeding heart can equal copious squares of _crochet_, which are useful for slipping down the moment you touch them? How our fathers managed without _crochet_ is the wonder; but I believe some small and feeble substitute existed in their time under the name of 'tatting'. Rebecca Linnet, however, had neglected tatting as well as other forms of fancy-work. At school, to be sure, she had spent a great deal of time in acquiring flower-painting, according to the ingenious method then fashionable, of applying the shapes of leaves and flowers cut out in cardboard, and scrubbing a brush over the surface thus conveniently marked out; but even the spill-cases and hand-screens which were her last half-year's performances in that way were not considered eminently successful, and had long been consigned to the retirement of the best bedroom. Thus there was a good deal of family unlikeness between Rebecca and her sister, and I am afraid there was also a little family dislike; but Mary's disapproval had usually been kept imprisoned behind her thin lips, for Rebecca was not only of a headstrong disposition, but was her mother's pet; the old lady being herself stout, and preferring a more showy style of cap than she could prevail on her daughter Mary to make up for her. But I have been describing Miss Rebecca as she was in former days only, for her appearance this evening, as she sits pasting on the green tickets, is in striking contrast with what it was three or four months ago. Her plain grey gingham dress and plain white collar could never have belonged to her ward-robe before that date; and though she is not reduced in size, and her brown hair will do nothing but hang in crisp ringlets down her large cheeks, there is a change in her air and expression which seems to shed a softened light over her person, and make her look like a peony in the shade, instead of the same flower flaunting in a parterre in the hot sunlight. No one could deny that Evangelicalism had wrought a change for the better in Rebecca Linnet's person--not even Miss Pratt, the thin stiff lady in spectacles, seated opposite to her, who always had a peculiar repulsion for 'females with a gross habit of body'. Miss Pratt was an old maid; but that is a no more definite description than if I had said she was in the autumn of life. Was it autumn when the orchards are fragrant with apples, or autumn when the oaks are brown, or autumn when the last yellow leaves are fluttering in the chill breeze? The young ladies in Milby would have told you that the Miss Linnets were old maids; but the Miss Linnets were to Miss Pratt what the apple-scented September is to the bare, nipping days of late November. The Miss Linnets were in that temperate zone of old-maidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the remainder of life's vale in company with him; Miss Pratt was in that arctic region where a woman is confident that at no time of life would she have consented to give up her liberty, and that she has never seen the man whom she would engage to honour and obey. If the Miss Linnets were old maids, they were old maids with natural ringlets and embonpoint, not to say obesity; Miss Pratt was an old maid with a cap, a braided 'front', a backbone and appendages. Miss Pratt was the one blue-stocking of Milby, possessing, she said, no less than five hundred volumes, competent, as her brother the doctor often observed, to conduct a conversation on any topic whatever, and occasionally dabbling a little in authorship, though it was understood that she had never put forth the full powers of her mind in print. Her 'Letters to a Young Man on his Entrance into Life', and 'De Courcy, or the Rash Promise, a Tale for Youth', were mere trifles which she had been induced to publish because they were calculated for popular utility, but they were nothing to what she had for years had by her in manuscript. Her latest production had been Six Stanzas, addressed to the Rev. Edgar Tryan, printed on glazed paper with a neat border, and beginning, 'Forward, young wrestler for the truth!' Miss Pratt having kept her brother's house during his long widowhood, his daughter, Miss Eliza, had had the advantage of being educated by her aunt, and thus of imbibing a very strong antipathy to all that remarkable woman's tastes and opinions. The silent handsome girl of two-and-twenty, who is covering the 'Memoirs of Felix Neff,' is Miss Eliza Pratt; and the small elderly lady in dowdy clothing, who is also working diligently, is Mrs. Pettifer, a superior-minded widow, much valued in Milby, being such a very respectable person to have in the house in case of illness, and of quite too good a family to receive any money-payment--you could always send her garden-stuff that would make her ample amends. Miss Pratt has enough to do in commenting on the heap of volumes before her, feeling it a responsibility entailed on her by her great powers of mind to leave nothing without the advantage of her opinion. Whatever was good must be sprinkled with the chrism of her approval; whatever was evil must be blighted by her condemnation. 'Upon my word,' she said, in a deliberate high voice, as if she were dictating to an amanuensis, 'it is a most admirable selection of works for popular reading, this that our excellent Mr. Tryan has made. I do not know whether, if the task had been confided to me, I could have made a selection, combining in a higher degree religious instruction and edification with a due admixture of the purer species of amusement. This story of 'Father Clement' is a library in itself on the errors of Romanism. I have ever considered fiction a suitable form for conveying moral and religious instruction, as I have shown in my little work 'De Courcy,' which, as a very clever writer in the Crompton 'Argus' said at the time of its appearance, is the light vehicle of a weighty moral.' 'One 'ud think,' said Mrs. Linnet, who also had her spectacles on, but chiefly for the purpose of seeing what the others were doing, 'there didn't want much to drive people away from a religion as makes 'em walk barefoot over stone floors, like that girl in Father Clement--sending the blood up to the head frightful. Anybody might see that was an unnat'ral creed.' 'Yes,' said Miss Pratt, 'but asceticism is not the root of the error, as Mr. Tryan was telling us the other evening--it is the denial of the great doctrine of justification by faith. Much as I had reflected on all subjects in the course of my life, I am indebted to Mr. Tryan for opening my eyes to the full importance of that cardinal doctrine of the Reformation. From a child I had a deep sense of religion, but in my early days the Gospel light was obscured in the English Church, notwithstanding the possession of our incomparable Liturgy, than which I know no human composition more faultless and sublime. As I tell Eliza I was not blest as she is at the age of two-and-twenty, in knowing a clergyman who unites all that is great and admirable in intellect with the highest spiritual gifts. I am no contemptible judge of a man's acquirements, and I assure you I have tested Mr. Tryan's by questions which are a pretty severe touchstone. It is true, I sometimes carry him a little beyond the depth of the other listeners. Profound learning,' continued Miss Pratt, shutting her spectacles, and tapping them on the book before her, 'has not many to estimate it in Milby.' 'Miss Pratt,' said Rebecca, 'will you please give me Scott's "Force of Truth?" There--that small book lying against the "Life of Legh Richmond."' 'That's a book I'm very fond of--the "Life of Legh Richmond,"' said Mrs. Linnet. 'He found out all about that woman at Tutbury as pretended to live without eating. Stuff and nonsense!' Mrs. Linnet had become a reader of religious books since Mr. Tryan's advent, and as she was in the habit of confining her perusal to the purely secular portions, which bore a very small proportion to the whole, she could make rapid progress through a large number of volumes. On taking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turned to the end to see what disease he died of; and if his legs swelled, as her own occasionally did, she felt a stronger interest in ascertaining any earlier facts in the history of the dropsical divine--whether he had ever fallen off a stage coach, whether he had married more than one wife, and, in general, any adventures or repartees recorded of him previous to the epoch of his conversion. She then glanced over the letters and diary, and wherever there was a predominance of Zion, the River of Life, and notes of exclamation, she turned over to the next page; but any passage in which she saw such promising nouns as 'small-pox', 'pony', or 'boots and shoes', at once arrested her. 'It is half-past six now,' said Miss Linnet, looking at her watch as the servant appeared with the tea-tray. 'I suppose the delegates are come back by this time. If Mr. Tryan had not so kindly promised to call and let us know, I should hardly rest without walking to Milby myself to know what answer they have brought back. It is a great privilege for us, Mr. Tryan living at Mrs. Wagstaff's, for he is often able to take us on his way backwards and forwards into the town.' 'I wonder if there's another man in the world who has been brought up as Mr. Tryan has, that would choose to live in those small close rooms on the common, among heaps of dirty cottages, for the sake of being near the poor people,' said Mrs. Pettifer. 'I'm afraid he hurts his health by it; he looks to me far from strong.' 'Ah,' said Miss Pratt, 'I understand he is of a highly respectable family indeed, in Huntingdonshire. I heard him myself speak of his father's carriage--quite incidentally, you know--and Eliza tells me what very fine cambric handkerchiefs he uses. My eyes are not good enough to see such things, but I know what breeding is as well as most people, and it is easy to see that Mr. Tryan is quite _comme il faw_, to use a French expression.' 'I should like to tell him better nor use fine cambric i' this place, where there's such washing, it's a shame to be seen,' said Mrs. Linnet; 'he'll get 'em tore to pieces. Good lawn 'ud be far better. I saw what a colour his linen looked at the sacrament last Sunday. Mary's making him a black silk case to hold his bands, but I told her she'd more need wash 'em for him.' 'O mother!' said Rebecca, with solemn severity, 'pray don't think of pocket-handkerchiefs and linen, when we are talking of such a man. And at this moment, too, when he is perhaps having to bear a heavy blow. We have more need to help him by prayer, as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses. We don't know but wickedness may have triumphed, and Mr. Prendergast may have consented to forbid the lecture. There have been dispensations quite as mysterious, and Satan is evidently putting forth all his strength to resist the entrance of the Gospel into Milby Church.' 'You niver spoke a truer word than that, my dear,' said Mrs. Linnet, who accepted all religious phrases, but was extremely rationalistic in her interpretation; 'for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's that Dempster. It was all through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's Croft, making out as the title wasn't good. Such lawyer's villany! As if paying good money wasn't title enough to anything. If your father as is dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But he'll have a fall some day, Dempster will. Mark my words.' 'Ah, out of his carriage, you mean,' said Miss Pratt, who, in the movement occasioned by the clearing of the table, had lost the first part of Mrs. Linnet's speech. 'It certainly is alarming to see him driving home from Rotherby, flogging his galloping horse like a madman. My brother has often said he expected every Thursday evening to be called in to set some of Dempster's bones; but I suppose he may drop that expectation now, for we are given to understand from good authority that he has forbidden his wife to call my brother in again either to herself or her mother. He swears no Tryanite doctor shall attend his family. I have reason to believe that Pilgrim was called in to Mrs. Dempster's mother the other day.' 'Poor Mrs. Raynor! she's glad to do anything for the sake of peace and quietness,' said Mrs. Pettifer; 'but it's no trifle at her time of life to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.' 'What trouble that poor woman has to bear in her old age!' said Mary Linnet, 'to see her daughter leading such a life!--an only daughter, too, that she doats on.' 'Yes, indeed,' said Miss Pratt. 'We, of course, know more about it than most people, my brother having attended the family so many years. For my part, I never thought well of the marriage; and I endeavoured to dissuade my brother when Mrs. Raynor asked him to give Janet away at the wedding. 'If you will take my advice, Richard,' I said, 'you will have nothing to do with that marriage.' And he has seen the justice of my opinion since. Mrs. Raynor herself was against the connection at first; but she always spoiled Janet, and I fear, too, she was won over by a foolish pride in having her daughter marry a professional man. I fear it was so. No one but myself, I think, foresaw the extent of the evil.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'Janet had nothing to look forward to but being a governess; and it was hard for Mrs. Raynor to have to work at millinering--a woman well brought up, and her husband a man who held his head as high as any man in Thurston. And it isn't everybody that sees everything fifteen years beforehand. Robert Dempster was the cleverest man in Milby; and there weren't many young men fit to talk to Janet.' 'It is a thousand pities,' said Miss Pratt, choosing to ignore Mrs. Pettifer's slight sarcasm, 'for I certainly did consider Janet Raynor the most promising young woman of my acquaintance;--a little too much lifted up, perhaps, by her superior education, and too much given to satire, but able to express herself very well indeed about any book I recommended to her perusal. There is no young woman in Milby now who can be compared with what Janet was when she was married, either in mind or person. I consider Miss Landor far, far below her. Indeed, I cannot say much for the mental superiority of the young ladies in our first families. They are superficial--very superficial.' 'She made the handsomest bride that ever came out of Milby church, too,' said Mrs. Pettifer. 'Such a very fine figure! And it showed off her white poplin so well. And what a pretty smile Janet always had! Poor thing, she keeps that now for all her old friends. I never see her but she has something pretty to say to me--living in the same street, you know, I can't help seeing her often, though I've never been to the house since Dempster broke out on me in one of his drunken fits. She comes to me sometimes, poor thing, looking so strange, anybody passing her in the street may see plain enough what's the matter; but she's always got some little good-natured plan in her head for all that. Only last night I met her, I saw five yards off she wasn't fit to be out; but she had a basin in her hand, full of something she was carrying to Sally Martin, the deformed girl that's in a consumption.' 'But she is just as bitter against Mr. Tryan as her husband is, I understand,' said Rebecca. 'Her heart is very much set against the truth, for I understand she bought Mr. Tryan's sermons on purpose to ridicule them to Mrs. Crewe. 'Well, poor thing,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'you know she stands up for everything her husband says and does. She never will admit to anybody that he is not a good husband.' 'That is her pride,' said Miss Pratt. 'She married him in opposition to the advice of her best friends, and now she is not willing to admit that she was wrong. Why, even to my brother--and a medical attendant, you know, can hardly fail to be acquainted with family secrets--she has always pretended to have the highest respect for her husband's qualities. Poor Mrs. Raynor, however, is very well aware that every one knows the real state of things. Latterly, she has not even avoided the subject with me. The very last time I called on her she said, "Have you been to see my poor daughter?" and burst into tears.' 'Pride or no pride,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'I shall always stand up for Janet Dempster. She sat up with me night after night when I had that attack of rheumatic fever six years ago. There's great excuses for her. When a woman can't think of her husband coming home without trembling, it's enough to make her drink something to blunt her feelings--and no children either, to keep her from it. You and me might do the same, if we were in her place.' 'Speak for yourself, Mrs. Pettifer,' said Miss Pratt. 'Under no circumstances can I imagine myself resorting to a practice so degrading. A woman should find support in her own strength of mind.' 'I think,' said Rebecca, who considered Miss Pratt still very blind in spiritual things, notwithstanding her assumption of enlightenment, 'she will find poor support if she trusts only to her own strength. She must seek aid elsewhere than in herself.' Happily the removal of the tea-things just then created a little confusion, which aided Miss Pratt to repress her resentment at Rebecca's presumption in correcting her--a person like Rebecca Linnet! who six months ago was as flighty and vain a woman as Miss Pratt had ever known --so very unconscious of her unfortunate person! The ladies had scarcely been seated at their work another hour, when the sun was sinking, and the clouds that flecked the sky to the very zenith were every moment taking on a brighter gold. The gate of the little garden opened, and Miss Linnet, seated at her small table near the window, saw Mr. Tryan enter. 'There is Mr. Tryan,' she said, and her pale cheek was lighted up with a little blush that would have made her look more attractive to almost any one except Miss Eliza Pratt, whose fine grey eyes allowed few things to escape her silent observation. 'Mary Linnet gets more and more in love with Mr. Tryan,' thought Miss Eliza; 'it is really pitiable to see such feelings in a woman of her age, with those old-maidish little ringlets. I daresay she flatters herself Mr. Tryan may fall in love with her, because he makes her useful among the poor.' At the same time, Miss Eliza, as she bent her handsome head and large cannon curls with apparent calmness over her work, felt a considerable internal flutter when she heard the knock at the door. Rebecca had less self-command. She felt too much agitated to go on with her pasting, and clutched the leg of the table to counteract the trembling in her hands. Poor women's hearts! Heaven forbid that I should laugh at you, and make cheap jests on your susceptibility towards the clerical sex, as if it had nothing deeper or more lovely in it than the mere vulgar angling for a husband. Even in these enlightened days, many a curate who, considered abstractedly, is nothing more than a sleek bimanous animal in a white neck-cloth, with views more or less Anglican, and furtively addicted to the flute, is adored by a girl who has coarse brothers, or by a solitary woman who would like to be a helpmate in good works beyond her own means, simply because he seems to them the model of refinement and of public usefulness. What wonder, then, that in Milby society, such as I have told you it was a very long while ago, a zealous evangelical clergyman, aged thirty-three, called forth all the little agitations that belong to the divine necessity of loving, implanted in the Miss Linnets, with their seven or eight lustrums and their unfashionable ringlets, no less than in Miss Eliza Pratt, with her youthful bloom and her ample cannon curls. But Mr. Tryan has entered the room, and the strange light from the golden sky falling on his light-brown hair, which is brushed high up round his head, makes it look almost like an aureole. His grey eyes, too, shine with unwonted brilliancy this evening. They were not remarkable eyes, but they accorded completely in their changing light with the changing expression of his person, which indicated the paradoxical character often observable in a large-limbed sanguine blond; at once mild and irritable, gentle and overbearing, indolent and resolute, self-conscious and dreamy. Except that the well-filled lips had something of the artificially compressed look which is often the sign of a struggle to keep the dragon undermost, and that the complexion was rather pallid, giving the idea of imperfect health, Mr. Tryan's face in repose was that of an ordinary whiskerless blond, and it seemed difficult to refer a certain air of distinction about him to anything in particular, unless it were his delicate hands and well-shapen feet. It was a great anomaly to the Milby mind that a canting evangelical parson, who would take tea with tradespeople, and make friends of vulgar women like the Linnets, should have so much the air of a gentleman, and be so little like the splay-footed Mr. Stickney of Salem, to whom he approximated so closely in doctrine. And this want of correspondence between the physique and the creed had excited no less surprise in the larger town of Laxeter, where Mr. Tryan had formerly held a curacy; for of the two other Low Church clergymen in the neighbourhood, one was a Welshman of globose figure and unctuous complexion, and the other a man of atrabiliar aspect, with lank black hair, and a redundance of limp cravat--in fact, the sort of thing you might expect in men who distributed the publications of the Religious Tract Society, and introduced Dissenting hymns into the Church. Mr. Tryan shook hands with Mrs. Linnet, bowed with rather a preoccupied air to the other ladies, and seated himself in the large horse-hair easy-chair which had been drawn forward for him, while the ladies ceased from their work, and fixed their eyes on him, awaiting the news he had to tell them. 'It seems,' he began, in a low and silvery tone, 'I need a lesson of patience; there has been something wrong in my thought or action about this evening lecture. I have been too much bent on doing good to Milby after my own plan--too reliant on my own wisdom.' Mr. Tryan paused. He was struggling against inward irritation. 'The delegates are come back, then?' 'Has Mr. Prendergast given way?' 'Has Dempster succeeded?'--were the eager questions of three ladies at once. 'Yes; the town is in an uproar. As we were sitting in Mr. Landor's drawing-room we heard a loud cheering, and presently Mr. Thrupp, the clerk at the bank, who had been waiting at the Red Lion to hear the result, came to let us know. He said Dempster had been making a speech to the mob out the window. They were distributing drink to the people, and hoisting placards in great letters,--"Down with the Tryanites!" "Down with cant!" They had a hideous caricature of me being tripped-up and pitched head-foremost out of the pulpit. Good old Mr. Landor would insist on sending me round in the carriage; he thought I should not be safe from the mob; but I got down at the Crossways. The row was evidently preconcerted by Dempster before he set out. He made sure of succeeding.' Mr. Tryan's utterance had been getting rather louder and more rapid in the course of this speech, and he now added, in the energetic chest-voice, which, both in and out of the pulpit, alternated continually with his more silvery notes,--'But his triumph will be a short one. If he thinks he can intimidate me by obloquy or threats, he has mistaken the man he has to deal with. Mr. Dempster and his colleagues will find themselves checkmated after all. Mr. Prendergast has been false to his own conscience in this business. He knows as well as I do that he is throwing away the souls of the people by leaving things as they are in the parish. But I shall appeal to the Bishop--I am confident of his sympathy.' 'The Bishop will be coming shortly, I suppose,' said Miss Pratt, 'to hold a confirmation?' 'Yes; but I shall write to him at once, and lay the case before him. Indeed, I must hurry away now, for I have many matters to attend to. You, ladies, have been kindly helping me with your labours, I see,' continued Mr. Tryan, politely, glancing at the canvass-covered books as he rose from his seat. Then, turning to Mary Linnet: 'Our library is really getting on, I think. You and your sister have quite a heavy task of distribution now.' Poor Rebecca felt it very hard to bear that Mr. Tryan did not turn towards her too. If he knew how much she entered into his feelings about the lecture, and the interest she took in the library. Well! perhaps it was her lot to be overlooked--and it might be a token of mercy. Even a good man might not always know the heart that was most with him. But the next moment poor Mary had a pang, when Mr. Tryan turned to Miss Eliza Pratt, and the preoccupied expression of his face melted into that beaming timidity with which a man almost always addresses a pretty woman. 'I have to thank you, too, Miss Eliza, for seconding me so well in your visits to Joseph Mercer. The old man tells me how precious he finds your reading to him, now he is no longer able to go to church.' Miss Eliza only answered by a blush, which made her look all the handsomer, but her aunt said,--'Yes, Mr. Tryan, I have ever inculcated on my dear Eliza the importance of spending her leisure in being useful to her fellow-creatures. Your example and instruction have been quite in the spirit of the system which I have always pursued, though we are indebted to you for a clearer view of the motives that should actuate us in our pursuit of good works. Not that I can accuse myself of having ever had a self-righteous spirit, but my humility was rather instinctive than based on a firm ground of doctrinal knowledge, such as you so admirably impart to us.' Mrs. Linnet's usual entreaty that Mr. Tryan would 'have something--some wine and water and a biscuit', was just here a welcome relief from the necessity of answering Miss Pratt's oration. 'Not anything, my dear Mrs. Linnet, thank you. You forget what a Rechabite I am. By the by, when I went this morning to see a poor girl in Butcher's Lane, whom I had heard of as being in a consumption, I found Mrs. Dempster there. I had often met her in the street, but did not know it was Mrs. Dempster. It seems she goes among the poor a good deal. She is really an interesting-looking woman. I was quite surprised, for I have heard the worst account of her habits--that she is almost as bad as her husband. She went out hastily as soon as I entered. But' (apologetically) 'I am keeping you all standing, and I must really hurry away. Mrs. Pettifer, I have not had the pleasure of calling on you for some time; I shall take an early opportunity of going your way. Good evening, good evening.' Chapter 4 Mr. Tryan was right in saying that the 'row' in Milby had been preconcerted by Dempster. The placards and the caricature were prepared before the departure of the delegates; and it had been settled that Mat Paine, Dempster's clerk, should ride out on Thursday morning to meet them at Whitlow, the last place where they would change horses, that he might gallop back and prepare an ovation for the triumvirate in case of their success. Dempster had determined to dine at Whitlow: so that Mat Paine was in Milby again two hours before the entrance of the delegates, and had time to send a whisper up the back streets that there was promise of a 'spree' in the Bridge Way, as well as to assemble two knots of picked men--one to feed the flame of orthodox zeal with gin-and-water, at the Green Man, near High Street; the other to solidify their church principles with heady beer at the Bear and Ragged Staff in the Bridge Way. The Bridge Way was an irregular straggling street, where the town fringed off raggedly into the Whitlow road: rows of new red-brick houses, in which ribbon-looms were rattling behind long lines of window, alternating with old, half-thatched, half-tiled cottages--one of those dismal wide streets where dirt and misery have no long shadows thrown on them to soften their ugliness. Here, about half-past five o'clock, Silly Caleb, an idiot well known in Dog Lane, but more of a stranger in the Bridge Way, was seen slouching along with a string of boys hooting at his heels; presently another group, for the most part out at elbows, came briskly in the same direction, looking round them with an air of expectation; and at no long interval, Deb Traunter, in a pink flounced gown and floating ribbons, was observed talking with great affability to two men in seal-skin caps and fustian, who formed her cortege. The Bridge Way began to have a presentiment of something in the wind. Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and appeared at her door in soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness; three narrow-chested ribbon-weavers, in rusty black streaked with shreds of many-coloured silk, sauntered out with their hands in their pockets; and Molly Beale, a brawny old virago, descrying wiry Dame Ricketts peeping out from her entry, seized the opportunity of renewing the morning's skirmish. In short, the Bridge Way was in that state of excitement which is understood to announce a 'demonstration' on the part of the British public; and the afflux of remote townsmen increasing, there was soon so large a crowd that it was time for Bill Powers, a plethoric Goliath, who presided over the knot of beer-drinkers at the Bear and Ragged Staff, to issue forth with his companions, and, like the enunciator of the ancient myth, make the assemblage distinctly conscious of the common sentiment that had drawn them together. The expectation of the delegates' chaise, added to the fight between Molly Beale and Dame Ricketts, and the ill-advised appearance of a lean bull-terrier, were a sufficient safety-valve to the popular excitement during the remaining quarter of an hour; at the end of which the chaise was seen approaching along the Whitlow road, with oak boughs ornamenting the horses' heads; and, to quote the account of this interesting scene which was sent to the _Rotherby Guardian_, 'loud cheers immediately testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, with the public-spirited exertions of their fellow-townsmen.' Bill Powers, whose bloodshot eyes, bent hat, and protuberant altitude, marked him out as the natural leader of the assemblage, undertook to interpret the common sentiment by stopping the chaise, advancing to the door with raised hat, and begging to know of Mr. Dempster, whether the Rector had forbidden the 'canting lecture'. 'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Dempster. 'Keep up a jolly good hurray.' No public duty could have been more easy and agreeable to Mr. Powers and his associates, and the chorus swelled all the way to the High Street, where, by a mysterious coincidence often observable in these spontaneous 'demonstrations', large placards on long poles were observed to shoot upwards from among the crowd, principally in the direction of Tucker's Lane, where the Green Man was situated. One bore, 'Down with the Tryanites!' another, 'No Cant!' another, 'Long live our venerable Curate!' and one in still larger letters, 'Sound Church Principles and no Hypocrisy!' But a still more remarkable impromptu was a huge caricature of Mr. Tryan in gown and band, with an enormous aureole of yellow hair and upturned eyes, standing on the pulpit stairs and trying to pull down old Mr. Crewe. Groans, yells, and hisses--hisses, yells, and groans--only stemmed by the appearance of another caricature representing Mr. Tryan being pitched head-foremost from the pulpit stairs by a hand which the artist, either from subtilty of intention or want of space, had left unindicated. In the midst of the tremendous cheering that saluted this piece of symbolical art, the chaise had reached the door of the Red Lion, and loud cries of 'Dempster for ever!' with a feebler cheer now and then for Tomlinson and Budd, were presently responded to by the appearance of the public-spirited attorney at the large upper window, where also were visible a little in the background the small sleek head of Mr. Budd, and the blinking countenance of Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Dempster held his hat in his hand, and poked his head forward with a butting motion by way of bow. A storm of cheers subsided at last into dropping sounds of 'Silence!' 'Hear him!' 'Go it, Dempster!' and the lawyer's rasping voice became distinctly audible. 'Fellow-townsmen! It gives us the sincerest pleasure--I speak for my respected colleagues as well as myself--to witness these strong proofs of your attachment to the principles of our excellent Church, and your zeal for the honour of our venerable pastor. But it is no more than I expected of you. I know you well. I've known you for the last twenty years to be as honest and respectable a set of ratepayers as any in this county. Your hearts are sound to the core! No man had better try to thrust his cant and hypocrisy down _your_ throats. You're used to wash them with liquor of a better flavour. This is the proudest moment in my own life, and I think I may say in that of my colleagues, in which I have to tell you that our exertions in the cause of sound religion and manly morality have been crowned with success. Yes, my fellow-townsmen! I have the gratification of announcing to you thus formally what you have already learned indirectly. The pulpit from which our venerable pastor has fed us with sound doctrine for half a century is not to be invaded by a fanatical, sectarian, double-faced, Jesuitical interloper! We are not to have our young people demoralized and corrupted by the temptations to vice, notoriously connected with Sunday evening lectures! We are not to have a preacher obtruding himself upon us, who decries good works, and sneaks into our homes perverting the faith of our wives and daughters! We are not to be poisoned with doctrines which damp every innocent enjoyment, and pick a poor man's pocket of the sixpence with which he might buy himself a cheerful glass after a hard day's work, under pretence of paying for bibles to send to the Chicktaws! 'But I'm not going to waste your valuable time with unnecessary words. I am a man of deeds' ('Ay, damn you, that you are, and you charge well for 'em too,' said a voice from the crowd, probably that of a gentleman who was immediately afterwards observed with his hat crushed over his head.) 'I shall always be at the service of my fellow-townsmen, and whoever dares to hector over you, or interfere with your innocent pleasures, shall have an account to settle with Robert Dempster. 'Now, my boys! you can't do better than disperse and carry the good news to all your fellow-townsmen, whose hearts are as sound as your own. Let some of you go one way and some another, that every man, woman, and child in Milby may know what you know yourselves. But before we part, let us have three cheers for True Religion, and down with Cant!' When the last cheer was dying, Mr. Dempster closed the window, and the judiciously-instructed placards and caricatures moved off in divers directions, followed by larger or smaller divisions of the crowd. The greatest attraction apparently lay in the direction of Dog Lane, the outlet towards Paddiford Common, whither the caricatures were moving; and you foresee, of course, that those works of symbolical art were consumed with a liberal expenditure of dry gorse-bushes and vague shouting. After these great public exertions, it was natural that Mr. Dempster and his colleagues should feel more in need than usual of a little social relaxation; and a party of their friends was already beginning to assemble in the large parlour of the Red Lion, convened partly by their own curiosity, and partly by the invaluable Mat Paine. The most capacious punch-bowl was put in requisition; and that born gentleman, Mr. Lowme, seated opposite Mr. Dempster as 'Vice', undertook to brew the punch, defying the criticisms of the envious men out of office, who with the readiness of irresponsibility, ignorantly suggested more lemons. The social festivities were continued till long past midnight, when several friends of sound religion were conveyed home with some difficulty, one of them showing a dogged determination to seat himself in the gutter. Mr. Dempster had done as much justice to the punch as any of the party; and his friend Boots, though aware that the lawyer could 'carry his liquor like Old Nick'. with whose social demeanour Boots seemed to be particularly well acquainted, nevertheless thought it might be as well to see so good a customer in safety to his own door, and walked quietly behind his elbow out of the inn-yard. Dempster, however, soon became aware of him, stopped short, and, turning slowly round upon him, recognized the well-known drab waistcoat sleeves, conspicuous enough in the starlight. 'You twopenny scoundrel! What do you mean by dogging a professional man's footsteps in this way? I'll break every bone in your skin if you attempt to track me, like a beastly cur sniffing at one's pocket. Do you think a gentleman will make his way home any the better for having the scent of your blacking-bottle thrust up his nostrils?' Boots slunk back, in more amusement than ill-humour, thinking the lawyer's 'rum talk' was doubtless part and parcel of his professional ability; and Mr. Dempster pursued his slow way alone. His house lay in Orchard Street, which opened on the prettiest outskirt of the town--the church, the parsonage, and a long stretch of green fields. It was an old-fashioned house, with an overhanging upper storey; outside, it had a face of rough stucco, and casement windows with green frames and shutters; inside, it was full of long passages, and rooms with low ceilings. There was a large heavy knocker on the green door, and though Mr. Dempster carried a latch-key, he sometimes chose to use the knocker. He chose to do so now. The thunder resounded through Orchard Street, and, after a single minute, there was a second clap louder than the first. Another minute, and still the door was not opened; whereupon Mr. Dempster, muttering, took out his latch-key, and, with less difficulty than might have been expected, thrust it into the door. When he opened the door the passage was dark. 'Janet!' in the loudest rasping tone, was the next sound that rang through the house. 'Janet!' again--before a slow step was heard on the stairs, and a distant light began to flicker on the wall of the passage. 'Curse you! you creeping idiot! Come faster, can't you?' Yet a few seconds, and the figure of a tall woman, holding aslant a heavy-plated drawing-room candlestick, appeared at the turning of the passage that led to the broader entrance. She had on a light dress which sat loosely about her figure, but did not disguise its liberal, graceful outline. A heavy mass of straight jet-black hair had escaped from its fastening, and hung over her shoulders. Her grandly-cut features, pale with the natural paleness of a brunette, had premature lines about them, telling that the years had been lengthened by sorrow, and the delicately-curved nostril, which seemed made to quiver with the proud consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing griefs which had given that worn look to the corners of the mouth. Her wide open black eyes had a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she paused at the turning, and stood silent before her husband. 'I'll teach you to keep me waiting in the dark, you pale staring fool!' he said, advancing with his slow drunken step. 'What, you've been drinking again, have you? I'll beat you into your senses.' He laid his hand with a firm grip on her shoulder, turned her round, and pushed her slowly before him along the passage and through the dining-room door, which stood open on their left hand. There was a portrait of Janet's mother, a grey-haired, dark-eyed old woman, in a neatly fluted cap, hanging over the mantelpiece. Surely the aged eyes take on a look of anguish as they see Janet--not trembling, no! it would be better if she trembled--standing stupidly unmoved in her great beauty while the heavy arm is lifted to strike her. The blow falls --another--and another. Surely the mother hears that cry--'O Robert! pity! pity!' Poor grey-haired woman! Was it for this you suffered a mother's pangs in your lone widowhood five-and-thirty years ago? Was it for this you kept the little worn morocco shoes Janet had first run in, and kissed them day by day when she was away from you, a tall girl at school? Was it for this you looked proudly at her when she came back to you in her rich pale beauty, like a tall white arum that has just unfolded its grand pure curves to the sun? The mother lies sleepless and praying in her lonely house, weeping the difficult tears of age, because she dreads this may be a cruel night for her child. She too has a picture over her mantelpiece, drawn in chalk by Janet long years ago. She looked at it before she went to bed. It is a head bowed beneath a cross, and wearing a crown of thorns. Chapter 5 It was half-past nine o'clock in the morning. The midsummer sun was already warm on the roofs and weathercocks of Milby. The church-bells were ringing, and many families were conscious of Sunday sensations, chiefly referable to the fact that the daughters had come down to breakfast in their best frocks, and with their hair particularly well dressed. For it was not Sunday, but Wednesday; and though the Bishop was going to hold a Confirmation, and to decide whether or not there should be a Sunday evening lecture in Milby, the sunbeams had the usual working-day look to the haymakers already long out in the fields, and to laggard weavers just 'setting up' their week's 'piece'. The notion of its being Sunday was the strongest in young ladies like Miss Phipps, who was going to accompany her younger sister to the confirmation, and to wear a 'sweetly pretty' transparent bonnet with marabout feathers on the interesting occasion, thus throwing into relief the suitable simplicity of her sister's attire, who was, of course, to appear in a new white frock; or in the pupils at Miss Townley's, who were absolved from all lessons, and were going to church to see the Bishop, and to hear the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Prendergast, the rector, read prayers--a high intellectual treat, as Miss Townley assured them. It seemed only natural that a rector, who was honourable, should read better than old Mr. Crewe, who was only a curate, and not honourable; and when little Clara Robins wondered why some clergymen were rectors and others not, Ellen Marriott assured her with great confidence that it was only the clever men who were made rectors. Ellen Marriott was going to be confirmed. She was a short, fair, plump girl, with blue eyes and sandy hair, which was this morning arranged in taller cannon curls than usual, for the reception of the Episcopal benediction, and some of the young ladies thought her the prettiest girl in the school; but others gave the preference to her rival, Maria Gardner, who was much taller, and had a lovely 'crop' of dark-brown ringlets, and who, being also about to take upon herself the vows made in her name at her baptism, had oiled and twisted her ringlets with especial care. As she seated herself at the breakfast-table before Miss Townley's entrance to dispense the weak coffee, her crop excited so strong a sensation that Ellen Marriott was at length impelled to look at it, and to say with suppressed but bitter sarcasm, 'Is that Miss Gardner's head?' 'Yes,' said Maria, amiable and stuttering, and no match for Ellen in retort; 'th--th--this is my head.' 'Then I don't admire it at all!' was the crushing rejoinder of Ellen, followed by a murmur of approval among her friends. Young ladies, I suppose, exhaust their sac of venom in this way at school. That is the reason why they have such a harmless tooth for each other in after life. The only other candidate for confirmation at Miss Townley's was Mary Dunn, a draper's daughter in Milby and a distant relation of the Miss Linnets. Her pale lanky hair could never be coaxed into permanent curl, and this morning the heat had brought it down to its natural condition of lankiness earlier than usual. But that was not what made her sit melancholy and apart at the lower end of the form. Her parents were admirers of Mr. Tryan, and had been persuaded, by the Miss Linnets' influence, to insist that their daughter should be prepared for confirmation by him, over and above the preparation given to Miss Townley's pupils by Mr. Crewe. Poor Mary Dunn! I am afraid she thought it too heavy a price to pay for these spiritual advantages, to be excluded from every game at ball to be obliged to walk with none but little girls--in fact, to be the object of an aversion that nothing short of an incessant supply of plumcakes would have neutralized. And Mrs. Dunn was of opinion that plumcake was unwholesome. The anti-Tryanite spirit, you perceive, was very strong at Miss Townley's, imported probably by day scholars, as well as encouraged by the fact that that clever woman was herself strongly opposed to innovation, and remarked every Sunday that Mr. Crewe had preached an 'excellent discourse'. Poor Mary Dunn dreaded the moment when school-hours would be over, for then she was sure to be the butt of those very explicit remarks which, in young ladies' as well as young gentlemen's seminaries, constitute the most subtle and delicate form of the innuendo. 'I'd never be a Tryanite, would you?' 'O here comes the lady that knows so much more about religion than we do!' 'Some people think themselves so very pious!' It is really surprising that young ladies should not be thought competent to the same curriculum as young gentlemen. I observe that their powers of sarcasm are quite equal; and if there had been a genteel academy for young gentlemen at Milby, I am inclined to think that, notwithstanding Euclid and the classics, the party spirit there would not have exhibited itself in more pungent irony, or more incisive satire, than was heard in Miss Townley's seminary. But there was no such academy, the existence of the grammar-school under Mr. Crewe's superintendence probably discouraging speculations of that kind; and the genteel youths of Milby were chiefly come home for the midsummer holidays from distant schools. Several of us had just assumed coat-tails, and the assumption of new responsibilities apparently following as a matter of course, we were among the candidates for confirmation. I wish I could say that the solemnity of our feelings was on a level with the solemnity of the occasion; but unimaginative boys find it difficult to recognize apostolical institutions in their developed form, and I fear our chief emotion concerning the ceremony was a sense of sheepishness, and our chief opinion, the speculative and heretical position, that it ought to be confined to the girls. It was a pity, you will say; but it is the way with us men in other crises, that come a long while after confirmation. The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. But, as I said, the morning was sunny, the bells were ringing, the ladies of Milby were dressed in their Sunday garments. And who is this bright-looking woman walking with hasty step along Orchard Street so early, with a large nosegay in her hand? Can it be Janet Dempster, on whom we looked with such deep pity, one sad midnight, hardly a fortnight ago? Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching black eyes, that tall graceful unconstrained figure, set off by her simple muslin dress and black lace shawl, that massy black hair now so neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white satin ribbons of her modest cap and bonnet. No other woman has that sweet speaking smile, with which she nods to Jonathan Lamb, the old parish clerk. And, ah!--now she comes nearer--there are those sad lines about the mouth and eyes on which that sweet smile plays like sunbeams on the storm-beaten beauty of the full and ripened corn. She is turning out of Orchard Street, and making her way as fast as she can to her mother's house, a pleasant cottage facing a roadside meadow, from which the hay is being carried. Mrs. Raynor has had her breakfast, and is seated in her arm-chair reading, when Janet opens the door, saying, in her most playful voice,--'Please, mother, I'm come to show myself to you before I go to the Parsonage. Have I put on my pretty cap and bonnet to satisfy you?' Mrs. Raynor looked over her spectacles, and met her daughter's glance with eyes as dark and loving as her own. She was a much smaller woman than Janet, both in figure and feature, the chief resemblance lying in the eyes and the clear brunette complexion. The mother's hair had long been grey, and was gathered under the neatest of caps, made by her own clever fingers, as all Janet's caps and bonnets were too. They were well-practised fingers, for Mrs. Raynor had supported herself in her widowhood by keeping a millinery establishment, and in this way had earned money enough to give her daughter what was then thought a first-rate education, as well as to save a sum which, eked out by her son-in-law, sufficed to support her in her solitary old age. Always the same clean, neat old lady, dressed in black silk, was Mrs. Raynor: a patient, brave woman, who bowed with resignation under the burden of remembered sorrow, and bore with meek fortitude the new load that the new days brought with them. 'Your bonnet wants pulling a trifle forwarder, my child,' she said, smiling, and taking off her spectacles, while Janet at once knelt down before her, and waited to be 'set to rights', as she would have done when she was a child. 'You're going straight to Mrs. Crewe's, I suppose? Are those flowers to garnish the dishes?' 'No, indeed, mother. This is a nosegay for the middle of the table. I've sent up the dinner-service and the ham we had cooked at our house yesterday, and Betty is coming directly with the garnish and the plate. We shall get our good Mrs. Crewe through her troubles famously. Dear tiny woman! You should have seen her lift up her hands yesterday, and pray heaven to take her before ever she should have another collation to get ready for the Bishop. She said, "It's bad enough to have the Archdeacon, though he doesn't want half so many jelly-glasses. I wouldn't mind, Janet, if it was to feed all the old hungry cripples in Milby; but so much trouble and expense for people who eat too much every day of their lives!" We had such a cleaning and furbishing-up of the sitting-room yesterday! Nothing will ever do away with the smell of Mr. Crewe's pipes, you know; but we have thrown it into the background, with yellow soap and dry lavender. And now I must run away. You will come to church, mother?' 'Yes, my dear, I wouldn't lose such a pretty sight. It does my old eyes good to see so many fresh young faces. Is your husband going?' 'Yes, Robert will be there. I've made him as neat as a new pin this morning, and he says the Bishop will think him too buckish by half. I took him into Mammy Dempster's room to show himself. We hear Tryan is making sure of the Bishop's support; but we shall see. I would give my crooked guinea, and all the luck it will ever bring me, to have him beaten, for I can't endure the sight of the man coming to harass dear old Mr. and Mrs. Crewe in their last days. Preaching the Gospel indeed! That is the best Gospel that makes everybody happy and comfortable, isn't it, mother?' 'Ah, child, I'm afraid there's no Gospel will do that here below.' 'Well, I can do something to comfort Mrs. Crewe, at least; so give me a kiss, and good-bye till church-time.' The mother leaned back in her chair when Janet was gone, and sank into a painful reverie. When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering: the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the water drops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst. Janet looked glad and tender now--but what scene of misery was coming next? She was too like the cistus flowers in the little garden before the window, that, with the shades of evening, might lie with the delicate white and glossy dark of their petals trampled in the roadside dust. When the sun had sunk, and the twilight was deepening, Janet might be sitting there, heated, maddened, sobbing out her griefs with selfish passion, and wildly wishing herself dead. Mrs. Raynor had been reading about the lost sheep, and the joy there is in heaven over the sinner that repenteth. Surely the eternal love she believed in through all the sadness of her lot, would not leave her child to wander farther and farther into the wilderness till here was no turning--the child so lovely, so pitiful to others, so good, till she was goaded into sin by woman's bitterest sorrows! Mrs. Raynor had her faith and her spiritual comforts, though she was not in the least evangelical and knew nothing of doctrinal zeal. I fear most of Mr. Tryan's hearers would have considered her destitute of saving knowledge, and I am quite sure she had no well-defined views on justification. Nevertheless, she read her Bible a great deal, and thought she found divine lessons there--how to bear the cross meekly, and be merciful. Let us hope that there is a saving ignorance, and that Mrs. Raynor was justified without knowing exactly how. She tried to have hope and trust, though it was hard to believe that the future would be anything else than the harvest of the seed that was being sown before her eyes. But always there is seed being sown silently and unseen, and everywhere there come sweet flowers without our foresight or labour. We reap what we sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit that spring from no planting of ours. Chapter 6 Most people must have agreed with Mrs. Raynor that the Confirmation that day was a pretty sight, at least when those slight girlish forms and fair young faces moved in a white rivulet along the aisles, and flowed into kneeling semicircles under the light of the great chancel window, softened by patches of dark old painted glass; and one would think that to look on while a pair of venerable hands pressed such young heads, and a venerable face looked upward for a blessing on them, would be very likely to make the heart swell gently, and to moisten the eyes. Yet I remember the eyes seemed very dry in Milby Church that day, notwithstanding that the Bishop was an old man, and probably venerable (for though he was not an eminent Grecian, he was the brother of a Whig lord); and I think the eyes must have remained dry, because he had small delicate womanish hands adorned with ruffles, and, instead of laying them on the girls' heads, just let them hover over each in quick succession, as if it were not etiquette to touch them, and as if the laying on of hands were like the theatrical embrace--part of the play, and not to be really believed in. To be sure there were a great many heads, and the Bishop's time was limited. Moreover, a wig can, under no circumstances, be affecting, except in rare cases of illusion; and copious lawn-sleeves cannot be expected to go directly to any heart except a washerwoman's. I know, Ned Phipps, who knelt against me, and I am sure made me behave much worse than I should have done without him, whispered that he thought the Bishop was a 'guy', and I certainly remember thinking that Mr. Prendergast looked much more dignified with his plain white surplice and black hair. He was a tall commanding man, and read the Liturgy in a strikingly sonorous and uniform voice, which I tried to imitate the next Sunday at home, until my little sister began to cry, and said I was 'yoaring at her'. Mr. Tryan sat in a pew near the pulpit with several other clergymen. He looked pale, and rubbed his hand over his face and pushed back his hair oftener than usual. Standing in the aisle close to him, and repeating the responses with edifying loudness, was Mr. Budd, churchwarden and delegate, with a white staff in his hand and a backward bend of his small head and person, such as, I suppose, he considered suitable to a friend of sound religion. Conspicuous in the gallery, too, was the tall figure of Mr. Dempster, whose professional avocations rarely allowed him to occupy his place at church. 'There's Dempster,' said Mrs. Linnet to her daughter Mary, 'looking more respectable than usual, I declare. He's got a fine speech by heart to make to the Bishop, I'll answer for it. But he'll be pretty well sprinkled with snuff before service is over, and the Bishop won't be able to listen to him for sneezing, that's one comfort.' At length the last stage in the long ceremony was over, the large assembly streamed warm and weary into the open afternoon sunshine, and the Bishop retired to the Parsonage, where, after honouring Mrs. Crewe's collation, he was to give audience to the delegates and Mr. Tryan on the great question of the evening lecture. Between five and six o'clock the Parsonage was once more as quiet as usual under the shadow of its tall elms, and the only traces of the Bishop's recent presence there were the wheel marks on the gravel, and the long table with its garnished dishes awry, its damask sprinkled with crumbs, and its decanters without their stoppers. Mr. Crewe was already calmly smoking his pipe in the opposite sitting-room, and Janet was agreeing with Mrs. Crewe that some of the blanc-mange would be a nice thing to take to Sally Martin, while the little old lady herself had a spoon in her hand ready to gather the crumbs into a plate, that she might scatter them on the gravel for the little birds. Before that time, the Bishop's carriage had been seen driving through the High Street on its way to Lord Trufford's, where he was to dine. The question of the lecture was decided, then? The nature of the decision may be gathered from the following conversation which took place in the bar of the Red Lion that evening. 'So you're done, eh, Dempster?' was Mr. Pilgrim's observation, uttered with some gusto. He was not glad Mr. Tryan had gained his point, but he was not sorry Dempster was disappointed. 'Done, sir? Not at all. It is what I anticipated. I knew we had nothing else to expect in these days, when the Church is infested by a set of men who are only fit to give out hymns from an empty cask, to tunes set by a journeyman cobbler. But I was not the less to exert myself in the cause of sound Churchmanship for the good of the town. Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat, as Mr. Tryan shall learn to his cost.' 'He must be a poor shuperannyated sort of a bishop, that's my opinion,' said Mr. Tomlinson, 'to go along with a sneaking Methodist like Tryan. And, for my part, I think we should be as well wi'out bishops, if they're no wiser than that. Where's the use o' havin' thousands a-year an' livin' in a pallis, if they don't stick to the Church?' 'No. There you're going out of your depth, Tomlinson,' said Mr. Dempster. 'No one shall hear me say a word against Episcopacy--it is a safeguard of the Church; we must have ranks and dignities there as well as everywhere else. No, sir! Episcopacy is a good thing; but it may happen that a bishop is not a good thing. Just as brandy is a good thing, though this particular brandy is British, and tastes like sugared rain-water caught down the chimney. Here, Ratcliffe, let me have something to drink, a little less like a decoction of sugar and soot.' '_I_ said nothing again' Episcopacy,' returned Mr. Tomlinson. 'I only said I thought we should do as well wi'out bishops; an' I'll say it again for the matter o' that. Bishops never brought any grist to my mill.' 'Do you know when the lectures are to begin?' said Mr. Pilgrim. 'They are to _begin_ on Sunday next,' said Mr. Dempster, in a significant tone; 'but I think it will not take a long-sighted prophet to foresee the end of them. It strikes me Mr. Tryan will be looking out for another curacy shortly.' 'He'll not get many Milby people to go and hear his lectures after a while, I'll bet a guinea,' observed Mr. Budd. 'I know I'll not keep a single workman on my ground who either goes to the lecture himself or lets anybody belonging to him go.' 'Nor me nayther,' said Mr. Tomlinson. 'No Tryanite shall touch a sack or drive a waggon o' mine, that you may depend on. An' I know more besides me as are o' the same mind.' 'Tryan has a good many friends in the town, though, and friends that are likely to stand by him too,' said Mr. Pilgrim. 'I should say it would be as well to let him and his lectures alone. If he goes on preaching as he does, with such a constitution as his, he'll get a relaxed throat by-and-by, and you'll be rid of him without any trouble.' 'We'll not allow him to do himself that injury,' said Mr. Dempster. 'Since his health is not good, we'll persuade him to try change of air. Depend upon it, he'll find the climate of Milby too hot for him.' Chapter 7 Mr. Dempster did not stay long at the Red Lion that evening. He was summoned home to meet Mr. Armstrong, a wealthy client, and as he was kept in consultation till a late hour, it happened that this was one of the nights on which Mr. Dempster went to bed tolerably sober. Thus the day, which had been one of Janets happiest, because it had been spent by her in helping her dear old friend Mrs. Crewe, ended for her with unusual quietude; and as a bright sunset promises a fair morning, so a calm lying down is a good augury for a calm waking. Mr. Dempster, on the Thursday morning, was in one of his best humours, and though perhaps some of the good-humour might result from the prospect of a lucrative and exciting bit of business in Mr. Armstrong's probable lawsuit, the greater part of it was doubtless due to those stirrings of the more kindly, healthy sap of human feeling, by which goodness tries to get the upper hand in us whenever it seems to have the slightest chance--on Sunday mornings, perhaps, when we are set free from the grinding hurry of the week, and take the little three-year old on our knee at breakfast to share our egg and muffin; in moments of trouble, when death visits our roof or illness makes us dependent on the tending hand of a slighted wife; in quiet talks with an aged mother, of the days when we stood at her knee with our first picture-book, or wrote her loving letters from school. In the man whose childhood has known caresses there is always a fibre of memory that can be touched to gentle issues, and Mr. Dempster, whom you have hitherto seen only as the orator of the Red Lion, and the drunken tyrant of a dreary midnight home, was the first-born darling son of a fair little mother. That mother was living still, and her own large black easy-chair, where she sat knitting through the livelong day, was now set ready for her at the breakfast-table, by her son's side, a sleek tortoise-shell cat acting as provisional incumbent. 'Good morning, Mamsey! why, you're looking as fresh as a daisy this morning. You're getting young again', said Mr. Dempster, looking up from his newspaper when the little old lady entered. A very little old lady she was, with a pale, scarcely wrinkled face, hair of that peculiar white which tells that the locks have once been blond, a natty pure white cap on her head, and a white shawl pinned over her shoulders. You saw at a glance that she had been a mignonne blonde, strangely unlike her tall, ugly, dingy-complexioned son; unlike her daughter-in-law, too, whose large-featured brunette beauty seemed always thrown into higher relief by the white presence of little Mamsey. The unlikeness between Janet and her mother-in-law went deeper than outline and complexion, and indeed there was little sympathy between them, for old Mrs. Dempster had not yet learned to believe that her son, Robert, would have gone wrong if he had married the right woman--a meek woman like herself, who would have borne him children, and been a deft, orderly housekeeper. In spite of Janet's tenderness and attention to her, she had had little love for her daughter-in-law from the first, and had witnessed the sad growth of home-misery through long years, always with a disposition to lay the blame on the wife rather than on the husband, and to reproach Mrs. Raynor for encouraging her daughter's faults by a too exclusive sympathy. But old Mrs. Dempster had that rare gift of silence and passivity which often supplies the absence of mental strength; and, whatever were her thoughts, she said no word to aggravate the domestic discord. Patient and mute she sat at her knitting through many a scene of quarrel and anguish; resolutely she appeared unconscious of the sounds that reached her ears, and the facts she divined after she had retired to her bed; mutely she witnessed poor Janet's faults, only registering them as a balance of excuse on the side of her son. The hard, astute, domineering attorney was still that little old woman's pet, as he had been when she watched with triumphant pride his first tumbling effort to march alone across the nursery floor. 'See what a good son he is to me!' she often thought. 'Never gave me a harsh word. And so he might have been a good husband.' O it is piteous--that sorrow of aged women! In early youth, perhaps, they said to themselves, 'I shall be happy when I have a husband to love me best of all'; then, when the husband was too careless, 'My child will comfort me'; then, through the mother's watching and toil, 'My child will repay me all when it grows up.' And at last, after the long journey of years has been wearily travelled through, the mother's heart is weighed down by a heavier burthen, and no hope remains but the grave. But this morning old Mrs. Dempster sat down in her easy-chair without any painful, suppressed remembrance of the pre-ceding night. 'I declare mammy looks younger than Mrs. Crewe, who is only sixty-five,' said Janet. 'Mrs. Crewe will come to see you today, mammy, and tell you all about her troubles with the Bishop and the collation. She'll bring her knitting, and you'll have a regular gossip together.' 'The gossip will be all on one side, then, for Mrs. Crewe gets so very deaf, I can't make her hear a word. And if I motion to her, she always understands me wrong.' 'O, she will have so much to tell you today, you will not want to speak yourself. You, who have patience to knit those wonderful counterpanes, mammy, must not be impatient with dear Mrs. Crewe. Good old lady! I can't bear her to think she's ever tiresome to people, and you know she's very ready to fancy herself in the way. I think she would like to shrink up to the size of a mouse, that she might run about and do people good without their noticing her.' 'It isn't patience I want, God knows; it's lungs to speak loud enough. But you'll be at home yourself, I suppose, this morning; and you can talk to her for me.' 'No, mammy; I promised poor Mrs. Lowme to go and sit with her. She's confined to her room, and both the Miss Lowmes are out; so I'm going to read the newspaper to her and amuse her.' 'Couldn't you go another morning? As Mr. Armstrong and that other gentleman are coming to dinner, I should think it would be better to stay at home. Can you trust Betty to see to everything? She's new to the place.' 'O I couldn't disappoint Mrs. Lowme; I promised her. Betty will do very well, no fear.' Old Mrs. Dempster was silent after this, and began to sip her tea. The breakfast went on without further conversation for some time, Mr. Dempster being absorbed in the papers. At length, when he was running over the advertisements, his eye seemed to be caught by something that suggested a new thought to him. He presently thumped the table with an air of exultation, and, said turning to Janet,--'I've a capital idea, Gypsy!' (that was his name for his dark-eyed wife when he was in an extraordinarily good humour), 'and you shall help me. It's just what you're up to.' 'What is it?' said Janet, her face beaming at the sound of the pet name, now heard so seldom. 'Anything to do with conveyancing?' 'It's a bit of fun worth a dozen fees--a plan for raising a laugh against Tryan and his gang of hypocrites.' 'What is it? Nothing that wants a needle and thread hope, else I must go and tease mother.' 'No, nothing sharper than your wit--except mine. I'll tell you what it is. We'll get up a programme of the Sunday evening lecture, like a play-bill, you know--"Grand Performance of the celebrated Mountebank," and so on. We'll bring in the Tryanites--old Landor and the rest--in appropriate characters. Proctor shall print it, and we'll circulate it in the town. It will be a capital hit.' 'Bravo!' said Janet, clapping her hands. She would just then have pretended to like almost anything, in her pleasure at being appealed to by her husband, and she really did like to laugh at the Tryanites. 'We'll set about it directly, and sketch it out before you go to the office. I've got Tryan's sermons up-stairs, but I don't think there's anything in them we can use. I've only just looked into them; they're not at all what I expected--dull, stupid things--nothing of the roaring fire-and-brimstone sort that I expected.' 'Roaring? No; Tryan's as soft as a sucking dove--one of your honey-mouthed hypocrites. Plenty of devil and malice in him, though, I could see that, while he was talking to the Bishop; but as smooth as a snake outside. He's beginning a single-handed fight with me, I can see--persuading my clients away from me. We shall see who will be the first to cry _peccavi_. Milby will do better without Mr. Tryan than without Robert Dempster, I fancy! and Milby shall never be flooded with cant as long as I can raise a breakwater against it. But now, get the breakfast things cleared away, and let us set about the play-bill. Come, mamsey, come and have a walk with me round the garden, and let us see how the cucumbers are getting on. I've never taken you round the garden for an age. Come, you don't want a bonnet. It's like walking in a greenhouse this morning.' 'But she will want a parasol,' said Janet. 'There's one on the stand against the garden-door, Robert.' The little old lady took her son's arm with placid pleasure. She could barely reach it so as to rest upon it, but he inclined a little towards her, and accommodated his heavy long-limbed steps to her feeble pace. The cat chose to sun herself too, and walked close beside them, with tail erect, rubbing her sleek sides against their legs,--too well fed to be excited by the twittering birds. The garden was of the grassy, shady kind, often seen attached to old houses in provincial towns; the apple-trees had had time to spread their branches very wide, the shrubs and hardy perennial plants had grown into a luxuriance that required constant trimming to prevent them from intruding on the space for walking. But the farther end, which united with green fields, was open and sunny. It was rather sad, and yet pretty, to see that little group passing out of the shadow into the sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shadow again: sad, because this tenderness of the son for the mother was hardly more than a nucleus of healthy life in an organ hardening by disease, because the man who was linked in this way with an innocent past, had become callous in worldliness, fevered by sensuality, enslaved by chance impulses; pretty, because it showed how hard it is to kill the deep-down fibrous roots of human love and goodness--how the man from whom we make it our pride to shrink, has yet a close brotherhood with us through some of our most sacred feelings. As they were returning to the house, Janet met them, and said, 'Now, Robert, the writing things are ready. I shall be clerk, and Mat Paine can copy it out after.' Mammy once more deposited in her arm-chair, with her knitting in her hand, and the cat purring at her elbow, Janet seated herself at the table, while Mr. Dempster placed himself near her, took out his snuff-box, and plentifully suffusing himself with the inspiring powder, began to dictate. What he dictated, we shall see by-and-by. Chapter 8 The next day, Friday, at five o'clock by the sun-dial, the large bow-window of Mrs. Jerome's parlour was open; and that lady herself was seated within its ample semicircle, having a table before her on which her best tea-tray, her best china, and her best urn-rug had already been standing in readiness for half an hour. Mrs. Jerome's best tea-service was of delicate white fluted china, with gold sprigs upon it--as pretty a tea-service as you need wish to see, and quite good enough for chimney ornaments; indeed, as the cups were without handles, most visitors who had the distinction of taking tea out of them, wished that such charming china had already been promoted to that honorary position. Mrs. Jerome was like her china, handsome and old-fashioned. She was a buxom lady of sixty, in an elaborate lace cap fastened by a frill under her chin, a dark, well-curled front concealing her forehead, a snowy neckerchief exhibiting its ample folds as far as her waist, and a stiff grey silk gown. She had a clean damask napkin pinned before her to guard her dress during the process of tea-making; her favourite geraniums in the bow-window were looking as healthy as she could desire; her own handsome portrait, painted when she was twenty years younger, was smiling down on her with agreeable flattery; and altogether she seemed to be in as peaceful and pleasant a position as a buxom, well-drest elderly lady need desire. But, as in so many other cases, appearances were deceptive. Her mind was greatly perturbed and her temper ruffled by the fact that it was more than a quarter past five even by the losing timepiece, that it was half-past by her large gold watch, which she held in her hand as if she were counting the pulse of the afternoon, and that, by the kitchen clock, which she felt sure was not an hour too fast, it had already struck six. The lapse of time was rendered the more unendurable to Mrs. Jerome by her wonder that Mr. Jerome could stay out in the garden with Lizzie in that thoughtless way, taking it so easily that tea-time was long past, and that, after all the trouble of getting down the best tea-things, Mr. Tryan would not come. This honour had been shown to Mr. Tryan, not at all because Mrs. Jerome had any high appreciation of his doctrine or of his exemplary activity as a pastor, but simply because he was a 'Church clergyman', and as such was regarded by her with the same sort of exceptional respect that a white woman who had married a native of the Society Islands might be supposed to feel towards a white-skinned visitor from the land of her youth. For Mrs. Jerome had been reared a Churchwoman, and having attained the age of thirty before she was married, had felt the greatest repugnance in the first instance to renouncing the religious forms in which she had been brought up. 'You know,' she said in confidence to her Church acquaintances, 'I wouldn't give no ear at all to Mr. Jerome at fust; but after all, I begun to think as there was a maeny things worse nor goin' to chapel, an' you'd better do that nor not pay your way. Mr. Jerome had a very pleasant manner with him, an' there was niver another as kept a gig, an' 'ud make a settlement on me like him, chapel or no chapel. It seemed very odd to me for a long while, the preachin' without book, an' the stannin' up to one long prayer, istid o' changin' your postur. But la! there's nothin' as you mayn't get used to i' time; you can al'ys sit down, you know, before the prayer's done. The ministers say pretty nigh the same things as the Church parsons, by what I could iver make out, an' we're out o' chapel i' the mornin' a deal sooner nor they're out o' church. An' as for pews, ourn's is a deal comfortabler nor aeny i' Milby Church.' Mrs. Jerome, you perceive, had not a keen susceptibility to shades of doctrine, and it is probable that, after listening to Dissenting eloquence for thirty years, she might safely have re-entered the Establishment without performing any spiritual quarantine. Her mind, apparently, was of that non-porous flinty character which is not in the least danger from surrounding damp. But on the question of getting start of the sun on the day's business, and clearing her conscience of the necessary sum of meals and the consequent 'washing up' as soon as possible, so that the family might be well in bed at nine, Mrs. Jerome _was_ susceptible; and the present lingering pace of things, united with Mr. Jerome's unaccountable obliviousness, was not to be borne any longer. So she rang the bell for Sally. 'Goodness me, Sally! go into the garden an' see after your master. Tell him it's goin' on for six, an' Mr. Tryan 'ull niver think o' comin' now, an' it's time we got tea over. An' he's lettin' Lizzie stain her frock, I expect, among them strawberry beds. Mek her come in this minute.' No wonder Mr. Jerome was tempted to linger in the garden, for though the house was pretty and well deserved its name--'the White House', the tall damask roses that clustered over the porch being thrown into relief by rough stucco of the most brilliant white, yet the garden and orchards were Mr. Jerome's glory, as well they might be; and there was nothing in which he had a more innocent pride--peace to a good man's memory! all his pride was innocent--than in conducting a hitherto uninitiated visitor over his grounds, and making him in some degree aware of the incomparable advantages possessed by the inhabitants of the White House in the matter of red-streaked apples, russets, northern greens (excellent for baking), swan-egg pears, and early vegetables, to say nothing of flowering 'srubs,' pink hawthorns, lavender bushes more than ever Mrs. Jerome could use, and, in short, a superabundance of everything that a person retired from business could desire to possess himself or to share with his friends. The garden was one of those old-fashioned paradises which hardly exist any longer except as memories of our childhood: no finical separation between flower and kitchen garden there; no monotony of enjoyment for one sense to the exclusion of another; but a charming paradisiacal mingling of all that was pleasant to the eyes and good for food. The rich flower-border running along every walk, with its endless succession of spring flowers, anemones, auriculas, wall-flowers, sweet-williams, campanulas, snapdragons, and tiger-lilies, had its taller beauties, such as moss and Provence roses, varied with espalier apple-trees; the crimson of a carnation was carried out in the lurking crimson of the neighbouring strawberry-beds; you gathered a moss-rose one moment and a bunch of currants the next; you were in a delicious fluctuation between the scent of jasmine and the juice of gooseberries. Then what a high wall at one end, flanked by a summer-house so lofty, that after ascending its long flight of steps you could see perfectly well there was no view worth looking at; what alcoves and garden-seats in all directions; and along one side, what a hedge, tall, and firm, and unbroken, like a green wall! It was near this hedge that Mr. Jerome was standing when Sally found him. He had set down the basket of strawberries on the gravel, and had lifted up little Lizzie in his arms to look at a bird's nest. Lizzie peeped, and then looked at her grandpa with round blue eyes, and then peeped again. 'D'ye see it, Lizzie?' he whispered. 'Yes,' she whispered in return, putting her lips very near grandpa's face. At this moment Sally appeared. 'Eh, eh, Sally, what's the matter? Is Mr. Tryan come?' 'No, sir, an' Missis says she's sure he won't come now, an' she wants you to come in an' hev tea. Dear heart, Miss Lizzie, you've stained your pinafore, an' I shouldn't wonder if it's gone through to your frock. There'll be fine work! Come alonk wi' me, do.' 'Nay, nay, nay, we've done no harm, we've done no harm, hev we, Lizzie? The wash-tub'll make all right again.' Sally, regarding the wash-tub from a different point of view, looked sourly serious, and hurried away with Lizzie, who trotted submissively along, her little head in eclipse under a large nankin bonnet, while Mr. Jerome followed leisurely with his full broad shoulders in rather a stooping posture, and his large good-natured features and white locks shaded by a broad-brimmed hat. 'Mr. Jerome, I wonder at you,' said Mrs. Jerome, in a tone of indignant remonstrance, evidently sustained by a deep sense of injury, as her husband opened the parlour door. 'When will you leave off invitin' people to meals an' not lettin' 'em know the time? I'll answer for't, you niver said a word to Mr. Tryan as we should take tea at five o'clock. It's just like you!' 'Nay, nay, Susan,' answered the husband in a soothing tone, 'there's nothin' amiss. I told Mr. Tryan as we took tea at five punctial; mayhap summat's a detainin' on him. He's a deal to do, an' to think on, remember.' 'Why, it's struck six i' the kitchen a'ready. It's nonsense to look for him comin' now. So you may's well ring for th' urn. Now Sally's got th' heater in the fire, we may's well hev th' urn in, though he doesn't come. I niver see'd the like o' you, Mr. Jerome, for axin' people an' givin' me the trouble o' gettin' things down an' hevin' crumpets made, an' after all they don't come. I shall hev to wash every one o' these tea-things myself, for there's no trustin' Sally--she'd break a fortin i' crockery i' no time!' 'But why will you give yourself sich trouble, Susan? Our everyday tea-things would ha' done as well for Mr. Tryan, an' they're a deal convenenter to hold.' 'Yes, that's just your way, Mr. Jerome, you're al'ys a-findin' faut wi' my chany, because I bought it myself afore I was married. But let me tell you, I knowed how to choose chany if I didn't know how to choose a husband. An' where's Lizzie? You've niver left her i' the garden by herself, with her white frock on an' clean stockins?' 'Be easy, my dear Susan, be easy; Lizzie's come in wi' Sally. She's hevin' her pinafore took off, I'll be bound. Ah! there's Mr. Tryan a-comin' through the gate.' Mrs. Jerome began hastily to adjust her damask napkin and the expression of her countenance for the reception of the clergyman, and Mr. Jerome went out to meet his guest, whom he greeted outside the door. 'Mr. Tryan, how do you do, Mr. Tryan? Welcome to the White House! I'm glad to see you, sir--I'm glad to see you.' If you had heard the tone of mingled good-will, veneration, and condolence in which this greeting was uttered, even without seeing the face that completely harmonized with it, you would have no difficulty in inferring the ground-notes of Mr. Jerome's character. To a fine ear that tone said as plainly as possible--'Whatever recommends itself to me, Thomas Jerome, as piety and goodness, shall have my love and honour. Ah, friends, this pleasant world is a sad one, too, isn't it? Let us help one another, let us help one another.' And it was entirely owing to this basis of character, not at all from any clear and precise doctrinal discrimination, that Mr. Jerome had very early in life become a Dissenter. In his boyish days he had been thrown where Dissent seemed to have the balance of piety, purity, and good works on its side, and to become a Dissenter seemed to him identical with choosing God instead of mammon. That race of Dissenters is extinct in these days, when opinion has got far ahead of feeling, and every chapel-going youth can fill our ears with the advantages of the Voluntary system, the corruptions of a State Church, and the Scriptural evidence that the first Christians were Congregationalists. Mr. Jerome knew nothing of this theoretic basis for Dissent, and in the utmost extent of his polemical discussion he had not gone further than to question whether a Christian man was bound in conscience to distinguish Christmas and Easter by any peculiar observance beyond the eating of mince-pies and cheese-cakes. It seemed to him that all seasons were alike good for thanking God, departing from evil and doing well, whereas it might be desirable to restrict the period for indulging in unwholesome forms of pastry. Mr. Jerome's dissent being of this simple, non-polemical kind, it is easy to understand that the report he heard of Mr. Tryan as a good man and a powerful preacher, who was stirring the hearts of the people, had been enough to attract him to the Paddiford Church, and that having felt himself more edified there than he had of late been under Mr. Stickney's discourses at Salem, he had driven thither repeatedly in the Sunday afternoons, and had sought an opportunity of making Mr. Tryan's acquaintance. The evening lecture was a subject of warm interest with him, and the opposition Mr. Tryan met with gave that interest a strong tinge of partisanship; for there was a store of irascibility in Mr. Jerome's nature which must find a vent somewhere, and in so kindly and upright a man could only find it in indignation against those whom he held to be enemies of truth and goodness. Mr. Tryan had not hitherto been to the White House, but yesterday, meeting Mr. Jerome in the street, he had at once accepted the invitation to tea, saying there was something he wished to talk about. He appeared worn and fatigued now, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Jerome, threw himself into a chair and looked out on the pretty garden with an air of relief. 'What a nice place you have here, Mr. Jerome! I've not seen anything so quiet and pretty since I came to Milby. On Paddiford Common, where I live, you know, the bushes are all sprinkled with soot, and there's never any quiet except in the dead of night.' 'Dear heart! dear heart! That's very bad--and for you, too, as hev to study. Wouldn't it be better for you to be somewhere more out i' the country like?' 'O no! I should lose so much time in going to and fro, and besides I like to be _among_ the people. I've no face to go and preach resignation to those poor things in their smoky air and comfortless homes, when I come straight from every luxury myself. There are many things quite lawful for other men, which a clergyman must forego if he would do any good in a manufacturing population like this.' Here the preparations for tea were crowned by the simultaneous appearance of Lizzie and the crumpet. It is a pretty surprise, when one visits an elderly couple, to see a little figure enter in a white frock with a blond head as smooth as satin, round blue eyes, and a cheek like an apple blossom. A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other; and Mr. Tryan looked at Lizzie with that quiet pleasure which is always genuine. 'Here we are, here we are!' said proud grandpapa. 'You didn't think we'd got such a little gell as this, did you, Mr. Tryan? Why, it seems but th' other day since her mother was just such another. This is our little Lizzie, this is. Come an' shake hands wi' Mr. Tryan, Lizzie; come.' Lizzie advanced without hesitation, and put out one hand, while she fingered her coral necklace with the other, and looked up into Mr. Tryan's face with a reconnoitring gaze. He stroked the satin head, and said in his gentlest voice, 'How do you do, Lizzie? will you give me a kiss?' She put up her little bud of a mouth, and then retreating a little and glancing down at her frock, said,--'Dit id my noo fock. I put it on 'tod you wad toming. Tally taid you wouldn't 'ook at it.' 'Hush, hush, Lizzie, little gells must be seen and not heard,' said Mrs. Jerome; while grandpapa, winking significantly, and looking radiant with delight at Lizzie's extraordinary promise of cleverness, set her up on her high cane-chair by the side of grandma, who lost no time in shielding the beauties of the new frock with a napkin. 'Well now, Mr. Tryan,' said Mr. Jerome, in a very serious tone, when tea had been distributed, 'let me hear how you're a-goin' on about the lectur. When I was i' the town yisterday, I heared as there was pessecutin' schemes a-bein' laid again' you. I fear me those raskills 'll mek things very onpleasant to you.' 'I've no doubt they will attempt it; indeed, I quite expect there will be a regular mob got up on Sunday evening, as there was when the delegates returned, on purpose to annoy me and the congregation on our way to church.' 'Ah, they're capible o' anything, such men as Dempster an' Budd; an' Tomlinson backs 'em wi' money, though he can't wi' brains. Howiver, Dempster's lost one client by his wicked doins, an' I'm deceived if he won't lose more nor one. I little thought, Mr. Tryan, when I put my affairs into his hands twenty 'ear ago this Michaelmas, as he was to turn out a pessecutor o' religion. I niver lighted on a cliverer, promisiner young man nor he was then. They talked of his bein' fond of a extry glass now an' then, but niver nothin' like what he's come to since. An' it's head-piece you must look for in a lawyer, Mr. Tryan, it's head-piece. His wife, too, was al'ys an uncommon favourite o' mine--poor thing! I hear sad stories about her now. But she's druv to it, she's druv to it, Mr. Tryan. A tender-hearted woman to the poor, she is, as iver lived; an' as pretty-spoken a woman as you need wish to talk to. Yes! I'd al'ys a likin' for Dempster an' his wife, spite o' iverything. But as soon as iver I heared o' that dilegate business, I says, says I, that man shall hev no more to do wi' my affairs. It may put me t' inconvenience, but I'll encourage no man as pessecutes religion.' 'He is evidently the brain and hand of the persecution,' said Mr. Tryan. 'There may be a strong feeling against me in a large number of the inhabitants--it must be so from the great ignorance of spiritual things in this place. But I fancy there would have been no formal opposition to the lecture, if Dempster had not planned it. I am not myself the least alarmed at anything he can do; he will find I am not to be cowed or driven away by insult or personal danger. God has sent me to this place, and, by His blessing, I'll not shrink from anything I may have to encounter in doing His work among the people. But I feel it right to call on all those who know the value of the Gospel, to stand by me publicly. I think--and Mr. Landor agrees with me--that it will be well for my friends to proceed with me in a body to the church on Sunday evening. Dempster, you know, has pretended that almost all the respectable inhabitants are opposed to the lecture. Now, I wish that falsehood to be visibly contradicted. What do you think of the plan? I have today been to see several of my friends, who will make a point of being there to accompany me, and will communicate with others on the subject.' 'I'll mek one, Mr. Tryan, I'll mek one. You shall not be wantin' in any support as I can give. Before you come to it, sir, Milby was a dead an' dark place; you are the fust man i' the Church to my knowledge as has brought the word o' God home to the people; an' I'll stan' by you, sir, I'll stan' by you. I'm a Dissenter, Mr. Tryan; I've been a Dissenter ever sin' I was fifteen 'ear old; but show me good i' the Church, an' I'm a Churchman too. When I was a boy I lived at Tilston; you mayn't know the place; the best part o' the land there belonged to Squire Sandeman; he'd a club-foot, had Squire Sandeman--lost a deal o' money by canal shares. Well, sir, as I was sayin', I lived at Tilston, an' the rector there was a terrible drinkin', fox-huntin' man; you niver see'd such a parish i' your time for wickedness; Milby's nothin' to it. Well, sir, my father was a workin' man, an' couldn't afford to gi' me ony eddication, so I went to a night-school as was kep by a Dissenter, one Jacob Wright; an' it was from that man, sir, as I got my little schoolin' an' my knowledge o' religion. I went to chapel wi' Jacob--he was a good man was Jacob--an' to chapel I've been iver since. But I'm no enemy o' the Church, sir, when the Church brings light to the ignorant and the sinful; an' that's what you're a-doin', Mr. Tryan. Yes, sir, I'll stan' by you. I'll go to church wi' you o' Sunday evenin'.' 'You'd far better stay at home, Mr. Jerome, if I may give my opinion,' interposed Mrs. Jerome. 'It's not as I hevn't ivery respect for you, Mr. Tryan, but Mr. Jerome 'ull do you no good by his interferin'. Dissenters are not at all looked on i' Milby, an' he's as nervous as iver he can be; he'll come back as ill as ill, an' niver let me hev a wink o' sleep all night.' Mrs. Jerome had been frightened at the mention of a mob, and her retrospective regard for the religious communion of her youth by no means inspired her with the temper of a martyr. Her husband looked at her with an expression of tender and grieved remonstrance, which might have been that of the patient patriarch on the memorable occasion when he rebuked his wife. 'Susan, Susan, let me beg on you not to oppose me, and put stumblin'-blocks i' the way o' doing' what's right. I can't give up my conscience, let me give up what else I may.' 'Perhaps,' said Mr. Tryan, feeling slightly uncomfortable, 'since you are not very strong, my dear sir, it will be well, as Mrs. Jerome suggests, that you should not run the risk of any excitement.' 'Say no more, Mr. Tryan. I'll stan' by you, sir. It's my duty. It's the cause o' God, sir; it's the cause o' God.' Mr. Tryan obeyed his impulse of admiration and gratitude, and put out his hand to the white-haired old man, saying, 'Thank you, Mr. Jerome, thank you.' Mr. Jerome grasped the proffered hand in silence, and then threw himself back in his chair, casting a regretful look at his wife, which seemed to say, 'Why don't you feel with me, Susan?' The sympathy of this simple-minded old man was more precious to Mr. Tryan than any mere onlooker could have imagined. To persons possessing a great deal of that facile psychology which prejudges individuals by means of formulae, and casts them, without further trouble, into duly lettered pigeon-holes, the Evangelical curate might seem to be doing simply what all other men like to do--carrying out objects which were identified not only with his theory, which is but a kind of secondary egoism, but also with the primary egoism of his feelings. Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution: a self-obtrusive, over-hasty reformer complacently disclaiming all merit, while his friends call him a martyr, has not in reality a career the most arduous to the fleshly mind. But Mr. Tryan was not cast in the mould of the gratuitous martyr. With a power of persistence which had been often blamed as obstinacy, he had an acute sensibility to the very hatred or ridicule he did not flinch from provoking. Every form of disapproval jarred him painfully; and, though he fronted his opponents manfully, and often with considerable warmth of temper, he had no pugnacious pleasure in the contest. It was one of the weaknesses of his nature to be too keenly alive to every harsh wind of opinion; to wince under the frowns of the foolish; to be irritated by the injustice of those who could not possibly have the elements indispensable for judging him rightly; and with all this acute sensibility to blame, this dependence on sympathy, he had for years been constrained into a position of antagonism. No wonder, then, that good old Mr. Jerome's cordial words were balm to him. He had often been thankful to an old woman for saying 'God bless you'; to a little child for smiling at him; to a dog for submitting to be patted by him. Tea being over by this time, Mr. Tryan proposed a walk in the garden as a means of dissipating all recollection of the recent conjugal dissidence Little Lizzie's appeal, 'Me go, gandpa!' could not be rejected, so she was duly bonneted and pinafored, and then they turned out into the evening sunshine. Not Mrs. Jerome, however; she had a deeply-meditated plan of retiring _ad interim_ to the kitchen and washing up the best teathings, as a mode of getting forward with the sadly-retarded business of the day. 'This way, Mr. Tryan, this way,' said the old gentleman; 'I must take you to my pastur fust, an' show you our cow--the best milker i' the county. An' see here at these backbuildins, how convenent the dairy is; I planned it ivery bit myself. An' here I've got my little carpenter's shop an' my blacksmith's shop; I do no end o' jobs here myself. I niver could bear to be idle, Mr. Tryan; I must al'ys be at somethin' or other. It was time for me to lay by business an mek room for younger folks. I'd got money enough, wi' only one daughter to leave it to, an' I says to myself, says I, it's time to leave off moitherin' myself wi' this world so much, an' give more time to thinkin' of another. But there's a many hours atween getting up an' lyin' down, an' thoughts are no cumber; you can move about wi' a good many on 'em in your head. See, here's the pastur.' A very pretty pasture it was, where the large-spotted short-horned cow quietly chewed the cud as she lay and looked sleepily at her admirers--a daintily-trimmed hedge all round, dotted here and there with a mountain-ash or a cherry-tree. 'I've a good bit more land besides this, worth your while to look at, but mayhap it's further nor you'd like to walk now. Bless you! I've welly an' acre o' potato-ground yonders; I've a good big family to supply, you know.' (Here Mr. Jerome winked and smiled significantly.) 'An' that puts me i' mind, Mr. Tryan, o' summat I wanted to say to you. Clergymen like you, I know, see a deal more poverty an' that, than other folks, an' hev a many claims on 'em more nor they can well meet; an' if you'll mek use o' my purse any time, or let me know where I can be o' any help, I'll tek it very kind on you.' 'Thank you, Mr. Jerome, I will do so, I promise you. I saw a sad case yesterday; a collier--a fine broad-chested fellow about thirty--was killed by the falling of a wall in the Paddiford colliery. I was in one of the cottages near, when they brought him home on a door, and the shriek of the wife has been ringing in my ears ever since. There are three little children. Happily the woman has her loom, so she will be able to keep out of the workhouse; but she looks very delicate.' 'Give me her name, Mr. Tryan,' said Mr. Jerome, drawing out his pocket-book. 'I'll call an' see her.' Deep was the fountain of pity in the good old man's heart! He often ate his dinner stintingly, oppressed by the thought that there were men, women, and children, with no dinner to sit down to, and would relieve his mind by going out in the afternoon to look for some need that he could supply, some honest struggle in which he could lend a helping hand. That any living being should want, was his chief sorrow; that any rational being should waste, was the next. Sally, indeed, having been scolded by master for a too lavish use of sticks in lighting the kitchen fire, and various instances of recklessness with regard to candle ends, considered him 'as mean as aenythink;' but he had as kindly a warmth as the morning sunlight, and, like the sunlight, his goodness shone on all that came in his way, from the saucy rosy-cheeked lad whom he delighted to make happy with a Christmas box, to the pallid sufferers up dim entries, languishing under the tardy death of want and misery. It was very pleasant to Mr. Tryan to listen to the simple chat of the old man--to walk in the shade of the incomparable orchard, and hear the story of the crops yielded by the red-streaked apple-tree, and the quite embarrassing plentifulness of the summer-pears--to drink-in the sweet evening breath of the garden, as they sat in the alcove--and so, for a short interval, to feel the strain of his pastoral task relaxed. Perhaps he felt the return to that task through the dusty roads all the more painfully, perhaps something in that quiet shady home had reminded him of the time before he had taken on him the yoke of self-denial. The strongest heart will faint sometimes under the feeling that enemies are bitter, and that friends only know half its sorrows. The most resolute soul will now and then cast back a yearning look in treading the rough mountain-path, away from the greensward and laughing voices of the valley. However it was, in the nine o'clock twilight that evening, when Mr. Tryan had entered his small study and turned the key in the door, he threw himself into the chair before his writing-table, and, heedless of the papers there, leaned his face low on his hand, and moaned heavily. It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are coldly discussing a man's career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labelling his opinions--'he is Evangelical and narrow', or 'Latitudinarian and Pantheistic' or 'Anglican and supercilious'--that man, in his solitude, is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one, because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult word, and do the difficult deed. Chapter 9 Mr. Tryan showed no such symptoms of weakness on the critical Sunday. He unhesitatingly rejected the suggestion that he should be taken to church in Mr. Landor's carriage--a proposition which that gentleman made as an amendment on the original plan, when the rumours of meditated insult became alarming. Mr. Tryan declared he would have no precautions taken, but would simply trust in God and his good cause. Some of his more timid friends thought this conduct rather defiant than wise, and reflecting that a mob has great talents for impromptu, and that legal redress is imperfect satisfaction for having one's head broken with a brickbat, were beginning to question their consciences very closely as to whether it was not a duty they owed to their families to stay at home on Sunday evening. These timorous persons, however, were in a small minority, and the generality of Mr. Tryan's friends and hearers rather exulted in an opportunity of braving insult for the sake of a preacher to whom they were attached on personal as well as doctrinal grounds. Miss Pratt spoke of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and observed that the present crisis afforded an occasion for emulating their heroism even in these degenerate times; while less highly instructed persons, whose memories were not well stored with precedents, simply expressed their determination, as Mr. Jerome had done, to 'stan' by' the preacher and his cause, believing it to be the 'cause of God'. On Sunday evening, then, at a quarter past six, Mr. Tryan, setting out from Mr. Landor's with a party of his friends who had assembled there, was soon joined by two other groups from Mr. Pratt's and Mr. Dunn's; and stray persons on their way to church naturally falling into rank behind this leading file, by the time they reached the entrance of Orchard Street, Mr. Tryan's friends formed a considerable procession, walking three or four abreast. It was in Orchard Street, and towards the church gates, that the chief crowd was collected; and at Mr. Dempster's drawing-room window, on the upper floor, a more select assembly of Anti-Tryanites were gathered to witness the entertaining spectacle of the Tryanites walking to church amidst the jeers and hootings of the crowd. To prompt the popular wit with appropriate sobriquets, numerous copies of Mr. Dempster's play-bill were posted on the walls, in suitably large and emphatic type. As it is possible that the most industrious collector of mural literature may not have been fortunate enough to possess himself of this production, which ought by all means to be preserved amongst the materials of our provincial religious history, I subjoin a faithful copy. GRAND ENTERTAINMENT!!! To be given at Milby on Sunday evening next, by the FAMOUS COMEDIAN, TRY-IT-ON! And his first-rate company, including not only an UNPARALLELED CAST FOR COMEDY! But a Large Collection of _reclaimed and converted Animals_: Among the rest A Bear, who used to _dance!_ A Parrot, once given to swearing!! _A Polygamous Pig!!!_ and A Monkey who used to _catch fleas on a Sunday!!!!_ Together with a Pair of _regenerated_ LINNETS! With an entirely new song, and _plumage_. MR. TRY-IT-ON Will first pass through the streets, in procession, with his unrivalled Company warranted to have their _eyes turned up higher_, and the _corners of their mouths turned down lower_, than any other company of Mountebanks in this circuit! AFTER WHICH The Theatre will be opened, and the entertainment will commence at HALF-PAST SIX When will be presented A piece, never before performed on any stage, entitled THE WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING; _or_ THE METHODIST IN A MASK Mr. Boanerges Soft Sawder, . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON. Old Ten-per-cent Godly, . . . . . MR. GANDER. Dr. Feedemup, . . . . . . . . MR. TONIC. Mr. Lime-Twig Lady-winner, . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON. Miss Piety Bait-the-hook, . . . . MISS TONIC. Angelica, . . . . . . . . . MISS SERAPHINA TONIC. After which A miscellaneous Musical Interlude, commencing with The _Lamentations of Jerom-iah!_ In nasal recitative. To be followed by The favourite Cackling Quartette, by Two Hen-birds who are _no chickens!_ The well-known counter-tenor, Mr. Done, and a _Gander_, lineally descended from the Goose that laid golden eggs! To conclude with a GRAND CHORUS by the Entire Orchestra of Converted Animals!! But owing to the unavoidable absence (from illness) of the _Bulldog, who has left off fighting_, Mr. Tonic has kindly undertaken, at a moment's notice, to supply the '_bark!_' The whole to conclude with a _Screaming Farce of_ THE PULPIT SNATCHER Mr. Saintly Smooth-face, . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON! Mr. Worming Sneaker, . . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!! Mr. All-grace No-works, . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!!! Mr. Elect-and-Chosen Apewell, . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!!!! Mr. Malevolent Prayerful, . . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!!!!! Mr. Foist-himself Everywhere, . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!!!!!! Mr. Flout-the-aged Upstart, . . . MR. TRY-IT-ON!!!!!!! Admission Free. _A Collection_ will be made at the Doors. _Vivat Rex!_ This satire, though it presents the keenest edge of Milby wit, does not strike you as lacerating, I imagine. But hatred is like fire--it makes even light rubbish deadly. And Mr. Dempster's sarcasms were not merely visible on the walls; they were reflected in the derisive glances, and audible in the jeering voices of the crowd. Through this pelting shower of nicknames and bad puns, with an _ad libitum_ accompaniment of groans, howls, hisses, and hee-haws, but of no heavier missiles, Mr. Tryan walked pale and composed, giving his arm to old Mr. Landor, whose step was feeble. On the other side of him was Mr. Jerome, who still walked firmly, though his shoulders were slightly bowed. Outwardly Mr. Tryan was composed, but inwardly he was suffering acutely from these tones of hatred and scorn. However strong his consciousness of right, he found it no stronger armour against such weapons as derisive glances and virulent words, than against stones and clubs: his conscience was in repose, but his sensibility was bruised. Once more only did the Evangelical curate pass up Orchard Street followed by a train of friends; once more only was there a crowd assembled to witness his entrance through the church gates. But that second time no voice was heard above a whisper, and the whispers were words of sorrow and blessing. That second time, Janet Dempster was not looking on in scorn and merriment; her eyes were worn with grief and watching, and she was following her beloved friend and pastor to the grave. Chapter 10 History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume. From the time of Xerxes downwards, we have seen generals playing the braggadocio at the outset of their campaigns, and conquering the enemy with the greatest ease in after-dinner speeches. But events are apt to be in disgusting discrepancy with the anticipations of the most ingenious tacticians; the difficulties of the expedition are ridiculously at variance with able calculations; the enemy has the impudence not to fall into confusion as had been reasonably expected of him; the mind of the gallant general begins to be distracted by news of intrigues against him at home, and, notwithstanding the handsome compliments he paid to Providence as his undoubted patron before setting out, there seems every probability that the _Te Deums_ will be all on the other side. So it fell out with Mr. Dempster in his memorable campaign against the Tryanites. After all the premature triumph of the return from Elmstoke, the battle of the Evening Lecture had been lost; the enemy was in possession of the field; and the utmost hope remaining was, that by a harassing guerilla warfare he might be driven to evacuate the country. For some time this sort of warfare was kept up with considerable spirit. The shafts of Milby ridicule were made more formidable by being poisoned with calumny; and very ugly stories, narrated with circumstantial minuteness, were soon in circulation concerning Mr. Tryan and his hearers, from which stories it was plainly deducible that Evangelicalism led by a necessary consequence to hypocritical indulgence in vice. Some old friendships were broken asunder, and there were near relations who felt that religious differences, unmitigated by any prospect of a legacy, were a sufficient ground for exhibiting their family antipathy. Mr. Budd harangued his workmen, and threatened them with dismissal if they or their families were known to attend the evening lecture; and Mr. Tomlinson, on discovering that his foreman was a rank Tryanite, blustered to a great extent, and would have cashiered that valuable functionary on the spot, if such a retributive procedure had not been inconvenient. On the whole, however, at the end of a few months, the balance of substantial loss was on the side of the Anti-Tryanites. Mr. Pratt, indeed, had lost a patient or two besides Mr. Dempster's family; but as it was evident that Evangelicalism had not dried up the stream of his anecdote, or in the least altered his view of any lady's constitution, it is probable that a change accompanied by so few outward and visible signs, was rather the pretext than the ground of his dismissal in those additional cases. Mr. Dunn was threatened with the loss of several good customers, Mrs. Phipps and Mrs. Lowme having set the example of ordering him to send in his bill; and the draper began to look forward to his next stock-taking with an anxiety which was but slightly mitigated by the parallel his wife suggested between his own case and that of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who were thrust into a burning fiery furnace. For, as he observed to her the next morning, with that perspicacity which belongs to the period of shaving, whereas their deliverance consisted in the fact that their linen and woollen goods were not consumed, his own deliverance lay in precisely the opposite result. But convenience, that admirable branch system from the main line of self-interest, makes us all fellow-helpers in spite of adverse resolutions. It is probable that no speculative or theological hatred would be ultimately strong enough to resist the persuasive power of convenience: that a latitudinarian baker, whose bread was honourably free from alum, would command the custom of any dyspeptic Puseyite; that an Arminian with the toothache would prefer a skilful Calvinistic dentist to a bungler stanch against the doctrines of Election and Final Perseverance, who would be likely to break the tooth in his head; and that a Plymouth Brother, who had a well furnished grocery shop in a favourable vicinage, would occasionally have the pleasure of furnishing sugar or vinegar to orthodox families that found themselves unexpectedly 'out of' those indispensable commodities. In this persuasive power of convenience lay Mr. Dunn's ultimate security from martyrdom. His drapery was the best in Milby; the comfortable use and wont of procuring satisfactory articles at a moment's notice proved too strong for Anti-Tryanite zeal; and the draper could soon look forward to his next stock-taking without the support of a Scriptural parallel. On the other hand, Mr. Dempster had lost his excellent client, Mr. Jerome--a loss which galled him out of proportion to the mere monetary deficit it represented. The attorney loved money, but he loved power still better. He had always been proud of having early won the confidence of a conventicle-goer, and of being able to 'turn the prop of Salem round his thumb'. Like most other men, too, he had a certain kindness towards those who had employed him when he was only starting in life; and just as we do not like to part with an old weather-glass from our study, or a two-feet ruler that we have carried in our pocket ever since we began business, so Mr. Dempster did not like having to erase his old client's name from the accustomed drawer in the bureau. Our habitual life is like a wall hung with pictures, which has been shone on by the suns of many years: take one of the pictures away, and it leaves a definite blank space, to which our eyes can never turn without a sensation of discomfort. Nay, the involuntary loss of any familiar object almost always brings a chill as from an evil omen; it seems to be the first finger-shadow of advancing death. From all these causes combined, Mr. Dempster could never think of his lost client without strong irritation, and the very sight of Mr. Jerome passing in the street was wormwood to him. One day, when the old gentleman was coming up Orchard Street on his roan mare, shaking the bridle, and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace, Janet happened to be on her own door-step, and he could not resist the temptation of stopping to speak to that 'nice little woman', as he always called her, though she was taller than all the rest of his feminine acquaintances. Janet, in spite of her disposition to take her husband's part in all public matters, could bear no malice against her old friend; so they shook hands. 'Well, Mrs. Dempster, I'm sorry to my heart not to see you sometimes, that I am,' said Mr. Jerome, in a plaintive tone. 'But if you've got any poor people as wants help, and you know's deservin', send 'em to me, send 'em to me, just the same.' 'Thank you, Mr. Jerome, that I will. Good-bye.' Janet made the interview as short as she could, but it was not short enough to escape the observation of her husband, who, as she feared, was on his mid-day return from his office at the other end of the street, and this offence of hers, in speaking to Mr. Jerome, was the frequently recurring theme of Mr. Dempster's objurgatory domestic eloquence. Associating the loss of his old client with Mr. Tryan's influence, Dempster began to know more distinctly why he hated the obnoxious curate. But a passionate hate, as well as a passionate love, demands some leisure and mental freedom. Persecution and revenge, like courtship and toadyism, will not prosper without a considerable expenditure of time and ingenuity, and these are not to spare with a man whose law-business and liver are both beginning to show unpleasant symptoms. Such was the disagreeable turn affairs were taking with Mr. Dempster, and, like the general distracted by home intrigues, he was too much harassed himself to lay ingenious plans for harassing the enemy. Meanwhile, the evening lecture drew larger and larger congregations; not perhaps attracting many from that select aristocratic circle in which the Lowmes and Pittmans were predominant, but winning the larger proportion of Mr. Crewe's morning and afternoon hearers, and thinning Mr. Stickney's evening audiences at Salem. Evangelicalism was making its way in Milby, and gradually diffusing its subtle odour into chambers that were bolted and barred against it. The movement, like all other religious 'revivals', had a mixed effect. Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable. It may be that some of Mr. Tryan's hearers had gained a religious vocabulary rather than religious experience; that here and there a weaver's wife, who, a few months before, had been simply a silly slattern, was converted into that more complex nuisance, a silly and sanctimonious slattern; that the old Adam, with the pertinacity of middle age, continued to tell fibs behind the counter, notwithstanding the new Adam's addiction to Bible-reading and family prayer: that the children in the Paddiford Sunday school had their memories crammed with phrases about the blood of cleansing, imputed righteousness, and justification by faith alone, which an experience lying principally in chuck-farthing, hop-scotch, parental slappings, and longings after unattainable lollypop, served rather to darken than to illustrate; and that at Milby, in those distant days, as in all other times and places where the mental atmosphere is changing, and men are inhaling the stimulus of new ideas, folly often mistook itself for wisdom, ignorance gave itself airs of knowledge, and selfishness, turning its eyes upward, called itself religion. Nevertheless, Evangelicalism had brought into palpable existence and operation in Milby society that idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, which is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses. Whatever might be the weaknesses of the ladies who pruned the luxuriance of their lace and ribbons, cut out garments for the poor, distributed tracts, quoted Scripture, and defined the true Gospel, they had learned this--that there was a divine work to be done in life, a rule of goodness higher than the opinion of their neighbours; and if the notion of a heaven in reserve for themselves was a little too prominent, yet the theory of fitness for that heaven consisted in purity of heart, in Christ-like compassion, in the subduing of selfish desires. They might give the name of piety to much that was only puritanic egoism; they might call many things sin that were not sin; but they had at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided and resisted, and colour-blindness, which may mistake drab for scarlet, is better than total blindness, which sees no distinction of colour at all. Miss Rebecca Linnet, in quiet attire, with a somewhat excessive solemnity of countenance, teaching at the Sunday school, visiting the poor, and striving after a standard of purity and goodness, had surely more moral loveliness than in those flaunting peony-days, when she had no other model than the costumes of the heroines in the circulating library. Miss Eliza Pratt, listening in rapt attention to Mr. Tryan's evening lecture, no doubt found evangelical channels for vanity and egoism; but she was clearly in moral advance of Miss Phipps giggling under her feathers at old Mr. Crewe's peculiarities of enunciation. And even elderly fathers and mothers, with minds, like Mrs. Linnet's, too tough to imbibe much doctrine, were the better for having their hearts inclined towards the new preacher as a messenger from God. They became ashamed, perhaps, of their evil tempers, ashamed of their worldliness, ashamed of their trivial, futile past. The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence. And this latter precious gift was brought to Milby by Mr. Tryan and Evangelicalism. Yes, the movement was good, though it had that mixture of folly and evil which often makes what is good an offence to feeble and fastidious minds, who want human actions and characters riddled through the sieve of their own ideas, before they can accord their sympathy or admiration. Such minds, I daresay, would have found Mr. Tryan's character very much in need of that riddling process. The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is exalted, and does nothing but what is graceful. The real heroes, of God's making, are quite different: they have their natural heritage of love and conscience which they drew in with their mother's milk; they know one or two of those deep spiritual truths which are only to be won by long wrestling with their own sins and their own sorrows; they have earned faith and strength so far as they have done genuine work; but the rest is dry barren theory, blank prejudice, vague hearsay. Their insight is blended with mere opinion; their sympathy is perhaps confined in narrow conduits of doctrine, instead of flowing forth with the freedom of a stream that blesses every weed in its course; obstinacy or self-assertion will often interfuse itself with their grandest impulses; and their very deeds of self-sacrifice are sometimes only the rebound of a passionate egoism. So it was with Mr. Tryan: and any one looking at him with the bird's-eye glance of a critic might perhaps say that he made the mistake of identifying Christianity with a too narrow doctrinal system; that he saw God's work too exclusively in antagonism to the world, the flesh, and the devil; that his intellectual culture was too limited--and so on; making Mr. Tryan the text for a wise discourse on the characteristics of the Evangelical school in his day. But I am not poised at that lofty height. I am on the level and in the press with him, as he struggles his way along the stony road, through the crowd of unloving fellow-men. He is stumbling, perhaps; his heart now beats fast with dread, now heavily with anguish; his eyes are sometimes dim with tears, which he makes haste to dash away; he pushes manfully on, with fluctuating faith and courage, with a sensitive failing body; at last he falls, the struggle is ended, and the crowd closes over the space he has left. 'One of the Evangelical clergy, a disciple of Venn,' says the critic from his bird's-eye station. 'Not a remarkable specimen; the anatomy and habits of his species have been determined long ago.' Yet surely, surely the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him--which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion. Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must miss the essential truth, unless it be lit up by the love that sees in all forms of human thought and work, the life and death struggles of separate human beings. Chapter 11 Mr. Tryan's most unfriendly observers were obliged to admit that he gave himself no rest. Three sermons on Sunday, a night-school for young men on Tuesday, a cottage-lecture on Thursday, addresses to school-teachers, and catechizing of school-children, with pastoral visits, multiplying as his influence extended beyond his own district of Paddiford Common, would have been enough to tax severely the powers of a much stronger man. Mr. Pratt remonstrated with him on his imprudence, but could not prevail on him so far to economize time and strength as to keep a horse. On some ground or other, which his friends found difficult to explain to themselves, Mr. Tryan seemed bent on wearing himself out. His enemies were at no loss to account for such a course. The Evangelical curate's selfishness was clearly of too bad a kind to exhibit itself after the ordinary manner of a sound, respectable selfishness. 'He wants to get the reputation of a saint,' said one; 'He's eaten up with spiritual pride,' said another; 'He's got his eye on some fine living, and wants to creep up the Bishop's sleeve,' said a third. Mr. Stickney, of Salem, who considered all voluntary discomfort as a remnant of the legal spirit, pronounced a severe condemnation on this self-neglect, and expressed his fear that Mr. Tryan was still far from having attained true Christian liberty. Good Mr. Jerome eagerly seized this doctrinal view of the subject as a means of enforcing the suggestions of his own benevolence; and one cloudy afternoon, in the end of November, he mounted his roan mare with the determination of riding to Paddiford and 'arguying' the point with Mr. Tryan. The old gentleman's face looked very mournful as he rode along the dismal Paddiford lanes, between rows of grimy houses, darkened with hand-looms, while the black dust was whirled about him by the cold November wind. He was thinking of the object which had brought him on this afternoon ride, and his thoughts, according to his habit when alone, found vent every now and then in audible speech. It seemed to him, as his eyes rested on this scene of Mr. Tryan's labours, that he could understand the clergyman's self-privation without resorting to Mr. Stickney's theory of defective spiritual enlightenment. Do not philosophic doctors tell us that we are unable to discern so much as a tree, except by an unconscious cunning which combines many past and separate sensations; that no one sense is independent of another, so that in the dark we can hardly taste a fricassee, or tell whether our pipe is alight or not, and the most intelligent boy, if accommodated with claws or hoofs instead of fingers, would be likely to remain on the lowest form? If so, it is easy to understand that our discernment of men's motives must depend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own susceptibility and our own experience. See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too hasty judgement, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve filaments, which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the invisible world of human sensations. As for Mr. Jerome, he drew the elements of his moral vision from the depths of his veneration and pity. If he himself felt so much for these poor things to whom life was so dim and meagre, what must the clergyman feel who had undertaken before God to be their shepherd? 'Ah!' he whispered, interruptedly, 'it's too big a load for his conscience, poor man! He wants to mek himself their brother, like; can't abide to preach to the fastin' on a full stomach. Ah! he's better nor we are, that's it--he's a deal better nor we are.' Here Mr. Jerome shook his bridle violently, and looked up with an air of moral courage, as if Mr. Stickney had been present, and liable to take offence at this conclusion. A few minutes more brought him in front of Mrs. Wagstaff's, where Mr. Tryan lodged. He had often been here before, so that the contrast between this ugly square brick house, with its shabby bit of grass-plot, stared at all round by cottage windows, and his own pretty white home, set in a paradise of orchard and garden and pasture was not new to him; but he felt it with fresh force today, as he slowly fastened his roan by the bridle to the wooden paling, and knocked at the door. Mr. Tryan was at home, and sent to request that Mr. Jerome would walk up into his study, as the fire was out in the parlour below. At the mention of a clergyman's study, perhaps, your too active imagination conjures up a perfect snuggery, where the general air of comfort is rescued from a secular character by strong ecclesiastical suggestions in the shape of the furniture, the pattern of the carpet, and the prints on the wall; where, if a nap is taken, it is an easy-chair with a Gothic back, and the very feet rest on a warm and velvety simulation of church windows; where the pure art of rigorous English Protestantism smiles above the mantelpiece in the portrait of an eminent bishop, or a refined Anglican taste is indicated by a German print from Overbeck; where the walls are lined with choice divinity in sombre binding, and the light is softened by a screen of boughs with a grey church in the background. But I must beg you to dismiss all such scenic prettiness, suitable as they may be to a clergyman's character and complexion; for I have to confess that Mr. Tryan's study was a very ugly little room indeed, with an ugly slapdash pattern on the walls, an ugly carpet on the floor, and an ugly view of cottage roofs and cabbage-gardens from the window. His own person his writing-table, and his book-case, were the only objects in the room that had the slightest air of refinement; and the sole provision for comfort was a clumsy straight-backed arm-chair covered with faded chintz. The man who could live in such a room, unconstrained by poverty, must either have his vision fed from within by an intense passion, or he must have chosen that least attractive form of self-mortification which wears no haircloth and has no meagre days, but accepts the vulgar, the commonplace, and the ugly, whenever the highest duty seems to lie among them. 'Mr. Tryan, I hope you'll excuse me disturbin' on you,' said Mr. Jerome. 'But I'd summat partickler to say.' 'You don't disturb me at all, Mr. Jerome; I'm very glad to have a visit from you,' said Mr. Tryan, shaking him heartily by the hand, and offering him the chintz-covered 'easy' chair; 'it is some time since I've had an opportunity of seeing you, except on a Sunday.' 'Ah, sir! your time's so taken up, I'm well aware o' that; it's not only what you hev to do, but it's goin' about from place to place; an' you don't keep a hoss, Mr. Tryan. You don't take care enough o' yourself--you don't indeed, an' that's what I come to talk to y' about.' 'That's very good of you, Mr. Jerome; but I assure you I think walking does me no harm. It is rather a relief to me after speaking or writing. You know I have no great circuit to make. The farthest distance I have to walk is to Milby Church, and if ever I want a horse on a Sunday, I hire Radley's, who lives not many hundred yards from me.' 'Well, but now! the winter's comin' on, an' you'll get wet i' your feet, an' Pratt tells me as your constitution's dillicate, as anybody may see, for the matter o' that, wi'out bein' a doctor. An' this is the light I look at it in, Mr. Tryan: who's to fill up your place, if you was to be disabled, as I may say? Consider what a valyable life yours is. You've begun a great work i' Milby, and so you might carry it on, if you'd your health and strength. The more care you take o' yourself, the longer you'll live, belike, God willing, to do good to your fellow-creaturs.' 'Why, my dear Mr. Jerome, I think I should not be a long-lived man in any case; and if I were to take care of myself under the pretext of doing more good, I should very likely die and leave nothing done after all.' 'Well! but keepin' a hoss wouldn't hinder you from workin'. It 'ud help you to do more, though Pratt says as it's usin' your voice so constant as does you the most harm. Now, isn't it--I'm no scholard, Mr. Tryan, an' I'm not a-goin' to dictate to you--but isn't it a'most a-killin' o' yourself, to go on a' that way beyond your strength? We mustn't fling ower lives away.' 'No, not fling them away lightly, but we are permitted to lay down our lives in a right cause. There are many duties, as you know, Mr. Jerome, which stand before taking care of our own lives.' 'Ah! I can't arguy wi' you, Mr. Tryan; but what I wanted to say's this--There's my little chacenut hoss; I should take it quite a kindness if you'd hev him through the winter an' ride him. I've thought o' sellin' him a many times, for Mrs. Jerome can't abide him; and what do I want wi' two nags? But I'm fond o' the little chacenut, an' I shouldn't like to sell him. So if you'll only ride him for me, you'll do me a kindness--you will, indeed, Mr. Tryan.' 'Thank you, Mr. Jerome. I promise you to ask for him, when I feel that I want a nag. There is no man I would more gladly be indebted to than you; but at present I would rather not have a horse. I should ride him very little, and it would be an inconvenience to me to keep him rather than otherwise.' Mr. Jerome looked troubled and hesitating, as if he had something on his mind that would not readily shape itself into words. At last he said, 'You'll excuse me, Mr. Tryan, I wouldn't be takin' a liberty, but I know what great claims you hev on you as a clergyman. Is it th' expense, Mr. Tryan? is it the money?' 'No, my dear sir. I have much more than a single man needs. My way of living is quite of my own choosing, and I am doing nothing but what I feel bound to do, quite apart from money considerations. We cannot judge for one another, you know; we have each our peculiar weaknesses and temptations. I quite admit that it might be right for another man to allow himself more luxuries, and I assure you I think it no superiority in myself to do without them. On the contrary, if my heart were less rebellious, and if I were less liable to temptation, I should not need that sort of self-denial. But,' added Mr. Tryan, holding out his hand to Mr. Jerome, 'I understand your kindness, and bless you for it. If I want a horse, I shall ask for the chesnut.' Mr. Jerome was obliged to rest contented with this promise, and rode home sorrowfully, reproaching himself with not having said one thing he meant to say when setting out, and with having 'clean forgot' the arguments he had intended to quote from Mr. Stickney. Mr. Jerome's was not the only mind that was seriously disturbed by the idea that the curate was over-working himself. There were tender women's hearts in which anxiety about the state of his affections was beginning to be merged in anxiety about the state of his health. Miss Eliza Pratt had at one time passed through much sleepless cogitation on the possibility of Mr. Tryan's being attached to some lady at a distance--at Laxeter, perhaps, where he had formerly held a curacy; and her fine eyes kept close watch lest any symptom of engaged affections on his part should escape her. It seemed an alarming fact that his handkerchiefs were beautifully marked with hair, until she reflected that he had an unmarried sister of whom he spoke with much affection as his father's companion and comforter. Besides, Mr. Tryan had never paid any distant visit, except one for a few days to his father, and no hint escaped him of his intending to take a house, or change his mode of living. No! he could not be engaged, though he might have been disappointed. But this latter misfortune is one from which a devoted clergyman has been known to recover, by the aid of a fine pair of grey eyes that beam on him with affectionate reverence. Before Christmas, however, her cogitations began to take another turn. She heard her father say very confidently that 'Tryan was consumptive, and if he didn't take more care of himself, his life would not be worth a year's purchase;' and shame at having speculated on suppositions that were likely to prove so false, sent poor Miss Eliza's feelings with all the stronger impetus into the one channel of sorrowful alarm at the prospect of losing the pastor who had opened to her a new life of piety and self-subjection. It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too--as if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey. The Miss Linnets, too, were beginning to take a new view of the future, entirely uncoloured by jealousy of Miss Eliza Pratt. 'Did you notice,' said Mary, one afternoon when Mrs. Pettifer was taking tea with them--'did you notice that short dry cough of Mr. Tryan's yesterday? I think he looks worse and worse every week, and I only wish I knew his sister; I would write to her about him. I'm sure something should be done to make him give up part of his work, and he will listen to no one here.' 'Ah,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'it's a thousand pities his father and sister can't come and live with him, if he isn't to marry. But I wish with all my heart he could have taken to some nice woman as would have made a comfortable home for him. I used to think he might take to Eliza Pratt; she's a good girl, and very pretty; but I see no likelihood of it now.' 'No, indeed.' said Rebecca, with some emphasis: 'Mr. Tryan's heart is not for any woman to win; it is all given to his work; and I could never wish to see him with a young inexperienced wife who would be a drag on him instead of a help-mate.' 'He'd need have somebody, young or old,' observed Mrs. Linnet, 'to see as he wears a flannel wescoat, an' changes his stockins when he comes in. It's my opinion he's got that cough wi' sittin i' wet shoes and stockins; an' that Mrs. Wagstaff's a poor addle-headed thing; she doesn't half tek care on him.' 'O mother!' said Rebecca, 'she's a very pious woman. And I'm sure she thinks it too great a privilege to have Mr. Tryan with her, not to do the best she can to make him comfortable. She can't help her rooms being shabby.' 'I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victual. When a man comes in hungry an' tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin' up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It's right enough to be speritial--I'm no enemy to that; but I like my potatoes mealy. I don't see as anybody 'ull go to heaven the sooner for not digestin' their dinner--providin' they don't die sooner, as mayhap Mr. Tryan will, poor dear man!' 'It will be a heavy day for us all when that comes to pass,' said Mrs. Pettifer. 'We shall never get anybody to fill up _that_ gap. There's the new clergyman that's just come to Shepperton--Mr. Parry; I saw him the other day at Mrs. Bond's. He may be a very good man, and a fine preacher; they say he is; but I thought to myself, What a difference between him and Mr. Tryan! He's a sharp-sort-of-looking man, and hasn't that feeling way with him that Mr. Tryan has. What is so wonderful to me in Mr. Tryan is the way he puts himself on a level with one, and talks to one like a brother. I'm never afraid of telling him anything. He never seems to look down on anybody. He knows how to lift up those that are cast down, if ever man did.' 'Yes,' said Mary. 'And when I see all the faces turned up to him in Paddiford Church. I often think how hard it would be for any clergyman who had to come after him; he has made the people love him so.' Chapter 12 In her occasional visits to her near neighbour Mrs. Pettifer, too old a friend to be shunned because she was a Tryanite, Janet was obliged sometimes to hear allusions to Mr. Tryan, and even to listen to his praises, which she usually met with playful incredulity. 'Ah, well,' she answered one day, 'I like dear old Mr. Crewe and his pipes a great deal better than your Mr. Tryan and his Gospel. When I was a little toddle, Mr. and Mrs. Crewe used to let me play about in their garden, and have a swing between the great elm-trees, because mother had no garden. I like people who are kind; kindness is my religion; and that's the reason I like you, dear Mrs. Pettifer, though you are a Tryanite.' 'But that's Mr. Tryan's religion too--at least partly. There's nobody can give himself up more to doing good amongst the poor; and he thinks of their bodies too, as well as their souls.' 'O yes, yes; but then he talks about faith, and grace, and all that, making people believe they are better than others, and that God loves them more than He does the rest of the world. I know he has put a great deal of that into Sally Martin's head, and it has done her no good at all. She was as nice, honest, patient a girl as need be before; and now she fancies she has new light and new wisdom. I don't like those notions.' 'You mistake him, indeed you do, my dear Mrs. Dempster; I wish you'd go and hear him preach.' 'Hear him preach! Why, you wicked woman, you would persuade me to disobey my husband, would you? O, shocking! I shall run away from you. Good-bye.' A few days after this conversation, however, Janet went to Sally Martin's about three o'clock in the afternoon. The pudding that had been sent in for herself and 'Mammy,' struck her as just the sort of delicate morsel the poor consumptive girl would be likely to fancy, and in her usual impulsive way she had started up from the dinner table at once, put on her bonnet, and set off with a covered plateful to the neighbouring street. When she entered the house there was no one to be seen; but in the little sideroom where Sally lay, Janet heard a voice. It was one she had not heard before, but she immediately guessed it to be Mr. Tryan's. Her first impulse was to set down her plate and go away, but Mrs. Martin might not be in, and then there would be no one to give Sally that delicious bit of pudding. So she stood still, and was obliged to hear what Mr. Tryan was saying. He was interrupted by one of the invalid's violent fits of coughing. 'It is very hard to bear, is it not?' he said when she was still again. 'Yet God seems to support you under it wonderfully. Pray for me, Sally, that I may have strength too when the hour of great suffering comes. It is one of my worst weaknesses to shrink from bodily pain, and I think the time is perhaps not far off when I shall have to bear what you are bearing. But now I have tired you. We have talked enough. Good-bye.' Janet was surprised, and forgot her wish not to encounter Mr. Tryan: the tone and the words were so unlike what she had expected to hear. There was none of the self-satisfied unction of the teacher, quoting, or exhorting, or expounding, for the benefit of the hearer, but a simple appeal for help, a confession of weakness. Mr. Tryan had his deeply-felt troubles, then? Mr. Tryan, too, like herself, knew what it was to tremble at a foreseen trial--to shudder at an impending burthen, heavier than he felt able to bear? The most brilliant deed of virtue could not have inclined Janet's good-will towards Mr. Tryan so much as this fellowship in suffering, and the softening thought was in her eyes when he appeared in the doorway, pale, weary, and depressed. The sight of Janet standing there with the entire absence of self-consciousness which belongs to a new and vivid impression, made him start and pause a little. Their eyes met, and they looked at each other gravely for a few moments. Then they bowed, and Mr. Tryan passed out. There is a power in the direct glance of a sincere and loving human soul, which will do more to dissipate prejudice and kindle charity than the most elaborate arguments. The fullest exposition of Mr. Tryan's doctrine might not have sufficed to convince Janet that he had not an odious self-complacency in believing himself a peculiar child of God; but one direct, pathetic look of his had dissociated him with that conception for ever. This happened late in the autumn, not long before Sally Martin died. Janet mentioned her new impression to no one, for she was afraid of arriving at a still more complete contradiction of her former ideas. We have all of us considerable regard for our past self, and are not fond of casting reflections on that respected individual by a total negation of his opinions. Janet could no longer think of Mr. Tryan without sympathy. but she still shrank from the idea of becoming his hearer and admirer. That was a reversal of the past which was as little accordant with her inclination as her circumstances. And indeed this interview with Mr. Tryan was soon thrust into the background of poor Janet's memory by the daily thickening miseries of her life. Chapter 13 The loss of Mr. Jerome as a client proved only the beginning of annoyances to Dempster. That old gentleman had in him the vigorous remnant of an energy and perseverance which had created his own fortune; and being, as I have hinted, given to chewing the cud of a righteous indignation with considerable relish, he was determined to carry on his retributive war against the persecuting attorney. Having some influence with Mr. Pryme, who was one of the most substantial rate-payers in the neighbouring parish of Dingley, and who had himself a complex and long-standing private account with Dempster, Mr. Jerome stirred up this gentleman to an investigation of some suspicious points in the attorney's conduct of the parish affairs. The natural consequence was a personal quarrel between Dempster and Mr. Pryme; the client demanded his account, and then followed the old story of an exorbitant lawyer's bill, with the unpleasant anti-climax of taxing. These disagreeables, extending over many months, ran along side by side with the pressing business of Mr. Armstrong's lawsuit, which was threatening to take a turn rather depreciatory of Dempster's professional prevision; and it is not surprising that, being thus kept in a constant state of irritated excitement about his own affairs, he had little time for the further exhibition of his public spirit, or for rallying the forlorn hope of sound churchmanship against cant and hypocrisy. Not a few persons who had a grudge against him, began to remark, with satisfaction, that 'Dempster's luck was forsaking him'; particularly Mrs. Linnet, who thought she saw distinctly the gradual ripening of a providential scheme, whereby a just retribution would be wrought on the man who had deprived her of Pye's Croft. On the other hand, Dempster's well-satisfied clients. who were of opinion that the punishment of his wickedness might conveniently be deferred to another world, noticed with some concern that he was drinking more than ever, and that both his temper and his driving were becoming more furious. Unhappily those additional glasses of brandy, that exasperation of loud-tongued abuse, had other effects than any that entered into the contemplation of anxious clients: they were the little super-added symbols that were perpetually raising the sum of home misery. Poor Janet! how heavily the months rolled on for her, laden with fresh sorrows as the summer passed into autumn, the autumn into winter, and the winter into spring again. Every feverish morning, with its blank listlessness and despair, seemed more hateful than the last; every coming night more impossible to brave without arming herself in leaden stupor. The morning light brought no gladness to her: it seemed only to throw its glare on what had happened in the dim candle-light--on the cruel man seated immovable in drunken obstinacy by the dead fire and dying lights in the dining-room, rating her in harsh tones, reiterating old reproaches--or on a hideous blank of something unremembered, something that must have made that dark bruise on her shoulder, which aches as she dressed herself. Do you wonder how it was that things had come to this pass--what offence Janet had committed in the early years of marriage to rouse the brutal hatred of this man? The seeds of things are very small: the hours that lie between sunrise and the gloom of midnight are travelled through by tiniest markings of the clock: and Janet, looking back along the fifteen years of her married life, hardly knew how or where this total misery began; hardly knew when the sweet wedded love and hope that had set for ever had ceased to make a twilight of memory and relenting, before the on-coming of the utter dark. Old Mrs. Dempster thought she saw the true beginning of it all in Janet's want of housekeeping skill and exactness. 'Janet,' she said to herself, 'was always running about doing things for other people, and neglecting her own house. That provokes a man: what use is it for a woman to be loving, and making a fuss with her husband, if she doesn't take care and keep his home just as he likes it; if she isn't at hand when he wants anything done; if she doesn't attend to all his wishes, let them be as small as they may? That was what I did when I was a wife, though I didn't make half so much fuss about loving my husband. Then, Janet had no children.' ... Ah! there Mammy Dempster had touched a true spring, not perhaps of her son's cruelty, but of half Janet's misery. If she had had babes to rock to sleep--little ones to kneel in their night-dress and say their prayers at her knees--sweet boys and girls to put their young arms round her neck and kiss away her tears, her poor hungry heart would have been fed with strong love, and might never have needed that fiery poison to still its cravings. Mighty is the force of motherhood! says the great tragic poet to us across the ages, finding, as usual, the simplest words for the sublimest fact--[Greek: deinon to tiktein estin.] It transforms all things by its vital heat: it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love. Yes! if Janet had been a mother, she might have been saved from much sin, and therefore from much of her sorrow. But do not believe that it was anything either present or wanting in poor Janet that formed the motive of her husband's cruelty. Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside itself--it only requires opportunity. You do not suppose Dempster had any motive for drinking beyond the craving for drink; the presence of brandy was the only necessary condition. And an unloving, tyrannous, brutal man needs no motive to prompt his cruelty; he needs only the perpetual presence of a woman he can call his own. A whole park full of tame or timid-eyed animals to torment at his will would not serve him so well to glut his lust of torture; they could not feel as one woman does; they could not throw out the keen retort which whets the edge of hatred. Janet's bitterness would overflow in ready words; she was not to be made meek by cruelty; she would repent of nothing in the face of injustice, though she was subdued in a moment by a word or a look that recalled the old days of fondness; and in times of comparative calm would often recover her sweet woman's habit of caressing playful affection. But such days were become rare, and poor Janet's soul was kept like a vexed sea, tossed by a new storm before the old waves have fallen. Proud, angry resistance and sullen endurance were now almost the only alternations she knew. She would bear it all proudly to the world, but proudly towards him too; her woman's weakness might shriek a cry for pity under a heavy blow, but voluntarily she would do nothing to mollify him, unless he first relented. What had she ever done to him but love him too well--but believe in him too foolishly? He had no pity on her tender flesh; he could strike the soft neck he had once asked to kiss. Yet she would not admit her wretchedness; she had married him blindly, and she would bear it out to the terrible end, whatever that might be. Better this misery than the blank that lay for her outside her married home. But there was one person who heard all the plaints and all the outbursts of bitterness and despair which Janet was never tempted to pour into any other ear; and alas! in her worst moments, Janet would throw out wild reproaches against that patient listener. For the wrong that rouses our angry passions finds only a medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have suffered. Mrs. Raynor saw too clearly all through the winter that things were getting worse in Orchard Street. She had evidence enough of it in Janet's visits to her; and, though her own visits to her daughter were so timed that she saw little of Dempster personally, she noticed many indications not only that he was drinking to greater excess, but that he was beginning to lose that physical power of supporting excess which had long been the admiration of such fine spirits as Mr. Tomlinson. It seemed as if Dempster had some consciousness of this--some new distrust of himself; for, before winter was over, it was observed that he had renounced his habit of driving out alone, and was never seen in his gig without a servant by his side. Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch. The various symptoms that things were getting worse with the Dempsters afforded Milby gossip something new to say on an old subject. Mrs. Dempster, every one remarked, looked more miserable than ever, though she kept up the old pretence of being happy and satisfied. She was scarcely ever seen, as she used to be, going about on her good-natured errands; and even old Mrs. Crewe, who had always been wilfully blind to anything wrong in her favourite Janet, was obliged to admit that she had not seemed like herself lately. 'The poor thing's out of health,' said the kind little old lady, in answer to all gossip about Janet; 'her headaches always were bad, and I know what headaches are; why, they make one quite delirious sometimes.' Mrs. Phipps, for her part, declared she would never accept an invitation to Dempster's again; it was getting so very disagreeable to go there, Mrs. Dempster was often 'so strange'. To be sure, there were dreadful stories about the way Dempster used his wife; but in Mrs. Phipps's opinion, it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Mrs. Dempster had never been like other women; she had always a flighty way with her, carrying parcels of snuff to old Mrs. Tooke, and going to drink tea with Mrs. Brinley, the carpenter's wife; and then never taking care of her clothes, always wearing the same things week-day or Sunday. A man has a poor look-out with a wife of that sort. Mr. Phipps, amiable and laconic, wondered how it was women were so fond of running each other down. Mr. Pratt having been called in provisionally to a patient of Mr. Pilgrim's in a case of compound fracture, observed in a friendly colloquy with his brother surgeon the next day,--'So Dempster has left off driving himself, I see; he won't end with a broken neck after all. You'll have a case of meningitis and delirium tremens instead.' 'Ah,' said Mr. Pilgrim, 'he can hardly stand it much longer at the rate he's going on, one would think. He's been confoundedly cut up about that business of Armstrong's, I fancy. It may do him some harm, perhaps, but Dempster must have feathered his nest pretty well; he can afford to lose a little business.' 'His business will outlast him, that's pretty clear,' said Pratt; 'he'll run down like a watch with a broken spring one of these days.' Another prognostic of evil to Dempster came at the beginning of March. For then little 'Mamsey' died--died suddenly. The housemaid found her seated motionless in her arm-chair, her knitting fallen down, and the tortoise-shell cat reposing on it unreproved. The little white old woman had ended her wintry age of patient sorrow, believing to the last that 'Robert might have been a good husband as he had been a good son.' When the earth was thrown on Mamsey's coffin, and the son, in crape scarf and hatband, turned away homeward, his good angel, lingering with outstretched wing on the edge of the grave, cast one despairing look after him, and took flight for ever. Chapter 14 The last week in March--three weeks after old Mrs. Dempster died--occurred the unpleasant winding-up of affairs between Dempster and Mr. Pryme, and under this additional source of irritation the attorney's diurnal drunkenness had taken on its most ill-tempered and brutal phase. On the Friday morning, before setting out for Rotherby, he told his wife that he had invited 'four men' to dinner at half-past six that evening. The previous night had been a terrible one for Janet, and when her husband broke his grim morning silence to say these few words, she was looking so blank and listless that he added in a loud sharp key, 'Do you hear what I say? or must I tell the cook?' She started, and said, 'Yes, I hear.' 'Then mind and have a dinner provided, and don't go mooning about like crazy Jane.' Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Raynor, quietly busy in her kitchen with her household labours--for she had only a little twelve-year-old girl as a servant--heard with trembling the rattling of the garden gate and the opening of the outer door. She knew the step, and in one short moment she lived beforehand through the coming scene. She hurried out of the kitchen, and there in the passage, as she had felt, stood Janet, her eyes worn as if by night-long watching, her dress careless, her step languid. No cheerful morning greeting to her mother--no kiss. She turned into the parlour, and, seating herself on the sofa opposite her mother's chair, looked vacantly at the walls and furniture until the corners of her mouth began to tremble, and her dark eyes filled with tears that fell unwiped down her cheeks. The mother sat silently opposite to her, afraid to speak. She felt sure there was nothing new the matter--sure that the torrent of words would come sooner or later. 'Mother! why don't you speak to me?' Janet burst out at last; 'you don't care about my suffering; you are blaming me because I feel--because I am miserable.' 'My child, I am not blaming you--my heart is bleeding for you. Your head is bad this morning--you have had a bad night. Let me make you a cup of tea now. Perhaps you didn't like your breakfast.' 'Yes, that is what you always think, mother. It is the old story, you think. You don't ask me what it is I have had to bear. You are tired of hearing me. You are cruel, like the rest; every one is cruel in this world. Nothing but blame--blame--blame; never any pity. God is cruel to have sent me into the world to bear all this misery.' 'Janet, Janet, don't say so. It is not for us to judge; we must submit; we must be thankful for the gift of life.' 'Thankful for life! Why should I be thankful? God has made me with a heart to feel, and He has sent me nothing but misery. How could I help it? How could I know what would come? Why didn't you tell me, mother?--why did you let me marry? You knew what brutes men could be; and there's no help for me--no hope. I can't kill myself; I've tried; but I can't leave this world and go to another. There may be no pity for me there, as there is none here.' 'Janet, my child, there _is_ pity. Have I ever done anything but love you? And there is pity in God. Hasn't He put pity into your heart for many a poor sufferer? Where did it come from, if not from Him?' Janet's nervous irritation now broke out into sobs instead of complainings; and her mother was thankful, for after that crisis there would very likely come relenting, and tenderness, and comparative calm. She went out to make some tea, and when she returned with the tray in her hands, Janet had dried her eyes and now turned them towards her mother with a faint attempt to smile; but the poor face, in its sad blurred beauty, looked all the more piteous. 'Mother will insist upon her tea,' she said, 'and I really think I can drink a cup. But I must go home directly, for there are people coming to dinner. Could you go with me and help me, mother?' Mrs. Raynor was always ready to do that. She went to Orchard Street with Janet, and remained with her through the day--comforted, as evening approached, to see her become more cheerful and willing to attend to her toilette. At half-past five everything was in order; Janet was dressed; and when the mother had kissed her and said good-bye, she could not help pausing a moment in sorrowful admiration at the tall rich figure, looking all the grander for the plainness of the deep mourning dress, and the noble face with its massy folds of black hair, made matronly by a simple white cap. Janet had that enduring beauty which belongs to pure majestic outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave their traces on such beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious Greek temple, which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous hands, has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because it is incomplete to the sense. It was six o'clock before Dempster returned from Rotherby. He had evidently drunk a great deal, and was in an angry humour; but Janet, who had gathered some little courage and forbearance from the consciousness that she had done her best to-day, was determined to speak pleasantly to him. 'Robert,' she said gently, as she saw him seat himself in the dining-room in his dusty snuffy clothes, and take some documents out of his pocket, 'will you not wash and change your dress? It will refresh you.' 'Leave me alone, will you?' said Dempster, in his most brutal tone. 'Do change your coat and waistcoat, they are so dusty. I've laid all your things out ready.' 'O, you have, have you?' After a few minutes he rose very deliberately and walked upstairs into his bedroom. Janet had often been scolded before for not laying out his clothes, and she thought now, not without some wonder, that this attention of hers had brought him to compliance. Presently he called out, 'Janet!' and she went upstairs. 'Here! Take that!' he said, as soon as she reached the door, flinging at her the coat she had laid out. 'Another time, leave me to do as I please, will you?' The coat, flung with great force, only brushed her shoulder, and fell some distance within the drawing-room, the door of which stood open just opposite. She hastily retreated as she saw the waistcoat coming, and one by one the clothes she had laid out were all flung into the drawing-room. Janet's face flushed with anger, and for the first time in her life her resentment overcame the long cherished pride that made her hide her griefs from the world. There are moments when by some strange impulse we contradict our past selves--fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the work of half our lives. Janet thought, 'I will not pick up the clothes; they shall lie there until the visitors come, and he shall be ashamed of himself.' There was a knock at the door, and she made haste to seat herself in the drawing-room, lest the servant should enter and remove the clothes, which were lying half on the table and half on the ground. Mr. Lowme entered with a less familiar visitor, a client of Dempster's, and the next moment Dempster himself came in. His eye fell at once on the clothes, and then turned for an instant with a devilish glance of concentrated hatred on Janet, who, still flushed and excited, affected unconsciousness. After shaking hands with his visitors he immediately rang the bell. 'Take those clothes away,' he said to the servant, not looking at Janet again. During dinner, she kept up her assumed air of indifference, and tried to seem in high spirits, laughing and talking more than usual. In reality, she felt as if she had defied a wild beast within the four walls of his den, and he was crouching backward in preparation for his deadly spring. Dempster affected to take no notice of her, talked obstreperously, and drank steadily. About eleven the party dispersed, with the exception of Mr. Budd, who had joined them after dinner, and appeared disposed to stay drinking a little longer. Janet began to hope that he would stay long enough for Dempster to become heavy and stupid, and so to fall asleep down-stairs, which was a rare but occasional ending of his nights. She told the servants to sit up no longer, and she herself undressed and went to bed, trying to cheat her imagination into the belief that the day was ended for her. But when she lay down, she became more intensely awake than ever. Everything she had taken this evening seemed only to stimulate her senses and her apprehensions to new vividness. Her heart beat violently, and she heard every sound in the house. At last, when it was twelve, she heard Mr. Budd go out; she heard the door slam. Dempster had not moved. Was he asleep? Would he forget? The minute seemed long, while, with a quickening pulse, she was on the stretch to catch every sound. 'Janet!' The loud jarring voice seemed to strike her like a hurled weapon. 'Janet!' he called again, moving out of the dining-room to the foot of the stairs. There was a pause of a minute. 'If you don't come, I'll kill you.' Another pause, and she heard him turn back into the dining-room. He was gone for a light--perhaps for a weapon. Perhaps he _would_ kill her. Let him. Life was as hideous as death. For years she had been rushing on to some unknown but certain horror; and now she was close upon it. She was almost glad. She was in a state of flushed feverish defiance that neutralized her woman's terrors. She heard his heavy step on the stairs; she saw the slowly advancing light. Then she saw the tall massive figure, and the heavy face, now fierce with drunken rage. He had nothing but the candle in his hand. He set it down on the table, and advanced close to the bed. 'So you think you'll defy me, do you? We'll see how long that will last. Get up, madam; out of bed this instant!' In the close presence of the dreadful man--of this huge crushing force, armed with savage will--poor Janet's desperate defiance all forsook her, and her terrors came back. Trembling she got up, and stood helpless in her night-dress before her husband. He seized her with his heavy grasp by the shoulder, and pushed her before him. 'I'll cool your hot spirit for you! I'll teach you to brave me!' Slowly he pushed her along before him, down stairs and through the passage, where a small oil-lamp was still flickering. What was he going to do to her? She thought every moment he was going to dash her before him on the ground. But she gave no scream--she only trembled. He pushed her on to the entrance, and held her firmly in his grasp while he lifted the latch of the door. Then he opened the door a little way, thrust her out, and slammed it behind her. For a short space, it seemed like a deliverance to Janet. The harsh north-east wind, that blew through her thin night-dress, and sent her long heavy black hair streaming, seemed like the breath of pity after the grasp of that threatening monster. But soon the sense of release from an overpowering terror gave way before the sense of the fate that had really come upon her. This, then, was what she had been travelling towards through her long years of misery! Not yet death. O! if she had been brave enough for it, death would have been better. The servants slept at the back of the house; it was impossible to make them hear, so that they might let her in again quietly, without her husband's knowledge. And she would not have tried. He had thrust her out, and it should be for ever. There would have been dead silence in Orchard Street but for the whistling of the wind and the swirling of the March dust on the pavement. Thick clouds covered the sky; every door was closed; every window was dark. No ray of light fell on the tall white figure that stood in lonely misery on the doorstep; no eye rested on Janet as she sank down on the cold stone, and looked into the dismal night. She seemed to be looking into her own blank future. Chapter 15 The stony street, the bitter north-east wind and darkness--and in the midst of them a tender woman thrust out from her husband's home in her thin night-dress, the harsh wind cutting her naked feet, and driving her long hair away from her half-clad bosom, where the poor heart is crushed with anguish and despair. The drowning man, urged by the supreme agony, lives in an instant through all his happy and unhappy past: when the dark flood has fallen like a curtain, memory, in a single moment, sees the drama acted over again. And even in those earlier crises, which are but types of death--when we are cut off abruptly from the life we have known, when we can no longer expect tomorrow to resemble yesterday, and find ourselves by some sudden shock on the confines of the unknown--there is often the same sort of lightning-flash through the dark and unfrequented chambers of memory. When Janet sat down shivering on the door-stone, with the door shut upon her past life, and the future black and unshapen before her as the night, the scenes of her childhood, her youth and her painful womanhood, rushed back upon her consciousness, and made one picture with her present desolation. The petted child taking her newest toy to bed with her--the young girl, proud in strength and beauty, dreaming that life was an easy thing, and that it was pitiful weakness to be unhappy--the bride, passing with trembling joy from the outer court to the inner sanctuary of woman's life--the wife, beginning her initiation into sorrow, wounded, resenting, yet still hoping and forgiving--the poor bruised woman, seeking through weary years the one refuge of despair, oblivion:--Janet seemed to herself all these in the same moment that she was conscious of being seated on the cold stone under the shock of a new misery. All her early gladness, all her bright hopes and illusions, all her gifts of beauty and affection, served only to darken the riddle of her life; they were the betraying promises of a cruel destiny which had brought out those sweet blossoms only that the winds and storms might have a greater work of desolation, which had nursed her like a pet fawn into tenderness and fond expectation, only that she might feel a keener terror in the clutch of the panther. Her mother had sometimes said that troubles were sent to make us better and draw us nearer to God. What mockery that seemed to Janet! _Her_ troubles had been sinking her lower from year to year, pressing upon her like heavy fever-laden vapours, and perverting the very plenitude of her nature into a deeper source of disease. Her wretchedness had been a perpetually tightening instrument of torture, which had gradually absorbed all the other sensibilities of her nature into the sense of pain and the maddened craving for relief. Oh, if some ray of hope, of pity, of consolation, would pierce through the horrible gloom, she might believe _then_ in a Divine love--in a heavenly Father who cared for His children! But now she had no faith, no trust. There was nothing she could lean on in the wide world, for her mother was only a fellow-sufferer in her own lot. The poor patient woman could do little more than mourn with her daughter: she had humble resignation enough to sustain her own soul, but she could no more give comfort and fortitude to Janet, than the withered ivy-covered trunk can bear up its strong, full-boughed offspring crashing down under an Alpine storm. Janet felt she was alone: no human soul had measured her anguish, had understood her self-despair, had entered into her sorrows and her sins with that deep-sighted sympathy which is wiser than all blame, more potent than all reproof--such sympathy as had swelled her own heart for many a sufferer. And if there was any Divine Pity, she could not feel it; it kept aloof from her, it poured no balm into her wounds, it stretched out no hand to bear up her weak resolve, to fortify her fainting courage. Now, in her utmost loneliness, she shed no tear: she sat staring fixedly into the darkness, while inwardly she gazed at her own past, almost losing the sense that it was her own, or that she was anything more than a spectator at a strange and dreadful play. The loud sound of the church clock, striking one, startled her. She had not been there more than half an hour, then? And it seemed to her as if she had been there half the night. She was getting benumbed with cold. With that strong instinctive dread of pain and death which had made her recoil from suicide, she started up, and the disagreeable sensation of resting on her benumbed feet helped to recall her completely to the sense of the present. The wind was beginning to make rents in the clouds, and there came every now and then a dim light of stars that frightened her more than the darkness; it was like a cruel finger pointing her out in her wretchedness and humiliation; it made her shudder at the thought of the morning twilight. What could she do? Not go to her mother--not rouse her in the dead of night to tell her this. Her mother would think she was a spectre; it would be enough to kill her with horror. And the way there was so long ... if she should meet some one ... yet she must seek some shelter, somewhere to hide herself. Five doors off there was Mrs. Pettifer's; that kind woman would take her in. It was of no use now to be proud and mind about the world's knowing: she had nothing to wish for, nothing to care about; only she could not help shuddering at the thought of braving the morning light, there in the street--she was frightened at the thought of spending long hours in the cold. Life might mean anguish, might mean despair; but oh, she must clutch it, though with bleeding fingers; her feet must cling to the firm earth that the sunlight would revisit, not slip into the untried abyss, where she might long even for familiar pains. Janet trod slowly with her naked feet on the rough pavement, trembling at the fitful gleams of starlight, and supporting herself by the wall, as the gusts of wind drove right against her. The very wind was cruel: it tried to push her back from the door where she wanted to go and knock and ask for pity. Mrs. Pettifer's house did not look into Orchard Street: it stood a little way up a wide passage which opened into the street through an archway. Janet turned up the archway, and saw a faint light coming from Mrs. Pettifer's bedroom window. The glimmer of a rushlight from a room where a friend was lying, was like a ray of mercy to Janet, after that long, long time of darkness and loneliness; it would not be so dreadful to awake Mrs. Pettifer as she had thought. Yet she lingered some minutes at the door before she gathered courage to knock; she felt as if the sound must betray her to others besides Mrs. Pettifer, though there was no other dwelling that opened into the passage--only warehouses and outbuildings. There was no gravel for her to throw up at the window, nothing but heavy pavement; there was no door-bell; she must knock. Her first rap was very timid--one feeble fall of the knocker; and then she stood still again for many minutes; but presently she rallied her courage and knocked several times together, not loudly, but rapidly, so that Mrs. Pettifer, if she only heard the sound, could not mistake it. And she _had_ heard it, for by and by the casement of her window was opened, and Janet perceived that she was bending out to try and discern who it was at the door. 'It is I, Mrs. Pettifer; it is Janet Dempster. Take me in, for pity's sake.' 'Merciful God! what has happened?' 'Robert has turned me out. I have been in the cold a long while.' Mrs. Pettifer said no more, but hurried away from the window, and was soon at the door with a light in her hand. 'Come in, my poor dear, come in,' said the good woman in a tremulous voice, drawing Janet within the door. 'Come into my warm bed, and may God in heaven save and comfort you.' The pitying eyes, the tender voice, the warm touch, caused a rush of new feeling in Janet. Her heart swelled, and she burst out suddenly, like a child, into loud passionate sobs. Mrs. Pettifer could not help crying with her, but she said, 'Come upstairs, my dear, come. Don't linger in the cold.' She drew the poor sobbing thing gently up-stairs, and persuaded her to get into the warm bed. But it was long before Janet could lie down. She sat leaning her head on her knees, convulsed by sobs, while the motherly woman covered her with clothes and held her arms round her to comfort her with warmth. At last the hysterical passion had exhausted itself, and she fell back on the pillow; but her throat was still agitated by piteous after-sobs, such as shake a little child even when it has found a refuge from its alarms on its mother's lap. Now Janet was getting quieter, Mrs. Pettifer determined to go down and make a cup of tea, the first thing a kind old woman thinks of as a solace and restorative under all calamities. Happily there was no danger of awaking her servant, a heavy girl of sixteen, who was snoring blissfully in the attic, and might be kept ignorant of the way in which Mrs. Dempster had come in. So Mrs. Pettifer busied herself with rousing the kitchen fire, which was kept in under a huge 'raker'--a possibility by which the coal of the midland counties atones for all its slowness and white ashes. When she carried up the tea, Janet was lying quite still; the spasmodic agitation had ceased, and she seemed lost in thought; her eyes were fixed vacantly on the rushlight shade, and all the lines of sorrow were deepened in her face. 'Now, my dear,' said Mrs. Pettifer, 'let me persuade you to drink a cup of tea; you'll find it warm you and soothe you very much. Why, dear heart, your feet are like ice still. Now, do drink this tea, and I'll wrap 'em up in flannel, and then they'll get warm.' Janet turned her dark eyes on her old friend and stretched out her arms. She was too much oppressed to say anything; her suffering lay like a heavy weight on her power of speech; but she wanted to kiss the good kind woman. Mrs. Pettifer, setting down the cup, bent towards the sad beautiful face, and Janet kissed her with earnest sacramental kisses--such kisses as seal a new and closer bond between the helper and the helped. She drank the tea obediently. 'It _does_ warm me,' she said. 'But now you will get into bed. I shall lie still now.' Mrs. Pettifer felt it was the best thing she could do to lie down quietly and say no more. She hoped Janet might go to sleep. As for herself, with that tendency to wakefulness common to advanced years, she found it impossible to compose herself to sleep again after this agitating surprise. She lay listening to the clock, wondering what had led to this new outrage of Dempster's, praying for the poor thing at her side, and pitying the mother who would have to hear it all tomorrow. Chapter 16 Janet lay still, as she had promised; but the tea, which had warmed her and given her a sense of greater bodily ease, had only heightened the previous excitement of her brain. Her ideas had a new vividness, which made her feel as if she had only seen life through a dim haze before; her thoughts, instead of springing from the action of her own mind, were external existences, that thrust themselves imperiously upon her like haunting visions. The future took shape after shape of misery before her, always ending in her being dragged back again to her old life of terror, and stupor, and fevered despair. Her husband had so long overshadowed her life that her imagination could not keep hold of a condition in which that great dread was absent; and even his absence--what was it? only a dreary vacant flat, where there was nothing to strive after, nothing to long for. At last, the light of morning quenched the rushlight, and Janet's thoughts became more and more fragmentary and confused. She was every moment slipping off the level on which she lay thinking, down, down into some depth from which she tried to rise again with a start. Slumber was stealing over her weary brain: that uneasy slumber which is only better than wretched waking, because the life we seemed to live in it determines no wretched future, because the things we do and suffer in it are but hateful shadows, and leave no impress that petrifies into an irrevocable past. She had scarcely been asleep an hour when her movements became more violent, her mutterings more frequent and agitated, till at last she started up with a smothered cry, and looked wildly round her, shaking with terror. 'Don't be frightened, dear Mrs. Dempster,' said Mrs. Pettifer, who was up and dressing, 'you are with me, your old friend, Mrs. Pettifer. Nothing will harm you.' Janet sank back again on her pillow, still trembling. After lying silent a little while, she said, 'It was a horrible dream. Dear Mrs. Pettifer, don't let any one know I am here. Keep it a secret. If he finds out, he will come and drag me back again.' 'No, my dear, depend on me. I've just thought I shall send the servant home on a holiday--I've promised her a good while. I'll send her away as soon as she's had her breakfast, and she'll have no occasion to know you're here. There's no holding servants' tongues, if you let 'em know anything. What they don't know, they won't tell; you may trust 'em so far. But shouldn't you like me to go and fetch your mother?' 'No, not yet, not yet. I can't bear to see her yet.' 'Well, it shall be just as you like. Now try and get to sleep again. I shall leave you for an hour or two, and send off Phoebe, and then bring you some breakfast. I'll lock the door behind me, so that the girl mayn't come in by chance.' The daylight changes the aspect of misery to us, as of everything else. In the night it presses on our imagination--the forms it takes are false, fitful, exaggerated; in broad day it sickens our sense with the dreary persistence of definite measurable reality. The man who looks with ghastly horror on all his property aflame in the dead of night, has not half the sense of destitution he will have in the morning, when he walks over the ruins lying blackened in the pitiless sunshine. That moment of intensest depression was come to Janet, when the daylight which showed her the walls, and chairs, and tables, and all the commonplace reality that surrounded her, seemed to lay bare the future too, and bring out into oppressive distinctness all the details of a weary life to be lived from day to day, with no hope to strengthen her against that evil habit, which she loathed in retrospect and yet was powerless to resist. Her husband would never consent to her living away from him: she was become necessary to his tyranny; he would never willingly loosen his grasp on her. She had a vague notion of some protection the law might give her, if she could prove her life in danger from him; but she shrank utterly, as she had always done, from any active, public resistance or vengeance: she felt too crushed, too faulty, too liable to reproach, to have the courage, even if she had had the wish to put herself openly in the position of a wronged woman seeking redress. She had no strength to sustain her in a course of self-defence and independence: there was a darker shadow over her life than the dread of her husband--it was the shadow of self-despair. The easiest thing would be to go away and hide herself from him. But then there was her mother: Robert had all her little property in his hands, and that little was scarcely enough to keep her in comfort without his aid. If Janet went away alone he would be sure to persecute her mother; and if she _did_ go away--what then? She must work to maintain herself; she must exert herself, weary and hopeless as she was, to begin life afresh. How hard that seemed to her! Janet's nature did not belie her grand face and form: there was energy, there was strength in it; but it was the strength of the vine, which must have its broad leaves and rich clusters borne up by a firm stay. And now she had nothing to rest on--no faith, no love. If her mother had been very feeble, aged, or sickly, Janet's deep pity and tenderness might have made a daughter's duties an interest and a solace; but Mrs. Raynor had never needed tendance; she had always been giving help to her daughter; she had always been a sort of humble ministering spirit; and it was one of Janet's pangs of memory, that instead of being her mother's comfort, she had been her mother's trial. Everywhere the same sadness! Her life was a sun-dried, barren tract, where there was no shadow, and where all the waters were bitter. No! She suddenly thought--and the thought was like an electric shock--there was one spot in her memory which seemed to promise her an untried spring, where the waters might be sweet. That short interview with Mr. Tryan had come back upon her--his voice, his words, his look, which told her that he knew sorrow. His words have implied that he thought his death was near; yet he had a faith which enabled him to labour--enabled him to give comfort to others. That look of his came back on her with a vividness greater than it had had for her in reality: surely he knew more of the secrets of sorrow than other men; perhaps he had some message of comfort, different from the feeble words she had been used to hear from others. She was tired, she was sick of that barren exhortation--Do right, and keep a clear conscience, and God will reward you, and your troubles will be easier to bear. She wanted _strength_ to do right--she wanted something to rely on besides her own resolutions; for was not the path behind her all strewn with _broken_ resolutions? How could she trust in new ones? She had often heard Mr. Tryan laughed at for being fond of great sinners. She began to see a new meaning in those words; he would perhaps understand her helplessness, her wants. If she could pour out her heart to him! if she could for the first time in her life unlock all the chambers of her soul! The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good. When Mrs. Pettifer came back to her, turning the key and opening the door very gently, Janet, instead of being asleep, as her good friend had hoped, was intensely occupied with her new thought. She longed to ask Mrs. Pettifer if she could see Mr. Tryan; but she was arrested by doubts and timidity. He might not feel for her--he might be shocked at her confession--he might talk to her of doctrines she could not understand or believe. She could not make up her mind yet; but she was too restless under this mental struggle to remain in bed. 'Mrs. Pettifer,' she said, 'I can't lie here any longer; I must get up. Will you lend me some clothes?' Wrapt in such drapery as Mrs. Pettifer could find for her tall figure, Janet went down into the little parlour, and tried to take some of the breakfast her friend had prepared for her. But her effort was not a successful one; her cup of tea and bit of toast were only half finished. The leaden weight of discouragement pressed upon her more and more heavily. The wind had fallen, and a drizzling rain had come on; there was no prospect from Mrs. Pettifer's parlour but a blank wall; and as Janet looked out at the window, the rain and the smoke-blackened bricks seemed to blend themselves in sickening identity with her desolation of spirit and the headachy weariness of her body. Mrs. Pettifer got through her household work as soon as she could, and sat down with her sewing, hoping that Janet would perhaps be able to talk a little of what had passed, and find some relief by unbosoming herself in that way. But Janet could not speak to her; she was importuned with the longing to see Mr. Tryan, and yet hesitating to express it. Two hours passed in this way. The rain went on drizzling, and Janet sat still, leaning her aching head on her hand, and looking alternately at the fire and out of the window. She felt this could not last--this motionless, vacant misery. She must determine on something, she must take some step; and yet everything was so difficult. It was one o'clock, and Mrs. Pettifer rose from her seat, saying, 'I must go and see about dinner.' The movement and the sound startled Janet from her reverie. It seemed as if an opportunity were escaping her, and she said hastily, 'Is Mr. Tryan in the town today, do you think?' 'No, I should think not, being Saturday, you know,' said Mrs. Pettifer, her face lighting up with pleasure; 'but he _would_ come, if he was sent for. I can send Jesson's boy with a note to him any time. Should you like to see him?' 'Yes, I think I should.' 'Then I'll send for him this instant.' Chapter 17 When Dempster awoke in the morning, he was at no loss to account to himself for the fact that Janet was not by his side. His hours of drunkenness were not cut off from his other hours by any blank wall of oblivion; he remembered what Janet had done to offend him the evening before, he remembered what he had done to her at midnight, just as he would have remembered if he had been consulted about a right of road. The remembrance gave him a definite ground for the extra ill-humour which had attended his waking every morning this week, but he would not admit to himself that it cost him any anxiety. 'Pooh,' he said inwardly, 'she would go straight to her mother's. She's as timid as a hare; and she'll never let anybody know about it. She'll be back again before night.' But it would be as well for the servants not to know anything of the affair: so he collected the clothes she had taken off the night before, and threw them into a fire-proof closet of which he always kept the key in his pocket. When he went down stairs he said to the housemaid, 'Mrs. Dempster is gone to her mother's; bring in the breakfast.' The servants, accustomed to hear domestic broils, and to see their mistress put on her bonnet hastily and go to her mother's, thought it only something a little worse than usual that she should have gone thither in consequence of a violent quarrel, either at midnight, or in the early morning before they were up. The housemaid told the cook what she supposed had happened; the cook shook her head and said, 'Eh, dear, dear!' but they both expected to see their mistress back again in an hour or two. Dempster, on his return home the evening before, had ordered his man, who lived away from the house, to bring up his horse and gig from the stables at ten. After breakfast he said to the housemaid, 'No one need sit up for me to-night; I shall not be at home till tomorrow evening;' and then he walked to the office to give some orders, expecting, as he returned, to see the man waiting with his gig. But though the church clock had struck ten, no gig was there. In Dempster's mood this was more than enough to exasperate him. He went in to take his accustomed glass of brandy before setting out, promising himself the satisfaction of presently thundering at Dawes for being a few minutes behind his time. An outbreak of temper towards his man was not common with him; for Dempster, like most tyrannous people, had that dastardly kind of self-restraint which enabled him to control his temper where it suited his own convenience to do so; and feeling the value of Dawes, a steady punctual fellow, he not only gave him high wages, but usually treated him with exceptional civility. This morning, however, ill-humour got the better of prudence, and Dempster was determined to rate him soundly; a resolution for which Dawes gave him much better ground than he expected. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, had passed, and Dempster was setting off to the stables in a back street to see what was the cause of the delay, when Dawes appeared with the gig. 'What the devil do you keep me here for?' thundered Dempster, 'kicking my heels like a beggarly tailor waiting for a carrier's cart? I ordered you to be here at ten. We might have driven to Whitlow by this time.' 'Why, one o' the traces was welly i' two, an' I had to take it to Brady's to be mended, an' he didn't get it done i' time.' 'Then why didn't you take it to him last night? Because of your damned laziness, I suppose. Do you think I give you wages for you to choose your own hours, and come dawdling up a quarter of an hour after my time?' 'Come, give me good words, will yer?' said Dawes, sulkily. 'I'm not lazy, nor no man shall call me lazy. I know well anuff what you gi' me wages for; it's for doin' what yer won't find many men as 'ull do.' 'What, you impudent scoundrel,' said Dempster, getting into the gig, 'you think you're necessary to me, do you? As if a beastly bucket-carrying idiot like you wasn't to be got any day. Look out for a new master, then, who'll pay you for not doing as you're bid.' Dawe's blood was now fairly up. 'I'll look out for a master as has got a better charicter nor a lyin', bletherin' drunkard, an' I shouldn't hev to go fur.' Dempster, furious, snatched the whip from the socket, and gave Dawes a cut which he meant to fall across his shoulders saying, 'Take that, sir, and go to hell with you!' Dawes was in the act of turning with the reins in his hand when the lash fell, and the cut went across his face. With white lips, he said, 'I'll have the law on yer for that, lawyer as y'are,' and threw the reins on the horse's back. Dempster leaned forward, seized the reins, and drove off. 'Why, there's your friend Dempster driving out without his man again,' said Mr. Luke Byles, who was chatting with Mr. Budd in the Bridge Way. 'What a fool he is to drive that two-wheeled thing! he'll get pitched on his head one of these days.' 'Not he,' said Mr. Budd, nodding to Dempster as he passed 'he's got nine lives, Dempster has.' Chapter 18 It was dusk, and the candles were lighted before Mr. Tryan knocked at Mrs. Pettifer's door. Her messenger had brought back word that he was not at home, and all afternoon Janet had been agitated by the fear that he would not come; but as soon as that anxiety was removed by the knock at the door, she felt a sudden rush of doubt and timidity: she trembled and turned cold. Mrs. Pettifer went to open the door, and told Mr. Tryan, in as few words as possible, what had happened in the night. As he laid down his hat and prepared to enter the parlour, she said, 'I won't go in with you, for I think perhaps she would rather see you go in alone.' Janet, wrapped up in a large white shawl which threw her dark face into startling relief, was seated with her eyes turned anxiously towards the door when Mr. Tryan entered. He had not seen her since their interview at Sally Martin's long months ago; and he felt a strong movement of compassion at the sight of the pain-stricken face which seemed to bear written on it the signs of all Janet's intervening misery. Her heart gave a great leap, as her eyes met his once more. No! she had not deceived herself: there was all the sincerity, all the sadness, all the deep pity in them her memory had told her of; more than it had told her, for in proportion as his face had become thinner and more worn, his eyes appeared to have gathered intensity. He came forward, and, putting out his hand, said, 'I am so glad you sent for me--I am so thankful you thought I could be any comfort to you.' Janet took his hand in silence. She was unable to utter any words of mere politeness, or even of gratitude; her heart was too full of other words that had welled up the moment she met his pitying glance, and felt her doubts fall away. They sat down opposite each other, and she said in a low voice, while slow difficult tears gathered in her aching eyes,--'I want to tell you how unhappy I am--how weak and wicked. I feel no strength to live or die. I thought you could tell me something that would help me.' She paused. 'Perhaps I can,' Mr. Tryan said, 'for in speaking to me you are speaking to a fellow-sinner who has needed just the comfort and help you are needing.' 'And you did find it?' 'Yes; and I trust you will find it.' 'O, I should like to be good and to do right,' Janet burst forth; 'but indeed, indeed, my lot has been a very hard one. I loved my husband very dearly when we were married, and I meant to make him happy--I wanted nothing else. But he began to be angry with me for little things and ... I don't want to accuse him ... but he drank and got more and more unkind to me, and then very cruel, and he beat me. And that cut me to the heart. It made me almost mad sometimes to think all our love had come to that ... I couldn't bear up against it. I had never been used to drink anything but water. I hated wine and spirits because Robert drank them so; but one day when I was very wretched, and the wine was standing on the table, I suddenly ... I can hardly remember how I came to do it ... I poured some wine into a large glass and drank it. It blunted my feelings. and made me more indifferent. After that, the temptation was always coming, and it got stronger and stronger. I was ashamed, and I hated what I did; but almost while the thought was passing through my mind that I would never do it again, I did it. It seemed as if there was a demon in me always making me rush to do what I longed not to do. And I thought all the more that God was cruel; for if He had not sent me that dreadful trial, so much worse than other women have to bear, I should not have done wrong in that way. I suppose it is wicked to think so ... I feel as if there must be goodness and right above us, but I can't see it, I can't trust in it. And I have gone on in that way for years and years. At one time it used to be better now and then, but everything has got worse lately. I felt sure it must soon end somehow. And last night he turned me out of doors ... I don't know what to do. I will never go back to that life again if I can help it; and yet everything else seems so miserable. I feel sure that demon will always be urging me to satisfy the craving that comes upon me, and the days will go on as they have done through all those miserable years. I shall always be doing wrong, and hating myself after--sinking lower and lower, and knowing that I am sinking. O can you tell me any way of getting strength? Have you ever known any one like me that got peace of mind and power to do right? Can you give me any comfort--any hope?' While Janet was speaking, she had forgotten everything but her misery and her yearning for comfort. Her voice had risen from the low tone of timid distress to an intense pitch of imploring anguish. She clasped her hands tightly, and looked at Mr. Tryon with eager questioning eyes, with parted, trembling lips, with the deep horizontal lines of overmastering pain on her brow. In this artificial life of ours, it is not often we see a human face with all a heart's agony in it, uncontrolled by self-consciousness; when we do see it, it startles us as if we had suddenly waked into the real world of which this everyday one is but a puppet-show copy. For some moments Mr. Tryan was too deeply moved to speak. 'Yes, dear Mrs. Dempster,' he said at last, 'there _is_ comfort, there _is_ hope for you. Believe me there is, for I speak from my own deep and hard experience.' He paused, as if he had not made up his mind to utter the words that were urging themselves to his lips. Presently he continued, 'Ten years ago, I felt as wretched as you do. I think my wretchedness was even worse than yours, for I had a heavier sin on my conscience. I had suffered no wrong from others as you have, and I had injured another irreparably in body and soul. The image of the wrong I had done pursued me everywhere, and I seemed on the brink of madness. I hated my life, for I thought, just as you do, that I should go on falling into temptation and doing more harm in the world; and I dreaded death, for with that sense of guilt on my soul, I felt that whatever state I entered on must be one of misery. But a dear friend to whom I opened my mind showed me it was just such as I--the helpless who feel themselves helpless--that God specially invites to come to Him, and offers all the riches of His salvation: not forgiveness only; forgiveness would be worth little if it left us under the powers of our evil passions; but strength--that strength which enables us to conquer sin.' 'But,' said Janet, 'I can feel no trust in God. He seems always to have left me to myself. I have sometimes prayed to Him to help me, and yet everything has been just the same as before. If you felt like me, how did you come to have hope and trust?' 'Do not believe that God has left you to yourself. How can you tell but that the hardest trials you have known have been only the road by which He was leading you to that complete sense of your own sin and helplessness, without which you would never have renounced all other hopes, and trusted in His love alone? I know, dear Mrs. Dempster, I know it is hard to bear. I would not speak lightly of your sorrows. I feel that the mystery of our life is great, and at one time it seemed as dark to me as it does to you.' Mr. Tryan hesitated again. He saw that the first thing Janet needed was to be assured of sympathy. She must be made to feel that her anguish was not strange to him; that he entered into the only half-expressed secrets of her spiritual weakness, before any other message of consolation could find its way to her heart. The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity. And Janet's anguish was not strange to Mr. Tryan. He had never been in the presence of a sorrow and a self-despair that had sent so strong a thrill through all the recesses of his saddest experience; and it is because sympathy is but a living again through our own past in a new form, that confession often prompts a response of confession. Mr. Tryan felt this prompting, and his judgement, too, told him that in obeying it he would be taking the best means of administering comfort to Janet. Yet he hesitated; as we tremble to let in the daylight on a chamber of relics which we have never visited except in curtained silence. But the first impulse triumphed, and he went on. 'I had lived all my life at a distance from God. My youth was spent in thoughtless self-indulgence, and all my hopes were of a vain worldly kind. I had no thought of entering the Church; I looked forward to a political career, for my father was private secretary to a man high in the Whig Ministry, and had been promised strong interest in my behalf. At college I lived in intimacy with the gayest men, even adopting follies and vices for which I had no taste, out of mere pliancy and the love of standing well with my companions. You see, I was more guilty even then than you have been, for I threw away all the rich blessings of untroubled youth and health; I had no excuse in my outward lot. But while I was at college that event in my life occurred, which in the end brought on the state of mind I have mentioned to you--the state of self-reproach and despair, which enables me to understand to the full what you are suffering; and I tell you the facts, because I want you to be assured that I am not uttering mere vague words when I say that I have been raised from as low a depth of sin and sorrow as that in which you feel yourself to be. At college I had an attachment to a lovely girl of seventeen; she was very much below my own station in life, and I never contemplated marrying her; but I induced her to leave her father's house. I did not mean to forsake her when I left college, and I quieted all scruples of conscience by promising myself that I would always take care of poor Lucy. But on my return from a vacation spent in travelling, I found that Lucy was gone--gone away with a gentleman, her neighbours said. I was a good deal distressed, but I tried to persuade myself that no harm would come to her. Soon afterwards I had an illness which left my health delicate, and made all dissipation distasteful to me. Life seemed very wearisome and empty, and I looked with envy on every one who had some great and absorbing object--even on my cousin who was preparing to go out as a missionary, and whom I had been used to think a dismal, tedious person, because he was constantly urging religious subjects upon me. We were living in London then; it was three years since I had lost sight of Lucy; and one summer evening, about nine o'clock, as I was walking along Gower Street, I saw a knot of people on the causeway before me. As I came up to them, I heard one woman say, "I tell you, she is dead." This awakened my interest, and I pushed my way within the circle. The body of a woman, dressed in fine clothes, was lying against a door-step. Her head was bent on one side, and the long curls had fallen over her cheek. A tremor seized me when I saw the hair: it was light chestnut--the colour of Lucy's. I knelt down and turned aside the hair; it was Lucy--dead--with paint on her cheeks. I found out afterwards that she had taken poison--that she was in the power of a wicked woman--that the very clothes on her back were not her own. It was then that my past life burst upon me in all its hideousness. I wished I had never been born. I couldn't look into the future. Lucy's dead painted face would follow me there, as it did when I looked back into the past--as it did when I sat down to table with my friends, when I lay down in my bed, and when I rose up. There was only one thing that could make life tolerable to me; that was, to spend all the rest of it in trying to save others from the ruin I had brought on one. But how was that possible for me? I had no comfort, no strength, no wisdom in my own soul; how could I give them to others? My mind was dark, rebellious, at war with itself and with God.' Mr. Tryan had been looking away from Janet. His face was towards the fire, and he was absorbed in the images his memory was recalling. But now he turned his eyes on her, and they met hers, fixed on him with the look of rapt expectation, with which one clinging to a slippery summit of a rock, while the waves are rising higher and higher, watches the boat that has put from shore to his rescue. 'You see, Mrs. Dempster, how deep my need was. I went on in this way for months. I was convinced that if I ever got health and comfort, it must be from religion. I went to hear celebrated preachers, and I read religious books. But I found nothing that fitted my own need. The faith which puts the sinner in possession of salvation seemed, as I understood it, to be quite out of my reach. I had no faith; I only felt utterly wretched, under the power of habits and dispositions which had wrought hideous evil. At last, as I told you, I found a friend to whom I opened all my feelings--to whom I confessed everything. He was a man who had gone through very deep experience, and could understand the different wants of different minds. He made it clear to me that the only preparation for coming to Christ and partaking of his salvation, was that very sense of guilt and helplessness which was weighing me down. He said, You are weary and heavy-laden; well, it is you Christ invites to come to him and find rest. He asks you to cling to him, to lean on him; he does not command you to walk alone without stumbling. He does not tell you, as your fellow-men do, that you must first merit his love; he neither condemns nor reproaches you for the past, he only bids you come to him that you may have life: he bids you stretch out your hands, and take of the fulness of his love. You have only to rest on him as a child rests on its mother's arms, and you will be upborne by his divine strength. That is what is meant by faith. Your evil habits, you feel, are too strong for you; you are unable to wrestle with them; you know beforehand you shall fall. But when once we feel our helplessness in that way, and go to the Saviour, desiring to be freed from the power as well as the punishment of sin, we are no longer left to our own strength. As long as we live in rebellion against God, desiring to have our own will, seeking happiness in the things of this world, it is as if we shut ourselves up in a crowded stifling room, where we breathe only poisoned air; but we have only to walk out under the infinite heavens, and we breathe the pure free air that gives us health, and strength, and gladness. It is just so with God's spirit: as soon as we submit ourselves to his will, as soon as we desire to be united to him, and made pure and holy, it is as if the walls had fallen down that shut us out from God, and we are fed with his spirit, which gives us new strength.' 'That is what I want,' said Janet; 'I have left off minding about pleasure. I think I could be contented in the midst of hardship, if I felt that God cared for me, and would give me strength to lead a pure life. But tell me, did you soon find peace and strength?' 'Not perfect peace for a long while, but hope and trust, which is strength. No sense of pardon for myself could do away with the pain I had in thinking what I had helped to bring on another. My friend used to urge upon me that my sin against God was greater than my sin against her; but--it may be from want of deeper spiritual feeling--that has remained to this hour the sin which causes me the bitterest pang. I could never rescue Lucy; but by God's blessing I might rescue other weak and falling souls; and that was why I entered the Church. I asked for nothing through the rest of my life but that I might be devoted to God's work, without swerving in search of pleasure either to the right hand or to the left. It has been often a hard struggle--but God has been with me--and perhaps it may not last much longer.' Mr. Tryan paused. For a moment he had forgotten Janet, and for a moment she had forgotten her own sorrows. When she recurred to herself, it was with a new feeling. 'Ah, what a difference between our lives! you have been choosing pain, and working, and denying yourself; and I have been thinking only of myself. I was only angry and discontented because I had pain to bear. You never had that wicked feeling that I have had so often, did you? that God was cruel to send me trials and temptations worse than others have.' 'Yes, I had; I had very blasphemous thoughts, and I know that spirit of rebellion must have made the worst part of your lot. You did not feel how impossible it is for us to judge rightly of God's dealings, and you opposed yourself to his will. But what do we know? We cannot foretell the working of the smallest event in our own lot; how can we presume to judge of things that are so much too high for us? There is nothing that becomes us but entire submission, perfect resignation. As long as we set up our own will and our own wisdom against God's, we make that wall between us and his love which I have spoken of just now. But as soon as we lay ourselves entirely at his feet, we have enough light given us to guide our own steps; as the foot-soldier who hears nothing of the councils that determine the course of the great battle he is in, hears plainly enough the word of command which he must himself obey. I know, dear Mrs. Dempster, I know it is hard--the hardest thing of all, perhaps--to flesh and blood. But carry that difficulty to the Saviour along with all your other sins and weaknesses, and ask him to pour into you a spirit of submission. He enters into your struggles; he has drunk the cup of our suffering to the dregs; he knows the hard wrestling it costs us to say, "Not my will, but Thine be done."' 'Pray with me,' said Janet--'pray now that I may have light and strength.' Chapter 19 Before leaving Janet, Mr. Tryan urged her strongly to send for her mother. 'Do not wound her,' he said, 'by shutting her out any longer from your troubles. It is right that you should be with her.' 'Yes, I will send for her,' said Janet. 'But I would rather not go to my mother's yet, because my husband is sure to think I am there, and he might come and fetch me. I can't go back to him ... at least, not yet. Ought I to go back to him?' 'No, certainly not, at present. Something should be done to secure you from violence. Your mother, I think, should consult some confidential friend, some man of character and experience, who might mediate between you and your husband.' 'Yes, I will send for my mother directly. But I will stay here, with Mrs. Pettifer, till something has been done. I want no one to know where I am, except you. You will come again, will you not? you will not leave me to myself?' 'You will not be left to yourself. God is with you. If I have been able to give you any comfort, it is because His power and love have been present with us. But I am very thankful that He has chosen to work through me. I shall see you again tomorrow--not before evening, for it will be Sunday, you know; but after the evening lecture I shall be at liberty. You will be in my prayers till then. In the meantime, dear Mrs. Dempster, open your heart as much as you can to your mother and Mrs. Pettifer. Cast away from you the pride that makes us shrink from acknowledging our weakness to our friends. Ask them to help you in guarding yourself from the least approach of the sin you most dread. Deprive yourself as far as possible of the very means and opportunity of committing it. Every effort of that kind made in humility and dependence is a prayer. Promise me you will do this.' 'Yes, I promise you. I know I have always been too proud; I could never bear to speak to any one about myself. I have been proud towards my mother, even; it has always made me angry when she has seemed to take notice of my faults.' 'Ah, dear Mrs. Dempster, you will never say again that life is blank, and that there is nothing to live for, will you? See what work there is to be done in life, both in our own souls and for others. Surely it matters little whether we have more or less of this world's comfort in these short years, when God is training us for the eternal enjoyment of his love. Keep that great end of life before you, and your troubles here will seem only the small hardships of a journey. Now I must go.' Mr. Tryan rose and held out his hand. Janet took it and said, 'God has been very good to me in sending you to me. I will trust in Him. I will try to do everything you tell me.' Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another! Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden process by which the tiny seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower. Ideas are often poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us in thin vapour, and cannot make themselves felt. But sometimes they are made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame. Janet's dark grand face, still fatigued, had become quite calm, and looked up, as she sat, with a humble childlike expression at the thin blond face and slightly sunken grey eyes which now shone with hectic brightness. She might have been taken for an image of passionate strength beaten and worn with conflict; and he for an image of the self-renouncing faith which has soothed that conflict into rest. As he looked at the sweet submissive face, he remembered its look of despairing anguish, and his heart was very full as he turned away from her. 'Let me only live to see this work confirmed, and then ...' It was nearly ten o'clock when Mr. Tryan left, but Janet was bent on sending for her mother; so Mrs. Pettifer, as the readiest plan, put on her bonnet and went herself to fetch Mrs. Raynor. The mother had been too long used to expect that every fresh week would be more painful than the last, for Mrs. Pettifer's news to come upon her with the shock of a surprise. Quietly, without any show of distress, she made up a bundle of clothes, and, telling her little maid that she should not return home that night, accompanied Mrs. Pettifer back in silence. When they entered the parlour, Janet, wearied out, had sunk to sleep in the large chair, which stood with its back to the door. The noise of the opening door disturbed her, and she was looking round wonderingly when Mrs. Raynor came up to her chair, and said, 'It's your mother, Janet.' 'Mother, dear mother!' Janet cried, clasping her closely. 'I have not been a good tender child to you, but I will be--I will not grieve you any more.' The calmness which had withstood a new sorrow was overcome by a new joy, and the mother burst into tears. Chapter 20 On Sunday morning the rain had ceased, and Janet, looking out of the bedroom window, saw, above the house-tops, a shining mass of white cloud rolling under the far-away blue sky. It was going to be a lovely April day. The fresh sky, left clear and calm after the long vexation of wind and rain, mingled its mild influence with Janet's new thoughts and prospects. She felt a buoyant courage that surprised herself, after the cold crushing weight of despondency which had oppressed her the day before: she could think even of her husband's rage without the old overpowering dread. For a delicious hope--the hope of purification and inward peace--had entered into Janet's soul, and made it spring-time there as well as in the outer world. While her mother was brushing and coiling up her thick black hair--a favourite task, because it seemed to renew the days of her daughter's girlhood--Janet told how she came to send for Mr. Tryan, how she had remembered their meeting at Sally Martin's in the autumn, and had felt an irresistible desire to see him, and tell him her sins and her troubles. 'I see God's goodness now, mother, in ordering it so that we should meet in that way, to overcome my prejudice against him, and make me feel that he was good, and then bringing it back to my mind in the depth of my trouble. You know what foolish things I used to say about him, knowing nothing of him all the while. And yet he was the man who was to give me comfort and help when everything else failed me. It is wonderful how I feel able to speak to him as I never have done to any one before; and how every word he says to me enters my heart and has a new meaning for me. I think it must be because he has felt life more deeply than others, and has a deeper faith. I believe everything he says at once. His words come to me like rain on the parched ground. It has always seemed to me before as if I could see behind people's words, as one sees behind a screen; but in Mr. Tryan it is his very soul that speaks.' 'Well, my dear child, I love and bless him for your sake, if he has given you any comfort. I never believed the harm people said of him, though I had no desire to go and hear him, for I am contented with old-fashioned ways. I find more good teaching than I can practise in reading my Bible at home, and hearing Mr. Crewe at church. But your wants are different, my dear, and we are not all led by the same road. That was certainly good advice of Mr. Tryan's you told me of last night--that we should consult some one that may interfere for you with your husband; and I have been turning it over in my mind while I've been lying awake in the night. I think nobody will do so well as Mr. Benjamin Landor, for we must have a man that knows the law, and that Robert is rather afraid of. And perhaps he could bring about an agreement for you to live apart. Your husband's bound to maintain you, you know; and, if you liked, we could move away from Milby and live somewhere else.' 'O, mother, we must do nothing yet; I must think about it a little longer. I have a different feeling this morning from what I had yesterday. Something seems to tell me that I must go back to Robert some time--after a little while. I loved him once better than all the world, and I have never had any children to love. There were things in me that were wrong, and I should like to make up for them if I can.' 'Well, my dear, I won't persuade you. Think of it a little longer. But something must be done soon.' 'How I wish I had my bonnet, and shawl, and black gown here!' said Janet, after a few minutes' silence. 'I should like to go to Paddiford Church and hear Mr. Tryan. There would be no fear of my meeting Robert, for he never goes out on a Sunday morning.' 'I'm afraid it would not do for me to go to the house and fetch your clothes,' said Mrs. Raynor. 'O no, no! I must stay quietly here while you two go to church. I will be Mrs. Pettifer's maid, and get the dinner ready for her by the time she comes back. Dear good woman! She was so tender to me when she took me in, in the night, mother, and all the next day, when I couldn't speak a word to her to thank her.' Chapter 21 The servants at Dempster's felt some surprise when the morning, noon, and evening of Saturday had passed, and still their mistress did not reappear. 'It's very odd,' said Kitty, the housemaid, as she trimmed her next week's cap, while Betty, the middle-aged cook, looked on with folded arms. 'Do you think as Mrs. Raynor was ill, and sent for the missis afore we was up?' 'O,' said Betty, 'if it had been that, she'd ha' been back'ards an' for'ards three or four times afore now; leastways, she'd ha' sent little Ann to let us know.' 'There's summat up more nor usual between her an' the master, that you may depend on,' said Kitty. 'I know those clothes as was lying i' the drawing-room yesterday, when the company was come, meant summat. I shouldn't wonder if that was what they've had a fresh row about. She's p'raps gone away, an's made up her mind not to come back again.' 'An' i' the right on't, too,' said Betty. 'I'd ha' overrun him long afore now, if it had been me. I wouldn't stan' bein' mauled as she is by no husband, not if he was the biggest lord i' the land. It's poor work bein' a wife at that price: I'd sooner be a cook wi'out perkises, an' hev roast, an' boil, an' fry, an' bake, all to mind at once. She may well do as she does. I know I'm glad enough of a drop o' summat myself when I'm plagued. I feel very low, like, tonight; I think I shall put my beer i' the saucepan an' warm it.' 'What a one you are for warmin' your beer, Betty! I couldn't abide it--nasty bitter stuff!' 'It's fine talkin'; if you was a cook you'd know what belongs to bein' a cook. It's none so nice to hev a sinkin' at your stomach, I can tell you. You wouldn't think so much o' fine ribbins i' your cap then.' 'Well, well, Betty, don't be grumpy. Liza Thomson, as is at Phipps's, said to me last Sunday, "I wonder you'll stay at Dempster's," she says, "such goins-on as there is." But I says, "There's things to put up wi' in ivery place, an' you may change, an' change, an' not better yourself when all's said an' done." Lors! why, Liza told me herself as Mrs. Phipps was as skinny as skinny i' the kitchen, for all they keep so much company; and as for follyers, she's as cross as a turkey-cock if she finds 'em out. There's nothin' o' that sort i' the missis. How pretty she come an' spoke to Job last Sunday! There isn't a good-natur'der woman i' the world, that's my belief--an' hansome too. I al'ys think there's nobody looks half so well as the missis when she's got her 'air done nice. Lors! I wish I'd got long 'air like her--my 'air's a-comin' off dreadful.' 'There'll be fine work to-morrow, I expect,' said Betty, 'when the master comes home, an' Dawes a-swearin' as he'll niver do a stroke o' work for him again. It'll be good fun if he sets the justice on him for cuttin' him wi' the whip; the master'll p'raps get his comb cut for once in his life!' 'Why, he was in a temper like a fiend this morning,' said Kitty. 'I daresay it was along o' what had happened wi' the missis. We shall hev a pretty house wi' him if she doesn't come back--he'll want to be leatherin' us, I shouldn't wonder. He must hev somethin' t' ill-use when he's in a passion.' 'I'd tek care he didn't leather me--no, not if he was my husban' ten times o'er; I'd pour hot drippin' on him sooner. But the missis hasn't a sperrit like me. He'll mek her come back, you'll see; he'll come round her somehow. There's no likelihood of her coming hack to-night, though; so I should think we might fasten the doors and go to bed when we like.' On Sunday morning, however, Kitty's mind became disturbed by more definite and alarming conjectures about her mistress. While Betty, encouraged by the prospect of unwonted leisure, was sitting down to continue a letter which had long lain unfinished between the leaves of her Bible, Kitty came running into the kitchen and said,--'Lor! Betty, I'm all of a tremble; you might knock me down wi' a feather. I've just looked into the missis's wardrobe, an' there's both her bonnets. She must ha' gone wi'out her bonnet. An' then I remember as her night-clothes wasn't on the bed yisterday mornin'; I thought she'd put 'em away to be washed; but she hedn't, for I've been lookin'. It's my belief he's murdered her, and shut her up i' that closet as he keeps locked al'ys. He's capible on't.' 'Lors-ha'-massy, why you'd better run to Mrs. Raynor's an' see if she's there, arter all. It was p'raps all a lie.' Mrs. Raynor had returned home to give directions to her little maiden, when Kitty, with the elaborate manifestation of alarm which servants delight in, rushed in without knocking, and, holding her hands on her heart as if the consequences to that organ were likely to be very serious, said,--'If you please 'm, is the missis here?' 'No, Kitty; why are you come to ask?' 'Because 'm, she's niver been at home since yesterday mornin', since afore we was up; an' we thought somethin' must ha' happened to her.' 'No, don't be frightened, Kitty. Your mistress is quite safe; I know where she is. Is your master at home?' 'No 'm; he went out yesterday mornin', an' said he shouldn't be back afore to-night.' 'Well, Kitty, there's nothing the matter with your mistress. You needn't say anything to any one about her being away from home. I shall call presently and fetch her gown and bonnet. She wants them to put on.' Kitty, perceiving there was a mystery she was not to inquire into, returned to Orchard Street, really glad to know that her mistress was safe, but disappointed nevertheless at being told that she was not to be frightened. She was soon followed by Mrs. Raynor in quest of the gown and bonnet. The good mother, on learning that Dempster was not at home, had at once thought that she could gratify Janet's wish to go to Paddiford Church. 'See, my dear,' she said, as she entered Mrs. Pettifer's parlour; 'I've brought you your black clothes. Robert's not at home, and is not coming till this evening. I couldn't find your best black gown, but this will do. I wouldn't bring anything else, you know; but there can't be any objection to my fetching clothes to cover you. You can go to Paddiford Church, now, if you like; and I will go with you.' 'That's a dear mother! Then we'll all three go together. Come and help me to get ready. Good little Mrs. Crewe! It will vex her sadly that I should go to hear Mr. Tryan. But I must kiss her, and make it up with her.' Many eyes were turned on Janet with a look of surprise as she walked up the aisle of Paddiford Church. She felt a little tremor at the notice she knew she was exciting, but it was a strong satisfaction to her that she had been able at once to take a step that would let her neighbours know her change of feeling towards Mr. Tryan: she had left herself now no room for proud reluctance or weak hesitation. The walk through the sweet spring air had stimulated all her fresh hopes, all her yearning desires after purity, strength, and peace. She thought she should find a new meaning in the prayers this morning; her full heart, like an overflowing river, wanted those ready-made channels to pour itself into; and then she should hear Mr. Tryan again, and his words would fall on her like precious balm, as they had done last night. There was a liquid brightness in her eyes as they rested on the mere walls, the pews, the weavers and colliers in their Sunday clothes. The commonest things seemed to touch the spring of love within her, just as, when we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom; we think even the noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping up our change. A door had been opened in Janet's cold dark prison of self-despair, and the golden light of morning was pouring in its slanting beams through the blessed opening. There was sunlight in the world; there was a divine love caring for her; it had given her an earnest of good things: it had been preparing comfort for her in the very moment when she had thought herself most forsaken. Mr. Tryan might well rejoice when his eye rested on her as he entered his desk; but he rejoiced with trembling. He could not look at the sweet hopeful face without remembering its yesterday's look of agony; and there was the possibility that that look might return. Janet's appearance at church was greeted not only by wondering eyes, but by kind hearts, and after the service several of Mr. Tryan's hearers with whom she had been on cold terms of late, contrived to come up to her and take her by the hand. 'Mother,' said Miss Linnet, 'do let us go and speak to Mrs. Dempster I'm sure there's a great change in her mind towards Mr. Tryan. I noticed how eagerly she listened to the sermon, and she's come with Mrs. Pettifer, you see. We ought to go and give her a welcome among us.' 'Why, my dear, we've never spoke friendly these five year. You know she's been as haughty as anything since I quarrelled with her husband. However, let bygones be bygones: I've no grudge again' the poor thing, more particular as she must ha' flew in her husband's face to come an' hear Mr. Tryan. Yes, let us go an' speak to her.' The friendly words and looks touched Janet a little too keenly, and Mrs. Pettifer wisely hurried her home by the least-frequented road. When they reached home, a violent fit of weeping, followed by continuous lassitude, showed that the emotions of the morning had overstrained her nerves. She was suffering, too, from the absence of the long-accustomed stimulus which she had promised Mr. Tryan not to touch again. The poor thing was conscious of this, and dreaded her own weakness, as the victim of intermittent insanity dreads the oncoming of the old illusion. 'Mother,' she whispered, when Mrs. Raynor urged her to lie down and rest all the afternoon, that she might be the better prepared to see Mr. Tryan in the evening 'mother, don't let me have anything if I ask for it.' In the mother's mind there was the same anxiety, and in her it was mingled with another fear--the fear lest Janet, in her present excited state of mind, should take some premature step in relation to her husband, which might lead back to all the former troubles. The hint she had thrown out in the morning of her wish to return to him after a time, showed a new eagerness for difficult duties, that only made the long-saddened sober mother tremble. But as evening approached, Janet's morning heroism all forsook her: her imagination influenced by physical depression as well as by mental habits, was haunted by the vision of her husband's return home, and she began to shudder with the yesterday's dread. She heard him calling her, she saw him going to her mother's to look for her, she felt sure he would find her out, and burst in upon her. 'Pray, pray, don't leave me, don't go to church,' she said to Mrs. Pettifer. 'You and mother both stay with me till Mr. Tryan comes.' At twenty minutes past six the church bells were ringing for the evening service, and soon the congregation was streaming along Orchard Street in the mellow sunset. The street opened toward the west. The red half-sunken sun shed a solemn splendour on the everyday houses, and crimsoned the windows of Dempster's projecting upper storey. Suddenly a loud murmur arose and spread along the stream of church-goers, and one group after another paused and looked backward. At the far end of the street, men, accompanied by a miscellaneous group of onlookers, were slowly carrying something--a body stretched on a door. Slowly they passed along the middle of the street, lined all the way with awe-struck faces, till they turned aside and paused in the red sunlight before Dempster's door. It was Dempster's body. No one knew whether he was alive or dead. Chapter 22 It was probably a hard saying to the Pharisees, that 'there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.' And certain ingenious philosophers of our own day must surely take offence at a joy so entirely out of correspondence with arithmetical proportion. But a heart that has been taught by its own sore struggles to bleed for the woes of another--that has 'learned pity through suffering'--is likely to find very imperfect satisfaction in the 'balance of happiness,' 'doctrine of compensations,' and other short and easy methods of obtaining thorough complacency in the presence of pain; and for such a heart that saying will not be altogether dark. The emotions, I have observed, are but slightly influenced by arithmetical considerations: the mother, when her sweet lisping little ones have all been taken from her one after another, and she is hanging over her last dead babe, finds small consolation in the fact that the tiny dimpled corpse is but one of a necessary average, and that a thousand other babes brought into the world at the same time are doing well, and are likely to live; and if you stood beside that mother--if you knew her pang and shared it--it is probable you would be equally unable to see a ground of complacency in statistics. Doubtless a complacency resting on that basis is highly rational; but emotion, I fear, is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve miserable lives, which leaves a clear balance on the side of satisfaction. This is the inherent imbecility of feeling, and one must be a great philosopher to have got quite clear of all that, and to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect, in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them--abstractions that may rise from heaps of ruined lives like the sweet savour of a sacrifice in the nostrils of philosophers, and of a philosophic Deity. And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying about the joy of angels over the repentant sinner outweighing their joy over the ninety-nine just, has a meaning which does not jar with the language of his own heart. It only tells him, that for angels too there is a transcendent value in human pain, which refuses to be settled by equations; that the eyes of angels too are turned away from the serene happiness of the righteous to bend with yearning pity on the poor erring soul wandering in the desert where no water is: that for angels too the misery of one casts so tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine. Mr. Tryan had gone through the initiation of suffering: it is no wonder, then, that Janet's restoration was the work that lay nearest his heart; and that, weary as he was in body when he entered the vestry after the evening service, he was impatient to fulfil the promise of seeing her. His experience enabled him to divine--what was the fact--that the hopefulness of the morning would be followed by a return of depression and discouragement; and his sense of the inward and outward difficulties in the way of her restoration was so keen, that he could only find relief from the foreboding it excited by lifting up his heart in prayer. There are unseen elements which often frustrate our wisest calculations--which raise up the sufferer from the edge of the grave, contradicting the prophecies of the clear-sighted physician, and fulfilling the blind clinging hopes of affection; such unseen elements Mr. Tryan called the Divine Will, and filled up the margin of ignorance which surrounds all our knowledge with the feelings of trust and resignation. Perhaps the profoundest philosophy could hardly fill it up better. His mind was occupied in this way as he was absently taking off his gown, when Mr. Landor startled him by entering the vestry and asking abruptly, 'Have you heard the news about Dempster?' 'No,' said Mr. Tryan, anxiously; 'what is it?' 'He has been thrown out of his gig in the Bridge Way, and he was taken up for dead. They were carrying him home as we were coming to church, and I stayed behind to see what I could do. I went in to speak to Mrs. Dempster, and prepare her a little, but she was not at home. Dempster is not dead, however, he was stunned with the fall. Pilgrim came in a few minutes, and he says the right leg is broken in two places. It's likely to be a terrible case, with his state of body. It seems he was more drunk than usual, and they say he came along the Bridge Way flogging his horse like a madman, till at last it gave a sudden wheel, and he was pitched out. The servants said they didn't know where Mrs. Dempster was: she had been away from home since yesterday morning; but Mrs. Raynor knew.' 'I know where she is,' said Mr. Tryan; 'but I think it will be better for her not to be told of this just yet.' 'Ah, that was what Pilgrim said, and so I didn't go round to Mrs. Raynor's. He said it would be all the better if Mrs. Dempster could be kept out of the house for the present. Do you know if anything new has happened between Dempster and his wife lately? I was surprised to hear of her being at Paddiford Church this morning.' 'Yes, something has happened; but I believe she is anxious that the particulars of his behaviour towards her should not be known. She is at Mrs. Pettifer's--there is no reason for concealing that, since what has happened to her husband; and yesterday, when she was in very deep trouble, she sent for me. I was very thankful she did so: I believe a great change of feeling has begun in her. But she is at present in that excitable state of mind--she has been shaken by so many painful emotions during the last two days, that I think it would be better, for this evening at least, to guard her from a new shock, if possible. But I am going now to call upon her, and I shall see how she is.' 'Mr. Tryan,' said Mr. Jerome, who had entered during the dialogue, and had been standing by, listening with a distressed face, 'I shall take it as a favour if you'll let me know if iver there's anything I can do for Mrs. Dempster. Eh, dear, what a world this is! I think I see 'em fifteen year ago--as happy a young couple as iver was; and now, what it's all come to! I was in a hurry, like, to punish Dempster for pessecutin', but there was a stronger hand at work nor mine.' 'Yes, Mr. Jerome; but don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?' 'Right, right, Mr. Tryan. I'm over hot and hasty, that I am. But I beg on you to tell Mrs. Dempster--I mean, in course, when you've an opportunity--tell her she's a friend at the White House as she may send for any hour o' the day.' 'Yes; I shall have an opportunity, I dare say, and I will remember your wish. I think,' continued Mr. Tryan, turning to Mr. Landor, 'I had better see Mr. Pilgrim on my way, and learn what is exactly the state of things by this time. What do you think?' 'By all means: if Mrs. Dempster is to know, there's no one can break the news to her so well as you. I'll walk with you to Dempster's door. I dare say Pilgrim is there still. Come, Mr. Jerome, you've got to go our way too, to fetch your horse.' Mr. Pilgrim was in the passage giving some directions to his assistant, when, to his surprise, he saw Mr. Tryan enter. They shook hands; for Mr. Pilgrim, never having joined the party of the Anti-Tryanites, had no ground for resisting the growing conviction, that the Evangelical curate was really a good fellow, though he was a fool for not taking better care of himself. 'Why, I didn't expect to see you in your old enemy's quarters,' he said to Mr. Tryan. 'However, it will be a good while before poor Dempster shows any fight again.' 'I came on Mrs. Dempster's account,' said Mr. Tryan. 'She is staying at Mrs. Pettifer's; she has had a great shock from some severe domestic trouble lately, and I think it will be wiser to defer telling her of this dreadful event for a short time.' 'Why, what has been up, eh?' said Mr. Pilgrim, whose curiosity was at once awakened. 'She used to be no friend of yours. Has there been some split between them? It's a new thing for her to turn round on him.' 'O, merely an exaggeration of scenes that must often have happened before. But the question now is, whether you think there is any immediate danger of her husband's death; for in that case, I think, from what I have observed of her feelings, she would be pained afterwards to have been kept in ignorance.' 'Well, there's no telling in these cases, you know. I don't apprehend speedy death, and it is not absolutely impossible that we may bring him round again. At present he's in a state of apoplectic stupor; but if that subsides, delirium is almost sure to supervene, and we shall have some painful scenes. It's one of those complicated cases in which the delirium is likely to be of the worst kind--meningitis and delirium tremens together--and we may have a good deal of trouble with him. If Mrs. Dempster were told, I should say it would be desirable to persuade her to remain out of the house at present. She could do no good, you know. I've got nurses.' 'Thank you,' said Mr. Tryan. 'That is what I wanted to know. Good-bye.' When Mrs. Pettifer opened the door for Mr. Tryan, he told her in a few words what had happened, and begged her to take an opportunity of letting Mrs. Raynor know, that they might, if possible, concur in preventing a premature or sudden disclosure of the event to Janet. 'Poor thing!' said Mrs. Pettifer. 'She's not fit to hear any bad news; she's very low this evening--worn out with feeling; and she's not had anything to keep her up, as she's been used to. She seems frightened at the thought of being tempted to take it.' 'Thank God for it; that fear is her greatest security.' When Mr. Tryan entered the parlour this time, Janet was again awaiting him eagerly, and her pale sad face was lighted up with a smile as she rose to meet him. But the next moment she said, with a look of anxiety,--'How very ill and tired you look! You have been working so hard all day, and yet you are come to talk to me. O, you are wearing yourself out. I must go and ask Mrs. Pettifer to come and make you have some supper. But this is my mother; you have not seen her before, I think.' While Mr. Tryan was speaking to Mrs. Raynor, Janet hurried out, and he, seeing that this good-natured thoughtfulness on his behalf would help to counteract her depression, was not inclined to oppose her wish, but accepted the supper Mrs. Pettifer offered him, quietly talking the while about a clothing club he was going to establish in Paddiford, and the want of provident habits among the poor. Presently, however, Mrs. Raynor said she must go home for an hour, to see how her little maiden was going on, and Mrs. Pettifer left the room with her to take the opportunity of telling her what had happened to Dempster. When Janet was left alone with Mr. Tryan, she said,--'I feel so uncertain what to do about my husband. I am so weak--my feelings change so from hour to hour. This morning, when I felt so hopeful and happy, I thought I should like to go back to him, and try to make up for what has been wrong in me. I thought, now God would help me, and I should have you to teach and advise me, and I could bear the troubles that would come. But since then--all this afternoon and evening--I have had the same feelings I used to have, the same dread of his anger and cruelty, and it seems to me as if I should never be able to bear it without falling into the same sins, and doing just what I did before. Yet, if it were settled that I should live apart from him, I know it would always be a load on my mind that I had shut myself out from going back to him. It seems a dreadful thing in life, when any one has been so near to one as a husband for fifteen years, to part and be nothing to each other any more. Surely that is a very strong tie, and I feel as if my duty can never lie quite away from it. It is very difficult to know what to do: what ought I to do?' 'I think it will be well not to take any decisive step yet. Wait until your mind is calmer. You might remain with your mother for a little while; I think you have no real ground for fearing any annoyance from your husband at present; he has put himself too much in the wrong; he will very likely leave you unmolested for some time. Dismiss this difficult question from your mind just now, if you can. Every new day may bring you new grounds for decision, and what is most needful for your health of mind is repose from that haunting anxiety about the future which has been preying on you. Cast yourself on God, and trust that He will direct you; he will make your duty clear to you, if you wait submissively on Him.' 'Yes; I will wait a little, as you tell me. I will go to my mother's tomorrow, and pray to be guided rightly. You will pray for me, too.' Chapter 23 The next morning Janet was so much calmer, and at breakfast spoke so decidedly of going to her mother's, that Mrs. Pettifer and Mrs. Raynor agreed it would be wise to let her know by degrees what had befallen her husband, since as soon as she went out there would be danger of her meeting some one who would betray the fact. But Mrs. Raynor thought it would be well first to call at Dempster's, and ascertain how he was: so she said to Janet,--'My dear, I'll go home first, and see to things, and get your room ready. You needn't come yet, you know. I shall be back again in an hour or so, and we can go together.' 'O no,' said Mrs. Pettifer. 'Stay with me till evening. I shall be lost without you. You needn't go till quite evening.' Janet had dipped into the 'Life of Henry Martyn,' which Mrs. Pettifer had from the Paddiford Lending Library, and her interest was so arrested by that pathetic missionary story, that she readily acquiesced in both propositions, and Mrs. Raynor set out. She had been gone more than an hour, and it was nearly twelve o'clock, when Janet put down her book; and after sitting meditatively for some minutes with her eyes unconsciously fixed on the opposite wall, she rose, went to her bedroom, and, hastily putting on her bonnet and shawl, came down to Mrs. Pettifer, who was busy in the kitchen. 'Mrs. Pettifer,' she said, 'tell mother, when she comes back, I'm gone to see what has become of those poor Lakins in Butchers Lane. I know they're half starving, and I've neglected them so, lately. And then, I think, I'll go on to Mrs. Crewe. I want to see the dear little woman, and tell her myself about my going to hear Mr. Tryan. She won't feel it half so much if I tell her myself.' 'Won't you wait till your mother comes, or put it off till tomorrow?' said Mrs. Pettifer, alarmed. 'You'll hardly be back in time for dinner, if you get talking to Mrs. Crewe. And you'll have to pass by your husband's, you know; and yesterday, you were so afraid of seeing him.' 'O, Robert will be shut up at the office now, if he's not gone out of the town. I must go--I feel I must be doing something for some one--not be a mere useless log any longer. I've been reading about that wonderful Henry Martyn; he's just like Mr. Tryan--wearing himself out for other people, and I sit thinking of nothing but myself. I _must_ go. Good-bye; I shall be back soon.' She ran off before Mrs. Pettifer could utter another word of dissuasion, leaving the good woman in considerable anxiety lest this new impulse of Janet's should frustrate all precautions to save her from a sudden shock. Janet having paid her visit in Butcher Lane, turned again into Orchard Street on her way to Mrs. Crewe's, and was thinking, rather sadly, that her mother's economical housekeeping would leave no abundant surplus to be sent to the hungry Lakins, when she saw Mr. Pilgrim in advance of her on the other side of the street. He was walking at a rapid pace, and when he reached Dempster's door he turned and entered without knocking. Janet was startled. Mr. Pilgrim would never enter in that way unless there were some one very ill in the house. It was her husband; she felt certain of it at once. Something had happened to him. Without a moment's pause, she ran across the street, opened the door, and entered. There was no one in the passage. The dining-room door was wide open--no one was there. Mr. Pilgrim, then, was already up-stairs. She rushed up at once to Dempster's room--her own room. The door was open, and she paused in pale horror at the sight before her, which seemed to stand out only with the more appalling distinctness because the noonday light was darkened to twilight in the chamber. Two strong nurses were using their utmost force to hold Dempster in bed, while the medical assistant was applying a sponge to his head, and Mr. Pilgrim was busy adjusting some apparatus in the background. Dempster's face was purple and swollen, his eyes dilated, and fixed with a look of dire terror on something he seemed to see approaching him from the iron closet. He trembled violently, and struggled as if to jump out of bed. 'Let me go, let me go,' he said in a loud, hoarse whisper; 'she's coming ... she's cold ... she's dead ... she'll strangle me with her black hair. Ah!' he shrieked aloud, 'her hair is all serpents ... they're black serpents ... they hiss ... they hiss . .. let me go . . . let me go . . . she wants to drag me with her cold arms ... her arms are serpents ... they are great white serpents ... they'll twine round me ... she wants to drag me into the cold water ... her bosom is cold ... it is black ... it is all serpents ...' 'No, Robert,' Janet cried, in tones of yearning pity, rushing to the side of the bed, and stretching out her arms towards him, 'no, here is Janet. She is not dead--she forgives you.' Dempster's maddened senses seemed to receive some new impression from her appearance. The terror gave way to rage. 'Ha! you sneaking hypocrite!' he burst out in a grating voice, 'you threaten me ... you mean to have your revenge on me, do you? Do your worst! I've got the law on my side ... I know the law ... I'll hunt you down like a hare ... prove it ... prove that I was tampered with ... prove that I took the money ... prove it ... you can prove nothing ... you damned psalm-singing maggots! I'll make a fire under you, and smoke off the whole pack of you ... I'll sweep you up ... I'll grind you to powder ... small powder ... (here his voice dropt to a low tone of shuddering disgust) ... powder on the bed-clothes ... running about ... black lice ... they are coming in swarms ... Janet! come and take them away ... curse you! why don't you come? Janet!' Poor Janet was kneeling by the bed with her face buried in her hands. She almost wished her worst moment back again rather than this. It seemed as if her husband was already imprisoned in misery, and she could not reach him--his ear deaf for ever to the sounds of love and forgiveness. His sins had made a hard crust round his soul; her pitying voice could not pierce it. 'Not there, isn't she?' he went on in a defiant tone. 'Why do you ask me where she is? I'll have every drop of yellow blood out of your veins if you come questioning me. Your blood is yellow ... in your purse ... running out of your purse ... What! you're changing it into toads, are you? They're crawling ... they're flying ... they're flying about my head ... the toads are flying about. Ostler! ostler! bring out my gig ... bring it out, you lazy beast . . . ha! you'll follow me, will you? ... you'll fly about my head ... you've got fiery tongues ... Ostler! curse you! why don't you come? Janet! come and take the toads away ... Janet!' This last time he uttered her name with such a shriek of terror, that Janet involuntarily started up from her knees, and stood as if petrified by the horrible vibration. Dempster stared wildly in silence for some months; then he spoke again in a hoarse whisper:--'Dead ... is she dead? She did it, then. She buried herself in the iron chest ... she left her clothes out, though ... she isn't dead ... why do you pretend she's dead? ... she's coming ... she's coming out of the iron closet ... there are the black serpents ... stop her ... let me go ... stop her ... she wants to drag me away into the cold black water ... her bosom is black ... it is all serpents ... they are getting longer ... the great white serpents are getting longer ...' Here Mr. Pilgrim came forward with the apparatus to bind him, but Dempster's struggles became more and more violent. 'Ostler! ostler!' he shouted, 'bring out the gig ... give me the whip!'--and bursting loose from the strong hands that held him, he began to flog the bed-clothes furiously with his right arm. 'Get along, you lame brute!--sc--sc--sc! that's it! there you go! They think they've outwitted me, do they? The sneaking idiots! I'll be up with them by-and-by. I'll make them say the Lord's Prayer backwards ... I'll pepper them so that the devil shall eat them raw ... sc--sc--sc--we shall see who'll be the winner yet ... get along, you damned limping beast ... I'll lay your back open ... I'll ...' He raised himself with a stronger effort than ever to flog the bed-clothes, and fell back in convulsions. Janet gave a scream, and sank on her knees again. She thought he was dead. As soon as Mr. Pilgrim was able to give her a moment's attention, he came to her, and, taking her by the arm, attempted to draw her gently out of the room. 'Now, my dear Mrs. Dempster, let me persuade you not to remain in the room at present. We shall soon relieve these symptoms, I hope: it is nothing but the delirium that ordinarily attends such cases.' 'Oh, what is the matter? what brought it on?' 'He fell out of the gig; the right leg is broken. It is a terrible accident, and I don't disguise that there is considerable danger attending it, owing to the state of the brain. But Mr. Dempster has a strong constitution, you know; in a few days these symptoms may be allayed, and he may do well. Let me beg of you to keep out of the room at present: you can do no good until Mr. Dempster is better, and able to know you. But you ought not to be alone; let me advise you to have Mrs. Raynor with you.' 'Yes, I will send for mother. But you must not object to my being in the room. I shall be very quiet now, only just at first the shock was so great; I knew nothing about it. I can help the nurses a great deal; I can put the cold things to his head. He may be sensible for a moment and know me. Pray do not say any more against it: my heart is set on being with him.' Mr. Pilgrim gave way, and Janet, having sent for her mother and put off her bonnet and shawl, returned to take her place by the side of her husband's bed. Chapter 24 Day after day, with only short intervals of rest, Janet kept her place in that sad chamber. No wonder the sick-room and the lazaretto have so often been a refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt--a place of repose for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all creeds and all philosophies are at one: here, at least, the conscience will not be dogged by doubt, the benign impulse will not be checked by adverse theory: here you may begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the long night-watches, to bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls where the stir and glare of the world are shut out, and every voice is subdued--where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity: bigotry cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it. As we bend over the sick-bed, all the forces of our nature rush towards the channels of pity, of patience, and of love, and sweep down the miserable choking drift of our quarrels, our debates, our would-be wisdom, and our clamorous selfish desires. This blessing of serene freedom from the importunities of opinion lies in all simple direct acts of mercy, and is one source of that sweet calm which is often felt by the watcher in the sick-room, even when the duties there are of a hard and terrible kind. Something of that benign result was felt by Janet during her tendance in her husband's chamber. When the first heart-piercing hours were over--when her horror at his delirium was no longer fresh, she began to be conscious of her relief from the burden of decision as to her future course. The question that agitated her, about returning to her husband, had been solved in a moment; and this illness, after all, might be the herald of another blessing, just as that dreadful midnight when she stood an outcast in cold and darkness had been followed by the dawn of a new hope. Robert would get better; this illness might alter him; he would be a long time feeble, needing help, walking with a crutch, perhaps. She would wait on him with such tenderness, such all-forgiving love, that the old harshness and cruelty must melt away for ever under the heart-sunshine she would pour around him. Her bosom heaved at the thought, and delicious tears fell. Janet's was a nature in which hatred and revenge could find no place; the long bitter years drew half their bitterness from her ever-living remembrance of the too short years of love that went before; and the thought that her husband would ever put her hand to his lips again, and recall the days when they sat on the grass together, and he laid scarlet poppies on her black hair, and called her his gypsy queen, seemed to send a tide of loving oblivion over all the harsh and stony space they had traversed since. The Divine Love that had already shone upon her would be with her; she would lift up her soul continually for help; Mr. Tryan, she knew, would pray for her. If she felt herself failing, she would confess it to him at once; if her feet began to slip, there was that stay for her to cling to. O she could never be drawn back into that cold damp vault of sin and despair again; she had felt the morning sun, she had tasted the sweet pure air of trust and penitence and submission. These were the thoughts passing through Janet's mind as she hovered about her husband's bed, and these were the hopes she poured out to Mr. Tryan when he called to see her. It was so evident that they were strengthening her in her new struggle--they shed such a glow of calm enthusiasm over her face as she spoke of them, that Mr. Tryan could not bear to throw on them the chill of premonitory doubts, though a previous conversation he had had with Mr. Pilgrim had convinced him that there was not the faintest probability of Dempster's recovery. Poor Janet did not know the significance of the changing symptoms, and when, after the lapse of a week, the delirium began to lose some of its violence, and to be interrupted by longer and longer intervals of stupor, she tried to think that these might be steps on the way to recovery, and she shrank from questioning Mr. Pilgrim lest he should confirm the fears that began to get predominance in her mind. But before many days were past, he thought it right not to allow her to blind herself any longer. One day--it was just about noon, when bad news always seems most sickening--he led her from her husband's chamber into the opposite drawing-room, where Mrs. Raynor was sitting, and said to her, in that low tone of sympathetic feeling which sometimes gave a sudden air of gentleness to this rough man--'My dear Mrs. Dempster, it is right in these cases, you know, to be prepared for the worst. I think I shall be saving you pain by preventing you from entertaining any false hopes, and Mr. Dempster's state is now such that I fear we must consider recovery impossible. The affection of the brain might not have been hopeless, but, you see, there is a terrible complication; and, I am grieved to say, the broken limb is mortifying.' Janet listened with a sinking heart. That future of love and forgiveness would never come then: he was going out of her sight for ever, where her pity could never reach him. She turned cold, and trembled. 'But do you think he will die,' she said, 'without ever coming to himself? without ever knowing me?' 'One cannot say that with certainty. It is not impossible that the cerebral oppression may subside, and that he may become conscious. If there is anything you would wish to be said or done in that case, it would be well to be prepared. I should think,' Mr. Pilgrim continued. turning to Mrs. Raynor, 'Mr. Dempster's affairs are likely to be in order--his will is ...' 'O, I wouldn't have him troubled about those things,' interrupted Janet, 'he has no relations but quite distant ones--no one but me. I wouldn't take up the time with that. I only want to ...' She was unable to finish; she felt her sobs rising, and left the room. 'O God!' she said, inwardly, 'is not Thy love greater than mine? Have mercy on him! have mercy on him!' This happened on Wednesday, ten days after the fatal accident. By the following Sunday, Dempster was in a state of rapidly increasing prostration; and when Mr. Pilgrim, who, in turn with his assistant, had slept in the house from the beginning, came in, about half-past ten, as usual, he scarcely believed that the feebly struggling life would last out till morning. For the last few days he had been administering stimulants to relieve the exhaustion which had succeeded the alternations of delirium and stupor. This slight office was all that now remained to be done for the patient; so at eleven o'clock Mr. Pilgrim went to bed, having given directions to the nurse, and desired her to call him if any change took place, or if Mrs. Dempster desired his presence. Janet could not be persuaded to leave the room. She was yearning and watching for a moment in which her husband's eyes would rest consciously upon her, and he would know that she had forgiven him. How changed he was since that terrible Monday, nearly a fortnight ago! He lay motionless, but for the irregular breathing that stirred his broad chest and thick muscular neck. His features were no longer purple and swollen; they were pale, sunken, and haggard. A cold perspiration stood in beads on the protuberant forehead, and on the wasted hands stretched motionless on the bed-clothes. It was better to see the hands so, than convulsively picking the air, as they had been a week ago. Janet sat on the edge of the bed through the long hours of candle-light, watching the unconscious half-closed eyes, wiping the perspiration from the brow and cheeks, and keeping her left hand on the cold unanswering right hand that lay beside her on the bed-clothes. She was almost as pale as her dying husband, and there were dark lines under her eyes, for this was the third night since she had taken off her clothes; but the eager straining gaze of her dark eyes, and the acute sensibility that lay in every line about her mouth, made a strange contrast with the blank unconsciousness and emaciated animalism of the face she was watching. There was profound stillness in the house. She heard no sound but her husband's breathing and the ticking of the watch on the mantelpiece. The candle, placed high up, shed a soft light down on the one object she cared to see. There was a smell of brandy in the room; it was given to her husband from time to time; but this smell, which at first had produced in her a faint shuddering sensation, was now becoming indifferent to her: she did not even perceive it; she was too unconscious of herself to feel either temptations or accusations. She only felt that the husband of her youth was dying; far, far out of her reach, as if she were standing helpless on the shore, while he was sinking in the black storm-waves; she only yearned for one moment in which she might satisfy the deep forgiving pity of her soul by one look of love, one word of tenderness. Her sensations and thoughts were so persistent that she could not measure the hours, and it was a surprise to her when the nurse put out the candle, and let in the faint morning light. Mrs. Raynor, anxious about Janet, was already up, and now brought in some fresh coffee for her; and Mr. Pilgrim having awaked, had hurried on his clothes, and was coming in to see how Dempster was. This change from candle-light to morning, this recommencement of the same round of things that had happened yesterday, was a discouragement rather than a relief to Janet. She was more conscious of her chill weariness: the new light thrown on her husband's face seemed to reveal the still work that death had been doing through the night; she felt her last lingering hope that he would ever know her again forsake her. But now, Mr. Pilgrim, having felt the pulse, was putting some brandy in a tea-spoon between Dempster's lips; the brandy went down, and his breathing became freer. Janet noticed the change, and her heart beat faster as she leaned forward to watch him. Suddenly a slight movement, like the passing away of a shadow, was visible in his face, and he opened his eyes full on Janet. It was almost like meeting him again on the resurrection morning, after the night of the grave. 'Robert, do you know me?' He kept his eyes fixed on her, and there was a faintly perceptible motion of the lips, as if he wanted to speak. But the moment of speech was for ever gone--the moment for asking pardon of her, if he wanted to ask it. Could he read the full forgiveness that was written in her eyes? She never knew; for, as she was bending to kiss him, the thick veil of death fell between them, and her lips touched a corpse. Chapter 25 The faces looked very hard and unmoved that surrounded Dempster's grave, while old Mr. Crewe read the burial-service in his low, broken voice. The pall-bearers were such men as Mr. Pittman, Mr. Lowme, and Mr. Budd--men whom Dempster had called his friends while he was in life; and worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night. The one face that had sorrow in it was covered by a thick crape-veil, and the sorrow was suppressed and silent. No one knew how deep it was; for the thought in most of her neighbours' minds was, that Mrs. Dempster could hardly have had better fortune than to lose a bad husband who had left her the compensation of a good income. They found it difficult to conceive that her husband's death could be felt by her otherwise than as a deliverance. The person who was most thoroughly convinced that Janet's grief was deep and real, was Mr. Pilgrim, who in general was not at all weakly given to a belief in disinterested feeling. 'That woman has a tender heart,' he was frequently heard to observe in his morning rounds about this time. 'I used to think there was a great deal of palaver in her, but you may depend upon it there's no pretence about her. If he'd been the kindest husband in the world she couldn't have felt more. There's a great deal of good in Mrs. Dempster--a great deal of good.' '_I_ always said so,' was Mrs. Lowme's reply, when he made the observation to her; 'she was always so very full of pretty attentions to me when I was ill. But they tell me now she's turned Tryanite; if that's it we shan't agree again. It's very inconsistent in her, I think, turning round in that way, after being the foremost to laugh at the Tryanite cant, and especially in a woman of her habits; she should cure herself of them before she pretends to be over-religious.' 'Well, I think she means to cure herself, do you know,' said Mr. Pilgrim, whose goodwill towards Janet was just now quite above that temperate point at which he could indulge his feminine patients with a little judicious detraction. 'I feel sure she has not taken any stimulants all through her husband's illness; and she has been constantly in the way of them. I can see she sometimes suffers a good deal of depression for want of them--it shows all the more resolution in her. Those cures are rare: but I've known them happen sometimes with people of strong will.' Mrs. Lowme took an opportunity of retailing Mr. Pilgrim's conversation to Mrs. Phipps, who, as a victim of Pratt and plethora, could rarely enjoy that pleasure at first-hand. Mrs. Phipps was a woman of decided opinions, though of wheezy utterance. 'For my part,' she remarked, 'I'm glad to hear there's any likelihood of improvement in Mrs. Dempster, but I think the way things have turned out seems to show that she was more to blame than people thought she was; else, why should she feel so much about her husband? And Dempster, I understand, has left his wife pretty nearly all his property to do as she likes with; _that_ isn't behaving like such a very bad husband. I don't believe Mrs. Dempster can have had so much provocation as they pretended. I've known husbands who've laid plans for tormenting their wives when they're underground--tying up their money and hindering them from marrying again. Not that _I_ should ever wish to marry again; I think one husband in one's life is enough in all conscience';--here she threw a fierce glance at the amiable Mr. Phipps, who was innocently delighting himself with the _facetiae_ in the 'Rotherby Guardian,' and thinking the editor must be a droll fellow--'but it's aggravating to be tied up in that way. Why, they say Mrs. Dempster will have as good as six hundred a-year at least. A fine thing for her, that was a poor girl without a farthing to her fortune. It's well if she doesn't make ducks and drakes of it somehow.' Mrs. Phipps's view of Janet, however, was far from being the prevalent one in Milby. Even neighbours who had no strong personal interest in her, could hardly see the noble-looking woman in her widow's dress, with a sad sweet gravity in her face, and not be touched with fresh admiration for her--and not feel, at least vaguely, that she had entered on a new life in which it was a sort of desecration to allude to the painful past. And the old friends who had a real regard for her, but whose cordiality had been repelled or chilled of late years, now came round her with hearty demonstrations of affection. Mr. Jerome felt that his happiness had a substantial addition now he could once more call on that 'nice little woman Mrs. Dempster', and think of her with rejoicing instead of sorrow. The Pratts lost no time in returning to the footing of old-established friendship with Janet and her mother; and Miss Pratt felt it incumbent on her, on all suitable occasions, to deliver a very emphatic approval of the remarkable strength of mind she understood Mrs. Dempster to be exhibiting. The Miss Linnets were eager to meet Mr. Tryan's wishes by greeting Janet as one who was likely to be a sister in religious feeling and good works; and Mrs. Linnet was so agreeably surprised by the fact that Dempster had left his wife the money 'in that handsome way, to do what she liked with it,' that she even included Dempster himself, and his villanous discovery of the flaw in her title to Pye's Croft, in her magnanimous oblivion of past offences. She and Mrs. Jerome agreed over a friendly cup of tea that there were 'a many husbands as was very fine spoken an' all that, an' yet all the while kep' a will locked up from you, as tied you up as tight as anything. I assure _you_,' Mrs. Jerome continued, dropping her voice in a confidential manner, 'I know no more to this day about Mr. Jerome's will, nor the child as is unborn. I've no fears about a income--I'm well aware Mr. Jerome 'ud niver leave me stret for that; but I should like to hev a thousand or two at my own disposial; it makes a widow a deal more looked on.' Perhaps this ground of respect to widows might not be entirely without its influence on the Milby mind, and might do something towards conciliating those more aristocratic acquaintances of Janet's, who would otherwise have been inclined to take the severest view of her apostasy towards Evangelicalism. Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means--one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies. 'They've got the money for it,' as the girl said of her mistress who had made herself ill with pickled salmon. However it may have been, there was not an acquaintance of Janet's, in Milby, that did not offer her civilities in the early days of her widowhood. Even the severe Mrs. Phipps was not an exception; for heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited people we speak ill of: we should live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude. Perhaps the attentions most grateful to Janet were those of her old friend Mrs. Crewe, whose attachment to her favourite proved quite too strong for any resentment she might be supposed to feel on the score of Mr. Tryan. The little deaf old lady couldn't do without her accustomed visitor, whom she had seen grow up from child to woman, always so willing to chat with her and tell her all the news, though she _was_ deaf; while other people thought it tiresome to shout in her ear, and irritated her by recommending ear-trumpets of various construction. All this friendliness was very precious to Janet. She was conscious of the aid it gave her in the self-conquest which was the blessing she prayed for with every fresh morning. The chief strength of her nature lay in her affection, which coloured all the rest of her mind: it gave a personal sisterly tenderness to her acts of benevolence; it made her cling with tenacity to every object that had once stirred her kindly emotions. Alas! it was unsatisfied, wounded affection that had made her trouble greater than she could bear. And now there was no check to the full flow of that plenteous current in her nature--no gnawing secret anguish--no overhanging terror--no inward shame. Friendly faces beamed on her; she felt that friendly hearts were approving her, and wishing her well, and that mild sunshine of goodwill fell beneficently on her new hopes and efforts, as the clear shining after rain falls on the tender leaf-buds of spring, and wins them from promise to fulfilment. And she needed these secondary helps, for her wrestling with her past self was not always easy. The strong emotions from which the life of a human being receives a new bias, win their victory as the sea wins his: though their advance may be sure, they will often, after a mightier wave than usual, seem to roll back so far as to lose all the ground they had made. Janet showed the strong bent of her will by taking every outward precaution against the occurrence of a temptation. Her mother was now her constant companion, having shut up her little dwelling and come to reside in Orchard Street; and Janet gave all dangerous keys into her keeping, entreating her to lock them away in some secret place. Whenever the too well-known depression and craving threatened her, she would seek a refuge in what had always been her purest enjoyment--in visiting one of her poor neighbours, in carrying some food or comfort to a sick-bed, in cheering with her smile some of the familiar dwellings up the dingy back-lanes. But the great source of courage, the great help to perseverance, was the sense that she had a friend and teacher in Mr. Tryan: she could confess her difficulties to him; she knew he prayed for her; she had always before her the prospect of soon seeing him, and hearing words of admonition and comfort, that came to her charged with a divine power such as she had never found in human words before. So the time passed, till it was far on in May, nearly a month after her husband's death, when, as she and her mother were seated peacefully at breakfast in the dining-room, looking through the open window at the old-fashioned garden, where the grass-plot was now whitened with apple-blossoms, a letter was brought in for Mrs. Raynor. 'Why, there's the Thurston post-mark on it,' she said. 'It must be about your aunt Anna. Ah, so it is, poor thing! she's been taken worse this last day or two, and has asked them to send for me. That dropsy is carrying her off at last, I daresay. Poor thing! it will be a happy release. I must go, my dear--she's your father's last sister--though I am sorry to leave you. However, perhaps I shall not have to stay more than a night or two.' Janet looked distressed as she said, 'Yes, you must go, mother. But I don't know what I shall do without you. I think I shall run in to Mrs. Pettifer, and ask her to come and stay with me while you're away. I'm sure she will.' At twelve o'clock, Janet, having seen her mother in the coach that was to carry her to Thurston, called, on her way back, at Mrs. Pettifer's, but found, to her great disappointment, that her old friend was gone out for the day. So she wrote on a leaf of her pocket-book an urgent request that Mrs. Pettifer would come and stay with her while her mother was away; and, desiring the servant-girl to give it to her mistress as soon as she came home, walked on to the Vicarage to sit with Mrs. Crewe, thinking to relieve in this way the feeling of desolateness and undefined fear that was taking possession of her on being left alone for the first time since that great crisis in her life. And Mrs. Crewe, too, was not at home! Janet, with a sense of discouragement for which she rebuked herself as childish, walked sadly home again; and when she entered the vacant dining-room, she could not help bursting into tears. It is such vague undefinable states of susceptibility as this--states of excitement or depression, half mental, half physical--that determine many a tragedy in women's lives. Janet could scarcely eat anything at her solitary dinner: she tried to fix her attention on a book in vain; she walked about the garden, and felt the very sunshine melancholy. Between four and five o'clock, old Mr. Pittman called, and joined her in the garden, where she had been sitting for some time under one of the great apple-trees, thinking how Robert, in his best moods, used to take little Mamsey to look at the cucumbers, or to see the Alderney cow with its calf in the paddock. The tears and sobs had come again at these thoughts; and when Mr. Pittman approached her, she was feeling languid and exhausted. But the old gentleman's sight and sensibility were obtuse, and, to Janet's satisfaction, he showed no consciousness that she was in grief. 'I have a task to impose upon you, Mrs. Dempster,' he said, with a certain toothless pomposity habitual to him: 'I want you to look over those letters again in Dempster's bureau, and see if you can find one from Poole about the mortgage on those houses at Dingley. It will be worth twenty pounds, if you can find it; and I don't know where it can be, if it isn't among those letters in the bureau. I've looked everywhere at the office for it. I'm going home now, but I'll call again tomorrow, if you'll be good enough to look in the meantime.' Janet said she would look directly, and turned with Mr. Pittman into the house. But the search would take her some time, so he bade her good-bye, and she went at once to a bureau which stood in a small back-room, where Dempster used sometimes to write letters and receive people who came on business out of office hours. She had looked through the contents of the bureau more than once; but today, on removing the last bundle of letters from one of the compartments, she saw what she had never seen before, a small nick in the wood, made in the shape of a thumb-nail, evidently intended as a means of pushing aside the movable back of the compartment. In her examination hitherto she had not found such a letter as Mr. Pittman had described--perhaps there might be more letters behind this slide. She pushed it back at once, and saw--no letters, but a small spirit-decanter, half full of pale brandy, Dempster's habitual drink. An impetuous desire shook Janet through all her members; it seemed to master her with the inevitable force of strong fumes that flood our senses before we are aware. Her hand was on the decanter: pale and excited, she was lifting it out of its niche, when, with a start and a shudder, she dashed it to the ground, and the room was filled with the odour of the spirit. Without staying to shut up the bureau, she rushed out of the room, snatched up her bonnet and mantle which lay in the dining-room, and hurried out of the house. Where should she go? In what place would this demon that had re-entered her be scared back again? She walks rapidly along the street in the direction of the church. She is soon at the gate of the churchyard; she passes through it, and makes her way across the graves to a spot she knows--a spot where the turf was stirred not long ago, where a tomb is to be erected soon. It is very near the church wall, on the side which now lies in deep shadow, quite shut out from the rays of the westering sun by a projecting buttress. Janet sat down on the ground. It was a sombre spot. A thick hedge, surmounted by elm-trees, was in front of her; a projecting buttress on each side. But she wanted to shut out even these objects. Her thick crape veil was down; but she closed her eyes behind it, and pressed her hands upon them. She wanted to summon up the vision of the past; she wanted to lash the demon out of her soul with the stinging memories of the bygone misery; she wanted to renew the old horror and the old anguish, that she might throw herself with the more desperate clinging energy at the foot of the cross, where the Divine Sufferer would impart divine strength. She tried to recall those first bitter moments of shame, which were like the shuddering discovery of the leper that the dire taint is upon him; the deeper and deeper lapse; the on-coming of settled despair; the awful moments by the bedside of her self-maddened husband. And then she tried to live through, with a remembrance made more vivid by that contrast, the blessed hours of hope and joy and peace that had come to her of late, since her whole soul had been bent towards the attainment of purity and holiness. But now, when the paroxysm of temptation was past, dread and despondency began to thrust themselves, like cold heavy mists, between her and the heaven to which she wanted to look for light and guidance. The temptation would come again--that rush of desire might overmaster her the next time--she would slip back again into that deep slimy pit from which she had been once rescued, and there might be no deliverance for her more. Her prayers did not help her, for fear predominated over trust; she had no confidence that the aid she sought would be given; the idea of her future fall had grasped her mind too strongly. Alone, in this way, she was powerless. If she could see Mr. Tryan, if she could confess all to him, she might gather hope again. She _must_ see him; she must go to him. Janet rose from the ground, and walked away with a quick resolved step. She had been seated there a long while, and the sun had already sunk. It was late for her to walk to Paddiford and go to Mr. Tryan's, where she had never called before; but there was no other way of seeing him that evening, and she could not hesitate about it. She walked towards a footpath through the fields, which would take her to Paddiford without obliging her to go through the town. The way was rather long, but she preferred it, because it left less probability of her meeting acquaintances, and she shrank from having to speak to any one. The evening red had nearly faded by the time Janet knocked at Mrs. Wagstaff's door. The good woman looked surprised to see her at that hour; but Janet's mourning weeds and the painful agitation of her face quickly brought the second thought, that some urgent trouble had sent her there. 'Mr. Tryan's just come in,' she said. 'If you'll step into the parlour, I'll go up and tell him you're here. He seemed very tired and poorly.' At another time Janet would have felt distress at the idea that she was disturbing Mr. Tryan when he required rest; but now her need was too great for that: she could feel nothing but a sense of coming relief, when she heard his step on the stair and saw him enter the room. He went towards her with a look of anxiety, and said, 'I fear something is the matter. I fear you are in trouble.' Then poor Janet poured forth her sad tale of temptation and despondency; and even while she was confessing she felt half her burden removed. The act of confiding in human sympathy, the consciousness that a fellow-being was listening to her with patient pity, prepared her soul for that stronger leap by which faith grasps the idea of the Divine sympathy. When Mr. Tryan spoke words of consolation and encouragement, she could now believe the message of mercy; the water-floods that had threatened to overwhelm her rolled back again, and life once more spread its heaven-covered space before her. She had been unable to pray alone; but now his prayer bore her own soul along with it, as the broad tongue of flame carries upwards in its vigorous leap the little flickering fire that could hardly keep alight by itself. But Mr. Tryan was anxious that Janet should not linger out at this late hour. When he saw that she was calmed, he said, 'I will walk home with you now; we can talk on the way.' But Janet's mind was now sufficiently at liberty for her to notice the signs of feverish weariness in his appearance, and she would not hear of causing him any further fatigue. 'No, no,' she said, earnestly, 'you will pain me very much--indeed you will, by going out again to-night on my account. There is no real reason why I should not go alone.' And when he persisted, fearing that for her to be seen out so late alone might excite remark, she said imploringly, with a half sob in her voice, 'What should I--what would others like me do, if you went from us? _Why_ will you not think more of that, and take care of yourself?' He had often had that appeal made to him before, but tonight--from Janet's lips--it seemed to have a new force for him, and he gave way. At first, indeed, he only did so on condition that she would let Mrs. Wagstaff go with her; but Janet had determined to walk home alone. She preferred solitude; she wished not to have her present feelings distracted by any conversation. So she went out into the dewy starlight; and as Mr. Tryan turned away from her, he felt a stronger wish than ever that his fragile life might last out for him to see Janet's restoration thoroughly established--to see her no longer fleeing, struggling, clinging up the steep sides of a precipice whence she might be any moment hurled back into the depths of despair, but walking firmly on the level ground of habit. He inwardly resolved that nothing but a peremptory duty should ever take him from Milby--that he would not cease to watch over her until life forsook him. Janet walked on quickly till she turned into the fields; then she slackened her pace a little, enjoying the sense of solitude which a few hours before had been intolerable to her. The Divine Presence did not now seem far off, where she had not wings to reach it; prayer itself seemed superfluous in those moments of calm trust. The temptation which had so lately made her shudder before the possibilities of the future, was now a source of confidence; for had she not been delivered from it? Had not rescue come in the extremity of danger? Yes; Infinite Love was caring for her. She felt like a little child whose hand is firmly grasped by its father, as its frail limbs make their way over the rough ground; if it should stumble, the father will not let it go. That walk in the dewy starlight remained for ever in Janet's memory as one of those baptismal epochs, when the soul, dipped in the sacred waters of joy and peace, rises from them with new energies, with more unalterable longings. When she reached home she found Mrs. Pettifer there, anxious for her return. After thanking her for coming, Janet only said, 'I have been to Mr. Tryan's; I wanted to speak to him;' and then remembering how she had left the bureau and papers, she went into the back-room, where, apparently, no one had been since she quitted it; for there lay the fragments of glass, and the room was still full of the hateful odour. How feeble and miserable the temptation seemed to her at this moment! She rang for Kitty to come and pick up the fragments and rub the floor, while she herself replaced the papers and locked up the bureau. The next morning, when seated at breakfast with Mrs. Pettifer, Janet said,--'What a dreary unhealthy-looking place that is where Mr. Tryan lives! I'm sure it must be very bad for him to live there. Do you know, all this morning, since I've been awake, I've been turning over a little plan in my mind. I think it a charming one--all the more, because you are concerned in it.' 'Why, what can that be?' 'You know that house on the Redhill road they call Holly Mount; it is shut up now. That is Robert's house; at least, it is mine now, and it stands on one of the healthiest spots about here. Now, I've been settling in my own mind, that if a dear good woman of my acquaintance, who knows how to make a home as comfortable and cosy as a bird's nest, were to take up her abode there, and have Mr. Tryan as a lodger, she would be doing one of the most useful deeds in all her useful life.' 'You've such a way of wrapping up things in pretty words. You must speak plainer.' 'In plain words, then, I should like to settle you at Holly Mount. You would not have to pay any more rent than where you are, and it would be twenty times pleasanter for you than living up that passage where you see nothing but a brick wall. And then, as it is not far from Paddiford, I think Mr. Tryan might be persuaded to lodge with you, instead of in that musty house, among dead cabbages and smoky cottages. I know you would like to have him live with you, and you would be such a mother to him.' 'To be sure I should like it; it would be the finest thing in the world for me. But there'll be furniture wanted. My little bit of furniture won't fill that house.' 'O, I can put some in out of this house; it is too full; and we can buy the rest. They tell me I'm to have more money than I shall know what to do with.' 'I'm almost afraid,' said Mrs. Pettifer, doubtfully, 'Mr. Tryan will hardly be persuaded. He's been talked to so much about leaving that place; and he always said he must stay there--he must be among the people, and there was no other place for him in Paddiford. It cuts me to the heart to see him getting thinner and thinner, and I've noticed him quite short o' breath sometimes. Mrs. Linnet will have it, Mrs. Wagstaff half poisons him with bad cooking. I don't know about that, but he can't have many comforts. I expect he'll break down all of a sudden some day, and never be able to preach any more.' 'Well, I shall try my skill with him by and by. I shall be very cunning, and say nothing to him till all is ready. You and I and mother, when she comes home, will set to work directly and get the house in order, and then we'll get you snugly settled in it. I shall see Mr. Pittman today, and I will tell him what I mean to do. I shall say I wish to have you for a tenant. Everybody knows I'm very fond of that naughty person, Mrs. Pettifer; so it will seem the most natural thing in the world. And then I shall by and by point out to Mr. Tryan that he will be doing you a service as well as himself by taking up his abode with you. I think I can prevail upon him; for last night, when he was quite bent on coming out into the night air, I persuaded him to give it up.' 'Well, I only hope you may, my dear. I don't desire anything better than to do something towards prolonging Mr. Tryan's life, for I've sad fears about him.' 'Don't speak of them--I can't bear to think of them. We will only think about getting the house ready. We shall be as busy as bees. How we shall want mother's clever fingers! I know the room upstairs that will just do for Mr. Tryan's study. There shall be no seats in it except a very easy chair and a very easy sofa, so that he shall be obliged to rest himself when he comes home.' Chapter 26 That was the last terrible crisis of temptation Janet had to pass through. The goodwill of her neighbours, the helpful sympathy of the friends who shared her religious feelings, the occupations suggested to her by Mr. Tryan, concurred, with her strong spontaneous impulses towards works of love and mercy, to fill up her days with quiet social intercourse and charitable exertion. Besides, her constitution, naturally healthy and strong, was every week tending, with the gathering force of habit, to recover its equipoise, and set her free from those physical solicitations which the smallest habitual vice always leaves behind it. The prisoner feels where the iron has galled him, long after his fetters have been loosed. There were always neighbourly visits to be paid and received; and as the months wore on, increasing familiarity with Janet's present self began to efface, even from minds as rigid as Mrs. Phipps's, the unpleasant impressions that had been left by recent years. Janet was recovering the popularity which her beauty and sweetness of nature had won for her when she was a girl; and popularity, as every one knows, is the most complex and self-multiplying of echoes. Even anti-Tryanite prejudice could not resist the fact that Janet Dempster was a changed woman--changed as the dusty, bruised, and sun-withered plant is changed when the soft rains of heaven have fallen on it--and that this change was due to Mr. Tryan's influence. The last lingering sneers against the Evangelical curate began to die out; and though much of the feeling that had prompted them remained behind, there was an intimidating consciousness that the expression of such feeling would not be effective--jokes of that sort had ceased to tickle the Milby mind. Even Mr. Budd and Mr. Tomlinson, when they saw Mr. Tryan passing pale and worn along the street, had a secret sense that this man was somehow not that very natural and comprehensible thing, a humbug--that, in fact, it was impossible to explain him from the stomach and pocket point of view. Twist and stretch their theory as they might, it would not fit Mr. Tryan; and so, with that remarkable resemblance as to mental processes which may frequently be observed to exist between plain men and philosophers, they concluded that the less they said about him the better. Among all Janet's neighbourly pleasures, there was nothing she liked better than to take an early tea at the White House, and to stroll with Mr. Jerome round the old-fashioned garden and orchard. There was endless matter for talk between her and the good old man, for Janet had that genuine delight in human fellowship which gives an interest to all personal details that come warm from truthful lips; and, besides, they had a common interest in good-natured plans for helping their poorer neighbours. One great object of Mr. Jerome's charities was, as he often said, 'to keep industrious men an' women off the parish. I'd rether given ten shillin' an' help a man to stand on his own legs, nor pay half-a-crown to buy him a parish crutch; it's the ruination on him if he once goes to the parish. I've see'd many a time, if you help a man wi' a present in a neeborly way, it sweetens his blood--he thinks it kind on you; but the parish shillins turn it sour--he niver thinks 'em enough.' In illustration of this opinion Mr. Jerome had a large store of details about such persons as Jim Hardy, the coal-carrier, 'as lost his hoss'. and Sally Butts, 'as hed to sell her mangle, though she was as decent a woman as need to be'; to the hearing of which details Janet seriously inclined; and you would hardly desire to see a prettier picture than the kind-faced white-haired old man telling these fragments of his simple experience as he walked, with shoulders slightly bent, among the moss-roses and espalier apple-trees, while Janet in her widow's cap, her dark eyes bright with interest, went listening by his side, and little Lizzie, with her nankeen bonnet hanging down her back, toddled on before them. Mrs. Jerome usually declined these lingering strolls, and often observed, 'I niver see the like to Mr. Jerome when he's got Mrs. Dempster to talk to; it sinnifies nothin' to him whether we've tea at four or at five o'clock; he'd go on till six, if you'd let him alone--he's like off his head.' However, Mrs. Jerome herself could not deny that Janet was a very pretty-spoken woman: 'She aly's says, she niver gets sich pikelets' as mine nowhere; I know that very well--other folks buy 'em at shops--thick, unwholesome things, you might as well eat a sponge.' The sight of little Lizzie often stirred in Janet's mind a sense of the childlessness which had made a fatal blank in her life. She had fleeting thoughts that perhaps among her husband's distant relatives there might be some children whom she could help to bring up, some little girl whom she might adopt; and she promised herself one day or other to hunt out a second cousin of his--a married woman, of whom he had lost sight for many years. But at present her hands and heart were too full for her to carry out that scheme. To her great disappointment, her project of settling Mrs. Pettifer at Holly Mount had been delayed by the discovery that some repairs were necessary in order to make the house habitable, and it was not till September had set in that she had the satisfaction of seeing her old friend comfortably installed, and the rooms destined for Mr. Tryan looking pretty and cosy to her heart's content. She had taken several of his chief friends into her confidence, and they were warmly wishing success to her plan for inducing him to quit poor Mrs. Wagstaff's dingy house and dubious cookery. That he should consent to some such change was becoming more and more a matter of anxiety to his hearers; for though no more decided symptoms were yet observable in him than increasing emaciation, a dry hacking cough, and an occasional shortness of breath, it was felt that the fulfilment of Mr. Pratt's prediction could not long be deferred, and that this obstinate persistence in labour and self-disregard must soon be peremptorily cut short by a total failure of strength. Any hopes that the influence of Mr. Tryan's father and sister would prevail on him to change his mode of life--that they would perhaps come to live with him, or that his sister at least might come to see him, and that the arguments which had failed from other lips might be more persuasive from hers--were now quite dissipated. His father had lately had an attack of paralysis, and could not spare his only daughter's tendance. On Mr. Tryan's return from a visit to his father, Miss Linnet was very anxious to know whether his sister had not urged him to try change of air. From his answers she gathered that Miss Tryan wished him to give up his curacy and travel, or at least go to the south Devonshire coast. 'And why will you not do so?' Miss Linnet said; 'you might come back to us well and strong, and have many years of usefulness before you.' 'No,' he answered quietly, 'I think people attach more importance to such measures than is warranted. I don't see any good end that is to be served by going to die at Nice, instead of dying amongst one's friends and one's work. I cannot leave Milby--at least I will not leave it voluntarily.' But though he remained immovable on this point, he had been compelled to give up his afternoon service on the Sunday, and to accept Mr. Parry's offer of aid in the evening service, as well as to curtail his weekday labours; and he had even written to Mr. Prendergast to request that he would appoint another curate to the Paddiford district, on the understanding that the new curate should receive the salary, but that Mr. Tryan should co-operate with him as long as he was able. The hopefulness which is an almost constant attendant on consumption, had not the effect of deceiving him as to the nature of his malady, or of making him look forward to ultimate recovery. He believed himself to be consumptive, and he had not yet felt any desire to escape the early death which he had for some time contemplated as probable. Even diseased hopes will take their direction from the strong habitual bias of the mind, and to Mr. Tryan death had for years seemed nothing else than the laying down of a burden, under which he sometimes felt himself fainting. He was only sanguine about his powers of work: he flattered himself that what he was unable to do one week he should be equal to the next, and he would not admit that in desisting from any part of his labour he was renouncing it permanently. He had lately delighted Mr. Jerome by accepting his long-proffered loan of the 'little chacenut hoss;' and he found so much benefit from substituting constant riding exercise for walking, that he began to think he should soon be able to resume some of the work he had dropped. That was a happy afternoon for Janet, when, after exerting herself busily for a week with her mother and Mrs. Pettifer, she saw Holly Mount looking orderly and comfortable from attic to cellar. It was an old red-brick house, with two gables in front, and two clipped holly-trees flanking the garden-gate; a simple, homely-looking place, that quiet people might easily get fond of; and now it was scoured and polished and carpeted and furnished so as to look really snug within. When there was nothing more to be done, Janet delighted herself with contemplating Mr. Tryan's study, first sitting down in the easy-chair, and then lying for a moment on the sofa, that she might have a keener sense of the repose he would get from those well-stuffed articles of furniture, which she had gone to Rotherby on purpose to choose. 'Now, mother,' she said, when she had finished her survey, 'you have done your work as well as any fairy-mother or god-mother that ever turned a pumpkin into a coach and horses. You stay and have tea cosily with Mrs. Pettifer while I go to Mrs. Linnet's. I want to tell Mary and Rebecca the good news, that I've got the exciseman to promise that he will take Mrs. Wagstaff's lodgings when Mr. Tryan leaves. They'll be so pleased to hear it, because they thought he would make her poverty an objection to his leaving her.' 'But, my dear child.' said Mrs. Raynor, whose face, always calm, was now a happy one, 'have a cup of tea with us first. You'll perhaps miss Mrs. Linnet's tea-time.' 'No, I feel too excited to take tea yet. I'm like a child with a new baby-house. Walking in the air will do me good.' So she set out. Holly Mount was about a mile from that outskirt of Paddiford Common where Mrs. Linnet's house stood nestled among its laburnums, lilacs, and syringas. Janet's way thither lay for a little while along the high-road, and then led her into a deep-rutted lane, which wound through a flat tract of meadow and pasture, while in front lay smoky Paddiford, and away to the left the mother-town of Milby. There was no line of silvery willows marking the course of a stream--no group of Scotch firs with their trunks reddening in the level sunbeams--nothing to break the flowerless monotony of grass and hedgerow but an occasional oak or elm, and a few cows sprinkled here and there. A very commonplace scene, indeed. But what scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when colour has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene is commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene gladness, and brightens all things with its own joy? And Janet just now was very happy. As she walked along the rough lane with a buoyant step, a half smile of innocent, kindly triumph played about her mouth. She was delighting beforehand in the anticipated success of her persuasive power, and for the time her painful anxiety about Mr. Tryan's health was thrown into abeyance. But she had not gone far along the lane before she heard the sound of a horse advancing at a walking pace behind her. Without looking back, she turned aside to make way for it between the ruts, and did not notice that for a moment it had stopped, and had then come on with a slightly quickened pace. In less than a minute she heard a well-known voice say, 'Mrs. Dempster'; and, turning, saw Mr. Tryan close to her, holding his horse by the bridle. It seemed very natural to her that he should be there. Her mind was so full of his presence at that moment, that the actual sight of him was only like a more vivid thought, and she behaved, as we are apt to do when feeling obliges us to be genuine, with a total forgetfulness of polite forms. She only looked at him with a slight deepening of the smile that was already on her face. He said gently, 'Take my arm'; and they walked on a little way in silence. It was he who broke it. 'You are going to Paddiford, I suppose?' The question recalled Janet to the consciousness that this was an unexpected opportunity for beginning her work of persuasion, and that she was stupidly neglecting it. 'Yes,' she said, 'I was going to Mrs. Linnet's. I knew Miss Linnet would like to hear that our friend Mrs. Pettifer is quite settled now in her new house. She is as fond of Mrs. Pettifer as I am--almost; I won't admit that any one loves her _quite_ as well, for no one else has such good reason as I have. But now the dear woman wants a lodger, for you know she can't afford to live in so large a house by herself. But I knew when I persuaded her to go there that she would be sure to get one--she's such a comfortable creature to live with; and I didn't like her to spend all the rest of her days up that dull passage, being at every one's beck and call who wanted to make use of her.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Tryan, 'I quite understand your feeling; I don't wonder at your strong regard for her.' 'Well, but now I want her other friends to second me. There she is, with three rooms to let, ready furnished, everything in order; and I know some one, who thinks as well of her as I do, and who would be doing good all round--to every one that knows him, as well as to Mrs. Pettifer, if he would go to live with her. He would leave some uncomfortable lodgings, which another person is already coveting and would take immediately; and he would go to breathe pure air at Holly Mount, and gladden Mrs. Pettifer's heart by letting her wait on him; and comfort all his friends, who are quite miserable about him.' Mr. Tryan saw it all in a moment--he saw that it had all been done for his sake. He could not be sorry; he could not say no; he could not resist the sense that life had a new sweetness for him, and that he should like it to be prolonged a little--only a little, for the sake of feeling a stronger security about Janet. When she had finished speaking, she looked at him with a doubtful, inquiring glance. He was not looking at her; his eyes were cast downwards; but the expression of his face encouraged her, and she said, in a half-playful tone of entreaty,--'You _will_ go and live with her? I know you will. You will come back with me now and see the house.' He looked at her then, and smiled. There is an unspeakable blending of sadness and sweetness in the smile of a face sharpened and paled by slow consumption. That smile of Mr. Tryan's pierced poor Janet's heart: she felt in it at once the assurance of grateful affection and the prophecy of coming death. Her tears rose; they turned round without speaking, and went back again along the lane. Chapter 27 In less than a week Mr. Tryan was settled at Holly Mount, and there was not one of his many attached hearers who did not sincerely rejoice at the event. The autumn that year was bright and warm, and at the beginning of October, Mr. Walsh, the new curate, came. The mild weather, the relaxation from excessive work, and perhaps another benignant influence, had for a few weeks a visibly favourable effect on Mr. Tryan. At least he began to feel new hopes, which sometimes took the guise of new strength. He thought of the cases in which consumption patients remain nearly stationary for years, without suffering so as to make their life burdensome to themselves or to others; and he began to struggle with a longing that it might be so with him. He struggled with it, because he felt it to be an indication that earthly affection was beginning to have too strong a hold on him, and he prayed earnestly for more perfect submission, and for a more absorbing delight in the Divine Presence as the chief good. He was conscious that he did not wish for prolonged life solely that he might reclaim the wanderers and sustain the feeble: he was conscious of a new yearning for those pure human joys which he had voluntarily and determinedly banished from his life--for a draught of that deep affection from which he had been cut off by a dark chasm of remorse. For now, that affection was within his reach; he saw it there, like a palm-shadowed well in the desert; he _could_ not desire to die in sight of it. And so the autumn rolled gently by in its 'calm decay'. Until November. Mr. Tryan continued to preach occasionally, to ride about visiting his flock, and to look in at his schools: but his growing satisfaction in Mr. Walsh as his successor saved him from too eager exertion and from worrying anxieties. Janet was with him a great deal now, for she saw that he liked her to read to him in the lengthening evenings, and it became the rule for her and her mother to have tea at Holly Mount, where, with Mrs. Pettifer, and sometimes another friend or two, they brought Mr. Tryan the unaccustomed enjoyment of companionship by his own fireside. Janet did not share his new hopes, for she was not only in the habit of hearing Mr. Pratt's opinion that Mr. Tryan could hardly stand out through the winter, but she also knew that it was shared by Dr Madely of Rotherby, whom, at her request, he had consented to call in. It was not necessary or desirable to tell Mr. Tryan what was revealed by the stethoscope, but Janet knew the worst. She felt no rebellion under this prospect of bereavement, but rather a quiet submissive sorrow. Gratitude that his influence and guidance had been given her, even if only for a little while--gratitude that she was permitted to be with him, to take a deeper and deeper impress from daily communion with him, to be something to him in these last months of his life, was so strong in her that it almost silenced regret. Janet had lived through the great tragedy of woman's life. Her keenest personal emotions had been poured forth in her early love--her wounded affection with its years of anguish--her agony of unavailing pity over that deathbed seven months ago. The thought of Mr. Tryan was associated for her with repose from that conflict of emotion, with trust in the unchangeable, with the influx of a power to subdue self. To have been assured of his sympathy, his teaching, his help, all through her life, would have been to her like a heaven already begun--a deliverance from fear and danger; but the time was not yet come for her to be conscious that the hold he had on her heart was any other than that of the heaven-sent friend who had come to her like the angel in the prison, and loosed her bonds, and led her by the hand till she could look back on the dreadful doors that had once closed her in. Before November was over Mr. Tryan had ceased to go out. A new crisis had come on: the cough had changed its character, and the worst symptoms developed themselves so rapidly that Mr. Pratt began to think the end would arrive sooner than he had expected. Janet became a constant attendant on him now, and no one could feel that she was performing anything but a sacred office. She made Holly Mount her home, and, with her mother and Mrs. Pettifer to help her, she filled the painful days and nights with every soothing influence that care and tenderness could devise. There were many visitors to the sick-room, led thither by venerating affection; and there could hardly be one who did not retain in after years a vivid remembrance of the scene there--of the pale wasted form in the easy-chair (for he sat up to the last), of the grey eyes so full even yet of inquiring kindness, as the thin, almost transparent hand was held out to give the pressure of welcome; and of the sweet woman, too, whose dark watchful eyes detected every want, and who supplied the want with a ready hand. There were others who would have had the heart and the skill to fill this place by Mr. Tryan's side, and who would have accepted it as an honour; but they could not help feeling that God had given it to Janet by a train of events which were too impressive not to shame all jealousies into silence. That sad history which most of us know too well, lasted more than three months. He was too feeble and suffering for the last few weeks to see any visitors, but he still sat up through the day. The strange hallucinations of the disease which had seemed to take a more decided hold on him just at the fatal crisis, and had made him think he was perhaps getting better at the very time when death had begun to hurry on with more rapid movement, had now given way, and left him calmly conscious of the reality. One afternoon, near the end of February, Janet was moving gently about the room, in the fire-lit dusk, arranging some things that would be wanted in the night. There was no one else in the room, and his eyes followed her as she moved with the firm grace natural to her, while the bright fire every now and then lit up her face, and gave an unusual glow to its dark beauty. Even to follow her in this way with his eyes was an exertion that gave a painful tension to his face; while she looked like an image of life and strength. 'Janet,' he said presently, in his faint voice--he always called her Janet now. In a moment she was close to him, bending over him. He opened his hand as he looked up at her, and she placed hers within it. 'Janet,' he said again, 'you will have a long while to live after I am gone.' A sudden pang of fear shot through her. She thought he felt himself dying, and she sank on her knees at his feet, holding his hand, while she looked up at him, almost breathless. 'But you will not feel the need of me as you have done ... You have a sure trust in God ... I shall not look for you in vain at the last.' 'No ... no ... I shall be there ... God will not forsake me.' She could hardly utter the words, though she was not weeping. She was waiting with trembling eagerness for anything else he might have to say. 'Let us kiss each other before we part.' She lifted up her face to his, and the full life-breathing lips met the wasted dying ones in a sacred kiss of promise. Chapter 28 It soon came--the blessed day of deliverance, the sad day of bereavement; and in the second week of March they carried him to the grave. He was buried as he had desired: there was no hearse, no mourning-coach; his coffin was borne by twelve of his humbler hearers, who relieved each other by turns. But he was followed by a long procession of mourning friends, women as well as men. Slowly, amid deep silence, the dark stream passed along Orchard Street, where eighteen months before the Evangelical curate had been saluted with hooting and hisses. Mr. Jerome and Mr. Landor were the eldest pall-bearers; and behind the coffin, led by Mr. Tryan's cousin, walked Janet, in quiet submissive sorrow. She could not feel that he was quite gone from her; the unseen world lay so very near her--it held all that had ever stirred the depths of anguish and joy within her. It was a cloudy morning, and had been raining when they left Holly Mount; but as they walked, the sun broke out, and the clouds were rolling off in large masses when they entered the churchyard, and Mr. Walsh's voice was heard saying, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life'. The faces were not hard at this funeral; the burial-service was not a hollow form. Every heart there was filled with the memory of a man who, through a self-sacrificing life and in a painful death, had been sustained by the faith which fills that form with breath and substance. When Janet left the grave, she did not return to Holly Mount; she went to her home in Orchard Street, where her mother was waiting to receive her. She said quite calmly, 'Let us walk round the garden, mother.' And they walked round in silence, with their hands clasped together, looking at the golden crocuses bright in the spring sunshine. Janet felt a deep stillness within. She thirsted for no pleasure; she craved no worldly good. She saw the years to come stretch before her like an autumn afternoon, filled with resigned memory. Life to her could never more have any eagerness; it was a solemn service of gratitude and patient effort. She walked in the presence of unseen witnesses--of the Divine love that had rescued her, of the human love that waited for its eternal repose until it had seen her endure to the end. Janet is living still. Her black hair is grey, and her step is no longer buoyant; but the sweetness of her smile remains, the love is not gone from her eyes; and strangers sometimes ask, Who is that noble-looking elderly woman, that walks about holding a little boy by the hand? The little boy is the son of Janet's adopted daughter, and Janet in her old age has children about her knees, and loving young arms round her neck. There is a simple gravestone in Milby Churchyard, telling that in this spot lie the remains of Edgar Tryan, for two years officiating curate at the Paddiford Chapel-of-Ease, in this parish. It is a meagre memorial, and tells you simply that the man who lies there took upon him, faithfully or unfaithfully, the office of guide and instructor to his fellowmen. But there is another memorial of Edgar Tryan, which bears a fuller record: it is Janet Dempster, rescued from self-despair, strengthened with divine hopes, and now looking back on years of purity and helpful labour. The man who has left such a memorial behind him, must have been one whose heart beat with true compassion, and whose lips were moved by fervent faith. THE END 
43043	----	Transcriber's Note: This is Volume I 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. I.--UNKNOWN "OUR FINEST HOPE IS FINEST MEMORY" [Illustration: Portrait of George Eliot. Etched by M. Rajon.] 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 I 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_. PREFACE. With the materials in my hands I have endeavored to form an _autobiography_ (if the term may be permitted) of George Eliot. The life has been allowed to write itself in extracts from her letters and journals. Free from the obtrusion of any mind but her own, this method serves, I think, better than any other open to me, to show the development of her intellect and character. In dealing with the correspondence I have been influenced by the desire to make known the woman, as well as the author, through the presentation of her daily life. On the intellectual side there remains little to be learned by those who already know George Eliot's books. In the twenty volumes which she wrote and published in her lifetime will be found her best and ripest thoughts. The letters now published throw light on another side of her nature--not less important, but hitherto unknown to the public--the side of the affections. The intimate life was the core of the root from which sprung the fairest flowers of her inspiration. Fame came to her late in life, and, when it presented itself, was so weighted with the sense of responsibility that it was in truth a rose with many thorns, for George Eliot had the temperament that shrinks from the position of a public character. The belief in the wide, and I may add in the beneficent, effect of her writing was no doubt the highest happiness, the reward of the artist which she greatly cherished: but the joys of the hearthside, the delight in the love of her friends, were the supreme pleasures in her life. By arranging all the letters and journals so as to form one connected whole, keeping the order of their dates, and with the least possible interruption of comment, I have endeavored to combine a narrative of day-to-day life, with the play of light and shade which only letters, written in various moods, can give, and without which no portrait can be a good likeness. I do not know that the particular method in which I have treated the letters has ever been adopted before. Each letter has been pruned of everything that seemed to me irrelevant to my purpose--of everything that I thought my wife would have wished to be omitted. Every sentence that remains adds, in my judgment, something (however small it may be) to the means of forming a conclusion about her character. I ought perhaps to say a word of apology for what may appear to be undue detail of travelling experiences; but I hope that to many readers these will be interesting, as reflected through George Eliot's mind. The remarks on works of art are only meant to be records of impressions. She would have deprecated for herself the attitude of an art critic. Excepting a slight introductory sketch of the girlhood, up to the time when letters became available, and a few words here and there to elucidate the correspondence, I have confined myself to the work of selection and arrangement. I have refrained almost entirely from quoting remembered sayings by George Eliot, because it is difficult to be certain of complete accuracy, and everything depends upon accuracy. Recollections of conversation are seldom to be implicitly trusted in the absence of notes made at the time. The value of spoken words depends, too, so much upon the _tone_, and on the circumstances which gave rise to their utterance, that they often mislead as much as they enlighten, when, in the process of repetition, they have taken color from another mind. "All interpretations depend upon the interpreter," and I have judged it best to let George Eliot be her own interpreter, as far as possible. I owe thanks to Mr. Isaac Evans, the brother of my wife, for much of the information in regard to her child-life; and the whole book is a long record of debts due to other friends for letters. It is not, therefore, necessary for me to recapitulate the list of names in this place. My thanks to all are heartfelt. But there is a very special acknowledgment due to Miss Sara Hennell, to Mrs. Bray, and to the late Mr. Charles Bray of Coventry, not only for the letters which they placed at my disposal, but also for much information given to me in the most friendly spirit. The very important part of the life from 1842 to 1854 could not possibly have been written without their contribution. To Mr. Charles Lewes, also, I am indebted for some valuable letters and extracts from the journals of his father, besides the letters addressed to himself. He also obtained for me an important letter written by George Eliot to Mr. R. H. Hutton; and throughout the preparation of the book I have had the advantage of his sympathetic interest, and his concurrence in the publication of all the materials. Special thanks are likewise due to Messrs. Wm. Blackwood & Sons for having placed at my disposal George Eliot's long correspondence with the firm. The letters (especially those addressed to her friend the late Mr. John Blackwood) throw a light, that could not otherwise have been obtained, on the most interesting part of her literary career. To the legal representatives of the late Charles Dickens, of the late Lord Lytton, and of Mrs. Carlyle; to Mr. J. A. Froude, and to Mr. Archer Gurney, I owe thanks for leave to print letters written by them. For all the defects that there may be in the plan of these volumes I alone am responsible. The lines were determined and the work was substantially put into shape before I submitted the manuscript to any one. While passing the winter in the south of France I had the good fortune at Cannes to find, in Lord Acton, not only an enthusiastic admirer of George Eliot, but also a friend always most kindly ready to assist me with valuable counsel and with cordial, generous sympathy. He was the first reader of the manuscript, and whatever accuracy may have been arrived at, particularly in the names of foreign books, foreign persons, and foreign places, is in great part due to his friendly, careful help. But of course he has no responsibility whatever for any of my sins of omission or commission. By the kind permission of Sir Frederic Burton, I have been enabled to reproduce as a frontispiece M. Rajon's etching of the beautiful drawing, executed in 1864, now in the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington. The view of the old house at Rosehill is from a drawing by Mrs. Bray. It is connected with some of George Eliot's happiest experiences, and with the period of her most rapid intellectual development. For permission to use the sketch of the drawing-room at the Priory I am indebted to the Messrs. Harpers, of New York. In conclusion, it is in no conventional spirit, but from my heart, that I bespeak the indulgence of readers for my share of this work. Of its shortcomings no one can be so convinced as I am myself. J. W. C. CAMDEN HILL, _December, 1884_. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Introductory Sketch of Childhood. Page 1 CHAPTER I. AUGUST, 1838, TO MARCH, 1841. Life at Griff 28 CHAPTER II. MARCH, 1841, TO APRIL, 1846. Coventry--Translation of Strauss 61 CHAPTER III. MAY, 1846, TO MAY, 1849. Life in Coventry till Mr. Evans's Death 106 CHAPTER IV. JUNE, 1849, TO MARCH, 1850. Geneva 150 CHAPTER V. MARCH, 1850, TO JULY, 1854. Work in London--Union with Mr. Lewes 181 CHAPTER VI. JULY, 1854, TO MARCH, 1855. Germany 239 CHAPTER VII. MARCH, 1855, TO DECEMBER, 1857. Richmond--"Scenes of Clerical Life" 273 APPENDIX 349 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I. PORTRAIT OF GEORGE ELIOT. Etched by M. Rajon _Frontispiece._ GRIFF--FRONT VIEW _To face p_. 6 GRIFF--WITH THE FARM OFFICES " 12 HOUSE IN FOLESHILL ROAD, COVENTRY " 62 PORTRAIT OF MR. ROBERT EVANS " 148 ROSEHILL " 182 GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. _INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF CHILDHOOD._ "_Nov. 22, 1819._--Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm,[1] at five o'clock this morning." This is an entry, in Mr. Robert Evans's handwriting, on the page of an old diary that now lies before me, and records, with characteristic precision, the birth of his youngest child, afterwards known to the world as George Eliot. Let us pause for a moment to pay its due homage to the precision, because it was in all probability to this most noteworthy quality of her father's nature that the future author was indebted for one of the principal elements of her own after-success--the enormous faculty for taking pains. The baby was born on St. Cecilia's day, and Mr. Evans, being a good churchman, takes her, on the 29th November, to be baptized in the church at Chilvers Coton--the parish in which Arbury Farm lies--a church destined to impress itself strongly on the child's imagination, and to be known by many people in many lands afterwards as Shepperton Church. The father was a remarkable man, and many of the leading traits in his character are to be found in Adam Bede and in Caleb Garth--although, of course, neither of these is a portrait. He was born in 1773, at Ellaston, in Staffordshire, son of a George Evans, who carried on the business of builder and carpenter there: the Evans family having come originally from Northop, in Flintshire. Robert was brought up to the business; but about 1799, or a little before, he held a farm of Mr. Francis Newdigate at Kirk Hallam, in Derbyshire, and became his agent. On Sir Roger Newdigate's death the Arbury estate came to Mr. Francis Newdigate for his life, and Mr. Evans accompanied him into Warwickshire, in 1806, in the capacity of agent. In 1801 he had married Harriott Poynton, by whom he had two children--Robert, born 1802, at Ellaston, and Frances Lucy, born 1805, at Kirk Hallam. His first wife died in 1809; and on 8th February, 1813, he married Christiana Pearson, by whom he had three children--Christiana, born 1814; Isaac, born 1816, and Mary Ann, born 1819. Shortly after the last child's birth, Robert, the son, became the agent, under his father, for the Kirk Hallam property, and lived there with his sister Frances, who afterwards married a Mr. Houghton. In March, 1820, when the baby girl was only four months old, the Evans family removed to Griff, a charming red-brick, ivy-covered house on the Arbury estate--"the warm little nest where her affections were fledged"--and there George Eliot spent the first twenty-one years of her life. Let us remember what the England was upon which this observant child opened her eyes. The date of her birth was removed from the beginning of the French Revolution by just the same period of time as separates a child, born this year, 1884, from the beginning of the Crimean War. To a man of forty-six to-day, the latter event seems but of yesterday. It took place at a very impressionable period of his life, and the remembrance of every detail is perfectly vivid. Mr. Evans was forty-six when his youngest child was born. He was a youth of sixteen when the Revolution began, and that mighty event, with all its consequences, had left an indelible impression on him, and the convictions and conclusions it had fostered in his mind permeated through to his children, and entered as an indestructible element into the susceptible soul of his youngest daughter. There are bits in the paper "Looking Backward," in "Theophrastus Such," which are true autobiography. "In my earliest remembrance of my father his hair was already gray, for I was his youngest child, and it seemed to me that advanced age was appropriate to a father, as, indeed, in all respects I considered him a parent so much to my honor that the mention of my relationship to him was likely to secure me regard among those to whom I was otherwise a stranger--his stories from his life including so many names of distant persons that my imagination placed no limit to his acquaintanceship.... Nor can I be sorry, though myself given to meditative if not active innovation, that my father was a Tory who had not exactly a dislike to innovators and dissenters, but a slight opinion of them as persons of ill-founded self-confidence.... And I often smile at my consciousness that certain Conservative prepossessions have mingled themselves for me with the influences of our Midland scenery, from the tops of the elms down to the buttercups and the little wayside vetches. Naturally enough. That part of my father's prime to which he oftenest referred had fallen on the days when the great wave of political enthusiasm and belief in a speedy regeneration of all things had ebbed, and the supposed millennial initiative of France was turning into a Napoleonic empire.... To my father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary doctrine were, to speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the scoundrel; the welfare of the nation lay in a strong government which could maintain order; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word 'government' in a tone that charged it with awe, and made it part of my effective religion, in contrast with the word 'rebel,' which seemed to carry the stamp of evil in its syllables, and, lit by the fact that Satan was the first rebel, made an argument dispensing with more detailed inquiry." This early association of ideas must always be borne in mind, as it is the key to a great deal in the mental attitude of the future thinker and writer. It is the foundation of the latent Conservative bias. The year 1819 is memorable as a culminating period of bad times and political discontent in England. The nation was suffering acutely from the reaction after the excitement of the last Napoleonic war. George IV. did not come to the throne till January, 1820, so that George Eliot was born in the reign of George III. The trial of Queen Caroline was the topic of absorbing public interest. Waterloo was not yet an affair of five years old. Byron had four years, and Goethe had thirteen years, still to live. The last of Miss Austen's novels had been published only eighteen months, and the first of the Waverley series only six years before. Thackeray and Dickens were boys at school, and George Sand, as a girl of fifteen, was leaving her loved freedom on the banks of the Indre for the Convent des Anglaises at Paris. That "Greater Britain" (Canada and Australia), which to-day forms so large a reading public, was then scarcely more than a geographical expression, with less than half a million of inhabitants, all told, where at present there are eight millions; and in the United States, where more copies of George Eliot's books are now sold than in any other quarter of the world, the population then numbered less than ten millions where to-day it is fifty-five millions. Including Great Britain, these English-speaking races have increased from thirty millions in 1820 to one hundred millions in 1884; and with the corresponding increase in education we can form some conception how a popular English writer's fame has widened its circle. There was a remoteness about a detached country-house, in the England of those days, difficult for us to conceive now, with our railways, penny-post, and telegraphs; nor is the Warwickshire country about Griff an exhilarating surrounding. There are neither hills nor vales, no rivers, lakes, or sea--nothing but a monotonous succession of green fields and hedgerows, with some fine trees. The only water to be seen is the "brown canal." The effect of such a landscape on an ordinary observer is not inspiring, but "effective magic is transcendent nature;" and with her transcendent nature George Eliot has transfigured these scenes, dear to Midland souls, into many an idyllic picture, known to those who know her books. In her childhood the great event of the day was the passing of the coach before the gate of Griff House, which lies at a bend of the high-road between Coventry and Nuneaton, and within a couple of miles of the mining village of Bedworth, "where the land began to be blackened with coal-pits, the rattle of hand-looms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here were powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high wages at the alehouse with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here the pale, eager faces of hand-loom weavers, men and women, haggard from sitting up late at night to finish the week's work, hardly begun till the Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small children were dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to the loom; pious Dissenting women, perhaps, who took life patiently, and thought that salvation depended chiefly on predestination, and not at all on cleanliness. The gables of Dissenting chapels now made a visible sign of religion, and of a meeting-place to counterbalance the alehouse, even in the hamlets.... Here was a population not convinced that old England was as good as possible; here were multitudinous men and women aware that their religion was not exactly the religion of their rulers, who might therefore be better than they were, and who, if better, might alter many things which now made the world perhaps more painful than it need be, and certainly more sinful. Yet there were the gray steeples too, and the churchyards, with their grassy mounds and venerable headstones, sleeping in the sunlight; there were broad fields and homesteads, and fine old woods covering a rising ground, or stretching far by the roadside, allowing only peeps at the park and mansion which they shut in from the working-day world. In these midland districts the traveller passed rapidly from one phase of English life to another; after looking down on a village dingy with coal-dust, noisy with the shaking of looms, he might skirt a parish all of fields, high hedges, and deep-rutted lanes; after the coach had rattled over the pavement of a manufacturing town, the scene of riots and trades-union meetings, it would take him in another ten minutes into a rural region, where the neighborhood of the town was only felt in the advantages of a near market for corn, cheese, and hay, and where men with a considerable banking account were accustomed to say that 'they never meddled with politics themselves.'"[2] [Illustration: Griff House--Front view.] We can imagine the excitement of a little four-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother waiting, on bright frosty mornings, to hear the far-off ringing beat of the horses' feet upon the hard ground, and then to see the gallant appearance of the four grays, with coachman and guard in scarlet, outside passengers muffled up in furs, and baskets of game and other packages hanging behind the boot, as his majesty's mail swung cheerily round on its way from Birmingham to Stamford. Two coaches passed the door daily--one from Birmingham at 10 o'clock in the morning, the other from Stamford at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. These were the chief connecting links between the household at Griff and the outside world. Otherwise life went on with that monotonous regularity which distinguishes the country from the town. And it is to these circumstances of her early life that a great part of the quality of George Eliot's writing is due, and that she holds the place she has attained in English literature. Her roots were down in the pre-railroad, pre-telegraphic period--the days of fine old leisure--but the fruit was formed during an era of extraordinary activity in scientific and mechanical discovery. Her genius was the outcome of these conditions. It would not have existed in the same form deprived of either influence. Her father was busy both with his own farm-work and increasing agency business. He was already remarked in Warwickshire for his knowledge and judgment in all matters relating to land, and for his general trustworthiness and high character, so that he was constantly selected as arbitrator and valuer. He had a wonderful eye, especially for valuing woods, and could calculate with almost absolute precision the quantity of available timber in a standing tree. In addition to his merits as a man of business, he had the good fortune to possess the warm friendship and consistent support of Colonel Newdigate of Astley Castle, son of Mr. Francis Newdigate of Arbury, and it was mainly through the colonel's introduction and influence that Mr. Evans became agent also to Lord Aylesford, Lord Lifford, Mr. Bromley Davenport, and several others. His position cannot be better summed up than in the words of his daughter, writing to Mr. Bray on 30th September, 1859, in regard to some one who had written of her, after the appearance of "Adam Bede," as a "self-educated farmer's daughter." "My father did not raise himself from being an artisan to be a farmer; he raised himself from being an artisan to be a man whose extensive knowledge in very varied practical departments made his services valued through several counties. He had large knowledge of building, of mines, of plantations, of various branches of valuation and measurement--of all that is essential to the management of large estates. He was held by those competent to judge as _unique_ among land-agents for his manifold knowledge and experience, which enabled him to save the special fees usually paid by landowners for special opinions on the different questions incident to the proprietorship of land. So far as I am personally concerned I should not write a stroke to prevent any one, in the zeal of antithetic eloquence, from calling me a tinker's daughter; but if my father is to be mentioned at all--if he is to be identified with an imaginary character--my piety towards his memory calls on me to point out to those who are supposed to speak with information what he really achieved in life." Mr. Evans was also, like Adam Bede, noteworthy for his extraordinary physical strength and determination of character. There is a story told of him, that one day when he was travelling on the top of a coach, down in Kent, a decent woman sitting next him complained that a great hulking sailor on her other side was making himself offensive. Mr. Evans changed places with the woman, and, taking the sailor by the collar, forced him down under the seat, and held him there with an iron hand for the remainder of the stage: and at Griff it is still remembered that the master, happening to pass one day while a couple of laborers were waiting for a third to help to move the high, heavy ladder used for thatching ricks, braced himself up to a great effort, and carried the ladder alone and unaided from one rick to the other, to the wide-eyed wonder and admiration of his men. With all this strength, however, both of body and of character, he seems to have combined a certain self-distrust, owing, perhaps, to his early imperfect education, which resulted in a general submissiveness in his domestic relations, more or less portrayed in the character of Mr. Garth. His second wife was a woman with an unusual amount of natural force; a shrewd, practical person, with a considerable dash of the Mrs. Poyser vein in her. Hers was an affectionate, warm-hearted nature, and her children, on whom she cast "the benediction of her gaze," were thoroughly attached to her. She came of a race of yeomen, and her social position was, therefore, rather better than her husband's at the time of their marriage. Her family are, no doubt, prototypes of the Dodsons in the "Mill on the Floss." There were three other sisters married, and all living in the neighborhood of Griff--Mrs. Everard, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Garner--and probably Mr. Evans heard a good deal about "the traditions in the Pearson family." Mrs. Evans was a very active, hard-working woman, but shortly after her last child's birth she became ailing in health, and consequently her eldest girl, Christiana, was sent to school, at a very early age, to Miss Lathom's, at Attleboro, a village a mile or two from Griff, while the two younger children spent some part of their time every day at the cottage of a Mrs. Moore, who kept a dame's school close to Griff gates. The little girl very early became possessed with the idea that she was going to be a personage in the world; and Mr. Charles Lewes has told me an anecdote which George Eliot related of herself as characteristic of this period of her childhood. When she was only four years old she recollected playing on the piano, of which she did not know one note, in order to impress the servant with a proper notion of her acquirements and generally distinguished position. This was the time when the love for her brother grew into the child's affections. She used always to be at his heels, insisting on doing everything he did. She was not, in these baby-days, in the least precocious in learning. In fact, her half-sister, Mrs. Houghton, who was some fourteen years her senior, told me that the child learned to read with some difficulty; but Mr. Isaac Evans says that this was not from any slowness in apprehension, but because she liked playing so much better. Mere sharpness, however, was not a characteristic of her mind. Hers was a large, slow-growing nature; and I think it is, at any rate, certain that there was nothing of the infant phenomenon about her. In her moral development she showed, from the earliest years, the trait that was most marked in her all through life, namely, the absolute need of some one person who should be all in all to her, and to whom she should be all in all. Very jealous in her affections, and easily moved to smiles or tears, she was of a nature capable of the keenest enjoyment and the keenest suffering, knowing "all the wealth and all the woe" of a pre-eminently exclusive disposition. She was affectionate, proud, and sensitive in the highest degree. The sort of happiness that belongs to this budding-time of life, from the age of three to five, is apt to impress itself very strongly on the memory; and it is this period which is referred to in the Brother and Sister Sonnet, "But were another childhood's world my share, I would be born a little sister there." When her brother was eight years old he was sent to school at Coventry, and, her mother continuing in very delicate health, the little Mary Ann, now five years of age, went to join her sister at Miss Lathom's school, at Attleboro, where they continued as boarders for three or four years, coming, occasionally, home to Griff on Saturdays. During one of our walks at Witley, in 1880, my wife mentioned to me that what chiefly remained in her recollection about this very early school-life was the difficulty of getting near enough the fire in winter to become thoroughly warmed, owing to the circle of girls forming round too narrow a fireplace. This suffering from cold was the beginning of a low general state of health; also at this time she began to be subject to fears at night--"the susceptibility to terror"--which she has described as haunting Gwendolen Harleth in her childhood. The other girls in the school, who were all, naturally, very much older, made a great pet of the child, and used to call her "little mamma," and she was not unhappy except at nights; but she told me that this liability to have "all her soul become a quivering fear," which remained with her afterwards, had been one of the supremely important influences dominating at times her future life. Mr. Isaac Evans's chief recollection of this period is the delight of the little sister at his home-coming for holidays, and her anxiety to know all that he had been doing and learning. The eldest child, who went by the name of Chrissey, was the chief favorite of the aunts, as she was always neat and tidy, and used to spend a great deal of her time with them, while the other two were inseparable playfellows at home. The boy was his mother's pet and the girl her father's. They had everything to make children happy at Griff--a delightful old-fashioned garden, a pond and the canal to fish in, and the farm-offices close to the house, "the long cow-shed, where generations of the milky mothers have stood patiently, the broad-shouldered barns, where the old-fashioned flail once made resonant music," and where butter-making and cheese-making were carried on with great vigor by Mrs. Evans. [Illustration: Griff--with the Farm Offices.] Any one, about this time, who happened to look through the window on the left-hand side of the door of Griff House would have seen a pretty picture in the dining-room on Saturday evenings after tea. The powerful, middle-aged man with the strongly marked features sits in his deep, leather-covered arm-chair, at the right-hand corner of the ruddy fireplace, with the head of "the little wench" between his knees. The child turns over the book with pictures that she wishes her father to explain to her--or that perhaps she prefers explaining to him. Her rebellious hair is all over her eyes, much vexing the pale, energetic mother who sits on the opposite side of the fire, cumbered with much service, letting no instant of time escape the inevitable click of the knitting-needles, accompanied by epigrammatic speech. The elder girl, prim and tidy, with her work before her, is by her mother's side; and the brother, between the two groups, keeps assuring himself by perpetual search that none of his favorite means of amusement are escaping from his pockets. The father is already very proud of the astonishing and growing intelligence of his little girl. From a very early age he has been in the habit of taking her with him in his drives about the neighborhood, "standing between her father's knees as he drove leisurely," so that she has drunk in knowledge of the country and of country folk at all her pores. An old-fashioned child, already living in a world of her own imagination, impressible to her finger-tips, and willing to give her views on any subject. The first book that George Eliot read, so far as I have been able to ascertain, was a little volume published in 1822, entitled "The Linnet's Life," which she gave to me in the last year of her life, at Witley. It bears the following inscription, written some time before she gave it to me: "This little book is the first present I ever remember having received from my father. Let any one who thinks of me with some tenderness after I am dead take care of this book for my sake. It made me very happy when I held it in my little hands, and read it over and over again; and thought the pictures beautiful, especially the one where the linnet is feeding her young." It must, I think, have been very shortly after she received this present that an old friend of the family, who was in the habit of coming as a visitor to Griff from time to time, used occasionally to bring a book in his hand for the little girl. I very well remember her expressing to me deep gratitude for this early ministration to her childish delights; and Mr. Burne Jones has been kind enough to tell me of a conversation with George Eliot about children's books, when she also referred to this old gentleman's kindness. They were agreeing in disparagement of some of the books that the rising generation take their pleasure in, and she recalled the dearth of child-literature in her own home, and her passionate delight and total absorption in �sop's Fables (given to her by the aforesaid old gentleman), the possession of which had opened new worlds to her imagination. Mr. Burne Jones particularly remembers how she laughed till the tears ran down her face in recalling her infantine enjoyment of the humor in the fable of Mercury and the Statue-seller. Having so few books at this time, she read them again and again, until she knew them by heart. One of them was a Joe Miller jest-book, with the stories from which she used greatly to astonish the family circle. But the beginning of her serious reading-days did not come till later. Meantime her talent for observation gained a glorious new field for employment in her first journey from home, which took place in 1826. Her father and mother took her with them on a little trip into Derbyshire and Staffordshire, where she saw Mr. Evans's relations, and they came back through Lichfield, sleeping at the Swan.[3] They were away only a week, from the 18th to the 24th of May; but "what time is little" to an imaginative, observant child of seven on her first journey? About this time a deeply felt crisis occurred in her life, as her brother had a pony given to him, to which he became passionately attached. He developed an absorbing interest in riding, and cared less and less to play with his sister. The next important event happened in her eighth or ninth year, when she was sent to Miss Wallington's school at Nuneaton with her sister. This was a much larger school than Miss Lathom's, there being some thirty girls, boarders. The principal governess was Miss Lewis, who became then, and remained for many years after, Mary Ann Evans's most intimate friend and principal correspondent, and I am indebted to the letters addressed to her from 1836 to 1842 for most of the information concerning that period. Books now became a passion with the child; she read everything she could lay hands on, greatly troubling the soul of her mother by the consumption of candles as well as of eyesight in her bedroom. From a subsequent letter it will be seen that she was "early supplied with works of fiction by those who kindly sought to gratify her appetite for reading." It must have been about this time that the episode occurred in relation to "Waverley" which is mentioned by Miss Simcox in her article in the June, 1881, number of the _Nineteenth Century Review_. It was quite new to me, and, as it is very interesting, I give it in Miss Simcox's own words: "Somewhere about 1827 a friendly neighbor lent 'Waverley' to an elder sister of little Mary Ann Evans. It was returned before the child had read to the end, and, in her distress at the loss of the fascinating volume, she began to write out the story as far as she had read it for herself, beginning naturally where the story begins with Waverley's adventures at Tully Veolan, and continuing until the surprised elders were moved to get her the book again." Miss Simcox has pointed out the reference to this in the motto of the 57th chapter of "Middlemarch:" "They numbered scarce eight summers when a name Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame At penetration of the quickening air: His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu, Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor, Making the little world their childhood knew Large with a land of mountain, lake, and scaur, And larger yet with wonder, love, belief Towards Walter Scott, who, living far away, Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief. The book and they must part, but, day by day, In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran, They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan." Miss Simcox also mentions that "Elia divided her childish allegiance with Scott, and she remembered feasting with singular pleasure upon an extract in some stray almanac from the essay in commemoration of 'Captain Jackson and his slender ration of Single Gloucester.' This is an extreme example of the general rule that a wise child's taste in literature is sounder than adults generally venture to believe." We know, too, from the "Mill on the Floss" that the "History of the Devil," by Daniel Defoe, was a favorite. The book is still religiously preserved at Griff, with its pictures just as Maggie looked at them. "The Pilgrim's Progress," also, and "Rasselas" had a large share of her affections. At Miss Wallington's the growing girl soon distinguished herself by an easy mastery of the usual school-learning of her years, and there, too, the religious side of her nature was developed to a remarkable degree. Miss Lewis was an ardent Evangelical Churchwoman, and exerted a strong influence on her young pupil, whom she found very sympathetically inclined. But Mary Ann Evans did not associate freely with her schoolfellows, and her friendship with Miss Lewis was the only intimacy she indulged in. On coming home for their holidays the sister and brother began, about this time, the habit of acting charades together before the Griff household and the aunts, who were greatly impressed with the cleverness of the performance; and the girl was now recognized in the family circle as no ordinary child. Another epoch presently succeeded, on her removal to Miss Franklin's school at Coventry, in her thirteenth year. She was probably then very much what she has described her own Maggie at the age of thirteen: "A creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of home in it. No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the inward, that painful collisions come of it." In _Our Times_ of June, 1881, there is a paper by a lady whose mother was at school with Mary Ann Evans, which gives some interesting particulars of the Miss Franklins. "They were daughters of a Baptist minister who had preached for many years in Coventry, and who inhabited, during his pastorate, a house in the chapel-yard almost exactly resembling that of Rufus Lyon in 'Felix Holt.' For this venerable gentleman Miss Evans, as a schoolgirl, had a great admiration, and I, who can remember him well, can trace in Rufus Lyon himself many slight resemblances, such as the 'little legs,' and the habit of walking up and down when composing. Miss Rebecca Franklin was a lady of considerable intellectual power, and remarkable for her elegance in writing and conversation, as well as for her beautiful calligraphy. In her classes for English Composition Mary Ann Evans was, from her first entering the school, far in advance of the rest; and while the themes of the other children were read, criticised, and corrected in class, hers were reserved for the private perusal and enjoyment of the teacher, who rarely found anything to correct. Her enthusiasm for music was already very strongly marked, and her music-master, a much-tried man, suffering from the irritability incident to his profession, reckoned on his hour with her as a refreshment to his wearied nerves, and soon had to confess that he had no more to teach her. In connection with this proficiency in music, my mother recalls her sensitiveness at that time as being painfully extreme. When there were visitors, Miss Evans, as the best performer in the school, was sometimes summoned to the parlor to play for their amusement, and though suffering agonies from shyness and reluctance, she obeyed with all readiness, but, on being released, my mother has often known her to rush to her room and throw herself on the floor in an agony of tears. Her schoolfellows loved her as much as they could venture to love one whom they felt to be so immeasurably superior to themselves, and she had playful nicknames for most of them. My mother, who was delicate, and to whom she was very kind, was dubbed by her 'Miss Equanimity.' A source of great interest to the girls, and of envy to those who lived farther from home, was the weekly cart which brought Miss Evans new-laid eggs and other delightful produce of her father's farm." In talking about these early days, my wife impressed on my mind the debt she felt that she owed to the Miss Franklins for their excellent instruction, and she had also the very highest respect for their moral qualities. With her chameleon-like nature she soon adopted their religious views with intense eagerness and conviction, although she never formally joined the Baptists or any other communion than the Church of England. She at once, however, took a foremost place in the school, and became a leader of prayer-meetings among the girls. In addition to a sound English education the Miss Franklins managed to procure for their pupils excellent masters for French, German, and music; so that, looking to the lights of those times, the means of obtaining knowledge were very much above the average for girls. Her teachers, on their side, were very proud of their exceptionally gifted scholar; and years afterwards, when Miss Evans came with her father to live in Coventry, they introduced her to one of their friends, not only as a marvel of mental power, but also as a person "sure to get something up very soon in the way of clothing-club or other charitable undertaking." This year, 1832, was not only memorable for the change to a new and superior school, but it was also much more memorable to George Eliot for the riot which she saw at Nuneaton, on the occasion of the election for North Warwickshire, after the passing of the great Reform Bill, and which subsequently furnished her with the incidents for the riot in "Felix Holt." It was an event to lay hold on the imagination of an impressionable girl of thirteen, and it is thus described in the local newspaper of 29th December, 1832: "On Friday, the 21st December, at Nuneaton, from the commencement of the poll till nearly half-past two, the Hemingites[4] occupied the poll; the numerous plumpers for Sir Eardley Wilmot and the adherents of Mr. Dugdale being constantly interrupted in their endeavors to go to the hustings to give an honest and conscientious vote. The magistrates were consequently applied to, and from the representations they received from all parties, they were at length induced to call in aid a military force. A detachment of the Scots Greys accordingly arrived; but it appearing that that gallant body was not sufficiently strong to put down the turbulent spirit of the mob, a reinforcement was considered by the constituted authorities as absolutely necessary. The tumult increasing, as the detachment of the Scots Greys were called in, the Riot Act was read from the windows of the Newdigate Arms; and we regret to add that both W. P. Inge, Esq., and Colonel Newdigate, in the discharge of their magisterial duties, received personal injuries. "On Saturday the mob presented an appalling appearance, and but for the forbearance of the soldiery numerous lives would have fallen a sacrifice. Several of the officers of the Scots Greys were materially hurt in their attempt to quell the riotous proceedings of the mob. During the day the sub-sheriffs at the different booths received several letters from the friends of Mr. Dugdale, stating that they were outside of the town, and anxious to vote for that gentleman, but were deterred from entering it from fear of personal violence. Two or three unlucky individuals, drawn from the files of the military on their approach to the poll, were cruelly beaten, and stripped literally naked. We regret to add that one life has been sacrificed during the contest, and that several misguided individuals have been seriously injured." The term ending Christmas, 1835, was the last spent at Miss Franklin's. In the first letter of George Eliot's that I have been able to discover, dated 6th January, 1836, and addressed to Miss Lewis, who was at that time governess in the family of the Rev. L. Harper, Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, she speaks of her mother having suffered a great increase of pain, and adds-- "We dare not hope that there will be a permanent improvement. Our anxieties on my mother's account, though so great, have been since Thursday almost lost sight of in the more sudden, and consequently more severe, trial which we have been called on to endure in the alarming illness of my dear father. For four days we had no cessation of our anxiety; but I am thankful to say that he is now considered out of danger, though very much reduced by frequent bleeding and very powerful medicines." In the summer of this year--1836--the mother died, after a long, painful illness, in which she was nursed with great devotion by her daughters. It was their first acquaintance with death; and to a highly wrought, sensitive girl of sixteen such a loss seems an unendurable calamity. "To the old, sorrow is sorrow; to the young, it is despair." Many references will be found in the subsequent correspondence to what she suffered at this time, all summed up in the old popular phrase, "We can have but one mother." In the following spring Christiana was married to Mr. Edward Clarke, a surgeon practising at Meriden, in Warwickshire. One of Mr. Isaac Evans's most vivid recollections is that on the day of the marriage, after the bride's departure, he and his younger sister had "a good cry" together over the break-up of the old home-life, which of course could never be the same with the mother and the elder sister wanting. Twenty-three years later we shall find George Eliot writing, on the death of this sister, that she "had a very special feeling for her--stronger than any third person would think likely." The relation between the sisters was somewhat like that described as existing between Dorothea and Celia in "Middlemarch"--no intellectual affinity, but a strong family affection. In fact, my wife told me, that although Celia was not in any sense a portrait of her sister, she "had Chrissey continually in mind" in delineating Celia's character. But we must be careful not to found too much on such _suggestions_ of character in George Eliot's books; and this must particularly be borne in mind in the "Mill on the Floss." No doubt the early part of Maggie's portraiture is the best autobiographical representation we can have of George Eliot's own feelings in her childhood, and many of the incidents in the book are based on real experiences of family life, but so mixed with fictitious elements and situations that it would be absolutely misleading to trust to it as a true history. For instance, all that happened in real life between the brother and sister was, I believe, that as they grew up their characters, pursuits, and tastes diverged more and more widely. He took to his father's business, at which he worked steadily, and which absorbed most of his time and attention. He was also devoted to hunting, liked the ordinary pleasures of a young man in his circumstances, and was quite satisfied with the circle of acquaintance in which he moved. After leaving school at Coventry he went to a private tutor's at Birmingham, where he imbibed strong High-Church views. His sister had come back from the Miss Franklins' with ultra-Evangelical tendencies, and their differences of opinion used to lead to a good deal of animated argument. Miss Evans, as she now was, could not rest satisfied with a mere profession of faith without trying to shape her own life--and, it may be added, the lives around her--in accordance with her convictions. The pursuit of pleasure was a snare; dress was vanity; society was a danger. "From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation: her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud.... That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism--the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honors to be gathered and worn."[5] After Christiana's marriage the entire charge of the Griff establishment devolved on Mary Ann, who became a most exemplary housewife, learned thoroughly everything that had to be done, and, with her innate desire for perfection, was never satisfied unless her department was administered in the very best manner that circumstances permitted. She spent a great deal of time in visiting the poor, organizing clothing-clubs, and other works of active charity. But over and above this, as will be seen from the following letters, she was always prosecuting an active intellectual life of her own. Mr. Brezzi, a well-known master of modern languages at Coventry, used to come over to Griff regularly to give her lessons in Italian and German. Mr. M'Ewen, also from Coventry, continued her lessons in music, and she got through a large amount of miscellaneous reading by herself. In the evening she was always in the habit of playing to her father, who was very fond of music. But it requires no great effort of imagination to conceive that this life, though full of interests of its own, and the source from whence the future novelist drew the most powerful and the most touching of her creations, was, as a matter of fact, very monotonous, very difficult, very discouraging. It could scarcely be otherwise to a young girl with a full, passionate nature and hungry intellect, shut up in a farmhouse in the remote country. For there was no sympathetic human soul near with whom to exchange ideas on the intellectual and spiritual problems that were beginning to agitate her mind. "You may try, but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl."[6] This is a point of view that must be distinctly recognized by any one attempting to follow the development of George Eliot's character, and it will always be corrected by the other point of view which she has made so prominent in all her own writing--the soothing, strengthening, sacred influences of the home life, the home loves, the home duties. Circumstances in later life separated her from her kindred, but among her last letters it will be seen that she wrote to her brother in May, 1880, that "our long silence has never broken the affection for you that began when we were little ones"[7]--and she expresses her satisfaction in the growing prosperity of himself and all his family. It was a real gratification to her to hear from some Coventry friends that her nephew, the Rev. Frederic Evans, the present rector of Bedworth, was well spoken of as a preacher in the old familiar places, and in our last summer at Witley we often spoke of a visit to Warwickshire, that she might renew the sweet memories of her child-days. No doubt, the very monotony of her life at Griff, and the narrow field it presented for observation of society, added immeasurably to the intensity of a naturally keen mental vision, concentrating into a focus what might perhaps have become dissipated in more liberal surroundings. And though the field of observation was narrow in one sense, it included very various grades of society. Such fine places as Arbury, and Packington, the seat of Lord Aylesford, where she was being constantly driven by her father, affected the imagination and accentuated the social differences--differences which had a profound significance for such a sensitive and such an intellectually commanding character, and which left their mark on it. "No one who has not a strong natural prompting and susceptibility towards such things [the signs and luxuries of ladyhood] and has, at the same time, suffered from the presence of opposite conditions, can understand how powerfully those minor accidents of rank which please the fastidious sense can preoccupy the imagination."[8] The tone of her mind will be seen from the letters written during the following years, and I remember once, after we were married, when I was urging her to write her autobiography, she said, half sighing, half smiling, "The only thing I should care much to dwell on would be the absolute despair I suffered from of ever being able to achieve anything. No one could ever have felt greater despair, and a knowledge of this might be a help to some other struggler"--adding, with a smile, "but, on the other hand, it might only lead to an increase of bad writing." _SUMMARY._ NOVEMBER 22, 1819, TO END OF 1837. Birth at Arbury Farm--Baptism--Character of father--His first marriage and children--Second marriage and children--Removal to Griff--Events at time of birth--Character of country about Griff--Coach communication--Father's position--Anecdotes of father--Character of mother--Mother's family and delicacy--Dame's school--Companionship with brother--Miss Lathom's school at Attleboro--Suffers from fear--Father's pet--Drives with him--First books read--First journey to Staffordshire--Miss Wallington's school at Nuneaton--Miss Lewis, governess--Books read--Religious impressions--Charade acting--Miss Franklin's school at Coventry--Riot at Nuneaton--First letter to Miss Lewis--Mother's illness--Mother's death--Sister Christiana married to Mr. Clarke--Relations with brother--Housekeeper at Griff--Life and studies there. FOOTNOTES: [1] The farm is also known as the South Farm, Arbury. [2] "Felix Holt"--Introduction. [3] See vol. ii. p. 96. [4] A Mr. Heming was the Radical candidate. [5] "Mill on the Floss," chap. iii. book iv. [6] "Daniel Deronda." [7] See vol. iii. [8] "Felix Holt," chap. xxxviii. p. 399. CHAPTER I. In the foregoing introductory sketch I have endeavored to present the influences to which George Eliot was subjected in her youth, and the environment in which she grew up; I am now able to begin the fulfilment of the promise on the titlepage, that the life will be related in her own letters; or, rather, in extracts from her own letters, for no single letter is printed entire from the beginning to the end. I have not succeeded in obtaining any between 6th January, 1836, and 18th August, 1838; but from the latter date the correspondence becomes regular, and I have arranged it as a continuous narrative, with the names of the persons to whom the letters are addressed in the margin. The slight thread of narrative or explanation which I have written to elucidate the letters, where necessary, will hereafter occupy an inside margin, so that the reader will see at a glance what is narrative and what is correspondence, and will be troubled as little as possible with marks of quotation or changes of type. The following opening letter of the series to Miss Lewis describes a first visit to London with her brother: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. 1838.] Let me tell you, though, that I was not at all delighted with the stir of the great Babel, and the less so, probably, owing to the circumstances attending my visit thither. Isaac and I went alone (that seems rather Irish), and stayed only a week, every day of which we worked hard at seeing sights. I think Greenwich Hospital interested me more than anything else. Mr. Isaac Evans himself tells me that what he remembers chiefly impressed her was the first hearing the great bell of St. Paul's. It affected her deeply. At that time she was so much under the influence of religious and ascetic ideas that she would not go to any of the theatres with her brother, but spent all her evenings alone, reading. A characteristic reminiscence is that the chief thing she wanted to buy was Josephus's "History of the Jews;" and at the same bookshop her brother got her this he bought for himself a pair of hunting sketches. In the same letter, alluding to the marriage of one of her friends, she says: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. 1838.] For my part, when I hear of the marrying and giving in marriage that is constantly being transacted, I can only sigh for those who are multiplying earthly ties which, though powerful enough to detach their hearts and thoughts from heaven, are so brittle as to be liable to be snapped asunder at every breeze. You will think that I need nothing but a tub for my habitation to make me a perfect female Diogenes; and I plead guilty to occasional misanthropical thoughts, but not to the indulgence of them. Still, I must believe that those are happiest who are not fermenting themselves by engaging in projects for earthly bliss, who are considering this life merely a pilgrimage, a scene calling for diligence and watchfulness, not for repose and amusement. I do not deny that there may be many who can partake with a high degree of zest of all the lawful enjoyments the world can offer, and yet live in near communion with their God--who can warmly love the creature, and yet be careful that the Creator maintains his supremacy in their hearts; but I confess that, in my short experience and narrow sphere of action, I have never been able to attain to this. I find, as Dr. Johnson said respecting his wine, total abstinence much easier than moderation. I do not wonder you are pleased with Pascal;[9] his thoughts may be returned to the palate again and again with increasing rather than diminished relish. I have highly enjoyed Hannah More's letters; the contemplation of so blessed a character as hers is very salutary. "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises," is a valuable admonition. I was once told that there was nothing out of myself to prevent my becoming as eminently holy as St. Paul; and though I think that is too sweeping an assertion, yet it is very certain we are generally too low in our aims, more anxious for safety than sanctity, for place than purity, forgetting that each involves the other, and that, as Doddridge tells us, to rest satisfied with any attainments in religion is a fearful proof that we are ignorant of the very first principles of it. O that we could live only for eternity! that we could realize its nearness! I know you do not love quotations, so I will not give you one; but if you do not distinctly remember it, do turn to the passage in Young's "Infidel Reclaimed," beginning, "O vain, vain, vain all else eternity," and do love the lines for my sake. I really feel for you, sacrificing, as you are, your own tastes and comforts for the pleasure of others, and that in a manner the most trying to rebellious flesh and blood; for I verily believe that in most cases it requires more of a martyr's spirit to endure, with patience and cheerfulness, daily crossings and interruptions of our petty desires and pursuits, and to rejoice in them if they can be made to conduce to God's glory and our own sanctification, than even to lay down our lives for the truth. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 6th Nov. 1838.] I can hardly repress a sort of indignation towards second causes. That your time and energies should be expended in ministering to the petty interests of those far beneath you in all that is really elevating is about as _bienséant_ as that I should set fire to a goodly volume to light a match by! I have had a very unsettled life lately--Michaelmas, with its onerous duties and anxieties, much company (for us) and little reading, so that I am ill prepared for corresponding with profit or pleasure. I am generally in the same predicament with books as a glutton with his feast, hurrying through one course that I may be in time for the next, and so not relishing or digesting either; not a very elegant illustration, but the best my organs of ideality and comparison will furnish just now. I have just begun the "Life of Wilberforce," and I am expecting a rich treat from it. There is a similarity, if I may compare myself with such a man, between his temptations, or rather _besetments_, and my own, that makes his experience very interesting to me. O that I might be made as useful in my lowly and obscure station as he was in the exalted one assigned to him! I feel myself to be a mere cumberer of the ground. May the Lord give me such an insight into what is truly good that I may not rest contented with making Christianity a mere addendum to my pursuits, or with tacking it as a fringe to my garments! May I seek to be sanctified wholly! My nineteenth birthday will soon be here (the 22d)--an awakening signal. My mind has been much clogged lately by languor of body, to which I am prone to give way, and for the removal of which I shall feel thankful. We have had an oratorio at Coventry lately, Braham, Phillips, Mrs. Knyvett, and Mrs. Shaw--the last, I think, I shall attend. I am not fitted to decide on the question of the propriety or lawfulness of such exhibitions of talent and so forth, because I have no soul for music. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." I am a tasteless person, but it would not cost me any regrets if the only music heard in our land were that of strict worship, nor can I think a pleasure that involves the devotion of all the time and powers of an immortal being to the acquirement of an expertness in so useless (at least in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred) an accomplishment, can be quite pure or elevating in its tendency. The above remarks on oratorio are the more surprising because, two years later, when Miss Evans went to the Birmingham festival, in September, 1840, previous to her brother's marriage, she was affected to an extraordinary degree, so much so that Mrs. Isaac Evans--then Miss Rawlins--told me that the attention of people sitting near was attracted by her hysterical sobbing. And in all her later life music was one of the chiefest delights to her, and especially oratorio. "Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility to the supreme excitement of music was only one form of that passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and made her faults and virtues all merge in each other--made her affections sometimes an impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from taking the form of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of ambition."[10] The next two letters, dated from Griff--February 6th and March 5th, 1839--are addressed to Mrs. Samuel Evans, a Methodist preacher, the wife of a younger brother of Mr. Robert Evans. They are the more interesting from the fact, which will appear later, that an anecdote related by this aunt during her visit to Griff in 1839 was the germ of "Adam Bede." To what extent this Elizabeth Evans resembled the ideal character of Dinah Morris will also be seen in its place in the history of "Adam Bede." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Samuel Evans, 6th Feb. 1839.] I am so unwilling to believe that you can forget a promise, or to entertain fears respecting your health, that I persuade myself I must have mistaken the terms of the agreement between us, and that I ought to have sent you a letter before I considered myself entitled to one from Wirksworth. However this may be, I feel so anxious to hear of your well-being in every way, that I can no longer rest satisfied without using my only means of obtaining tidings of you. My dear father is not at home to-night, or I should probably have a message of remembrance to give you from him, in addition to the good news that he is as well as he has been for the last two years, and even, I think, better, except that he feels more fatigue after exertion of mind or body than formerly. If you are able to fill a sheet, I am sure both uncle and you would in doing so be complying with the precept, "Lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees." I need not tell you that this is a dry and thirsty land, and I shall be as grateful to you for a draught from your fresh spring as the traveller in the Eastern desert is to the unknown hand that digs a well for him. "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," seems to be my character, instead of that regular progress from strength to strength that marks, even in this world of mistakes, the people that shall, in the heavenly Zion, stand before God. I shall not only suffer, but be delighted to receive, the word of exhortation, and I beg you not to withhold it. If I did not know how little you need human help, I should regret that my ignorance and want of deep feeling in spiritual things prevent me from suggesting profitable or refreshing thoughts; but I dare say I took care to tell you that my desire for correspondence with you was quite one of self-interest. I am thankful to tell you that my dear friends here are all well. I have a faint hope that the pleasure and profit I have felt in your society may be repeated in the summer: there is no place I would rather visit than Wirksworth, or the inhabitants of which have a stronger hold on my affections. In the next letter the touch about Mrs. Fletcher's life is characteristic. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Samuel Evans, 5th Mch. 1839.] My dear father is just now so plunged in business, and that of a fatiguing kind, that I should put your confidence in my love and gratitude to an unreasonably severe trial if I waited until he had leisure to unite with me in filling a sheet. You were very kind to remember my wish to see "Mrs. Fletcher's Life:" I only desire such a spiritual digestion as has enabled _you_ to derive so much benefit from its perusal. I am truly glad to hear that you are less embarrassed with respect to your congregation, etc., than you were when we saw you. I must protest against your making apologies for speaking of yourself, for nothing that relates to you can be uninteresting to me. The unprofitableness you lament in yourself, during your visit to us, had its true cause, not in your lukewarmness, but in the little improvement I sought to derive from your society, and in my lack of humility and Christian simplicity, that makes me willing to obtain credit for greater knowledge and deeper feeling than I really possess. Instead of putting my light under a bushel, I am in danger of ostentatiously displaying a false one. You have much too high an opinion, my dear aunt, of my spiritual condition, and of my personal and circumstantial advantages. My soul seems for weeks together completely benumbed, and when I am aroused from this torpid state, the intervals of activity are comparatively short. I am ever finding excuses for this in the deprivation of outward excitement and the small scope I have for the application of my principles, instead of feeling self-abasement under the consciousness that I abuse precious hours of retirement, which would be eagerly employed in spiritual exercises by many a devoted servant of God who is struggling with worldly cares and occupations. I feel that my besetting sin is the one of all others most destroying, as it is the fruitful parent of them all--ambition, a desire insatiable for the esteem of my fellow-creatures. This seems the centre whence all my actions proceed. But you will perhaps remember, my dear aunt, that I do not attach much value to a disclosure of religious feelings, owing probably to the dominant corruption I have just been speaking of, which "turns the milk of my good purpose all to curd." On 16th March, 1839, in a letter to Miss Lewis, there is a reference to good spirits, which is of the rarest occurrence all through the correspondence: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 16th Mch. 1839.] I am this morning hardly myself, owing to the insuppressible rising of my animal spirits on a deliverance from sick headache; and then the letter continues as to the expediency of reading works of fiction, in answer to a question Miss Lewis had asked: I put out of the question all persons of perceptions so quick, memories so eclectic and retentive, and minds so comprehensive that nothing less than omnivorous reading, as Southey calls it, can satisfy their intellectual man; for (if I may parody the words of Scripture without profaneness) they will gather to themselves all facts, and heap unto themselves all ideas. For such persons we cannot legislate. Again, I would put out of the question standard works, whose contents are matter of constant reference, and the names of whose heroes and heroines briefly, and therefore conveniently, describe characters and ideas--such are "Don Quixote," Butler's "Hudibras," "Robinson Crusoe," "Gil Blas," Byron's Poetical Romances, Southey's ditto, etc. Such, too, are Walter Scott's novels and poems. Such allusions as "He is a perfect Dominie Sampson," "He is as industrious in finding out antiquities, and about as successful, as Jonathan Oldbuck," are likely to become so common in books and conversation that, _always providing_ our leisure is not circumscribed by duty within narrow bounds, we should, I think, qualify ourselves to understand them. Shakespeare has a higher claim than this on our attention; but we have need of as nice a power of distillation as the bee, to suck nothing but honey from his pages. However, as in life we must be exposed to malign influences from intercourse with others, if we would reap the advantages designed for us by making us social beings, so in books. Having cleared our way of what would otherwise have encumbered us, I would ask why is one engaged in the instruction of youth to read, as a purely conscientious and self-denying performance of duty, works whose value to others is allowed to be doubtful? I can only imagine two shadows of reasons. Either that she may be able experimentally to decide on their desirableness for her pupils, or else that there is a certain power exerted by them on the mind that would render her a more efficient "tutress" by their perusal. I would not depreciate the disinterestedness of those who will make trial of the effect on themselves of a cup suspected poisonous, that they may deter another from risking life; but it appears to me a work of supererogation, since there are enough witnesses to its baneful effect on themselves already to put an end to all strife in the matter. The Scriptural declaration, "As face answereth to face in a glass, so the heart of man to man," will exonerate me from the charge of uncharitableness, or too high an estimation of myself, if I venture to believe that the same causes which exist in my own breast to render novels and romances pernicious have their counterpart in that of every fellow-creature. I am, I confess, not an impartial member of a jury in this case; for I owe the culprits a grudge for injuries inflicted on myself. When I was quite a little child I could not be satisfied with the things around me; I was constantly living in a world of my own creation, and was quite contented to have no companions, that I might be left to my own musings, and imagine scenes in which I was chief actress. Conceive what a character novels would give to these Utopias. I was early supplied with them by those who kindly sought to gratify my appetite for reading, and of course I made use of the materials they supplied for building my castles in the air. But it may be said--"No one ever dreamed of recommending children to read them: all this does not apply to persons come to years of discretion, whose judgments are in some degree matured." I answer that men and women are but children of a larger growth: they are still imitative beings. We cannot (at least those who ever read to any purpose at all)--we cannot, I say, help being modified by the ideas that pass through our minds. We hardly wish to lay claim to such elasticity as retains no impress. We are active beings too. We are each one of the _dramatis personæ_ in some play on the stage of life; hence our actions have their share in the effects of our reading. As to the discipline our minds receive from the perusal of fictions, I can conceive none that is beneficial but may be attained by that of history. It is the merit of fictions to come within the orbit of probability: if unnatural they would no longer please. If it be said the mind must have relaxation, "Truth is strange--stranger than fiction." When a person has exhausted the wonders of truth there is no other resort than fiction: till then, I cannot imagine how the adventures of some phantom conjured up by fancy can be more entertaining than the transactions of real specimens of human nature, from which we may safely draw inferences. I dare say Mr. James's "Huguenot" would be recommended as giving an idea of the times of which he writes; but as well may one be recommended to look at landscapes for an idea of English scenery. The real secret of the relaxation talked of is one that would not generally be avowed; but an appetite that wants seasoning of a certain kind cannot be indicative of health. Religious novels are more hateful to me than merely worldly ones: they are a sort of centaur or mermaid, and, like other monsters that we do not know how to class, should be destroyed for the public good as soon as born. The weapons of the Christian warfare were never sharpened at the forge of romance. Domestic fictions, as they come more within the range of imitation, seem more dangerous. For my part, I am ready to sit down and weep at the impossibility of my understanding or barely knowing a fraction of the sum of objects that present themselves for our contemplation in books and in life. Have I, then, any time to spend on things that never existed? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 20th May, 1839.] You allude to the religious, or rather irreligious, contentions that form so prominent a feature in the aspect of public affairs--a subject, you will perhaps be surprised to hear me say, full of interest to me, and on which I am unable to shape an opinion for the satisfaction of my mind. I think no one feels more difficulty in coming to a decision on controverted matters than myself. I do not mean that I have not preferences; but, however congruous a theory may be with my notions, I cannot find that comfortable repose that others appear to possess after having made their election of a class of sentiments. The other day Montaigne's motto came to my mind (it is mentioned by Pascal) as an appropriate one for me--"Que sais-je?"--beneath a pair of balances, though, by-the-bye, it is an ambiguous one, and may be taken in a sense that I desire to reprobate, as well as in a Scriptural one, to which I do not refer. I use it in a limited sense as a representation of my oscillating judgment. On no subject do I veer to all points of the compass more frequently than on the nature of the visible Church. I am powerfully attracted in a certain direction, but, when I am about to settle there, counter-assertions shake me from my position. I cannot enter into details, but when we are together I will tell you all my difficulties--that is, if you will be kind enough to listen. I have been reading the new prize essay on "Schism," by Professor Hoppus, and Milner's "Church History," since I last wrote to you: the former ably expresses the tenets of those who deny that any form of Church government is so clearly dictated in Scripture as to possess a divine right, and, consequently, to be binding on Christians; the latter, you know, exhibits the views of a moderate Evangelical Episcopalian on the inferences to be drawn from ecclesiastical remains. He equally repudiates the loud assertion of a _jus divinum_, to the exclusion of all separatists from the visible Church, though he calmly maintains the superiority of the evidence in favor of Episcopacy, of a moderate kind both in power and extent of diocese, as well as the benefit of a national establishment. I have been skimming the "Portrait of an English Churchman," by the Rev. W. Gresley: this contains an outline of the system of those who exclaim of the Anglican Church as the Jews did of their sacred building (that they do it in as reprehensible a spirit I will not be the judge), "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" is exclusively theirs; while the authors of the Oxford Tracts go a step further, and evince by their compliments to Rome, as a dear though erring sister, and their attempts to give a Romish color to our ordinance, with a very confused and unscriptural statement of the great doctrine of justification, a disposition rather to fraternize with the members of a Church carrying on her brow the prophetical epithets applied by St. John to the scarlet beast, the mystery of iniquity, than with pious Nonconformists. It is true they disclaim all this, and that their opinions are seconded by the extensive learning, the laborious zeal, and the deep devotion of those who propagate them; but a reference to facts will convince us that such has generally been the character of heretical teachers. Satan is too crafty to commit his cause into the hands of those who have nothing to recommend them to approbation. According to their dogmas, the Scotch Church and the foreign Protestant Churches, as well as the non-Episcopalians of our own land, are wanting in the essentials of existence as part of the Church. In the next letter there is the first allusion to authorship, but, from the wording of the sentence, the poem referred to has evidently not been a first attempt. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 17th July, 1839.] I send you some doggerel lines, the crude fruit of a lonely walk last evening when the words of one of our martyrs occurred to me. You must be acquainted with the idiosyncrasy of my authorship, which is, that my effusions, once committed to paper, are like the laws of the Medes and Persians, that alter not. "_Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle._" --2 PETER i. 14. "As o'er the fields by evening's light I stray I hear a still, small whisper--Come away; Thou must to this bright, lovely world soon say Farewell! "The mandate I'd obey, my lamp prepare, Gird up my garments, give my soul to pray'r, And say to earth, and all that breathe earth's air, Farewell! "Thou sun, to whose parental beam I owe All that has gladden'd me while here below, Moon, stars, and covenant-confirming bow, Farewell! "Ye verdant meads, fair blossoms, stately trees, Sweet song of birds and soothing hum of bees, Refreshing odors wafted on the breeze, Farewell! "Ye patient servants of creation's Lord, Whose mighty strength is govern'd by his word, Who raiment, food, and help in toil afford, Farewell! "Books that have been to me as chests of gold, Which, miserlike, I secretly have told, And for them love, health, friendship, peace have sold, Farewell! "Blest volume! whose clear truth-writ page once known, Fades not before heaven's sunshine or hell's moan, To thee I say not, of earth's gifts alone, Farewell! "There shall my new-born senses find new joy, New sounds, new sights, my eyes and ears employ, Nor fear that word that here brings sad alloy, Farewell!" I had a dim recollection that my wife had told me that this poem had been printed somewhere. After a long search I found it in the _Christian Observer_ for January, 1840. The version there published has the two following additional verses, and is signed M. A. E.: "Ye feebler, freer tribes that people air, Ye gaudy insects, making buds your lair, Ye that in water shine and frolic there, Farewell! "Dear kindred, whom the Lord to me has given, Must the strong tie that binds us now be riven? No! say I--only till we meet in heaven, Farewell!" The editor of the _Christian Observer_ has added this note: "We do not often add a note to a poem: but if St. John found no temple in the New Jerusalem, neither will there be any need of a Bible; for we shall not then see through a glass darkly--through the veil of sacraments or the written Word--but face to face. The Bible is God's gift, but not for heaven's use. Still, on the very verge of heaven we may cling to it, after we have bid farewell to everything earthly: and this, perhaps, is what M. A. E. means." In the following letter we already see the tendency to draw illustrations from science: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 4th Sept. 1839.] I have lately led so unsettled a life, and have been so desultory in my employments, that my mind, never of the most highly organized genus, is more than usually chaotic, or, rather, it is like a stratum of conglomerated fragments, that shows here a jaw and rib of some ponderous quadruped, there a delicate alto-relievo of some fern-like plant, tiny shells and mysterious nondescripts incrusted and united with some unvaried and uninteresting but useful stone. My mind presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern; scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton; newspaper topics; morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, and chemistry; reviews and metaphysics--all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast-thickening every-day accession of actual events, relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations. How deplorably and unaccountably evanescent are our frames of mind, as various as the forms and hues of the summer clouds! A single word is sometimes enough to give an entirely new mould to our thoughts--at least, I find myself so constituted; and therefore to me it is pre-eminently important to be anchored within the veil, so that outward things may be unable to send me adrift. Write to me as soon as you can. Remember Michaelmas is coming, and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseating to me that it will be a charity to console me; to reprove and advise me no less. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 22d Nov. 1839.] I have emerged from the slough of domestic troubles, or, rather, to speak quite clearly, "malheurs de cuisine," and am beginning to take a deep breath in my own element, though with a mortifying consciousness that my faculties have become superlatively obtuse during my banishment from it. I have been so self-indulgent as to possess myself of Wordsworth at full length, and I thoroughly like much of the contents of the first three volumes, which I fancy are only the low vestibule of the three remaining ones. I never before met with so many of my own feelings expressed just as I could like them. The distress of the lower classes in our neighborhood is daily increasing, from the scarcity of employment for weavers, and I seem sadly to have handcuffed myself by unnecessary expenditure. To-day is my 20th birthday. This allusion to Wordsworth is interesting, as it entirely expresses the feeling she had to him up to the day of her death. One of the very last books we read together at Cheyne Walk was Mr. Frederick Myers's "Wordsworth" in the "English Men of Letters," which she heartily enjoyed. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 23d Mch. 1840.] I have just received my second lesson in German. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 2d May, 1840, Friday evening.] I know you will be glad to think of me as thoroughly employed, as, indeed, I am to an extent that makes me fear I shall not be able to accomplish everything well. I have engaged, if possible, to complete the chart,[11] the plan of which I sketched out last year, by November next, and I am encouraged to believe that it will answer my purpose to print it. The profits arising from its sale, if any, will go partly to Attleboro Church, and partly to a favorite object of my own. Mrs. Newdigate is very anxious that I should do this, and she permits me to visit her library when I please, in search of any books that may assist me. Will you ask Mr. Craig what he considers the best authority for the date of the apostolical writings? I should like to carry the chart down to the Reformation, if my time and resources will enable me to do so. We are going to have a clothing-club, the arrangement and starting of which are left to me. I am ashamed to run the risk of troubling you, but I should be very grateful if you could send me an abstract of the rules by which yours is regulated. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st May, 1840.] Our house is now, and will be for the next two months, miserably noisy and disorderly with the musical operations of masons, carpenters, and painters. You know how abhorrent all this is to my tastes and feelings, taking all the spice out of my favorite little epithet, "this working-day world:" I can no longer use it figuratively. How impressive must the gradual rise of Solomon's Temple have been! each prepared mass of virgin marble laid in reverential silence. I fancy Heber has compared it to the growth of a palm. Your nice miniature chart, which I shall carefully treasure up, has quite satisfied me that Dr. Pearson, at least, has not realized my conceptions, though it has left me still dubious as to my own power of doing so. I will just (if you can bear to hear more of the matter) give you an idea of the plan, which may have partly faded from your memory. The series of perpendicular columns will successively contain the Roman emperors, with their dates, the political and religious state of the Jews, the bishops, remarkable men, and events in the several churches, a column being devoted to each of the chief ones, the aspect of heathenism and Judaism towards Christianity, the chronology of the apostolical and patristical writings, schisms, and heresies, General Councils, eras of corruption (under which head the remarks would be general), and I thought possibly an application of the apocalyptic prophecies, which would merely require a few figures and not take up room. I think there must be a break in the chart after the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, and I have come to a determination not to carry it beyond the first acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Pope by Phocas, in 606, when Mohammedanism became a besom of destruction in the hand of the Lord, and completely altered the aspect of ecclesiastical history. So much for this, at present, airy project, about which I hope never to tease you more. Mr. Harper[12] lent me a little time ago a work by the Rev. W. Gresley, begging me to read it, as he thought it was calculated to make me a proselyte to the opinions it advocates. I had skimmed the book before ("Portrait of an English Churchman"), but I read it attentively a second time, and was pleased with the spirit of piety that breathes throughout. His last work is one in a similar style ("The English Citizen"), which I have cursorily read; and, as they are both likely to be seen by you, I want to know your opinion of them. Mine is this: that they are sure to have a powerful influence on the minds of small readers and shallow thinkers, as, from the simplicity and clearness with which the author, by his _beau-idéal_ characters, enunciates his sentiments, they furnish a magazine of easily wielded weapons for _morning-calling_ and _evening-party_ controversialists, as well as that really honest minds will be inclined to think they have found a resting-place amid the footballing of religious parties. But it appears to me that there is unfairness in arbitrarily selecting a train of circumstances and a set of characters as a development of a class of opinions. In this way we might make atheism appear wonderfully calculated to promote social happiness. I remember, as I dare say you do, a very amiable atheist depicted by Bulwer in "Devereux;" and for some time after the perusal of that book, which I read seven or eight years ago,[13] I was considerably shaken by the impression that religion was not a requisite to moral excellence. Have you not alternating seasons of mental stagnation and activity? just such as the political economists say there must be in a nation's pecuniary condition--all one's precious specie, Time, going out to procure a stock of commodities, while one's own manufactures are too paltry to be worth vending. I am just in that condition--partly, I think, owing to my not having met with any steel to sharpen my edge against for the last three weeks. I am going to read a volume of the Oxford Tracts and the "Lyra Apostolica;" the former I almost shrink from the labor of conning, but the other I confess I am attracted towards by some highly poetical extracts that I have picked up in various quarters. I have just bought Mr. Keble's "Christian Year," a volume of sweet poetry that perhaps you know. The fields of poesy look more lovely than ever, now I have hedged myself in the geometrical regions of fact, where I can do nothing but draw parallels and measure differences in a double sense. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 26th May, 1840.] [14]I will only hint that there seems a probability of my being an unoccupied damsel, of my being severed from all the ties that have hitherto given my existence the semblance of a usefulness beyond that of making up the requisite quantum of animal matter in the universe. A second important intimation respecting my worthy self is one that, I confess, I impart without one sigh, though perhaps you will think my callousness discreditable. It is that Seeley & Burnside have just published a Chart of Ecclesiastical History, doubtless giving to my airy vision a local habitation and a name. I console all my little regrets by thinking that what is thus evidenced to be a desideratum has been executed much better than if left to my slow fingers and slower head. I fear I am laboriously doing nothing, for I am beguiled by the fascination that the study of languages has for my capricious mind. I could e'en give myself up to making discoveries in the world of words. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, in London, Whit-Wednesday, June, 1840.] May I trouble you to procure for me an Italian book recommended by Mr. Brezzi--Silvio Pellico's "Le mie Prigioni;" if not, "Storia d'Italia"? If they are cheap, I should like both. I shall have, I hope, a little trip with my father next week into Derbyshire, and this "lark" will probably be beneficial to me; so do not imagine I am inviting you to come and hear moaning, when you need all attainable relaxation. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 23d June, 1840.] Your letter greeted me last night on my arrival from Staffordshire. The prospectus of Mr. Henslow's work is as marvellous to my ignorant conceptions as the prophecies of the wonders of the steam-engine would have been to some British worthy in the days of Caractacus. I can only gape as he would probably have done. I hope Mr. H. has not imitated certain show-keepers, who give so exaggerated a representation of their giantess, on the outside, that the spectators have disappointment for their cash within. If I do not see you, how shall I send your "Don Quixote," which I hope soon to finish? I have been sadly interrupted by other books that have taken its scanty allowance of time, or I should have made better haste with it. Will you try to get me Spenser's "Faery Queen"? the cheapest edition, with a glossary, which is quite indispensable, together with a clear and correct type. I have had some treats on my little excursion, not the least of which was the gazing on some--albeit the smallest--of the "everlasting hills," and on those noblest children of the earth, fine, healthy trees, as independent in their beauty as virtue; set them where you will, they adorn, and need not adornment. Father indulged me with a sight of Ashborne Church, the finest mere parish church in the kingdom--in the _interior_; of Alton Gardens, where I saw actually what I have often seen mentally--the bread-fruit tree, the fan-palm, and the papyrus; and last, of Lichfield Cathedral, where, besides the exquisite architectural beauties, both external and internal, I saw Chantrey's famous monument of the Sleeping Children. There is a tasteless monument to the learned and brilliant female pedant of Lichfield, Miss Seward, with a poor epitaph by Sir Walter Scott. In the town we saw a large monument erected to Johnson's memory, showing his Titanic body, in a sitting posture, on the summit of a pedestal which is ornamented with bas-reliefs of three passages in his life: his penance in Uttoxeter Market, his chairing on the shoulders of his schoolmates, and his listening to the preaching of Sacheverel. The statue is opposite to the house in which Johnson was born--altogether inferior to that in St. Paul's, which shook me almost as much as a real glance from the literary monarch. I am ashamed to send you so many ill-clothed nothings. My excuse shall be a state of head that calls for four leeches before I can attack Mrs. Somerville's "Connection of the Physical Sciences." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, July, Monday morning, 1840.] I write with a very tremulous hand, as you will perceive; both this, and many other defects in my letter, are attributable to a very mighty cause--no other than the boiling of currant jelly! I have had much of this kind of occupation lately, and I grieve to say I have not gone through it so cheerfully as the character of a Christian who professes to do _all_, even the most trifling, duty, as the Lord demands. My mind is consequently run all wild, and bears nothing but _dog-roses_. I am truly obliged to you for getting me Spenser. How shall I send to you "Don Quixote," which I have quite finished? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th July, 1840.] I believe it is decided that father and I should leave Griff and take up our residence somewhere in the neighborhood of Coventry, if we can obtain a suitable house, and this is at present a matter of anxiety. So you see I am likely still to have a home where I can independently welcome you. I am really so plunged in an abyss of books, preserves, and sundry _important trivialities_, that I must send you this bare proof that I have not cast the remembrance of you to a dusty corner of my heart. Ever believe that "my heart is as thy heart," that you may rely on me as a second self, and that I shall, with my usual selfishness, lose no opportunity of gratifying my duplicate. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 12th Aug. 1840.] The Epistle to the Colossians is pre-eminently rich in the coloring with which it portrays the divine fulness contained in the Saviour, contrasted with the beggarly elements that a spirit of self-righteousness would, in some way, mingle with the light of life, the filthy rags it would tack round the "fine raiment" of his righteousness. I have been reading it in connection with a train of thought suggested by the reading of "Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, one of the most eloquent, acute, and pious of writers. Five numbers only have yet appeared. Have you seen them? If not, I should like to send you an abstract of his argument. I have gulped it (pardon my coarseness) in a most reptile-like fashion. I must _chew_ it thoroughly to facilitate its assimilation with my mental frame. When your pupils can relish Church history, I venture to recommend the chart lately published by Seeley & Burnside--far superior in conception to mine--as being more compendious, yet answering the purpose of presenting epochs as nuclei round which less important events instinctively cluster. Mrs. John Cash of Coventry, who was then Miss Mary Sibree, daughter of a Nonconformist minister there, and whose acquaintance Miss Evans made a year or two later in Coventry, writes in regard to this book of Isaac Taylor's: "In her first conversations with my father and mother, they were much interested in learning in what high estimation she held the writings of Isaac Taylor. My father _thought_ she was a little disappointed on hearing that he was a Dissenter. She particularly enjoyed his 'Saturday Evening,' and spoke in years after to me of his 'Physical Theory of Another Life,' as exciting thought and leading speculation further than he would have desired. When his 'Ancient Christianity' was published in numbers, Miss Evans took it in, and kindly forwarded the numbers to us. From the impression made on my own mind by unfavorable facts about 'The Fathers,' and from her own subsequent references to this work, I am inclined to think it had its influence in unsettling her views of Christianity." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 17th Sept. 1840.] I have thought of you as _the_ one who has ever shown herself so capable of consideration for my weakness and sympathy in my warm and easily fastened affections. My imagination is an enemy that must be cast down ere I can enjoy peace or exhibit uniformity of character. I know not which of its caprices I have most to dread--that which incites it to spread sackcloth "above, below, around," or that which makes it "cheat my eye with blear illusion, and beget strange dreams" of excellence and beauty in beings and things of only working-day price. The beautiful heavens that we have lately enjoyed awaken in me an indescribable sensation of exultation in existence, and aspiration after all that is suited to engage an immaterial nature. I have not read very many of Mr. B.'s poems, nor any with much attention. I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth of literature when I can get strong soup--such, for instance, as Shelley's "Cloud," the five or six stanzas of which contain more poetic metal than is beat out in all Mr. B.'s pages. You must know I have had bestowed on me the very pretty cognomen of Clematis, which, in the floral language, means "mental beauty." I cannot find in my heart to refuse it, though, like many other appellations, it has rather the appearance of a satire than a compliment. _Addio!_ I will send your floral name in my next, when I have received my dictionary. My hand and mind are wearied with writing four pages of German and a letter of business. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st Oct. 1840.] My dear Veronica--which, being interpreted, is "fidelity in friendship"--Last week I was absent from home from Wednesday to Saturday, in quest of the "coy maiden," Pleasure--at least, nominally so, the real motive being rather to gratify another's feeling.[15] I heard the "Messiah" on Thursday morning at Birmingham, and some beautiful selections from other oratories of Handel and Haydn on Friday. With a stupid, drowsy sensation, produced by standing sentinel over damson cheese and a warm stove, I cannot do better than ask you to read, if accessible, Wordsworth's short poem on the "Power of Sound," with which I have just been delighted. I have made an alteration in my plans with Mr. Brezzi, and shall henceforward take Italian and German alternately, so that I shall not be liable to the consciousness of having imperative employment for every interstice of time. There seems a greater affinity between German and my mind than Italian, though less new to me, possesses. I am reading Schiller's "Maria Stuart," and Tasso. I was pleased with a little poem I learned a week or two ago in German; and, as I want you to like it, I have just put the idea it contains into English doggerel, which quite fails to represent the beautiful simplicity and nature of the original, but yet, I hope, will give you sufficiently its sense to screen the odiousness of the translation. _Eccola_: QUESTION AND ANSWER. "'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?' 'That can I not tell thee, my child; Not one on the bosom of earth e'er grows But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.' "'Would I'd a rose on my bosom to lie, But I shrink from the piercing thorn: I long, but I dare not its point defy; I long, and I gaze forlorn.' "'Not so, O my child--round the stem again Thy resolute fingers entwine; Forego not the joy for its sister, pain-- Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine.'" Would not a parcel reach you by railway? This is the first allusion to the new means of locomotion, which would, no doubt, be attracting much interest in the Griff household, as valuation was a large part of Mr. Evans's business. Long years after, George Eliot wrote: "Our midland plains have never lost their familiar expression and conservative spirit for me; yet at every other mile, since I first looked on them, some sign of world-wide change, some new direction of human labor, has wrought itself into what one may call the speech of the landscape.... There comes a crowd of burly navvies with pickaxes and barrows, and while hardly a wrinkle is made in the fading mother's face, or a new curve of health in the blooming girl's, the hills are cut through, or the breaches between them spanned, we choose our level, and the white steam-pennon flies along it." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 27th Oct. 1840.] My only reason for writing is to obtain a timely promise that you will spend your holidays chiefly with me, that we may once more meet among scenes which, now I am called on to leave them, I find to have _grown in_ to my affections. Carlyle says that to the artisans of Glasgow the world is not one of blue skies and a green carpet, but a world of copperas-fumes, low cellars, hard wages, "striking," and whiskey; and if the recollection of this picture did not remind me that gratitude should be my reservoir of feeling, that into which all that comes from above or around should be received as a source of fertilization for my soul, I should give a lachrymose parody of the said description, and tell you all-seriously what I now tell you playfully, that mine is too often a world such as Wilkie can so well paint, a walled-in world furnished with all the details which he remembers so accurately, and the least interesting part whereof is often what I suppose must be designated the intelligent; but I deny that it has even a comparative claim to the appellation, for give me a three-legged stool, and it will call up associations--moral, poetical, mathematical--if I do but ask it, while some human beings have the odious power of contaminating the very images that are enshrined as our soul's arcana. Their baleful touch has the same effect as would a uniformity in the rays of light--it turns all objects to pale lead-color. O how luxuriously joyous to have the wind of heaven blow on one after being _stived_ in a human atmosphere--to feel one's heart leap up after the pressure that Shakespeare so admirably describes: "When a man's wit is not seconded by the forward chick understanding, it strikes a man as dead as a large reckoning in a small room." But it is time I check this Byronic invective, and, in doing so, I am reminded of Corinne's, or rather Oswald's, reproof--"La vie est un _combat_ pas un _hymne_." We should aim to be like a plant in the chamber of sickness--dispensing purifying air even in a region that turns all pale its verdure, and cramps its instinctive propensity to expand. Society is a wide nursery of plants, where the hundreds decompose to nourish the future ten, after giving collateral benefits to their contemporaries destined for a fairer garden. An awful thought! one so heavy that if our souls could once sustain its whole weight, or, rather, if its whole weight were once to drop on them, they would break and burst their tenements. How long will this continue? The cry of the martyrs heard by St. John finds an echo in every heart that, like Solomon's, groans under "the outrage and oppression with which earth is filled." Events are now so momentous, and the elements of society in so chemically critical a state, that a drop seems enough to change its whole form. I am reading Harris's "Great Teacher," and am _innig bewegt_, as a German would say, by its stirring eloquence, which leaves you no time or strength for a cold estimate of the writer's strict merits. I wish I could read some extracts to you. Isaac Taylor's work is not yet complete. When it is so, I hope to reperuse it. Since I wrote to you I have had Aimé Martin's work, "L'Education des Mères," lent to me, and I have found it to be the real Greece whence "Woman's Mission" has only imported to us a few marbles--but! Martin is a _soi-disant_ rational Christian, if I mistake him not. I send you an epitaph which he mentions on a tomb in Paris--that of a mother: "Dors en paix, O ma mère, ton fils t'obeira toujours." I am reading eclectically Mrs. Hemans's poems, and venture to recommend to your perusal, if unknown to you, one of the longest ones--"The Forest Sanctuary." I can give it my pet adjective--exquisite. I have adopted as my motto, "_Certum pete finem_"--seek a sure end.[16] [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 5th Dec. 1840.] Come when you would best like to do so: if my heart beat at all at the time, it will be with a more rapid motion than the general, from the joy of seeing you. I cannot promise you more than calmness when that flush is past, for I am aweary, aweary--longing for rest, which seems to fly from my very anticipations. But this wrought-up sensitiveness which makes me shrink from all contact is, I know, not for communication or sympathy, and is, from that very character, a kind of trial best suited for me. Whatever tends to render us ill-contented with ourselves, and more earnest aspirants after perfect truth and goodness, is gold, though it come to us all molten and burning, and we know not our treasure until we have had long smarting. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st Dec. 1840.] It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in cold weather. I understand the Icelanders have much national poetry, but I guess it was written in the neighborhood of the boiling springs. I will promise to be as cheerful and as Christmas-like as my rickety body and chameleon-like spirits will allow. I am about to commence the making of mince-pies, with all the interesting sensations characterizing young enterprise or effort. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 27th Jan. 1841.] Happily, the moody, melancholy temperament has some counterbalancing advantages to those of the sanguine: it _does_ sometimes meet with results more favorable than it expected, and by its knack of imagining the pessimus, cheats the world of its power to disappoint. The very worm-like originator of this coil of sentiment is the fact that you write more cheerfully of yourself than I had been thinking of you, and that, _ergo_, I am pleased. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 11th Feb. 1841.] On Monday and Tuesday my father and I were occupied with the sale of furniture at our new house: it is probable that we shall migrate thither in a month. I shall be incessantly hurried until after our departure, but at present I have to be grateful for a smooth passage through contemplated difficulties. Sewing is my staple article of commerce with the hard trader, Time. Now the wind has veered to the south I hope to do much more, and that with greater zest than I have done for many months--I mean, of all kinds. I have been reading the three volumes of the "Life and Times of Louis the Fourteenth," and am as eagerly waiting for the fourth and last as any voracious novel-reader for Bulwer's last. I am afraid I am getting quite martial in my spirit, and, in the warmth of my sympathy for Turenne and Condé, losing my hatred of war. Such a conflict between _individual_ and _moral_ influence is no novelty. But certainly war, though the heaviest scourge with which the divine wrath against sin is manifested in Time, has been a necessary vent for impurities and a channel for tempestuous passions that must have otherwise made the whole earth, like the land of the devoted Canaanites, to vomit forth the inhabitants thereof. Awful as such a sentiment appears, it seems to me that in the present condition of man (and I do not mean this in the sense that Cowper does), such a purgation of the body politic is probably essential to its health. A foreign war would soon put an end to our national humors, that are growing to so alarming a head. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th Mch. 1841.] What do you think of the progress of architecture as a subject for poetry? I am just about to set out on a purchasing expedition to Coventry: you may therefore conceive that I am full of little plans and anxieties, and will understand why I should be brief. I hope by the close of next week that we and our effects shall be deposited at Foleshill, and until then and afterwards I shall be fully occupied, so that I am sure you will not expect to hear from me for the next six weeks. One little bit of unreasonableness you must grant me--the request for a letter from yourself within that time. _SUMMARY._ AUGUST 18, 1838, TO MARCH 8, 1841. Letters to Miss Lewis--First visit to London--Religious asceticism--Pascal--Hannah More's letters--Young's "Infidel Reclaimed"--Michaelmas visitors--"Life of Wilberforce"--Nineteenth birthday--Oratorio at Coventry--Religious objections to music--Letters to Mrs. Samuel Evans--Religious reflections--Besetting sin ambition--Letters to Miss Lewis--Objections to fiction-reading--Religious contentions on the nature of the visible Church--First poem--Account of books read and studies pursued--Wordsworth--Twentieth birthday--German begun--Plan of Chart of Ecclesiastical History--Religious controversies--Oxford Tracts--"Lyra Apostolica"--"Christian Year"--Chart of Ecclesiastical History forestalled--Italian begun--Trip to Derbyshire and Staffordshire--"Don Quixote"--Spenser's "Faery Queen"--Mrs. Somerville's "Connection of the Physical Sciences"--Dislike of housekeeping work--Removal to Coventry decided--"Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, and Mrs. John Cash's impression of its effect--Determination not to feed on the broth of literature--Visit to Birmingham to hear the "Messiah"--Reading Schiller's "Maria Stuart," and Tasso--Translation of German poem--Depression of surroundings at Griff--Reading Harris's "Great Teacher," Aimé Martin's "L'Education des Mères," and Mrs. Hemans's Poems--Selling furniture at new house--Sewing--Reading "Life and Times of Louis XIV."--Removal to Foleshill road, Coventry. FOOTNOTES: [9] Given to her as a school prize when she was fourteen. [10] "Mill on the Floss," chap. v. book vi. [11] Of ecclesiastical history. [12] The Squire of Coton. [13] When she would be thirteen years old. [14] Written probably in view of her brother's marriage. [15] Visit to Miss Rawlins, her brother's _fiancée_. [16] By a curious coincidence, when she became Mrs. Cross, this actually was her motto. CHAPTER II. New circumstances now created a change almost amounting to a revolution in Miss Evans's life. Mr. Isaac Evans, who had been associated for some time with his father in the land-agency business, married, and it was arranged that he should take over the establishment at Griff. This led to the removal in March, 1841, of Mr. Robert Evans and his daughter to a house on the Foleshill road, in the immediate neighborhood of Coventry. The house is still standing, although considerably altered--a semi-detached house with a good bit of garden round it, and from its upper windows a wide view over the surrounding country, the immediate foreground being unfortunately, however, disfigured by the presence of mills and chimneys. It is town life now instead of country life, and we feel the effects at once in the tone of the subsequent letters. The friendships now formed with Mr. and Mrs. Bray and Miss Sara Hennell particularly, and the being brought within reach of a small circle of cultivated people generally, render this change of residence an exceedingly important factor in George Eliot's development. It chanced that the new house was next door to Mrs. Pears', a sister of Mr. Bray, and as there had been some acquaintance in days gone by between him and the family at Griff, this close neighborhood led to an exchange of visits. The following extracts from letters to Miss Lewis show how the acquaintance ripened, and will give some indications of the first impressions of Coventry life: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, Saturday evening, April, 1841.] Last evening I mentioned you to my neighbor (Mrs. Pears), who is growing into the more precious character of a friend. I have seriously to be thankful for far better health than I have possessed, I think, for years, and I am imperatively called on to trade diligently with this same talent. I am likely to be more and more busy, if I succeed in a project that is just now occupying my thoughts and feelings. I seem to be tried in a contrary mode to that in which most of my dearest friends are being tutored--tried in the most dangerous way--by prosperity. Solomon says, "In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider." It seems to me that a transposition, _vice versâ_, of the admonitions would be equally salutary and just. Truly, as the prophet of Selwyn has told us, "Heaven is formidable in its favors." Not that a wise and grateful reception of blessings obliges us to stretch our faces to the length of one of Cromwell's Barebones; nor to shun that joyous, bird-like enjoyment of things (which, though perishable as to their actual existence, will be embalmed to eternity in the precious spices of gratitude) that is distinct from levity and voluptuousness. I am really crowded with engagements just now, and I have added one to the number of my correspondents. [Illustration: House in Foleshill Road, Coventry.] [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, April, 1841] The whole of last week was devoted to a bride's-maid's[17] duties, and each day of this has been partially occupied in paying or receiving visits. I have a calm in sea and sky that I doubt not will ere long be interrupted. This is not our rest, if we are among those for whom there remaineth one, and to pass through life without tribulation (or, as Jeremy Taylor beautifully says, with only such a measure of it as may be compared to an artificial discord in music, which nurses the ear for the returning harmony) would leave us destitute of one of the marks that invariably accompany salvation, and of that fellowship in the sufferings of the Redeemer which can alone work in us a resemblance to one of the most prominent parts of his divinely perfect character, and enable us to obey the injunction, "In patience possess your souls." I have often observed how, in secular things, active occupation in procuring the necessaries of life renders the character indifferent to trials not affecting that one object. There is an analogous influence produced in the Christian by a vigorous pursuit of duty, a determination to work while it is day. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 28th April, 1841.] One of the penalties women must pay for modern deference to their intellect is, I suppose, that they must give reasons for their conduct, after the fashion of men. The days are past for pleading a woman's reason. The truth is, that the hinderances to my writing have been like the little waves of the brooks that look so lovely just now--they have arisen one after another close to my side, but when I have looked back I have found the ripples too insignificant to be marked in the distance. My father's longer _séjours_ at home than formerly, and multiplied acquaintances and engagements, are really valid excuses for me hitherto, but I do not intend to need them in future; I hope to be a "snapper-up of unconsidered" moments. I have just been interrupted by a visit from a lass of fourteen, who has despoiled me of half an hour, and I am going out to dinner, so that I cannot follow the famous advice, "Hasten slowly." I suppose that you framed your note on the principle that a sharp and sudden sound is the most rousing, but there are _addenda_ about yourself that I want to know, though I dare not ask for them. I do not feel settled enough to write more at present. How is it that Erasmus could write volumes on volumes and multifarious letters besides, while I, whose labors hold about the same relation to his as an ant-hill to a pyramid or a drop of dew to the ocean, seem too busy to write a few? A most posing query! [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, Thursday morning, June, 1841.] I have of late felt a depression that has disordered the vision of my mind's eye and made me _alive_ to what is certainly a fact (though my imagination when I am in health is an adept at concealing it), that I am _alone_ in the world. I do not mean to be so sinful as to say that I have not friends _most_ undeservedly kind and tender, and disposed to form a far too favorable estimate of me, but I mean that I have no one who enters into my pleasures or my griefs, no one with whom I can pour out my soul, no one with the same yearnings, the same temptations, the same delights as myself. I merely mention this as the impression that obtrudes itself when my body tramples on its keeper--(a metaphor borrowed from a menagerie of wild beasts, if it should happen to puzzle you!)--mysterious "connection exquisite of distant worlds" that we present! A few drops of steel will perhaps make me laugh at the simple objects that, in gloom and mist, I conjure into stalking apparitions. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, at Margate, 31st July, 1841.] I am beginning to be interlaced with multiplying ties of duty and affection, that, while they render my new home happier, forbid me to leave it on a pleasure-seeking expedition. I think, indeed, that both my heart and limbs would leap to behold the great and wide sea--that old ocean on which man can leave no trace. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 3d Sept. 1841.] I have been revelling in Nichol's "Architecture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System," and have been in imagination winging my flight from system to system, from universe to universe, trying to conceive myself in such a position and with such a visual faculty as would enable me to enjoy what Young enumerates among the novelties of the "Stranger" man when he bursts the shell to "Behold an infinite of floating worlds Divide the crystal waves of ether pure In endless voyage without port." "Hospitable infinity!" Nichol beautifully says. How should I love to have a thorough-going student with me, that we might read together! We might each alternately employ the voice and the fingers, and thus achieve just twice as much as a poor solitary. I am more impressed than ever with a truth beautifully expressed in "Woman's Mission"--"Learning is only so far valuable as it serves to enlarge and enlighten the bounds of conscience." This I believe it eminently does when pursued humbly and piously, and from a belief that it is a solemn duty to cultivate every faculty of our nature so far as primary obligations allow. There is an exhortation of St. Paul's that I should love to take as my motto: "Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are honest" (you know the continuation)--"if there be _any_ virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." I have had to lament lately that mine is not a _hard-working_ mind--it requires frequent rest. I am violently in love with the Italian fashion of repeating an adjective or adverb, and even noun, to give force to expression: there is so much more fire in it than in our circumlocutory phrases, our dull "verys" and "exceedinglys" and "extremelys." I strongly recommend Hallam to you. I shall read it again if I live. When a sort of haziness comes over the mind, making one feel weary of articulated or written signs of ideas, does not the notion of a less laborious mode of communication, of a perception approaching more nearly to intuition, seem attractive? Nathless, I love words: they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gymnasium of the mind. Without them, in our present condition, our intellectual strength would have no implements. I have been rather humbled in thinking that if I were thrown on an uncivilized island, and had to form a literature for its inhabitants from my own mental stock, how very fragmentary would be the information with which I could furnish them! It would be a good mode of testing one's knowledge to set one's self the task of writing sketches of all subjects that have entered into one's studies entirely from the chronicles of memory. The prevalence of misery and want in this boasted nation of prosperity and glory is appalling, and really seems to call us away from mental luxury. O to be doing some little towards the regeneration of this groaning, travailing creation! I am supine and stupid--overfed with favors--while the haggard looks and piercing glance of want and conscious hopelessness are to be seen in the streets. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st Oct. 1841.] Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love--that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 2d Nov. 1841.] I am going, I hope, to-day to effect a breach in the thick wall of indifference behind which the denizens of Coventry seem inclined to intrench themselves; but I fear I shall fail. This probably refers to the first visit paid by Miss Evans to Mr. and Mrs. Bray at their house. They had met in the previous May at Mrs. Pears'; but although they were at once mutually attracted, the acquaintance does not seem to have been immediately prosecuted further. Now, however, any time lost in the beginning was quickly made up, and it is astonishing how rapidly the most intimate relations were formed. Mr. Bray was a ribbon-manufacturer, well-to-do at that time, and had a charming house, Rosehill, with a beautiful lawn and garden, in the outskirts of Coventry. Only a part of his time was occupied with his business, and he had much leisure and opportunity, of which he availed himself, for liberal self-education and culture. His was a robust, self-reliant mind. Already, in 1839, he had published a work on the "Education of the Feelings," viewed from the phrenological standpoint; and in this year, 1841, appeared his most important book, "The Philosophy of Necessity." He always remained a sincere and complete believer in the science of phrenology. He had married Miss Caroline Hennell, sister of the Mr. Charles Hennell who published, in 1838, "An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity"--a remarkable book, which was translated into German, Strauss contributing a preface to the translation. It will be seen from subsequent letters how greatly Miss Evans was interested in this book--how much she admired it; and the reading of it, combined with the association with her new friends--with the philosophical speculations of Mr. Bray, and with Mrs. Bray's sympathy in her brother's critical and sceptical standpoint--no doubt hastened the change in her attitude towards the dogmas of the old religion. In the Analytical Catalogue of Mr. Chapman's publications, issued in 1852, there is an analysis of Hennell's "Inquiry," done by Miss Evans, which may be inserted here, as giving her idea of the book eleven years later. "The first edition of this work appeared in 1838, when the present strong current of public opinion in favor of free religious discussion had not yet set in; and it probably helped to generate the tone of thought exhibited in more recent works of the same class, to which circumstances have given a wider fame--works which, like the above, in considering questions of Biblical criticism and the philosophy of Christianity, combine high refinement, purity of aim, and candor, with the utmost freedom of investigation, and with a popularity of style which wins them the attention not only of the learned but of the practical. "The author opens his inquiry with an historical sketch, extending from the Babylonish Captivity to the end of the first century, the design of which is to show how, abstracting the idea of the miraculous, or any speciality of divine influence, the gradual development of certain elements in Jewish character, and the train of events in Jewish history, contributed to form a suitable _nidus_ for the production of a character and career like that of Jesus, and how the devoted enthusiasm generated by such a career in his immediate disciples, rendering it easier for them to modify their ideas of the Messiah than to renounce their belief in their Master's Messiahship--the accession of Gentile converts and the destruction of the last remnant of theocracy, necessitating a wider interpretation of Messianic hopes--the junction of Christian ideas with Alexandrian Platonism, and the decrepitude of polytheism, combined to associate the name of Jesus, his Messiahship, his death and his resurrection, with a great moral and religious revolution. This historical sketch, which is under the disadvantage of presenting, synthetically, ideas based on a subsequent analysis, is intended to meet the difficulty so often urged, and which might be held to nullify the value of a critical investigation, that Christianity is a fact for which, if the supposition of a miraculous origin be rejected, no adequate and probable causes can be assigned, and that thus, however defective may be the evidence of the New-Testament history, its acceptance is the least difficult alternative. "In the writer's view, the characteristics of the Essene sect, as traced by Josephus and Philo, justify the supposition that Jesus was educated in their school of philosophy; but with the elevated belief and purity of life which belonged to this sect he united the ardent patriotic ideas which had previously animated Judas of Galilee, who resisted the Roman authority on the ground that God was the only ruler and lord of the Jews. The profound consciousness of genius, a religious fervor which made the idea of the divine ever present to him, patriotic zeal, and a spirit of moral reform, together with a participation in the enthusiastic belief of his countrymen that the long-predicted exaltation of Israel was at hand, combined to produce in the mind of Jesus the gradual conviction that he was himself the Messiah, with whose reign that exaltation would commence. He began, as John the Baptist had already done, to announce 'the kingdom of heaven,' a phrase which, to the Jewish mind, represented the national glorification of Israel; and by his preaching, and the influence of his powerful personality, he won multitudes in Galilee to a participation in his belief that he was the expected Son of David. His public entrance into Jerusalem in the guise which tradition associated with the Messiah, when he sanctioned the homage of the multitude, was probably the climax of his confidence that a great demonstration of divine power, in concurrence with popular enthusiasm, would seat him triumphantly on the throne of David. No such result appearing, his views of the divine dispensation with respect to himself began to change, and he felt the presentiment that he must enter on his Messianic reign through the gates of suffering and death. Viewing Jesus as a pretender not only to spiritual but to political power, as one who really expected the subversion of the existing government to make way for his own kingship (though he probably relied on divine rather than on human means), he must necessarily have appeared in a dangerous light to those of his countrymen who were in authority, and who were anxious at any price to preserve public tranquillity in the presence of the Roman power, ready to visit with heavy vengeance any breach of order, and to deprive them of the last remnants of their independence; and hence the motives for his arrest and execution. To account for the belief of the disciples in the resurrection of their Master--a belief which appears to have been sincere--the author thinks it necessary to suppose a certain nucleus of fact, and this he finds in the disappearance of the body of Jesus, a point attested by all the four evangelists. The secret of this disappearance probably lay with Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who were anxious to avoid implicating themselves with that fermentation of regretful enthusiasm to which a resort of the disciples to the grave might give rise. Animated by a belief in the resurrection, which, being more harmless in the eyes of the authorities than that in a living Messiah, they were permitted to preach with little molestation; the zeal of the disciples won many converts; a new impulse was given to their cause by the accession of Paul, who became the chief missionary of the new faith, as construed by himself, to the Gentiles; and the concurrence of the causes indicated above, modifying the early creed of the apostles, and blending it with trains of thought already prevalent, bore along Christianity in its conquest over the minds of men until it became the dominant religion of the Roman world. "Having sought to show, in this preliminary sketch, that a belief in miracles is not entailed on us by the fact of the early growth of Christianity, the author enters on the inquiry whether the claims of the evangelical writers on our credence are such as to sustain the miraculous part of their narratives. The answer is in the negative. He discusses, first, the date and credibility of each Gospel, and concludes that while Matthew has many marvellous stories, incongruous in themselves, and not only unsupported but contradicted by the other evangelists, he nevertheless presents the most comprehensible account of the career of Jesus; that in Mark, evidently more remote in time and circumstances, both from his events and from Jewish modes of thought, the idea conveyed of Jesus is much vaguer and less explicable; that in Luke there is a still further modification of his character, which has acquired a tinge of asceticism; while in John the style of his teaching is wholly changed, and instead of the graphic parable and the pithy apothegm, he utters long, mystical discourses in the style of the first epistle bearing the name of the same evangelist. Mr. Hennell, however, adheres to the conclusion that the substance of this Gospel came from the apostle John at an advanced age, when both the events of his early manhood and the scenes of his native land lay in the far distance. The writer then enters on a special examination of the Resurrection and Ascension, and the other miracles in the Gospels and the Acts, and inquires how far they are sustained by the apostolic Epistles. He examines the prophecies of the Old Testament supposed to have been fulfilled in Jesus, and also the predictions of Jesus himself concerning his death and resurrection; and, finally, he considers the character, views, and doctrine of Christ. According to him, an impartial study of the conduct and sayings of Jesus, as exhibited in the Gospels, produces the conviction that he was an enthusiast and a revolutionist, no less than a reformer and a moral and religious teacher. Passages are adduced from the Old Testament, and from the apocryphal and rabbinical writings, to show that there is scarcely anything absolutely original in the teaching of Jesus; but, in the opinion of the author, he manifests a freedom and individuality in the use of his materials, and a general superiority of tone and selection, which, united with the devotion of his life to what he held the highest purpose, mark him to be of an order of minds occurring but at rare intervals in the history of our race. "Shortly after the appearance of this work it was translated into German through the instrumentality of Dr. Strauss, who, in the preface he prefixed to it, says: 'Not sufficiently acquainted with German to read continuously a learned work in that language, the labors of our theologians were only accessible to him' (the author of the 'Inquiry') 'so far as they were written in Latin, or translated into English, or treated of in English writings or periodicals: especially he is unacquainted with what the Germans have effected in the criticism of the gospels since Schleiermacher's work on Luke, and even the earlier commentators he knows but imperfectly. Only so much the more remarkable is it, however, that both in the principles and in the main results of his investigation, he is on the very track which has been entered on among us in recent years.... That at certain periods, certain modes of thought lie as it were in the atmosphere, ... and come to light in the most remote places without perceptible media of communication, is shown, not only by the contents, but by the spirit, of Mr. Hennell's work. No further traces of the ridicule and scorn which characterize his countrymen of the deistical school; the subject is treated in the earnest and dignified tone of the truth-seeker, not with the rancor of a passionate polemic; we nowhere find him deriving religion from priestcraft, but from the tendencies and wants of human nature.... These elevated views, which the learned German of our day appropriates as the fruit of the religious and scientific advancement of his nation, this Englishman, to whom most of the means at our command were wanting, has been able to educe entirely from himself.... An Englishman, a merchant, a man of the world, he possesses, both by nature and by training, the practical insight, the sure tact, which lays hold on realities. The solution of problems over which the German flutters with many circuits of learned formulæ, our English author often succeeds in seizing at one spring.... To the learned he often presents things under a surprisingly new aspect; to the unlearned, invariably under that which is the most comprehensible and attractive.'" The reading of Mr. Hennell's book no doubt marks an epoch in George Eliot's development; but probably there had been a good deal of half-unconscious preparation beforehand (as indicated by Mrs. Cash's remarks on Isaac Taylor's work, in the last chapter), which was greatly stimulated now by the contact with new minds. The following extract from a letter to Miss Lewis, dated 13th November, 1841, accurately fixes the date of the first acknowledgment by herself that her opinions were undergoing so momentous a change. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 13th Nov. 1841.] My whole soul has been engrossed in the most interesting of all inquiries for the last few days, and to what result my thoughts may lead, I know not--possibly to one that will startle you; but my only desire is to know the truth, my only fear to cling to error. I venture to say our love will not decompose under the influence of separation, unless you excommunicate me for differing from you in opinion. Think--is there any _conceivable_ alteration in me that would prevent your coming to me at Christmas? I long to have a friend such as you are, I think I may say, alone to me, to unburden every thought and difficulty--for I am still a solitary, though near a city. But we have the universe to talk with, infinity in which to stretch the gaze of hope, and an all-bountiful, all-wise Creator in whom to confide--he who has given us the untold delights of which our reason, our emotion, our sensations, are the ever-springing sources. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th Dec. 1841.] What a pity that while mathematics are indubitable, immutable, and no one doubts the properties of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely important to man are buried in a charnel-heap of bones over which nothing is heard but the barks and growls of contention! "Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united." It was impossible for such a nature as Miss Evans's, in the enthusiasm of this first great change, to rest satisfied in compliance with the old forms, and she was so uneasy in an equivocal position that she determined to give up going to church. This was an unforgivable offence in the eyes of her father, who was a Churchman of the old school, and nearly led to a family rupture. He went so far as to put into an agent's hands the lease of the house in the Foleshill road, with the intention of going to live with his married daughter. Upon this, Miss Evans made up her mind to go into lodgings at Leamington, and to try to support herself by teaching. The first letter to Mrs. Bray refers to this incident: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Jan. 1842.] My guardian angel, Mrs. Pears, has just sent for me to hear your kind note, which has done my aching limbs a little good. I shall be most thankful for the opportunity of going to Leamington, and Mrs. Pears is willing to go too. There is but _one_ woe, that of leaving my dear father--all else, doleful lodgings, scanty meals, and _gazing-stockism_, are quite indifferent to me. Therefore do not fear for me when I am once settled in my home--wherever it may be--and freed from wretched suspense. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Pears, Friday evening, Feb. 1842.] Far from being weary of your dear little Henry, his matin visits are as cheering to me as those of any little bird "that comes in spite of sorrow, And at my window bids good-morrow." We have not, perhaps, been so systematic as a regular tutor and pupil would have been, but we crave indulgence for some laxity. I was really touched that you should think of _me_ while among friends more closely linked with you in every way. I was beginning to get used to the conviction that, ivy-like as I am by nature, I must (as we see ivy do sometimes) shoot out into an isolated tree. Never again imagine that you need ask forgiveness for speaking or writing to me on subjects to me more interesting than aught else; on the contrary, believe that I really enjoy conversation of this nature: blank silence and cold reserve are the only bitters I care for in my intercourse with you. I can rejoice in all the joys of humanity; in all that serves to elevate and purify feeling and action; nor will I quarrel with the million who, I am persuaded, are with me in intention, though our dialects differ. Of course, I must desire the ultimate downfall of error, for no error is innocuous; but this assuredly will occur without my proselytizing aid, and the best proof of a real love of the truth--that freshest stamp of divinity--is a calm confidence in its intrinsic power to secure its own high destiny, that of universal empire. Do not fear that I will become a stagnant pool by a self-sufficient determination only to listen to my own echo; to read the yea, yea, on my own side, and be most comfortably deaf to the nay, nay. Would that all rejected _practically_ this maxim! To _fear_ the examination of any proposition appears to me an intellectual and a moral palsy that will ever hinder the firm grasping of any substance whatever. For my part, I wish to be among the ranks of that glorious crusade that is seeking to set Truth's Holy Sepulchre free from a usurped domination. We shall then see her resurrection! Meanwhile, although I cannot rank among my principles of action a fear of vengeance eternal, gratitude for predestined salvation, or a revelation of future glories as a reward, I fully participate in the belief that the only heaven here, or hereafter, is to be found in conformity with the will of the Supreme; a continual aiming at the attainment of the perfect ideal, the true _logos_ that dwells in the bosom of the one Father. I hardly know whether I am ranting after the fashion of one of the Primitive Methodist prophetesses, with a cart for her rostrum, I am writing so fast. Good-bye, and blessings on you, as they will infallibly be on the children of peace and virtue. Again about the same date in 1842 she writes to Mrs. Bray: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Feb. 1842.] A heart full of love and gratitude to you for all your kindness in thought and act to me, undeserving. I dare say my manner belies my feelings: but friendship must live by faith and not by sight, and I shall be a great gainer by leaving you to interpret my mystic character without any other key than your own goodness. The last letter of the series to Miss Lewis also refers to the difficulties of the situation: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 19th Feb. 1842.] I dare say you have added, subtracted, and divided suppositions until you think you have a sure product--viz., a good quantum, or, rather, a bad one, of indifference and forgetfulness, as the representation of my conduct towards you. If so, revise your arithmetic, for be it known to you that, having had my propensities, sentiments, and intellect gauged a second time, I am pronounced to possess a large organ of "adhesiveness," a still larger one of "firmness," and as large of "conscientiousness"--hence, if I should turn out a very weathercock and a most pitiful truckler, you will have data for the exercise of faith maugre common-sense, common justice, and the testimony of your eyes and ears. How do you go on for society, for communion of spirit, the drop of nectar in the cup of mortals? But why do I say the drop? The mind that feels its value will get large draughts from some source, if denied it in the most commonly chosen way. "'Mid the rich store of nature's gifts to man Each has his loves, close wedded to his soul By fine association's golden links. As the Great Spirit bids creation teem With conscious being and intelligence, So man, his miniature resemblance, gives To matter's every form a speaking soul, An emanation from his spirit's fount, The impress true of its peculiar seal. Here finds he thy best image, sympathy." Beautiful egoism, to quote one's own. But where is not this same ego? The martyr at the stake seeks its gratification as much as the court sycophant, the difference lying in the comparative dignity and beauty of the two egos. People absurdly talk of self-denial. Why, there is none in virtue, to a being of moral excellence: the greatest torture to such a soul would be to run counter to the dictates of conscience; to wallow in the slough of meanness, deception, revenge, or sensuality. This was Paul's idea in the first chapter of 2d Epistle to Timothy (I think that is the passage). I have had a weary week. At the beginning more than the usual amount of _cooled_ glances, and exhortations to the suppression of self-conceit. The former are so many hailstones that make me wrap more closely around me the mantle of determinate purpose: the latter are needful, and have a tendency to exercise forbearance, that well repays the temporary smart. The heart knoweth its own, whether bitterness or joy: let us, dearest, beware how we, _even with good intentions_, press a finger's weight on the already bruised. And about the same date she writes to Mrs. Bray: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, end of Feb. 1842.] I must relieve my conscience before I go to bed by entering a protest against every word or accent of discontent that I uttered this morning. If I have ever complained of any person or circumstance, I do penance by eating my own words. When my real self has regained its place, I can shake off my troubles "like dewdrops from the lion's mane," and then I feel the baseness of imputing my sorrows to others rather than to my own pitiful weakness. But I do not write for your forgiveness; that I know I have. I only want to satisfy my indignation against myself. The conclusion of the matter was that Mr. Evans withdrew his house from the agent's hands, and his daughter went to stay at Griff, with Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Evans, whence she writes the following letter to Mrs. Pears: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Pears, Thursday, Mch. 1842.] I have just been climbing up some favorite old hills, or rather hillocks, and if I could see you I should find myself in high preparation for one of my thorough chats. Oh, if I could transport myself to your dining-room, where I guess you and Mr. Pears are sitting in anticipation of tea--carrying on no "holy war," but at peace with the world and its opinions, or, if ever you do battle, in the happy ranks of the majority--I could kiss you into sublime liberality! How are you and your dear husband and children? It seems a week of years instead of days since you said to me your kind good-bye, and as I have tried your magnanimity quite long enough to be assured that you will not let me hear of you without a beseeching letter from me, I snatch half an hour from a too short day for the generous purpose of doubly qualifying myself, first, by pouring out the contents of my gossip-wallet, and then quietly awaiting the news I want to hear of you. I have here, in every way, abundant and unlooked-for blessings--delicacy and consideration from all whom I have seen; and I really begin to recant my old belief about the indifference of all the world towards me, for my acquaintances of this neighborhood seem to seek an opportunity of smiling on me in spite of my heresy. All these things, however, are but the fringe and ribbons of happiness. They are _ad_herent, not _in_herent; and, without any affectation, I feel myself to be acquiring what I must hold to be a precious possession, an independence of what is baptized by the world external good. There are externals (at least, they are such in common thought) that I could ill part with--the deep, blue, glorious heavens, bending as they do over all, presenting the same arch, emblem of a truer omnipresence, wherever we may be chased, and all the sweet, peace-breathing sights and sounds of this lovely earth. These, and the thoughts of the good and great, are an inexhaustible world of delight; and the felt desire to be one in will and design with the great mind that has laid open to us these treasures is the sun that warms and fructifies it. I am more and more impressed with the duty of _finding_ happiness. On a retrospection of the past month, I regret nothing so much as my own impetuosity both of feeling and judging. I am not inclined to be sanguine as to my dear father's future determination, and I sometimes have an intensely vivid consciousness, which I only allow to be a fleeting one, of all that is painful and that has been so. I can only learn that my father has commenced his alterations at Packington, but he only appears to be temporarily acquiescing in my brother's advice "not to be in a hurry." I do not intend to remain here longer than three weeks, or, at the very farthest, a month; and, if I am not then recalled, I shall write for definite directions. I must have a _home_, not a visiting-place. I wish you would learn something from my father, and send me word how he seems disposed. I hope you get long walks on these beautiful days. You would love to hear the choristers we have here; they are hymning away incessantly. Can you not drive over and see me? Do come by hook or by crook. Why, Mr. Pears could almost walk hither. I am becoming very hurried, for most welcome tea is in the vicinity, and I must be busy after I have imbibed its inspiration. You will write to me to-morrow, will you not? and pray insist on Mr. Pears writing an appendix. I had a note from Mrs. Bray this morning, and I liked it better than my breakfast. So do give me a little treat on Saturday. Blessings on you and yours, as all forlorn beggars have said from time immemorial to their benefactors; but real feeling, you know, will sometimes slip into a hackneyed guise. Miss Evans remained for about three weeks at Griff, at the end of which time, through the intervention of her brother, the Brays, and Miss Rebecca Franklin, the father was very glad to receive her again, and she resumed going to church as before. It will be seen from a subsequent noteworthy letter to Miss Sara Hennell, dated 19th October, 1843, that Miss Evans's views of the best course to be pursued under similar circumstances had already undergone considerable modifications, and in the last year of her life she told me that, although she did not think she had been to blame, few things had occasioned her more regret than this temporary collision with her father, which might, she thought, have been avoided with a little management. In July of this year (1842) Miss Sara Hennell--the gifted sister of Mrs. Bray--came to Rosehill, and completed the trio destined to exert the most important influence over the life of George Eliot. The individual characters of these three friends, and the relations each bore to their correspondent, will unfold themselves in the letters. It is only necessary here to say that the two ladies--Cara and Sara, as they are always addressed--now became like sisters to Miss Evans, and Mr. Bray her most intimate male friend, and the letters to them form an almost unbroken chain during all the remainder of George Eliot's life. To us Miss Sara Hennell is the most important correspondent, for it is to her that Miss Evans mainly turns now for intellectual sympathy; to Mrs. Bray when she is in pain or trouble, and wants affectionate companionship; with Mr. Bray she quarrels, and the humorous side of her nature is brought out. Every good story goes to him, with a certainty that it will be appreciated. With all three it is a beautiful and consistent friendship, running like a thread through the woof of the coming thirty-eight years. For the next twelve years, as will be seen, it is quite the most important thread; and although later it naturally became very much less important, it was never dropped except for a moment, in 1854, owing to a brief misunderstanding of letters, which will appear in its due place. The following letters to Miss Sara Hennell show what was passing from 30th August, 1842, to April, 1843: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th Aug. 1842.] How I have delighted in the thought that there are beings who are better than their promises, beyond the regions of waking and sleeping dreams. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday, Sept. 1842.] I have not yet accounted for my tardiness in writing, which, I assure you, is no representation of my usual habit, and has been occasioned only by a week's indisposition, the foster-parent to the ill-favored offspring of my character and circumstances, gloom and stolidity, and I could not write to you with such companions to my thought. I am anxious that you should not imagine me unhappy even in my most melancholy moods, for I hold all indulgence of sadness that has the slightest tincture of discontent to be a grave delinquency. I think there can be few who more truly feel than I that this is a world of bliss and beauty--that is, that bliss and beauty are the end, the tendency of creation; and evils are the shadows that are the only conditions of light in the picture, and I live in much, much enjoyment. I am beginning to enjoy the "Eneid," though, I suppose, much in the same way as the uninitiated enjoy wine, compared with the connoisseurs. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Nov. 1842.] I have been in high displeasure with myself, have thought my soul only fit for limbo, to keep company with other abortions, and my life the shallowest, muddiest, most unblessing stream. Having got my head above this slough of despond, I feel quite inclined to tell you how much pleasure your letter gave me. You observe in your note that some persons say the unsatisfied longing we feel in ourselves for something better than the greatest perfection to be found on earth is a proof that the true object of our desires lies beyond it. Assuredly, this earth is not the home of the spirit--it will rest only in the bosom of the Infinite. But the non-satisfaction of the affections and intellect being inseparable from the unspeakable advantage of such a mind as that of man in connection with his corporal condition and _terrene_ destiny, forms not at present an argument with me for the realization of particular desires. The next letter refers to Miss Mary Hennell's[18] last illness: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th Jan. 1843.] I cannot help wishing to tell you, now that you are in trouble and anxiety, how dear you are to me, and how the recollection of you is ever freshening in my mind. You have need of all your cheeriness and energy; and if they do not fail, I think it almost enviable, as far as one's self is concerned (not, of course, when the sufferer is remembered), to have the care of a sick-room, with its twilight and tiptoe stillness and helpful activity. I have always had a peculiarly peaceful feeling in such a scene. Again, after the death of Miss Mary Hennell, there is a letter to her sister Sara: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, April, 1843.] We always find that our stock of appreciated good can never be really diminished. When the chief desire of the eyes is taken, we can afford a gaze to hitherto unnoticed possessions; and even when the topmost boughs are lopped, a thousand shoots spring from below with the energy of new life. So it will be with you; but you cannot yet look beyond the present, nor is it desirable that you should. It would not be well for us to overleap one grade of joy or suffering: our life would lose its completeness and beauty. Rosehill not only afforded a pleasant variety in the Coventry life, as most visitors to the town, of any note, found their way there, but the Brays were also frequently in the habit of making little holiday excursions, in many of which Miss Evans now joined. Thus we find them in May, 1843, all going to Stratford and Malvern, together with Mr. Charles Hennell and Miss Sara Hennell, for a week; and again, in July of that year the same party, accompanied by Miss Brabant, daughter of Dr. Brabant of Devizes, went on a fortnight's tour, visiting Tenby, among other places. This trip is chiefly memorable from the fact that it was indirectly responsible for Miss Evans undertaking the translation of Strauss's "Leben Jesu." For Miss Brabant (to whom the translation had been confided by Mr. Joseph Parkes of Birmingham and a group of friends) became engaged to be married to Mr. Charles Hennell; and shortly after her marriage she handed the work over to Miss Evans. In the next two letters to Miss Sara Hennell there are allusions to the approaching marriage, which took place in London on 1st November, 1843, the Brays and Miss Evans being present. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Sept. 1843.] Many thanks for procuring me the hymns and anthems. I was right glad to play "Ancient of Ages" again, and I shall like still better to sing it with you when we meet. That that is to be so soon, and under circumstances so joyful, are among the _mirabilia_ of this changing world. To see and re-see such a cluster of not indifferent persons as the programme for the wedding gives, will be almost too large a _bonne-bouche_. I saw Robert Owen yesterday, Mr. and Mrs. Bray having kindly asked me to dine with him, and I think if his system prosper it will be in spite of its founder, and not because of his advocacy. The next letter to Mrs. Bray gives a pleasant glimpse of their studies together, and of the little musical society that was in the habit of meeting at Rosehill to play concerted pieces. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, no date, 1843.] I only wish you would change houses with the mayor, that I might get to you when I would. I send you the first part of "Wallenstein," with the proposition that we should study that in conjunction with the "Thirty Years' War," as I happen to have a loose copy. We had better omit the "Lager," and begin "Die Piccolomini." You shall have "Joan of Arc," my grand favorite, as a _bonne-bouche_ when you have got through "Wallenstein," which will amply repay you for any trouble in translating it, and is not more difficult than your reading ought to be now. I have skimmed Manzoni, who has suffered sadly in being poured out of silver into pewter. The chapter on Philosophy and Theology is worth reading. Miss Brabant sent me my "Hyperion" with a note, the other day. She had put no direction besides Coventry, and the parcel had consequently been sent to some other Miss Evans, and my choice little sentimental treasures, alas! exposed to vulgar gaze. Thank you for the manual, which I have had so long. I trust I did not bestow those scratches on the cover. I have been trying to find a French book that you were not likely to have read, but I do not think I have one, unless it be "Gil Blas," which you are perhaps too virtuous to have read, though how any one can opine it to have a vicious tendency I am at a loss to conjecture. They might as well say that to condemn a person to eat a whole plum-pudding would deprive him of all future relish for plain food. I have had a visitor ever since Saturday, and she will stay till Saturday again. I cannot desire that you should _un_ask Violin and Flute, unless a postponement would be in every way as agreeable to you and them. If you have them, you will give them much more pleasure as Piano than I, so do not think of me in the matter for a moment. Good-bye; and remember to treat your cold as if it were an orphan's cold, or a widow's cold, or any one's cold but your own. The following is the letter before referred to as containing an important and noteworthy declaration of opinion on the very interesting question of conformity: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Oct. 1843.] The first thing I have to say to you is to entreat that you and Mrs. Hennell will not perplex yourselves for a moment about my accommodation during the night. I am so well now that a hearthrug would be as luxurious a couch as I should need, and I defy anything short of a kettledrum or my conscience to keep me awake after a long day. The subject of your conversation with Miss D---- is a very important one, and worth an essay. I will not now inflict one of mine on you, but I will tell you, as briefly as possible, my present opinion, which you know is contrary to the one I held in the first instance. I am inclined to think that such a change of sentiment is likely to happen to most persons whose views on religious matters undergo a change early in life. The first impulse of a young and ingenuous mind is to withhold the slightest sanction from all that contains even a mixture of supposed error. When the soul is just liberated from the wretched giant's bed of dogmas on which it has been racked and stretched ever since it began to think, there is a feeling of exultation and strong hope. We think we shall run well when we have the full use of our limbs and the bracing air of independence, and we believe that we shall soon obtain something positive, which will not only more than compensate us for what we have renounced, but will be so well worth offering to others that we may venture to proselytize as fast as our zeal for truth may prompt us. But a year or two of reflection, and the experience of our own miserable weakness, which will ill afford to part even with the crutch of superstition, must, I think, effect a change. Speculative truth begins to appear but a shadow of individual minds. Agreement between intellects seems unattainable, and we turn to the _truth of feeling_ as the only universal bond of union. We find that the intellectual errors which we once fancied were a mere incrustation have grown into the living body, and that we cannot, in the majority of cases, wrench them away without destroying vitality. We begin to find that with individuals, as with nations, the only safe revolution is one arising out of the wants which their own progress has generated. It is the quackery of infidelity to suppose that it has a nostrum for all mankind, and to say to all and singular, "Swallow my opinions and you shall be whole." If, then, we are debarred by such considerations from trying to reorganize opinions, are we to remain aloof from our fellow-creatures on occasions when we may fully sympathize with the feelings exercised, although our own have been melted into another mould? Ought we not on every opportunity to seek to have our feelings in harmony, though not in union, with those who are often richer in the fruits of faith, though not in reason, than ourselves? The results of nonconformity in a family are just an epitome of what happens on a larger scale in the world. An influential member chooses to omit an observance which, in the minds of all the rest, is associated with what is highest and most venerable. He cannot make his reasons intelligible, and so his conduct is regarded as a relaxation of the hold that moral ties had on him previously. The rest are infected with the disease they imagine in him. All the screws by which order was maintained are loosened, and in more than one case a person's happiness may be ruined by the confusion of ideas which took the form of principles. But, it may be said, how then are we to do anything towards the advancement of mankind? Are we to go on cherishing superstitions out of a fear that seems inconsistent with any faith in a Supreme Being? I think the best and the only way of fulfilling our mission is to sow good seed in good (_i.e._, prepared) ground, and not to root up tares where we must inevitably gather all the wheat with them. We cannot fight and struggle enough for freedom of inquiry, and we need not be idle in imparting all that is pure and lovely to children whose minds are unbespoken. Those who can write, let them do it as boldly as they like; and let no one hesitate at proper seasons to make a full _con_fession (far better than _pro_fession). St. Paul's reasoning about the conduct of the strong towards the weak, in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of Romans, is just in point. But I have not said half what I meant to say. There are so many aspects in which the subject might be presented that it is useless to attempt to exhaust it. I fear I have written very unintelligibly, for it is rather late, and I am so cold that my thoughts are almost frozen. After Miss Brabant's marriage to Mr. Charles Hennell, Miss Evans went to stay for a week or two with Dr. Brabant at Devizes, and some time about the beginning of January, 1844, the proposition was made for the transfer of the translation of Strauss from Mrs. Charles Hennell. At the end of April, 1844, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Sara Hennell that Miss Evans is "working away at Strauss six pages a day," and the next letter from Miss Evans refers to the beginning of the undertaking. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Sunday, May, 1844.] To begin with business, I send you on the other side the translations you wished (Strauss), but they are perhaps no improvements on what you had done. I shall be very glad to learn from you the particulars as to the mode of publication--who are the parties that will find the funds, and whether the manuscripts are to be put into the hands of any one when complete, or whether they are to go directly from me to the publishers? I was very foolish not to imagine about these things in the first instance, but ways and means are always afterthoughts with me. You will soon be settled and enjoying the blessed spring and summer time. I hope you are looking forward to it with as much delight as I. One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that "as soon as we have found the key of life it opes the gates of death." Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one! Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. Witness colic and whooping-cough and dread of ghosts, to say nothing of hell and Satan, and an offended Deity in the sky, who was angry when I wanted too much plumcake. Then the sorrows of older persons, which children see but cannot understand, are worse than all. All this to prove that we are happier than when we were seven years old, and that we shall be happier when we are forty than we are now, which I call a comfortable doctrine, and one worth trying to believe! I am sitting with father, who every now and then jerks off my attention to the history of Queen Elizabeth, which he is reading. On the 1st July, 1844, there was another little trip with the Brays to the Cumberland lakes, this time returning by Manchester and Liverpool; and on reaching home, about the beginning of August, there is the following letter: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday, Aug. 1844.] Can I have the remaining volumes of Strauss, excepting any part that you may choose to keep for your own use? If you could also send me such parts of the introduction and first section as you wish me to look over, I should like to despatch that business at intervals, when I am not inspired for more thorough labor. Thank you for the encouragement you sent me. I only need it when my head is weak and I am unable to do much. Then I sicken at the idea of having Strauss in my head and on my hands for a lustrum, instead of saying good-bye to him in a year. When I can work fast I am never weary, nor do I regret either that the work has been begun or that I have undertaken it. I am only inclined to vow that I will never translate again, if I live to correct the sheets for Strauss. My first page is 257. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 31st Oct. 1844.] Pray tell Mrs. C. Hennell that no apology was needed for the very good translation she has sent me. I shall be glad to avail myself of it to the last word, for I am thoroughly tired of my own garb for Strauss's thoughts. I hope the introduction, etc., will be ready by the end of November, when I hope to have put the last words to the first volume. I am awfully afraid of my own translation, and I want you to come and comfort me. I am relapsing into heathen darkness about everything but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. "Heaven has sent leanness into my soul"--for reviling them, I suppose. This lovely autumn! Have you enjoyed its long shadows and fresh breezes? [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, end of 1844.] I do not think it was kind to Strauss (I knew he was handsome) to tell him that a young lady was translating his book. I am sure he must have some twinges of alarm to think he was dependent on that most contemptible specimen of the human being for his English reputation. By the way, I never said that the Canons of the Council of Nice, or the Confession of Augsburg, or even the Thirty-nine Articles, are suggestive of poetry. I imagine no _dogmas_ can be. But surely Christianity, with its Hebrew retrospect and millennial hopes, the heroism and divine sorrow of its founder, and all its glorious army of martyrs, might supply, and has supplied, a strong impulse not only to poetry, but to all the Fine Arts. Mr. Pears is coming home from Malvern to-night, and the children are coming to tea with me, so that I have to make haste with my afternoon matters. Beautiful little Susan has been blowing bubbles, and looking like an angel at sport. I am quite happy, only sometimes feeling "the weight of all this unintelligible world." [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Sunday, beginning of 1845.] Your books are come for the school, and I have covered them--at least those that I think you will like for the children; two or three are quite for grown-up people. What an exquisite little thing that is of Harriet Martineau's--"The Crofton Boys"! I have had some delightful crying over it. There are two or three lines in it that would feed one's soul for a month. Hugh's mother says to him, speaking of people who have permanent sorrow, "They soon had a new and delicious pleasure, which none but the bitterly disappointed can feel--the pleasure of rousing their souls to bear pain, and of _agreeing with God silently_, when nobody knows what is in their hearts." I received "Sybil" yesterday quite safely. I am not utterly disgusted with D'Israeli. The man hath good veins, as Bacon would say, but there is not enough blood in them. The 17th April this year was an interesting day, as Miss Evans went with the Brays to Atherstone Hall, and met Harriet Martineau for the first time. It will be seen that in later years there was considerable intimacy between them. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th April, 1845.] If you think any of my future manuscript too untidy for the printer, only mark it to that effect, and I will rewrite it, for I do not mind that mechanical work; and my conscience is rather uneasy lest the illegibility of my hand should increase materially the expense of the publication. Do not be alarmed because I am not well just now: I shall be better very soon, and I am not really disgusted with Strauss. I only fancy so sometimes, as I do with all earthly things. In June Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans "looks all the better of her London trip. I never saw her so blooming and buoyant;" but the two next letters show a relapse. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of June, (?) 1845.] Glad am I that some one can enjoy Strauss! The million certainly will not, and I have ceased to sit down to him with any relish. I should work much better if I had some proof-sheets coming in to assure me that my soul-stupefying labor is not in vain. I am more grateful to you than I can tell you for taking the trouble you do. If it had not been for your interest and encouragement I should have been almost in despair by this time. And again, a little later: I begin utterly to despair that Strauss will ever be published, unless I can imitate the Rev. Mr. Davis, and print it myself. At the very best, if we go on according to the rate of procedure hitherto, the book will not be published within the next two years. This seems dolorous enough to me, whose only real satisfaction just now is some hope that I am not sowing the wind. It is very laughable that I should be irritated about a thing in itself so trifling as a translation, but it is the very triviality of the thing that makes delays provoking. The difficulties that attend a really grand undertaking are to be borne, but things should run smoothly and fast when they are not important enough to demand the sacrifice of one's whole soul. The second volume is quite ready. The last few sections were written under anything but favorable circumstances. They are not Strauss's best thoughts, nor are they put into his translator's best language; but I have not courage to imitate Gibbon--put my work in the fire and begin again. In July, 1845, there seems to have arisen some difficulty in getting in the cash subscriptions for the publication. Mr. Charles Hennell and Mr. Joseph Parkes, however, exerted themselves in the matter, and £300 was collected, and the following letter shows the relief it was to Miss Evans: [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Hennell, Friday evening, July, 1845.] Thank you for sending me the good news so soon, and for sympathizing in my need of encouragement. I have all I want now, and shall go forward on buoyant wing. I am glad for the work's sake, glad for your sake, and glad for "the honorable gentleman's" sake, that matters have turned out so well. Pray think no more of my pens, ink, and paper. I would gladly give much more towards the work than these and my English, if I could do so consistently with duty. The book now got into the hands of the printers, as will be seen from the next letter: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Aug. 1845.] I have just been looking over some of the _revise_, and reading again your sweet letter to me from Hastings, and an impulse of gratitude and love will not let me rest without writing you a little note, though my hand has almost done its possible for the day under this intense heat. You do not guess how much pleasure it gives me to look over your pencillings, they prove so clearly that you have really entered into the meaning of every sentence, and it always gives one satisfaction to see the evidence of brain-work. I am quite indebted to you for your care, and I feel greatly the advantage of having a friend to undertake the office of critic. There is one word I must mention--Azazel is the word put in the original of the Old Testament for the scapegoat: now I imagine there is some dubiousness about the meaning, and that Strauss would not think it right to translate _scapegoat_, because, from the tenor of his sentence, he appears to include Azazel with the evil demons. I wonder if it be supposed by any one that Azazel is in any way a distinct being from the goat. I know no Hebrew scholar, and have access to no Hebrew lexicon. Have you asked Mr. Hennell about it? Your letter describes what I _have_ felt rather than what I feel. It seems as if my affections were quietly sinking down to temperate, and I every day seem more and more to value thought rather than feeling. I do not think this is man's best estate, but it is better than what I have sometimes known. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday evening, autumn of 1845.] I am not ashamed to confess that I should like to be idle with you for a little while, more than anything else I can think of just now. But, alas! leathery brain must work at leathery Strauss for a short time before my butterfly days come. O, how I shall spread my wings then! Anent the Greek, it would produce very dreadful cold perspirations indeed in me, if there were anything amounting to a serious error, but this, I trust, there will not be. You must really expect me, if not to sleep and snore _aliquando_, at least to nod in the course of some thousand pages. I should like you to be deliberate over the _Schluss Abhandlung_. It is the only part on which I have bestowed much pains, for the difficulty was _piquing_, not piquant. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, no date, 1845.] I am never pained when I think Strauss right; but in many cases I think him wrong, as every man must be in working out into detail an idea which has general truth, but is only one element in a perfect theory--not a perfect theory in itself. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th Sept. 1845.] I am delighted with the proof. The type and everything else are just what I wished. To see the first sheet is the next best thing to seeing the last, which I hope we shall all have done this time next year. There is a very misty vision of a trip to the Highlands haunting us in this quarter. The vision would be much pleasanter if Sara were one of the images in it. You would surely go if we went, and then the thing would be perfect. I long to see you, for you are becoming a sort of transfigured existence, a mere ideal to me, and I have nothing to tell me of your real flesh-and-blood self but sundry very useful little pencil-marks, and a scrap of Mrs. Bray's notes now and then. So, if you would have me bear in my memory your own self, and not some aerial creation that I call by your name, you must make your appearance. In October "the misty vision" took palpable shape, and the Brays, Miss Hennell, and Miss Evans had a delightful fortnight in Scotland, visiting Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, The Trossachs, Stirling, Edinburgh, Melrose, and Abbotsford. They were away from the 14th to the 28th, and on returning to Coventry Strauss was taken up again. Miss Hennell was reading the translation, and aiding with suggestions and corrections. The next letter to her seems to be dated in November. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Nov. 1845.] Please to tell Mr. Hennell that "habits of thought" is not a translation of the word _particularismus_. This does not mean national idiosyncrasy, but is a word which characterizes that idiosyncrasy. If he decidedly objects to particularism, ask him to be so good as substitute _exclusiveness_, though there is a shade of meaning in _particularismus_ which even that does not express. It was because the word could only be translated by a circumlocution that I ventured to Anglicize it. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Tuesday morning, Dec. (?) 1845.] I have been idle, and have not done a stroke to the prefaces, but they shall be sent as soon as possible. Thanks for the copy of the Latin preface and letter. They are in preconceived harmony with my ideas of the appropriate. I will leave the titlepage to you and Mr. Hennell. Thanks for the news in your last _extra Blatt_. I am glad to find that the theological organs are beginning to deal with philosophy, but I can hardly imagine your writer to be a friend with a false cognizance on his shield. These dear orthodox people talk so simply sometimes that one cannot help fancying them satirists of their own doctrines and fears, though they mean manfully to fight against the enemy. I should like if possible to throw the emphasis on _critically_ in the titlepage. Strauss means it to be so: and yet I do not know how we can put anything better than what you say. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Dec. 1845.] I send you to-day the conclusion of the chapter you are reading, and, unless you find anything of importance to be rectified, you need not return this to me, but may forward the whole to the printer as soon as you have read it. I am not altogether satisfied with the use of the word sacrament as applied specifically to the _Abendmahl_. It seems like a vulgarism to say _the_ sacrament for one thing, and for another it does not seem _ab_original enough in the life of Jesus; but I know of no other word that can be substituted. I have altered passover to paschal meal, but [Greek: tho pascha] is used in the New Testament of the eating of the lamb _par excellence_. You remember, in the title of the first section in the _Schluss_--which I had been so careless as to omit--the expression is "Nothwendiger Uebergang der Kritik in das Dogma." Now, dogmatism will not do, as that would represent _Dogmatismus_. "Dogmatik" is the idea, I believe--_i.e._, positive theology. Is it allowable to say _dogmatics_, think you? I do not understand how the want of manuscript can be so pressing, as I have only had one proof for the last fortnight. It seems quite dispiriting to me now not to see the proofs regularly. I have had a miserable week of headache, but am better now, and ready for work, to which I must go. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Jan. 1846.] I do pity you, with the drunken Christmas workmen keeping you in this uncomfortable interregnum. But do not go distraught; the spring will really come and the birds--many having had to fly across the Atlantic, which is farther than you have to go to establish yourself. I could easily give the meaning of the Hebrew word in question, as I know where to borrow a lexicon. But observe, there are two Hebrew words untranslated in this proof. I do not think it will do to give the English in one place and not in another, where there is no reason for such a distinction, and there is not here, for the note in this proof sounds just as fee-fo-fum-ish as the other without any translation. I could not alter the "troublesome," because it is the nearest usable adjective for _schwierig_, which stands in the German. I am tired of inevitable _importants_, and cannot bear to put them when they do not represent the German. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Jan. 1846.] I have been sadly occupied for the last ten days. My father has been ill, and has required much attention, and my own head was very middling for some days, so that I send you but a poor cargo of new manuscript. Indeed, on looking through the last quire of paper this morning for the purpose of putting in the Greek, it seemed all very poor to me, but the subject is by no means inspiring, and no muse would condescend to visit such an uncertain votary as I have been for the last week or so. How is it that I have only had one proof this week? You know we are five hundred pages in advance of the printer, so you need not be dreadfully alarmed. I have been so pleased to hear some of your letters read to me, but, alas! I can reflect no pleasure at this moment, for I have a woful pain and am in a desperate hurry. On 14th February, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Sara Hennell that Miss Evans "says she is Strauss-sick--it makes her ill dissecting the beautiful story of the Crucifixion, and only the sight of the Christ-image[19] and picture make her endure it. Moreover, as her work advances nearer its public appearance, she grows dreadfully nervous. Poor thing, I do pity her sometimes, with her pale, sickly face and dreadful headaches, and anxiety, too, about her father. This illness of his has tried her so much, for all the time she had for rest and fresh air she had to read to him. Nevertheless, she looks very happy and satisfied sometimes in her work." And about the end of February there is the following letter from Miss Evans: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Feb. 1846.] Health and greeting, my Achates, in this veritable spring month. I shall send you a parcel on Monday with sixty-four new pages of German for your intellectual man. The next parcel, which will be the LAST, I shall send on the Monday following, and when you have read to the end, you may, if you think it desirable, send the whole to me. Your dull ass does not mend his pace for beating; but he _does_ mend it when he finds out that he is near his journey's end, and makes you wonder how he could pretend to find all the previous drawing so hard for him. I plead guilty to having set off in a regular scamper: but be lenient and do not scold me if you find all sorts of carelessnesses in these last hundred pages. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Feb. 1846.] I have been guilty of the most unpardonable piece of carelessness, for which I am stretched on a rack of anxiety and mortification. In the proof that came on Thursday I unwittingly drew out a quarter sheet with the blotting-paper, and did not discover the mistake until Saturday morning, when about to correct the last proof. Surely the printer would discover the absence of the four pages and wait for them--otherwise I would rather have lost one of my fingers, or all the hair from my head, than have committed such a _faux pas_. For there were three very awkward blunders to be corrected. All this vexation makes a cold and headache doubly intolerable, and I am in a most purgatorial state on this "good Sunday." I shall send the proofs, with the unfortunate quarter sheet and an explanation, to-night to Mr. Chapman, and prithee do thou inquire and see that the right thing is done. The tears are streaming from my smarting eyes--so farewell. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.] I wish we could get the book out in May--why not? I suppose the binding could not be all got through--the printing and writing I should think might be managed in time. Shouldn't I like to fleet the time away with thee as they did in the Golden Age--after all our toils to lie reclined on the hills (spiritually), like gods together, careless of mankind. Sooth to speak, idleness, and idleness with thee, is just the most tempting mirage you could raise before my mind's eye--I say mirage, because I am determined from henceforth to believe in no substantiality for future time, but to live in and love the present--of which I have done too little. Still, the thought of being with you in your own home will attract me to that future; for without all controversy I love thee and miss thee. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.] My soul kisses thee, dear Sara, in gratitude for those dewy thoughts of thine in this morning's note. My poor adust soul wants such refreshment. Continue to do me good--hoping for nothing again. I have had my sister with me all day--an interruption, alas! I cannot write more, but I should not be happy to let the day pass without saying one word to thee. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.] The last hundred pages have certainly been totally uninteresting to me, considered as matter for translation. Strauss has inevitably anticipated in the earlier part of his work all the principles and many of the details of his criticism, and he seems fagged himself. _Mais courage!_ the neck of the difficulty is broken, and there is really very little to be done now. If one's head would but keep in anything like thinking and writing order! Mine has robbed me of half the last fortnight; but I am a little better now, and am saying to myself _Frisch zu!_ The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are, at all events, better than the bursting asunder of Judas. I am afraid I have not made this dull part of Strauss even as tolerable as it might be, for both body and mind have recoiled from it. Thank you, dearest, for all your love and patience for me and with me. I have nothing on earth to complain of but subjective maladies. Father is pretty well, and I have not a single excuse for discontent through the livelong day. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Mch. 1846.] As I believe that even your kindness cannot overcome your sincerity, I will cast aside my fear that your wish to see me in your own home is rather a plan for my enjoyment than for yours. I believe it would be an unmixed pleasure to me to be your visitor, and one that I would choose among a whole bouquet of agreeable possibilities; so I will indulge myself, and accept the good that the heavens and you offer me. I am miserably in want of you to stir up my soul and make it shake its wings, and begin some kind of flight after something good and noble, for I am in a grovelling, slothful condition, and you are the _only_ friend I possess who has an animating influence over me. I have written to Mr. Hennell anent the titlepage, and have voted for _critically examined_, from an entire conviction of its preferableness. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, beginning of April, 1846.] See what it is to have a person _en rapport_ with you, that knows all your thoughts without the trouble of communication! I am especially grateful to you for restoring the "therefore" to its right place. I was about to write to you to get you to remonstrate about this and the "dispassionate calmness," which I did not at all like; but I thought you had corrected the prefaces, as the marks against the Latin looked like yours, so I determined to indulge my _laissez-faire_ inclinations, for I hate stickling and debating unless it be for something really important. I do really like reading our Strauss--he is so _klar und ideenvoll_; but I do not know _one_ person who is likely to read the book through--do you? Next week we will be merry and sad, wise and nonsensical, devout and wicked, together. On 19th April, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans is "as happy as you may imagine at her work being done. She means to come and read Shakespeare through to us as her first enjoyment." And again, on 27th April, that she "is delighted beyond measure with Strauss's elegant preface. It is just what she likes. And what a nice letter too! The Latin is quite beyond me, but the letter shows how neatly he can express himself." _SUMMARY._ MARCH, 1841, TO APRIL, 1846. Foleshill--New friends--Mrs. Pears--Coventry life and engagements--Letters to Miss Lewis--Brother's marriage--Mental depression--Reading Nichol's "Architecture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System"--Makes acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Bray--Reads Charles Hennell's book, "An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity"--Effect of this book--Gives up going to church--Family difficulties--Letters to Mrs. Pears--Visit to Griff--Returns to Foleshill and resumes going to church--Acquaintance with Miss Sara Hennell, and development of friendship with her and Mr. and Mrs. Bray--Letters to Miss Sara Hennell describing mental characteristics--Attitude towards immortality--Death of Miss Mary Hennell--Excursion with the Brays, Mr. Charles Hennell, and Miss Hennell to Stratford and Malvern, and to Tenby with same party and Miss Brabant--Meets Robert Owen--Studies German and music with Mrs. Bray--Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, with important declaration of opinion in regard to conformity--Mr. Charles Hennell's marriage--Stay with Dr. Brabant at Devizes--Arrangement for translation of Strauss's "Leben Jesu"--Excursion with Brays to the Cumberland lakes, returning by Manchester and Liverpool--Weary of Strauss--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Poetry of Christianity--Admiration of Harriet Martineau's "The Crofton Boys"--Trip to London--Despair about publication of Strauss--Subscription of £300 for the work--In better heart--Minutiæ of Strauss translation--Pains taken with the _Schluss Abhandlung_--Opinion of Strauss's work--The book in print--Trip to the Highlands--Strauss difficulties--Miss Hennell reads the translation and makes suggestions--Suffering from headaches and "Strauss-sick"--The last MS. of the translation sent to Miss Hennell--Joy at finishing--Delighted with Strauss's Preface. FOOTNOTES: [17] Brother's marriage. [18] Miss Mary Hennell was the author of "An Outline of the Various Social Systems founded on the Principle of Co-operation," published in 1841. [19] This was an ivory image she had of the Crucified Christ over the desk in her study at Foleshill, where she did all her work at that time--a little room on the first floor, with a charming view over the country. CHAPTER III. The completion of the translation of Strauss is another milestone passed in the life journey of George Eliot, and the comparatively buoyant tone of the letters immediately following makes us feel that the galled neck is out of the yoke for a time. In May, Mrs. Bray had gone away from home for a visit, and the next letter is addressed to her. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Sunday (probably about 6th May), 1846.] Do not stay any longer than is necessary to do you good, lest I should lose the pleasure of loving you, for my affections are always the warmest when my friends are within an attainable distance. I think I can manage to keep respectably warm towards you for three weeks without seeing you, but I cannot promise more. Tell Mr. Bray I am getting too amiable for this world, and Mr. Donovan's wizard hand would detect a slight corrugation of the skin on my organs 5 and 6;[20] they are so totally without exercise. I had a lecture from Mr. Pears on Friday, as well as a sermon this morning, so you need be in no alarm for my moral health. Do you never think of those Caribs who, by dint of flattening their foreheads, can manage to see perpendicularly above them without so much as lifting their heads? There are some good people who remind me of them. They see everything so clearly and with so little trouble, but at the price of sad self-mutilation. On the 26th May Miss Evans went to pay a visit to Mrs. and Miss Hennell at Hackney, and she writes from there to Mrs. Bray, who was expected to join them in London. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, end of May, 1846.] I cannot deny that I am very happy without you, but perhaps I shall be happier with you, so do not fail to try the experiment. We have been to town only once, and are saving all our strength to "rake" with you; but we are as ignorant as Primitive Methodists about any of the amusements that are going. Please to come in a very mischievous, unconscientious, theatre-loving humor. Everybody I see is very kind to me, and therefore I think them all very charming; and, having everything I want, I feel very humble and self-denying. It is only rather too great a bore to have to write to my friends when I am half asleep, and I have not yet reached that pitch of amiability that makes such magnanimity easy. Don't bring us any bad news or any pains, but only nods and becks and wreathèd smiles. They stayed in London till the 5th June, and on the 15th of that month the translation of Strauss was published. On the 2d July Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans "is going to Dover with her father, for a fortnight." In passing through Dover on our way to the Continent, in 1880, after our marriage, we visited the house they stayed at in 1846, and my wife then told me that she had suffered a great deal there, as her father's health began to show signs of breaking up. On returning to Coventry there is the following letter referring to Wicksteed's review of the translation of Strauss, which was advertised for the forthcoming number of the _Prospective Review_. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Thursday, Aug. (?) 1846.] Do you think it worth my while to buy the _Prospective_ for the sake of Wicksteed's review--is there anything new in it? Do you know if Mr. Chapman has any unusual facilities for obtaining cheap classics? Such things are to be got handsome and second-hand in London--if one knew but the way. I want to complete Xenophon's works. I have the "Anabasis," and I might, perhaps, get a nice edition of the "Memorabilia" and "Cyropædia" in a cheaper way than by ordering them directly from our own bookseller. I have been reading the "Fawn of Sertorius."[21] I think you would like it, though the many would not. It is pure, chaste, and classic, beyond any attempt at fiction I ever read. If it be Bulwer's, he has been undergoing a gradual transfiguration, and is now ready to be exalted into the assembly of the saints. The professor's (Strauss's) letter, transmitted through you, gave me infinite consolation, more especially the apt and pregnant quotation from Berosus. Precious those little hidden lakelets of knowledge in the high mountains, far removed from the vulgar eye, only visited by the soaring birds of love. On 25th September, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans "looks very brilliant just now. We fancy she must be writing her novel;" and then come the following letters, written in October and November: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Oct. 1846.] All the world is bathed in glory and beauty to me now, and thou sharest in the radiance. Tell me whether I live for you as you do for me, and tell me how gods and men are treating you. You must send me a scrap every month--only a scrap with a dozen words in it, just to prevent me from starving on faith alone--of which you know I have the minimum of endowment. I am sinning against my daddy by yielding to the strong impulse I felt to write to you, for he looks at me as if he wanted me to read to him. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Oct. 1846.] I do not know whether I can get up any steam again on the subject of Quinet; but I will try--when Cara comes back, however, for she has run away with "Christianity" into Devonshire, and I must have the book as a springing-board. When does the _Prospective_ come out? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Nov. 1846.] The review of Strauss contains some very just remarks, though, on the whole, I think it shallow, and in many cases unfair. The praise it gives to the translation is just what I should have wished; indeed, I cannot imagine anything more gratifying in the way of laudation. Is it not droll that Wicksteed should have chosen one of my interpolations, or rather paraphrases, to dilate on. The expression "granite," applied to the sayings of Jesus, is nowhere used by Strauss, but is an impudent addition of mine to eke out his metaphor. Did you notice the review of Foster's Life?[22] I am reading the Life, and thinking all the time how you would like it. It is deeply interesting to study the life of a genius under circumstances amid which genius is so seldom to be found. Some of the thoughts in his journal are perfect gems. The words of the reviewer of the Strauss translation in the _Prospective_ are worth preserving: "A faithful, elegant, and scholarlike translation. Whoever reads these volumes without any reference to the German must be pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiomatic, and harmonious force of the English style. But he will be still more satisfied when, on turning to the original, he finds that the rendering is word for word, thought for thought, and sentence for sentence. In preparing so beautiful a rendering as the present, the difficulties can have been neither few nor small in the way of preserving, in various parts of the work, the exactness of the translation, combined with that uniform harmony and clearness of style which imparts to the volumes before us the air and spirit of an original. Though the translator never obtrudes himself upon the reader with any notes or comments of his own, yet he is evidently a man who has a familiar knowledge of the whole subject; and if the work be the joint production of several hands, moving in concert, the passages of a specially scholastic character, at least, have received their version from a discerning and well-informed theologian. Indeed, Strauss may well say, as he does in the notice which he writes for the English edition, that, as far as he has examined it, the translation is 'et accurata et perspicua.'" [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Nov. 1846.] Many things, both outward and inward, have concurred to make this November far happier than the last. One's thoughts "Are widened with the process of the suns;" and if one is rather doubtful whether one is really wiser or better, it is some comfort to know that the desire to be so is more pure and dominant. I have been thinking of that most beautiful passage in Luke's Gospel--the appearance of Jesus to the disciples at Emmaus. How universal in its significance! The soul that has hopelessly followed its Jesus--its impersonation of the highest and best--all in despondency; its thoughts all refuted, its dreams all dissipated. Then comes another Jesus--another, but the same--the same highest and best, only chastened--crucified instead of triumphant--and the soul learns that this is the true way to conquest and glory. And then there is the burning of the heart, which assures that "this was the Lord!"--that this is the inspiration from above, the true comforter that leads unto truth. But I am not become a Methodist, dear Sara; on the contrary, if I am pious one day, you may be sure I was very wicked the day before, and shall be so again the next. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Dec. 1846.] I have been at Griff for the last week, or I should have written before. I thank you most heartily for sending me "Heliados"--first, because I admire it greatly in itself; and, secondly, because it is a pretty proof that I am not dissociated from your most hallowed thoughts. As yet I have read it only once, but I promise myself to read it again and again. I shall not show it to any one, for I hate "friendly criticism," as much for you as for myself; but you have a better spirit than I, and when you come I will render "Heliados" up to you, that others may have the pleasure of reading it. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Feb. 1847.] Lying in bed this morning, grievously tormented, your "Heliados" visited me and revealed itself to me more completely than it had ever done before. How true that "it is only when all portions of an individual nature, or all members of society, move forward harmoniously together that religious progress is calm and beneficial!" I imagine the sorrowful amaze of a child who had been dwelling with delight on the idea that the stars were the pavement of heaven's court, and that there above them sat the kind but holy God, looking like a venerable Father who would smile on his good little ones--when it was cruelly told, before its mind had substance enough to bear such tension, that the sky was not real, that the stars were worlds, and that even the sun could not be God's dwelling, because there were many, many suns. These ideas would introduce atheism into the child's mind, instead of assisting it to form a nobler conception of God (of course I am supposing the bare information given, and left to the child to work upon); whereas the idea it previously had of God was perfectly adapted to its intellectual condition, and formed to the child as perfect an embodiment of the all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful as the most enlightened philosopher ever formed to himself. On 21st April Miss Evans went to London with the Brays, and, among other things, heard "Elijah" at Exeter Hall. On returning to Coventry she writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th April, 1847.] I did so long to see you after hearing "Elijah," just to exchange an exclamation of delight. Last night I had a perfect treat, too, in "I Puritani." Castellar was admirable as Elvira, and Gardoni as a seraph. N.B.--I liked the Babel less--another sign of age. Mention has already been made of Miss Mary Sibree (now Mrs. John Cash of Coventry), and as the following genial letter is addressed to her, it gives an opportunity for mentioning here that Miss Evans had a high regard for all the members of the Sibree family. At the end of this year (1847) and the beginning of 1848 there will be found an interesting correspondence with Miss Sibree's brother, Mr. John Sibree, who, in 1849, published a translation of Hegel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of History," and in 1880 a volume of poems entitled "Fancy, and other Rhymes." The subjoined extract from a communication from Mrs. Cash will show upon what terms Miss Evans was with the family: "It was in the early part of the year 1841 that Miss Franklin came to see my mother at our house on the Foleshill road--about a mile and a half from Coventry--to tell her, as a piece of most interesting news, that an old pupil, of whom she herself and her sister Rebecca had always been very proud, was coming at the Lady-Day quarter to live at a house on the same road--within five minutes' walk of ours. This was Miss Evans, then twenty-one years of age. Miss Franklin dwelt with much pride on Miss Evans's mental power, on her skill in music, etc.; but the great recommendation to my mother's interest was the zeal for others which had marked her earnest piety at school, where she had induced the girls to come together for prayer, and which had led her to visit the poor most diligently in the cottages round her own home. Many years after, an old nurse of mine told me that these poor people had said, after her removal, 'We shall never have another Mary Ann Evans.' "My mother was asked to second and help her in work of this kind. 'She will be sure to get something up very soon,' was the last remark I can recall; and on her first visit to us I well remember she told us of a club for clothing, set going by herself and her neighbor Mrs. Pears, in a district to which she said 'the euphonious name of the Pudding-Pits had been given.' It was not until the winter of 1841, or early in 1842, that my mother first received (not from Miss Evans's own lips, but through a mutual friend) the information that a total change had taken place in this gifted woman's mind with respect to the evangelical religion, which she had evidently believed in up to the time of her coming to Coventry, and for which, she once told me, she had at one time sacrificed the cultivation of her intellect, and a proper regard to personal appearance. 'I used,' she said, 'to go about like an owl, to the great disgust of my brother; and I would have denied him what I now see to have been quite lawful amusements.' My mother's grief, on hearing of this change in one whom she had begun to love, was very great; but she thought argument and expostulation might do much, and I well remember a long evening devoted to it, but no more of the subject-matter than her indignant refusal to blame the Jews for not seeing in a merely spiritual Deliverer a fulfilment of promises of a temporal one; and a still more emphatic protest against my father's assertion that we had no claim on God. To Miss Evans's affectionate and pathetic speech to my mother, 'Now, Mrs. Sibree, you won't care to have anything more to do with me,' my mother rejoined, 'On the contrary, I shall feel more interested in you than ever.' But it was very evident at this time that she stood in no _need_ of sympathizing friends; that the desire for congenial society, as well as for books and larger opportunities for culture, which had led her most eagerly to seek a removal from Griff to a home near Coventry, had been met beyond her highest expectations. In Mr. and Mrs. Bray, and in the Hennell family, she had found friends who called forth her interest and stimulated her powers in no common degree. This was traceable even in externals--in the changed tone of voice and manner--from formality to a geniality which opened my heart to her, and made the next five years the most important epoch in my life. She gave me (as yet in my teens) weekly lessons in German, speaking freely on all subjects, but with no attempt to directly unsettle my evangelical beliefs, confining herself in these matters to a steady protest against the claim of the Evangelicals to an exclusive possession of higher motives to morality--or even to religion. Speaking to my mother of her dearest friend, Mrs. Bray, she said, 'She is the most religious person I know.' Of Mr. Charles Hennell, in whose writings she had great interest, she said, 'He is a perfect model of manly excellence.' "On one occasion, at Mr. Bray's house at Rosehill, roused by a remark of his on the beneficial influence exercised by evangelical beliefs on the moral feelings, she said energetically, 'I say it now, and I say it once for all, that I am influenced in my own conduct at the present time by far higher considerations, and by a nobler idea of duty, than I ever was while I held the evangelical beliefs.' When, at length, after my brother's year's residence at the Hallé University (in 1842-43), my own mind having been much exercised in the matter of religion, I felt the moral difficulties press heavily on my conscience, and my whole heart was necessarily poured out to my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' the steady turning of my attention from theoretical questions to a confession of my own want of thoroughness in arithmetic, which I pretended to teach; and the request that I would specially give attention to this study and get my conscience clear about it, and that I would not come to her again until my views of religion were also clear, is too characteristic of Miss Evans, as I knew her during those years, and too much in harmony with the moral teaching of George Eliot, to be omitted in reminiscences by one to whom that wholesome advice proved a turning-point in life. Two things more I cannot omit to mention: one, the heightened sense given to me by her of the duty of making conversation profitable, and, in general, of using time for serious purposes--of the positive immorality of frittering it away in ill-natured or in poor, profitless talk; another, the debt (so frequently acknowledged by Miss Evans to me) which she owed, during the years of her life with her father, to the intercourse she enjoyed with her friends at Rosehill. Mr. and Mrs. Bray and Miss Hennell, with their friends, were _her_ world; and on my saying to her once, as we closed the garden-door together, that we seemed to be entering a paradise, she said, 'I do indeed feel that I shut the world out when I shut that door.' It is consoling to me now to feel that in her terrible suffering through her father's illness and death, which were most trying to witness, she had such alleviations." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Mary Sibree, 10th May, 1847.] It is worth while to forget a friend for a week or ten days, just for the sake of the agreeable kind of startle it gives one to be reminded that one has such a treasure in reserve--the same sort of pleasure, I suppose, that a poor body feels who happens to lay his hand on an undreamed-of sixpence which had sunk to a corner of his pocket. When Mr. Sibree brought me your parcel, I had been to London for a week; and having been full of Mendelssohn oratorios and Italian operas, I had just this kind of delightful surprise when I saw your note and the beautiful purse. Not that I mean to compare you to a sixpence; you are a bright, golden sovereign to me, with edges all unrubbed, fit to remind a poor, tarnished, bruised piece, like me, that there are ever fresh and more perfect coinages of human nature forthcoming. I am very proud of my purse--first, because I have long had to be ashamed of drawing my old one out of my pocket; and, secondly, because it is a sort of symbol of your love for me--and who is not proud to be loved? For there is a beautiful kind of pride at which no one need frown--I may call it a sort of impersonal pride--a thrill of exultation at all that is good and lovely and joyous as a possession of our human nature. I am glad to think of all your pleasure among friends new and old. Mrs. D----'s mother is, I dare say, a valuable person; but do not, I beseech thee, go to old people as oracles on matters which date any later than their thirty-fifth year. Only trust them, if they are good, in those practical rules which are the common property of long experience. If they are governed by one special idea which circumstances or their own mental bias have caused them to grasp with peculiar firmness, and to work up into original forms, make yourself master of their thoughts and convictions, the residuum of all that long travail which poor mortals have to encounter in their threescore years and ten, but do not trust their application of their gathered wisdom; for however just old people may be their _principles_ of judgment, they are often wrong in their application of them, from an imperfect or unjust conception of the matter to be judged. Love and cherish and venerate the old; but never imagine that a worn-out, dried-up organization can be so rich in inspiration as one which is full fraught with life and energy. I am not talking like one who is superlatively jealous for the rights of the old; yet such I am, I assure thee. I heard Mendelssohn's new oratorio, "Elijah," when I was in London. It has been performed four times in Exeter Hall to as large an audience as the building would hold--Mendelssohn himself the conductor. It is a glorious production, and altogether I look upon it as a kind of sacramental purification of Exeter Hall, and a proclamation of indulgence for all that is to be perpetrated there during this month of May. This is a piece of impiety which you may expect from a lady who has been guanoing her mind with French novels. This is the impertinent expression of D'Israeli, who, writing himself much more detestable stuff than ever came from a French pen, can do nothing better to bamboozle the unfortunates who are seduced into reading his "Tancred" than speak superciliously of all other men and things--an expedient much more successful in some quarters than one would expect. But _au fond_, dear Mary, I have no impiety in my mind at this moment, and my soul heartily responds to your rejoicing that society is attaining a more perfect idea and exhibition of Paul's exhortation--"Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." I believe the Amen to this will be uttered more and more fervently, "Among all posterities for evermore." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th June, 1847.] Ask me not why I have never written all this weary time. I can only answer, "All things are full of labor--man cannot utter it"--_et seq._ See the first chapter of Ecclesiastes for my experience. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Sept. 1847.] I have read the "Inquiry" again with more than interest--with delight and high admiration. My present impression from it far surpasses the one I had retained from my two readings about five years ago. With the exception of a few expressions which seem too little discriminating in the introductory sketch, there is nothing in its whole tone, from beginning to end, that jars on my moral sense; and apart from any opinion of the book as an explanation of the existence of Christianity and the Christian documents, I am sure that no one, fit to read it at all, could read it without being intellectually and morally stronger--the reasoning is so close, the induction so clever, the style so clear, vigorous, and pointed, and the animus so candid and even generous. Mr. Hennell ought to be one of the happiest of men that he has done such a life's work. I am sure if I had written such a book I should be invulnerable to all the arrows of all spiteful gods and goddesses. I should say, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself," seeing that I have delivered such a message of God to men. The book is full of _wit_, to me. It gives me that exquisite kind of laughter which comes from the gratification of the reasoning faculties. For instance: "If some of those who were actually at the mountain doubted whether they saw Jesus or not, we may reasonably doubt whether he was to be seen at all there: especially as the words attributed to him do not seem at all likely to have been said, from the disciples paying no attention to them." "The disciples considered her (Mary Magdalene's) words idle tales, and believed them not." We have thus their example for considering her testimony alone as insufficient, and for seeking further evidence. To say "Jewish philosopher" seems almost like saying a round square; yet those two words appear to me the truest description of Jesus. I think the "Inquiry" furnishes the utmost that can be done towards obtaining a _real_ view of the life and character of Jesus, by rejecting as little as possible from the Gospels. I confess that I should call many things "shining ether," to which Mr. Hennell allows the solid angularity of facts; but I think he has thoroughly worked out the problem--subtract from the New Testament the miraculous and highly improbable, and what will be the remainder? At the end of September Miss Evans and her father went for a little trip to the Isle of Wight, and on their return there is the following letter: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Oct. 1847.] I heartily wish you had been with me to see all the beauties which have gladdened my soul and made me feel that this earth is as good a heaven as I ought to dream of. I have a much greater respect for the Isle of Wight, now I have seen it, than when I knew it only by report--a compliment which one can seldom very sincerely pay to things and people that one has heard puffed and bepraised. I do long for you to see Alum Bay. Fancy a very high precipice, the strata upheaved perpendicularly in rainbow-like streaks of the brightest maize, violet, pink, blue, red, brown, and brilliant white, worn by the weather into fantastic fretwork, the deep blue sky above, and the glorious sea below. It seems an enchanted land, where the earth is of more delicate, refined materials than this dingy planet of ours is wrought out of. You might fancy the strata formed of the compressed pollen of flowers, or powder from bright insects. You can think of nothing but Calypsos, or Prosperos and Ariels, and such-like beings. I find one very great spiritual good attendant on a quiet, meditative journey among fresh scenes. I seem to have removed to a distance from myself when I am away from the petty circumstances that make up my ordinary environment. I can take myself up by the ears and inspect myself, like any other queer monster on a small scale. I have had many thoughts, especially on a subject that I should like to work out--"The superiority of the consolations of philosophy to those of (so-called) religion." Do you stare? Thank you for putting me on reading Sir Charles Grandison. I have read five volumes, and am only vexed that I have not the two last on my table at this moment, that I might have them for my _convives_. I had no idea that Richardson was worth so much. I have had more pleasure from him than from all the Swedish novels together. The morality is perfect--there is nothing for the new lights to correct. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Nov. 1847.] How do you like "Lelia," of which you have never spoken one word? I am provoked with you for being in the least pleased with "Tancred;" but if you have found out any lofty meaning in it, or any true picturing of life, tell it me, and I will recant. I have found two new readers of Strauss. One, a lady at Leamington, who is also reading the "Inquiry," but likes Strauss better! The other is a gentleman here in Coventry; he says "it is most clever and ingenious, and that no one whose faith rests only on the _common_ foundation can withstand it." I think he may safely say that his faith rests on an _un_common foundation. The book will certainly give him a lift in the right direction, from its critical, logical character--just the opposite of his own. I was interested the other day in talking to a young lady who lives in a nest of clergymen, her brothers, but not of the evangelical school. She had been reading Blanco White's life, and seems to have had her spirit stirred within her, as every one's must be who reads the book with any power of appreciation. She is unable to account to herself for the results at which Blanco White arrived with his earnestness and love of truth; and she asked me if I had come to the same conclusions. I think "Live and teach" should be a proverb as well as "Live and learn." We must teach either for good or evil; and if we use our inward light as the Quaker tells us, always taking care to feed and trim it well, our teaching must, in the end, be for good. We are growing old together--are we not? I am growing happier too. I am amusing myself with thinking of the prophecy of Daniel as a sort of allegory. All those monstrous, "rombustical" beasts with their horns--the horn with eyes and a mouth speaking proud things, and the little horn that waxed rebellious and stamped on the stars, seem like my passions and vain fancies, which are to be knocked down one after the other, until all is subdued into a universal kingdom over which the Ancient of Days presides--the spirit of love--the Catholicism of the Universe--if you can attach any meaning to such a phrase. It _has_ a meaning for my sage noddle. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Jan. 1848.] I am reading George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur" with great delight, and hoping that they will some time do you as much good as they do me. In the meantime, I think the short letter about "Lelia" will interest you. It has a very deep meaning to my apprehension. You can send back the pages when you have duly digested them. I once said of you that yours was a sort of alkali nature which would detect the slightest acid of falsehood. You began to phiz-z-z directly it approached you. I want you as a test. I now begin to see the necessity of the arrangement (a bad word) that love should determine people's fate while they are young. It is so impossible to admire--"_s'enthousiasmer_" of--an _individual_ as one gets older. Here follows the interesting correspondence, referred to before, with Mr. John Sibree: [Sidenote: Letter to J. Sibree, beginning of 1848.] Begin your letter by abusing me, according to my example. There is nothing like a little gunpowder for a damp chimney; and an explosion of that sort will set the fire of your ideas burning to admiration. I hate bashfulness and modesties, as Sir Hugh Evans would say; and I warn you that I shall make no apologies, though, from my habit of writing only to people who, rather than have nothing from me, will tolerate nothings, I shall be very apt to forget that you are not one of those amiably silly individuals. I must write to you _more meo_, without taking pains or laboring to be _spirituelle_ when Heaven never meant me to be so; and it is your own fault if you bear with my letters a moment after they become an infliction. I am glad you detest Mrs. Hannah More's letters. I like neither her letters, nor her books, nor her character. She was that most disagreeable of all monsters, a blue-stocking--a monster that can only exist in a miserably false state of society, in which a woman with but a smattering of learning or philosophy is classed along with singing mice and card-playing pigs. It is some time since I read "Tancred," so that I have no very vivid recollection of its details; but I thought it very "thin," and inferior in the working up to "Coningsby" and "Sybil." Young Englandism is almost as remote from my sympathies as Jacobitism, as far as its force is concerned, though I love and respect it as an effort on behalf of the people. D'Israeli is unquestionably an able man, and I always enjoy his tirades against liberal principles as opposed to popular principles--the name by which he distinguishes his own. As to his theory of races, it has not a leg to stand on, and can only be buoyed up by such windy eloquence as--You chubby-faced, squabby-nosed Europeans owe your commerce, your arts, your religion, to the Hebrews--nay, the Hebrews lead your armies: in proof of which he can tell us that Massena, a second-rate general of Napoleon's, was a Jew, whose real name was Manasseh. Extermination up to a certain point seems to be the law for the inferior races--for the rest fusion, both for physical and moral ends. It appears to me that the law by which privileged classes degenerate, from continual intermarriage, must act on a larger scale in deteriorating whole races. The nations have been always kept apart until they have sufficiently developed their idiosyncrasies, and then some great revolutionary force has been called into action, by which the genius of a particular nation becomes a portion of the common mind of humanity. Looking at the matter æsthetically, our idea of beauty is never formed on the characteristics of a single race. I confess the types of the pure races, however handsome, always impress me disagreeably; there is an undefined feeling that I am looking not at _man_, but at a specimen of an order under Cuvier's class Bimana. The negroes certainly puzzle me. All the other races seem plainly destined to extermination, not excepting even the Hebrew Caucasian. But the negroes are too important, physiologically and geographically, for one to think of their extermination; while the repulsion between them and the other races seems too strong for fusion to take place to any great extent. On one point I heartily agree with D'Israeli as to the superiority of the Oriental races--their clothes are beautiful and their manners are agreeable. Did you not think the picture of the Barroni family interesting? I should like to know who are the originals. The fellowship of race, to which D'Israeli so exultingly refers the munificence of Sidonia, is so evidently an inferior impulse, which must ultimately be superseded, that I wonder even he, Jew as he is, dares to boast of it. My Gentile nature kicks most resolutely against any assumption of superiority in the Jews, and is almost ready to echo Voltaire's vituperation. I bow to the supremacy of Hebrew poetry, but much of their early mythology, and almost all their history, is utterly revolting. Their stock has produced a Moses and a Jesus; but Moses was impregnated with Egyptian philosophy, and Jesus is venerated and adored by us only for that wherein he transcended or resisted Judaism. The very exaltation of their idea of a national deity into a spiritual monotheism seems to have been borrowed from the other Oriental tribes. Everything specifically Jewish is of a low grade. And do you really think that sculpture and painting are to die out of the world? If that be so, let another deluge come as quickly as possible, that a new race of Glums and Gowries may take possession of this melancholy earth. I agree with you as to the inherent superiority of music--as that questionable woman, the Countess Hahn-Hahn, says painting and sculpture are but an idealizing of our actual existence. Music arches over this existence with another and a diviner. Amen, too, to that _ideenvoll_ observation of Hegel's. "We hardly know what it is to feel for human misery until we have heard a shriek; and a more perfect hell might be made out of sound than out of any preparation of fire and brimstone." When the tones of our voice have betrayed peevishness or harshness, we seem to be doubly haunted by the ghost of our sin; we are doubly conscious that we have been untrue to our part in the great Handel chorus. But I cannot assent to the notion that music is to supersede the other arts, or that the highest minds must necessarily aspire to a sort of Milton blindness, in which the _tiefste der Sinne_ is to be a substitute for all the rest. I cannot recognize the truth of all that is said about the necessity of religious fervor to high art. I am sceptical as to the real existence of such fervor in any of the greatest artists. Artistic power seems to me to resemble dramatic power--to be an intimate perception of the varied states of which the human mind is susceptible, with ability to give them out anew in intensified expression. It is true that the older the world gets originality becomes less possible. Great subjects are used up, and civilization tends evermore to repress individual predominance, highly wrought agony, or ecstatic joy. But all the gentler emotions will be ever new, ever wrought up into more and more lovely combinations, and genius will probably take their direction. Have you ever seen a head of Christ taken from a statue, by Thorwaldsen, of Christ scourged? If not, I think it would almost satisfy you. There is another work of his, said to be very sublime, of the Archangel waiting for the command to sound the last trumpet. Yet Thorwaldsen came at the fag end of time. I am afraid you despise landscape painting; but to me even the works of our own Stanfield, and Roberts, and Creswick bring a whole world of thought and bliss--"a sense of something far more deeply interfused." The ocean and the sky and the everlasting hills are spirit to me, and they will never be robbed of their sublimity. [Sidenote: Letter to J. Sibree, beginning of 1848.] I have tired myself with trying to write cleverly, _invitâ Minervâ_, and having in vain endeavored to refresh myself by turning over Lavater's queer sketches of physiognomies, and still queerer judgments on them, it is a happy thought of mine that I have a virtuous reason for spending my _ennui_ on you. I send you a stanza I picked up the other day in George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur," which is almost the ultimatum of human wisdom on the question of human sorrow. "Le bonheur et le malheur, Nous viennent du même auteur, Voilà la _ressemblance_. Le bonheur nous rend heureux, Et le malheur malheureux, Voilà la différence." Ah, here comes a cup of coffee to console me! When I have taken it I will tell you what George Sand says: "Sais tu bien que tout est dit devant Dieu et devant les hommes quand l'homme infortuné demande compte de ses maux et qu'il obtient cette réponse? Qu'y a-t-il de plus? Rien." But I am not a mocking pen, and if I were talking to you instead of writing, you would detect some falsity in the ring of my voice. Alas! the atrabiliar patient you describe is first cousin to me in my very worst moods, but I have a profound faith that the serpent's head will be bruised. This conscious kind of false life that is ever and anon endeavoring to form itself within us and eat away our true life, will be overcome by continued accession of vitality, by our perpetual increase in "quantity of existence," as Foster calls it. Creation is the superadded life of the intellect; sympathy, all-embracing love, the superadded moral life. These given more and more abundantly, I feel that all the demons, which are but my own egotism mopping and mowing and gibbering, would vanish away, and there would be no place for them, "For every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by hope's perpetual breath." Evils, even sorrows, are they not all negations? Thus matter is in a perpetual state of decomposition; superadd the principle of life, and the tendency to decomposition is overcome. Add to this consciousness, and there is a power of self-amelioration. The passions and senses decompose, so to speak. The intellect, by its analytic power, restrains the fury with which they rush to their own destruction; the moral nature purifies, beautifies, and at length transmutes them. But to whom am I talking? You know far more _sur ce chapitre_ than I. Every one talks of himself or herself to me, and I beg you will follow every one's example in this one thing only. Individuals are precious to me in proportion as they unfold to me their intimate selves. I have just had lent me the journal of a person who died some years ago. When I was less venerable I should have felt the reading of such a thing insupportable; now it interests me, though it is the simplest record of events and feelings. Mary says she has told you about Mr. Dawson and his lecture--miserably crude and mystifying in some parts, but with a few fine passages. He is a very delightful man, but not (at least so say my impressions) a great man. How difficult it is to be great in this world, where there is a tariff for spiritualities as well as for beeves and cheese and tallow. It is scarcely possible for a man simply to give out his true inspiration--the real, profound conviction which he has won by hard wrestling, or the few-and-far-between pearls of imagination; he must go on talking or writing by rote, or he must starve. Would it not be better to take to tent-making with Paul, or to spectacle-making with Spinoza? [Sidenote: Letter to J. Sibree, Feb. 1848.] Write and tell you that I join you in your happiness about the French Revolution? Very fine, my good friend. If I made you wait for a letter as long as you do me, our little _échantillon_ of a millennium would be over, Satan would be let loose again, and I should have to share your humiliation instead of your triumph. Nevertheless I absolve you, for the sole merit of thinking rightly (that is, of course, just as I do) about _la grande nation_ and its doings. You and Carlyle (have you seen his article in last week's _Examiner_?) are the only two people who feel just as I would have them--who can glory in what is actually great and beautiful without putting forth any cold reservations and incredulities to save their credit for wisdom. I am all the more delighted with your enthusiasm because I didn't expect it. I feared that you lacked revolutionary ardor. But no--you are just as _sans-culottish_ and rash as I would have you. You are not one of those sages whose reason keeps so tight a rein on their emotions that they are too constantly occupied in calculating consequences to rejoice in any great manifestation of the forces that underlie our every-day existence. I should have written a soprano to your jubilate the very next day, but that, lest I should be exalted above measure, a messenger of Satan was sent in the form of a headache, and directly on the back of that a face-ache, so that I have been a mere victim of sensations, memories, and visions for the last week. I am even now, as you may imagine, in a very shattered, limbo-like mental condition. I thought we had fallen on such evil days that we were to see no really great movement; that ours was what St. Simon calls a purely critical epoch, not at all an organic one; but I begin to be glad of my date. I would consent, however, to have a year clipped off my life for the sake of witnessing such a scene as that of the men of the barricades bowing to the image of Christ, "who first taught fraternity to men." One trembles to look into every fresh newspaper lest there should be something to mar the picture; but hitherto even the scoffing newspaper critics have been compelled into a tone of genuine respect for the French people and the Provisional Government. Lamartine can act a poem if he cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pictorial newspaper is really his; it is worthy of an aureole. I am chiefly anxious about Albert, the operative, but his picture is not to be seen. I have little patience with people who can find time to pity Louis Philippe and his moustachioed sons. Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pensioned off; we should have a hospital for them, or a sort of zoological garden, where these worn-out humbugs may be preserved. It is but justice that we should keep them, since we have spoiled them for any honest trade. Let them sit on soft cushions, and have their dinner regularly, but, for Heaven's sake, preserve me from sentimentalizing over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies. Surely he is not so Ahab-like as to wish that the revolution had been deferred till his son's days: and I think that the shades of the Stuarts would have some reason to complain if the Bourbons, who are so little better than they, had been allowed to reign much longer. I should have no hope of good from any imitative movement at home. Our working classes are eminently inferior to the mass of the French people. In France the _mind_ of the people is highly electrified; they are full of ideas on social subjects; they really desire social _reform_--not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favorite proverb, "Yesterday for you, to-day for me." The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and embraced the rural population--not merely, as with us, the artisans of the towns. Here there is so much larger a proportion of selfish radicalism and unsatisfied brute sensuality (in the agricultural and mining districts especially) than of perception or desire of justice that a revolutionary movement would be simply destructive, not constructive. Besides, it would be put down. Our military have no notion of "fraternizing." They have the same sort of inveteracy as dogs have for the ill-dressed _canaille_. They are as mere a brute force as a battering-ram; and the aristocracy have got firm hold of them. And there is nothing in our constitution to obstruct the slow progress of _political_ reform. This is all we are fit for at present. The social reform which may prepare us for great changes is more and more the object of effort both in Parliament and out of it. But we English are slow crawlers. The sympathy in Ireland seems at present only of the water-toast kind. The Glasgow riots are more serious; but one cannot believe in a Scotch Reign of Terror in these days. I should not be sorry to hear that the Italians had risen _en masse_, and chased the odious Austrians out of beautiful Lombardy. But this they could hardly do without help, and that involves another European war. Concerning the "tent-making," there is much more to be said, but am I to adopt your rule and never speak of what I suppose we agree about? It is necessary to me, not simply to _be_ but to _utter_, and I require utterance of my friends. What is it to me that I think the same thoughts? I think them in a somewhat different fashion. No mind that has any _real_ life is a mere echo of another. If the perfect unison comes occasionally, as in music, it enhances the harmonies. It is like a diffusion or expansion of one's own life to be assured that its vibrations are repeated in another, and words are the media of those vibrations. Is not the universe itself a perpetual utterance of the one Being? So I say again, utter, utter, utter, and it will be a deed of mercy twice blessed, for I shall be a safety-valve for your communicativeness and prevent it from splitting honest people's brains who don't understand you; and, moreover, it will be fraught with ghostly comfort to me. [Sidenote: Letter to J. Sibree, Sunday evening, later in 1848.] I might make a very plausible excuse for not acknowledging your kind note earlier by telling you that I have been both a nurse and invalid; but, to be thoroughly ingenuous, I must confess that all this would not have been enough to prevent my writing but for my chronic disease of utter idleness. I have heard and thought of you with great interest, however. You have my hearty and not inexperienced sympathy; for, to speak in the style of Jonathan Oldbuck, I am _haud ignara mali_. I have gone through a trial of the same genus as yours, though rather differing in species. I sincerely rejoice in the step you have taken; it is an absolutely necessary condition for any true development of your nature. It was impossible to think of your career with hope, while you tacitly subscribed to the miserable _etiquette_ (it deserves no better or more spiritual name) of sectarianism. Only persevere; be true, firm, and loving; not too anxious about immediate usefulness to others--that can only be a result of justice to yourself. Study mental hygiene. Take long doses of _dolce far niente_, and be in no great hurry about anything in this 'varsal world! Do we not commit ourselves to sleep, and so resign all care for ourselves every night; lay ourselves gently on the bosom of Nature or God? A beautiful reproach to the spirit of some religionists and ultra good people. I like the notion of your going to Germany, as good in every way, for yourself, body and mind, and for all others. Oh, the bliss of having a very high attic in a romantic Continental town, such as Geneva, far away from morning callers, dinners, and decencies, and then to pause for a year and think _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, and then to return to life, and work for poor stricken humanity, and never think of self again![23] I am writing nearly in the dark, with the post-boy waiting. I fear I shall not be at home when you come home, but surely I shall see you before you leave England. However that may be, I shall utter a genuine _Lebewohl_. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Feb. 1848.] In my view there are but two kinds of _regular_ correspondence possible--one of simple affection, which gives a picture of all the details, painful and pleasurable, that a loving heart pines after, and this we carry on through the medium of Cara; or one purely moral and intellectual, carried on for the sake of ghostly edification, in which each party has to put salt on the tails of all sorts of ideas on all sorts of subjects, in order to send a weekly or fortnightly packet, as so much duty and self-castigation. I have always been given to understand that such Lady-Jane-Grey-like works were your abhorrence. However, let me know what you _would_ like--what would make you continue to hold me in loving remembrance or convince you that you are a bright evergreen in my garden of pleasant plants. Behold me ready to tear off my right hand or pluck out my right eye (metaphorically, of course--I speak to an experienced exegetist, _comme dirait notre_ Strauss), or write reams of letters full of interesting falsehoods or very dull truths. We have always concluded that our correspondence should be of the _third_ possible kind--one of impulse, which is necessarily irregular as the Northern Lights. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th April, 1848.] I am a miserable wretch, with aching limbs and sinking spirits, but still alive enough to feel the kindness of your last note. I thoroughly enjoyed your delight in Emerson. I should have liked to see you sitting by him "with awful eye," for once in your life feeling all the bliss of veneration. I am quite uncertain about our movements. Dear father gets on very slowly, if at all. You will understand the impossibility of my forming any plans for my own pleasure. Rest is the only thing I can think of with pleasure now. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th April, 1848.] Dear father is so decidedly progressing towards recovery that I am full of quiet joy--a gentle dawning light after the moonlight of sorrow. I have found already some of the "sweet uses" that belong only to what is called trouble, which is, after all, only a deepened gaze into life, like the sight of the darker blue and the thickening host of stars when the hazy effect of twilight is gone--as our dear Blanco White said of death. I shall have less time than I have had at my own disposal, probably; but I feel prepared to accept life, nay, lovingly to embrace it, in any form in which it shall present itself. Some time in May Mr. Evans and his daughter went to St. Leonard's, and remained there till near the end of June. His mortal illness had now taken hold of him, and this was a depressing time, both for him and for her, as will be seen from the following letters: [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, May, 1848.] Your words of affection seem to make this earthly atmosphere sit less heavily on my shoulders, and in gratitude I must send you my thanks before I begin to read of Henry Gow and Fair Catharine for father's delectation. In truth, I have found it somewhat difficult to live for the last week--conscious all the time that the only additions to my lot worth having must be more strength to love in my own nature; but perhaps this very consciousness has an irritating rather than a soothing effect. I have a fit of sensitiveness upon me, which, after all, is but egotism and mental idleness. The enthusiasm without which one cannot even pour out breakfast well (at least _I_ cannot) has forsaken me. You may laugh, and wonder when my enthusiasm has displayed itself, but that will only prove that you are no seer. I can never live long without it in some form or other. I possess my soul in patience for a time, believing that this dark, damp vault in which I am groping will soon come to an end, and the fresh, green earth and the bright sky be all the more precious to me. But for the present my address is Grief Castle, on the River of Gloom, in the Valley of Dolor. I was amused to find that Castle Campbell in Scotland was called so. Truly for many seasons in my life I should have been an appropriate denizen of such a place; but I have faith that unless I am destined to insanity, I shall never again abide long in that same castle. I heartily say Amen to your dictum about the cheerfulness of "large moral regions." Where _thought_ and _love_ are active--thought the formative power, love the vitalizing--there can be no sadness. They are in themselves a more intense and extended participation of a divine existence. As they grow, the highest species of faith grows too, and all things are possible. I don't know why I should prose in this way to you. But I wanted to thank you for your note, and all this selfish grumbling was at my pen's end. And now I have no time to redeem myself. We shall not stay long away from home, I feel sure. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 31st May, 1848.] Father has done wonders in the way of walking and eating--for him--but he makes not the slightest attempt to amuse himself, so that I scarcely feel easy in following my own bent even for an hour. I have told you everything now, except that I look amiable in spite of a strong tendency to look black, and speak gently, though with a strong propensity to be snappish. Pity me, ye happier spirits that look amiable and speak gently because ye _are_ amiable and gentle. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 4th June, 1848.] Alas for the fate of poor mortals, which condemns them to wake up some fine morning and find all the poetry in which their world was bathed only the evening before utterly gone!--the hard, angular world of chairs and tables and looking-glasses staring at them in all its naked prose! It is so in all the stages of life; the poetry of girlhood goes, the poetry of love and marriage, the poetry of maternity, and at last the very poetry of duty forsakes us for a season, and we see ourselves, and all about us, as nothing more than miserable agglomerations of atoms--poor tentative efforts of the _Natur Princip_ to mould a personality. This is the state of prostration, the self-abnegation, through which the soul must go, and to which perhaps it must again and again return, that its poetry or religion, which is the same thing, may be a real, ever-flowing river, fresh from the windows of heaven and the fountains of the great deep--not an artificial basin, with grotto-work and gold-fish. I feel a sort of madness growing upon me, just the opposite of the delirium which makes people fancy that their bodies are filling the room. It seems to me as if I were shrinking into that mathematical abstraction, a point. But I am wasting this "good Sunday morning" in grumblings. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 8th June, 1848.] Poor Louis Blanc! The newspapers make me melancholy; but shame upon me that I say "poor." The day will come when there will be a temple of white marble, where sweet incense and anthems shall rise to the memory of every man and woman who has had a deep _Ahnung_--a presentiment, a yearning, or a clear vision--of the time when this miserable reign of Mammon shall end; when men shall be no longer "like the fishes of the sea," society no more like a face one half of which--the side of profession, of lip-faith--is fair and God-like; the other half--the side of deeds and institutions--with a hard, old, wrinkled skin puckered into the sneer of a Mephistopheles. I worship the man who has written as the climax of his appeal against society, "L'inegalité des talents _doit aboutir_ non à l'inegalité des retributions mais à l'inegalité des devoirs." You will wonder what has wrought me up into this fury. It is the loathsome fawning, the transparent hypocrisy, the systematic giving as little as possible for as much as possible that one meets with here at every turn. I feel that society is training men and women for hell. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d June, 1848.] All creatures about to moult, or to cast off an old skin, or enter on any new metamorphosis, have sickly feelings. It was so with me. But now I am set free from the irritating, worn-out integument. I am entering on a new period of my life, which makes me look back on the past as something incredibly poor and contemptible. I am enjoying repose, strength, and ardor in a greater degree than I have ever known, and yet I never felt my own insignificance and imperfection so completely. My heart bleeds for dear father's pains, but it is blessed to be at hand to give the soothing word and act needed. I should not have written this description of myself but that I felt your affectionate letter demanded some I-ism, which, after all, is often humility rather than pride. Paris, poor Paris--alas! alas! [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, June, 1848.] I have read "Jane Eyre," and shall be glad to know what you admire in it. All self-sacrifice is good, but one would like it to be in a somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical law which chains a man soul and body to a putrefying carcass. However, the book _is_ interesting; only I wish the characters would talk a little less like the heroes and heroines of police reports. About the beginning of July Miss Evans and her father returned to Coventry; and the 13th July was a memorable day, as Emerson came to visit the Brays, and she went with them to Stratford. All she says herself about it is in this note. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday, July, 1848.] I have seen Emerson--the first _man_ I have ever seen. But you have seen still more of him, so I need not tell you what he is. I shall leave Cara to tell how the day--the Emerson day--was spent, for I have a swimming head from hanging over the desk to write business letters for father. Have you seen the review of Strauss's pamphlet in the _Edinburgh_? The title is "Der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren, oder Julian der Abtrünnige"--a sort of erudite satire on the King of Prussia; but the reviewer pronounces it to have a permanent value quite apart from this fugitive interest. The "Romantiker," or Romanticist, is one who, in literature, in the arts, in religion or politics, endeavors to revive the dead past. Julian was a romanticist in wishing to restore the Greek religion and its spirit, when mankind had entered on the new development. But you have very likely seen the review. I must copy one passage, translated from the conclusion of Strauss's pamphlet, lest you should not have met with it. "Christian writers have disfigured the death-scene of Julian. They have represented him as furious, blaspheming, despairing, and in his despair exclaiming, _Thou_ hast conquered, O Galilean!--'[Greek: nenikekas Galilaie].' This phrase, though false as history, has a truth in it. It contains a prophecy--to us a consoling prophecy--and it is this: Every Julian--_i.e._, every great and powerful man--who would attempt to resuscitate a state of society which has died, will infallibly be vanquished by the Galilean--for the Galilean is nothing less than the genius of the future!" [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Dec. 1848.] Father's tongue has just given utterance to a thought which has been very visibly radiating from his eager eyes for some minutes. "I thought you were going on with the book." I can only bless you for those two notes, which have emanated from you like so much ambrosial scent from roses and lavender. Not less am I grateful for the Carlyle eulogium.[24] I have shed some quite delicious tears over it. This is a world worth abiding in while one man can thus venerate and love another. More anon--this from my doleful prison of stupidity and barrenness, with a yawning trapdoor ready to let me down into utter fatuity. But I can even yet feel the omnipotence of a glorious chord. Poor pebble as I am, left entangled among slimy weeds, I can yet hear from afar the rushing of the blessed torrent, and rejoice that it is there to bathe and brighten other pebbles less unworthy of the polishing. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of 1848.] Thank you for a sight of our blessed St. Francis's[25] letter. There is no imaginable moment in which the thought of such a being could be an intrusion. His soul is a blessed _yea_. There is a sort of blasphemy in that proverbial phrase, "Too good to be true." The highest inspiration of the purest, noblest human soul, is the nearest expression of the truth. Those extinct volcanoes of one's spiritual life--those eruptions of the intellect and the passions which have scattered the lava of doubt and negation over our early faith--are only a glorious Himalayan chain, beneath which new valleys of undreamed richness and beauty will spread themselves. Shall we poor earthworms have sublimer thoughts than the universe, of which we are poor chips--mere effluvia of mind--shall we have sublimer thoughts than that universe can furnish out into reality? I am living unspeakable moments, and can write no more. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Jan. 1849.] I think of you perpetually, but my thoughts are all aqueous; they will not crystallize--they are as fleeting as ripples on the sea. I am suffering perhaps as acutely as ever I did in my life. Breathe a wish that I may gather strength--the fragrance of your wish will reach me somehow. The next letter is to Mrs. Houghton, who, it will be remembered, was the only daughter by Mr. Evans's first marriage. Miss Evans had more intellectual sympathy with this half-sister Fanny than with any of the other members of her family, and it is a pity that more of the letters to her have not been preserved. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, Sunday evening, 1849.] I have been holding a court of conscience, and I cannot enjoy my Sunday's music without restoring harmony, without entering a protest against that superficial soul of mine which is perpetually contradicting and belying the true inner soul. I am in that mood which, in another age of the world, would have led me to put on sackcloth and pour ashes on my head, when I call to mind the sins of my tongue--my animadversions on the faults of others, as if I thought myself to be something when I am nothing. When shall I attain to the true spirit of love which Paul has taught for all the ages? I want no one to excuse me, dear Fanny; I only want to remove the shadow of my miserable words and deeds from before the divine image of truth and goodness, which I would have all beings worship. I need the Jesuits' discipline of silence, and though my "evil speaking" issues from the intellectual point of view rather than the moral--though there may be gall in the thought while there is honey in the feeling, yet the evil speaking is wrong. We may satirize character and qualities in the abstract without injury to our moral nature, but persons hardly ever. Poor hints and sketches of souls as we are--with some slight, transient vision of the perfect and the true--we had need help each other to gaze at the blessed heavens instead of peering into each other's eyes to find out the motes there. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Sunday morning, 4th Feb. 1849.] I have not touched the piano for nearly two months until this morning, when, father being better, I was determined to play a mass before the piano is utterly out of tune again. _Write, asking for nothing again_, like a true disciple of Jesus. I am still feeling rather shattered in brain and limbs; but do not suppose that I lack inward peace and strength. My body is the defaulter--_consciously_ so. I triumph over all things in the spirit, but the flesh is weak, and disgraces itself by headaches and backaches. I am delighted to find that you mention Macaulay, because that is an indication that Mr. Hennell has been reading him. I thought of Mr. H. all through the book, as the only person I could be quite sure would enjoy it as much as I did myself. I did not know if it would interest you: tell me more explicitly that it does. Think of Babylon being unearthed in spite of the prophecies? Truly we are looking before and after, "au jour d'aujourd'hui," as Monsieur Bricolin says. Send me the criticism of Jacques the morn's morning--only beware there are not too many blasphemies against my divinity. Paint soap-bubbles--and never fear but I will find _a_ meaning, though very likely not your meaning. Paint the Crucifixion in a bubble--after Turner--and then the Resurrection: I see them now. There has been a vulgar man sitting by while I have been writing, and I have been saying parenthetical bits of civility to him to help out poor father in his conversation, so I have not been quite sure what I have been saying to you. I have woful aches which take up half my nervous strength. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Feb. 1849.] My life is a perpetual nightmare, and always haunted by something to be done, which I have never the time, or, rather, the energy, to do. Opportunity is kind, but only to the industrious, and I, alas! am not one of them. I have sat down in desperation this evening, though dear father is very uneasy, and his moans distract me, just to tell you that you have full absolution for your criticism, which I do not reckon of the impertinent order. I wish you thoroughly to understand that the writers who have most profoundly influenced me--who have rolled away the waters from their bed, raised new mountains and spread delicious valleys for me--are not in the least oracles to me. It is just possible that I may not embrace one of their opinions; that I may wish my life to be shaped quite differently from theirs. For instance, it would signify nothing to me if a very wise person were to stun me with proofs that Rousseau's views of life, religion, and government are miserably erroneous--that he was guilty of some of the worst _bassesses_ that have degraded civilized man. I might admit all this: and it would be not the less true that Rousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions; which has made man and nature a fresh world of thought and feeling to me; and this not by teaching me any new belief. It is simply that the rushing mighty wind of his inspiration has so quickened my faculties that I have been able to shape more definitely for myself ideas which had previously dwelt as dim _Ahnungen_ in my soul; the fire of his genius has so fused together old thoughts and prejudices that I have been ready to make new combinations. It is thus with George Sand. I should never dream of going to her writings as a moral code or text-book. I don't care whether I agree with her about marriage or not--whether I think the design of her plot correct, or that she had no precise design at all, but began to write as the spirit moved her, and trusted to Providence for the catastrophe, which I think the more probable case. It is sufficient for me, as a reason for bowing before her in eternal gratitude to that "great power of God manifested in her," that I cannot read six pages of hers without feeling that it is given to her to delineate human passion and its results, and (I must say, in spite of your judgment) some of the moral instincts and their tendencies, with such truthfulness, such nicety of discrimination, such tragic power, and, withal, such loving, gentle humor, that one might live a century with nothing but one's own dull faculties, and not know so much as those six pages will suggest. The psychological anatomy of Jacques and Fernande in the early days of their marriage seems quite preternaturally true--I mean that her power of describing it is preternatural. Fernande and Jacques are merely the feminine and the masculine nature, and their early married life an every-day tragedy; but I will not dilate on the book or on your criticism, for I am so sleepy that I should write nothing but _bêtises_. I have at last the most delightful "De imitatione Christi," with quaint woodcuts. One breathes a cool air as of cloisters in the book--it makes one long to be a saint for a few months. Verily its piety has its foundations in the depth of the divine-human soul. In March Miss Evans wrote a short notice of the "Nemesis of Faith" for the _Coventry Herald_, in which she says: "We are sure that its author is a bright, particular star, though he sometimes leaves us in doubt whether he be not a fallen 'son of the morning.'" The paper was sent to Mr. Froude, and on 23d March Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell: "Last night at dusk M. A. came running in in high glee with a most charming note from Froude, naïvely and prettily requesting her to reveal herself. He says he recognized her hand in the review in the _Coventry Herald_, and if she thinks him a fallen star she might help him to rise, but he 'believes he has only been dipped in the Styx, and is not much the worse for the bath.' Poor girl, I am so pleased she should have this little episode in her dull life." The next letter again refers to Mr. Froude's books. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Wednesday, April, 1849.] Tell me not that I am a mere prater--that feeling never talks. I will talk, and caress, and look lovingly, until death makes me as stony as the Gorgon-like heads of all the judicious people I know. What is anything worth until it is uttered? Is not the universe one great utterance? Utterance there must be in word or deed to make life of any worth. Every true pentecost is a gift of utterance. Life is too short and opportunities too meagre for many deeds--besides, the best friendships are precisely those where there is no possibility of material helpfulness--and I would take no deeds as an adequate compensation for the frigid, glassy eye and hard, indifferent tones of one's very solid and sensible and conscientious friend. You will wonder of what this is _à propos_--only of a little bitterness in my own soul just at this moment, and not of anything between you and me. I have nothing to tell you, for all the "haps" of my life are so indifferent. I spin my existence so entirely out of myself that there is a sad want of proper names in my conversation, and I am becoming a greater bore than ever. It is a consciousness of this that has kept me from writing to you. My letters would be a sort of hermit's diary. I have so liked the thought of your enjoying the "Nemesis of Faith." I quote Keats's sonnet, _à propos_ of that book. It has made me feel-- "Like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez--when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien." You must read "The Shadows of the Clouds." It produces a sort of palpitation that one hardly knows whether to call wretched or delightful. I cannot take up the book again, though wanting very much to read it more closely. Poor and shallow as one's own soul is, it is blessed to think that a sort of transubstantiation is possible by which the greater ones can live in us. Egotism apart, another's greatness, beauty, or bliss is one's own. And let us sing a _Magnificat_ when we are conscious that this power of expansion and sympathy is growing, just in proportion as the individual satisfactions are lessening. Miserable dust of the earth we are, but it is worth while to be so, for the sake of the living soul--the breath of God within us. You see I can do nothing but scribble my own prosy stuff--such chopped straw as my soul is foddered on. I am translating the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" of Spinoza, and seem to want the only friend that knows how to praise or blame. How exquisite is the satisfaction of feeling that another mind than your own sees precisely where and what is the difficulty--and can exactly appreciate the success with which it is overcome. One knows--_sed longo intervallo_--the full meaning of the "fit audience though few." How an artist must hate the noodles that stare at his picture, with a vague notion that it _is_ a clever thing to be able to paint. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Pears, 10th May, 1849.] I know it will gladden your heart to hear that father spoke of you the other day with affection and gratitude. He remembers you as one who helped to strengthen that beautiful spirit of resignation which has never left him through his long trial. His mind is as clear and rational as ever, notwithstanding his feebleness, and he gives me a thousand little proofs that he understands my affection and responds to it. These are very precious moments to me; my chair by father's bedside is a very blessed seat to me. My delight in the idea that you are being benefited after all, prevents me from regretting you, though you are just the friend that would complete my comfort. Every addition to your power of enjoying life is an expansion of mine. I partake of your ebb and flow. I am going to my post now. I have just snatched an interval to let you know that, though you have taken away a part of yourself from me, neither you nor any one else can take the whole. It will have been seen from these late letters, that the last few months of her father's illness had been a terrible strain on his daughter's health and spirits. She did all the nursing herself, and Mrs. Congreve (who was then Miss Bury, daughter of the doctor who was attending Mr. Evans--and who, it will be seen, subsequently became perhaps the most intimate and the closest of George Eliot's friends) tells me that her father told her at the time that he never saw a patient more admirably and thoroughly cared for. The translating was a great relief when she could get to it. Under date of 19th April, 1849, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell, "M. A. is happy now with this Spinoza to do: she says it is such a rest for her mind." The next letter to Rosehill pathetically describes how the end came at last to Mr. Evans's sufferings: [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, half-past nine, Wednesday morning, 31st May, 1849.] Dear friends, Mr. Bury told us last night that he thought father would not last till morning. I sat by him with my hand in his till four o'clock, and he then became quieter and has had some comfortable sleep. He is obviously weaker this morning, and has been for the last two or three days so painfully reduced that I dread to think what his dear frame may become before life gives way. My brother slept here last night, and will be here again to-night. What shall I be without my father? It will seem as if a part of my moral nature were gone. I write when I can, but I do not know whether my letter will do to send this evening. _P.S._--Father is very, very much weaker this evening. Mr. Evans died during that night, 31st May, 1849. [Illustration: Portrait of Mr. Robert Evans.] _SUMMARY._ MAY, 1846, TO MAY, 1849. Visit to Mrs. Hennell at Hackney--Letters to Mrs. Bray--Strauss translation published--Visit to Dover with father--Classical books wanted--Pleasure in Strauss's letter--Brays suspect novel-writing--Letters to Miss Sara Hennell--Good spirits--Wicksteed's review of the Strauss translation--Reading Foster's life--Visit to Griff--Child's view of God (_à propos_ of Miss Hennell's "Heliados")--Visit to London--"Elijah"--Likes London less--The Sibree family and Mrs. John Cash's reminiscences--Letter to Miss Mary Sibree--Letters to Miss Sara Hennell--Mental depression--Opinion of Charles Hennell's "Inquiry"--Visit to the Isle of Wight with father--Admiration of Richardson--Blanco White--Delight in George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur"--Letters to Mr. John Sibree--Opinion of Mrs. Hannah More's letters--"Tancred," "Coningsby," and "Sybil"--D'Israeli's theory of races--Gentile nature kicks against superiority of Jews--Bows only to the supremacy of Hebrew poetry--Superiority of music among the arts--Relation of religion to art--Thorwaldsen's Christ--Admiration of Roberts and Creswick--The intellect and moral nature restrain the passions and senses--Mr. Dawson the lecturer--Satisfaction in French Revolution of '48--The men of the barricade bowing to the image of Christ--Difference between French and English working-classes--The need of utterance--Sympathy with Mr. Sibree in religious difficulties--Longing for a high attic in Geneva--Letters to Miss Sara Hennell--Views on correspondence--Mental depression--Father's illness--Father better--Goes with him to St. Leonard's--Letter to Charles Bray--Depression to be overcome by thought and love--Admiration of Louis Blanc--Recovery from depression--"Jane Eyre"--Return to Coventry--Meets Emerson--Strauss's pamphlet on Julian the Apostate--Carlyle's eulogium on Emerson--Francis Newman--Suffering from depression--Letter to Mrs. Houghton--Self-condemnation for evil speaking--Letters to Miss Hennell--Macaulay's History--On the influence of George Sand's and Rousseau's writing--Writes review of the "Nemesis of Faith" for the _Coventry Herald_--Opinion of the "Nemesis" and the "Shadows of the Clouds"--Translating Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus"--Letter to Mrs. Pears--The consolations of nursing--Strain of father's illness--Father's death. FOOTNOTES: [20] Organs of Combativeness. [21] Afterwards acknowledged by the author, Robert Landor (brother of Walter Savage Landor), who also wrote the "Fountain of Arethusa," etc. [22] John Foster, Baptist minister, born 1770, died 1843. [23] An _Ahnung_--a presentiment--of her own future. [24] On Emerson. [25] Francis Newman. CHAPTER IV. It fortunately happened that the Brays had planned a trip to the Continent for this month of June, 1849, and Miss Evans, being left desolate by the death of her father, accepted their invitation to join them. On the 11th June they started, going by way of Paris, Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa, Milan, Como, Lago Maggiore, Martigny, and Chamounix, arriving at Geneva in the third week of July. Here Miss Evans determined to remain for some months, the Brays returning home. Before they went, however, they helped her to settle herself comfortably _en pension_, and, as will be seen from the following letters, the next eight months were quietly and peacefully happy. The _pension_ selected in the first instance was the Campagne Plongeon, which stands on a slight eminence a few hundred yards back from the road on the route d'Hermance, some ten minutes' walk from the Hôtel Métropole. From the Hôtel National on the Quai de Mont Blanc one catches a pleasant glimpse of it nestling among its trees. A good-sized, gleaming white house, with a centre, and gables at each side, a flight of steps leading from the middle window to the ground. A meadow in front, nicely planted, slopes charmingly down to the blue lake, and behind the house, on the left-hand side, there is an avenue of remarkably fine chestnut-trees, whence there is a magnificent view of the Jura mountains on the opposite side of the lake. The road to Geneva is very beautiful, by the lake-side, bordered with plane-trees. It was a delightful, soothing change after the long illness and the painful death of her father--after the monotonous dulness, too, of an English provincial town like Coventry, where there is little beauty of any sort to gladden the soul. In the first months following a great loss it is good to be alone for a time--alone, especially amidst beautiful scenes--and alone in the sense of being removed from habitual associations, but yet constantly in the society of new acquaintances, who are sufficiently interesting, but not too intimate. The Swiss correspondence which follows is chiefly addressed to the Brays collectively, and describes the life minutely. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 27th July, 1840.] About my comfort here, I find no disagreeables, and have every physical comfort that I care about. The family seems well-ordered and happy. I have made another friend, too--an elderly English lady, a Mrs. Locke, who used to live at Ryde--a pretty old lady with plenty of shrewdness and knowledge of the world. She began to say very kind things to me in rather a waspish tone yesterday morning at breakfast. I liked her better at dinner and tea, and to-day we are quite confidential. I only hope she will stay; she is just the sort of person I shall like to have to speak to--not at all "congenial," but with a character of her own. The going down to tea bores me, and I shall get out of it as soon as I can, unless I can manage to have the newspapers to read. The American lady embroiders slippers--the mamma looks on and does nothing. The marquis and his friends play at whist; the old ladies sew; and madame says things so true that they are insufferable. She is obliged to talk to all, and cap their _niaiseries_ with some suitable observation. She has been very kind and motherly to me. I like her better every time I see her. I have quiet and comfort--what more can I want to make me a healthy, reasonable being once more? I will never go near a friend again until I can bring joy and peace in my heart and in my face--but remember that friendship will be easy then. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 5th Aug. 1849.] I hope my imagination paints truly when it shows me all of you seated with beaming faces round the tea-table at Rosehill. I shall be yearning to know that things as well as people are smiling on you; but I am sure you will not let me wait for news of you longer than is necessary. My life here would be delightful if we could always keep the same set of people; but, alas! I fear one generation will go and another come so fast that I shall not care to become acquainted with any of them. My good Mrs. Locke is not going, that is one comfort. She is quite a mother to me--helps me to buy my candles and do all my shopping--takes care of me at dinner, and quite rejoices when she sees me enjoy conversation or anything else. The St. Germains are delightful people--the marquise really seems to me the most charming person I ever saw, with kindness enough to make the ultra-politeness of her manners quite genuine. She is very good to me, and says of me, "Je m'interesse vivement à mademoiselle." The marquis is the most well-bred, harmless of men. He talks very little--every sentence seems a terrible gestation, and comes forth _fortissimo_; but he generally bestows one on me, and seems especially to enjoy my poor tunes (mind you, all these trivialities are to satisfy your vanity, not mine--because you are beginning to be ashamed of having loved me). The gray-headed gentleman got quite fond of talking philosophy with me before he went; but, alas! he and a very agreeable young man who was with him are gone to Aix les Bains. The young German is the Baron de H----. I should think he is not more than two or three and twenty, very good-natured, but a most determined enemy to all gallantry. I fancy he is a Communist; but he seems to have been joked about his opinions by madame and the rest until he has determined to keep a proud silence on such matters. He has begun to talk to me, and I think we should become good friends; but he, too, is gone on an expedition to Monte Rosa. He is expecting his brother to join him here on his return, but I fear they will not stay long. The _gouvernante_ is a German, with a moral region that would rejoice Mr. Bray's eyes. Poor soul, she is in a land of strangers, and often seems to feel her loneliness. Her situation is a very difficult one; and "_die Angst_," she says, often brings on a pain at her heart. Madame is a woman of some reading and considerable talent--very fond of politics, a devourer of the journals, with an opinion ready for you on any subject whatever. It will be a serious loss to her to part with the St. Germain family. I fear that they will not stay longer than this month. I should be quite indifferent to the world that comes or goes if once I had my boxes with all my books. Last Sunday I went with madame to a small church near Plongeon, and I could easily have fancied myself in an Independent chapel at home. The spirit of the sermon was not a whit more elevated than that of our friend Dr. Harris; the text, "What shall I do to be saved?" the answer of Jesus being blinked as usual. To-day I have been to hear one of the most celebrated preachers, M. Meunier. His sermon was really eloquent--all written down, but delivered with so much energy and feeling that you never thought of the book. It is curious to notice how patriotism--_dévouement à la patrie_--is put in the sermons as the first of virtues, even before devotion to the Church. We never hear of it in England after we leave school. The good marquis goes with his family and servants, all nicely dressed, to the Catholic Church. They are a most orderly set of people: there is nothing but their language and their geniality and politeness to distinguish them from one of the best of our English aristocratic families. I am perfectly comfortable; every one is kind to me and seems to like me. Your kind hearts will rejoice at this, I know. Only remember that I am just as much interested in all that happens to you at Rosehill as you are in what happens to me at Plongeon. Pray that the motto of Geneva may become mine--"_Post tenebras lux_." [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 20th Aug. 1849.] I have no head for writing to-day, for I have been keeping my bed for the last three days; but I must remember that writing to you is like ringing a bell hung in the planet Jupiter--it is so weary a while before one's letters reach. I have been positively sickening for want of my boxes, and anxiety to hear of my relations. Your kind letter of this morning has quieted the latter a little; but my boxes, alas! have not appeared. Do not be alarmed about my health. I have only had a terrible headache--prolonged, in fact, by the assiduities of the good people here; for the first day I lay in my bed I had the whole female world of Plongeon in my bedroom, and talked so incessantly that I was unable to sleep after it; the consequence, as you may imagine, was that the next day I was very much worse; but I am getting better, and indeed it was worth while to be ill to have so many kind attentions. There is a fresh German family from Frankfurt here just now--Madame Cornelius and her children. She is the daughter of the richest banker in Frankfurt, and, what is better, full of heart and mind, with a face that tells you so before she opens her lips. She has more reading than the marquise, being German and Protestant; and it is a real refreshment to talk with her for half an hour. The dear marquise is a truly devout Catholic. It is beautiful to hear her speak of the comfort she has in the confessional--for our _têtes-à-tête_ have lately turned on religious matters. She says I am in a "mauvaise voie sous le rapport de la religion. Peut être vous vous marierez, et le mariage, chère amie, sans la foi religieuse!..." She says I have isolated myself by my studies--that I am too cold and have too little confidence in the feelings of others towards me--that I do not believe how deep an interest she has conceived in my lot. She says Signor Goldrini (the young Italian who was here for a week) told her, when he had been talking to me one evening, "Vous aimerez cette demoiselle, j'en suis sûr"--and she has found his prediction true. They are leaving for their own country on Wednesday. She hopes I shall go to Italy and see her; and when I tell her that I have no faith that she will remember me long enough for me to venture on paying her a visit if ever I should go to Italy again, she shakes her head at my incredulity. She was born at Genoa. Her father was three years Sardinian Minister at Constantinople before she was married, and she speaks with enthusiasm of her life there--"C'est là le pays de la vraie poésie ou l'on sent ce que c'est que de vivre par le coeur." M. de H---- is returned from Monte Rosa. He would be a nice person if he had another soul added to the one he has by nature--the soul that comes by sorrow and love. I stole his book while he was gone--the first volume of Louis Blanc's "History of Ten Years." It contains a very interesting account of the three days of July, 1830. His brother is coming to join him, so I hope he will not go at present. Tell Miss Sibree my address, and beg her to write to me all about herself, and to write on thin paper. I hardly know yet whether I shall like this place well enough to stay here through the winter. I have been under the disadvantage of wanting all on which I chiefly depend, my books, etc. When I have been here another month I shall be better able to judge. I hope you managed to get in the black velvet dress. The people dress, and think about dressing, here more even than in England. You would not know me if you saw me. The marquise took on her the office of _femme de chambre_ and dressed my hair one day. She has abolished all my curls, and made two things stick out on each side of my head like those on the head of the Sphinx. All the world says I look infinitely better; so I comply, though to myself I seem uglier than ever--if possible. I am fidgeted to death about my boxes, and that tiresome man not to acknowledge the receipt of them. I make no apology for writing all my peevishness and follies, because I want you to do the same--to let me know everything about you, to the aching of your fingers--and you tell me very little. My boxes, my boxes! I dream of them night and day. Dear Mr. Hennell! Give him my heartiest affectionate remembrances. Tell him I find no one here so spirited as he: there are no better jokes going than I can make myself. Mrs. Hennell and Mrs. C. Hennell, too, all are remembered--if even I have only seen them in England. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 28th Aug. 1849.] Mme. de Ludwigsdorff, the wife of an Austrian baron, has been here for two days, and is coming again. She is handsome, spirited, and clever--pure English by birth, but quite foreign in manners and appearance. She, and all the world besides, are going to winter in Italy. Nothing annoys me now; I feel perfectly at home, and shall really be comfortable when I have all my little matters about me. This place looks more lovely to me every day--the lake, the town, the _campagnes_, with their stately trees and pretty houses, the glorious mountains in the distance; one can hardly believe one's self on earth; one might live here, and forget that there is such a thing as want or labor or sorrow. The perpetual presence of all this beauty has somewhat the effect of mesmerism or chloroform. I feel sometimes as if I were sinking into an agreeable state of numbness, on the verge of unconsciousness, and seem to want well pinching to rouse me. The other day (Sunday) there was a _fête_ held on the lake--the _fête_ of Navigation. I went out, with some other ladies, in M. de H----'s boat, at sunset, and had the richest draught of beauty. All the boats of Geneva turned out in their best attire. When the moon and stars came out there were beautiful fireworks sent up from the boats. The mingling of the silver and the golden rays on the rippled lake, the bright colors of the boats, the music, the splendid fireworks, and the pale moon looking at it all with a sort of grave surprise, made up a scene of perfect enchantment; and our dear old Mont Blanc was there, in his white ermine robe. I rowed all the time, and hence comes my palsy. I can perfectly fancy dear Mrs. Pears in her Leamington house. How beautiful all that Foleshill life looks now, like the distant Jura in the morning! She was such a sweet, dear, good friend to me. My walks with her, my little visits to them in the evening--all is remembered. I am glad you have seen Fanny again; any attention you show her is a real kindness to me, and I assure you she is worth it. You know, or, you do not know, that my nature is so chameleon-like I shall lose all my identity unless you keep nourishing the old self with letters; so, pray, write as much and as often as you can. It jumps admirably with my humor to live in two worlds at once in this way. I possess my dearest friends and my old environment in my thoughts, and another world of novelty and beauty in which I am actually moving, and my contrariety of disposition always makes the world that lives in my thoughts the dearer of the two, the one in which I more truly dwell. So, after all, I enjoy my friends most when I am away from them. I shall not say so, though, if I should live to rejoin you six or seven months hence. Keep me for seven[26] years longer, and you will find out the use of me, like all other pieces of trumpery. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 6th Sept. 1849.] Have I confided too much in your generosity in supposing that you would write to me first? or is there some other reason for your silence? I suffer greatly from it--not entirely from selfish reasons, but in great part because I am really anxious to know all about you, your state of health and spirits, the aspect of things within and without you. Did Mr. Bray convey to you my earnest request that you would write to me? You know of my whereabouts and circumstances from my good friends at Rosehill, so that I have little to tell you; at least, I have not spirit to write of myself until I have heard from you, and have an assurance from yourself that you yet care about me. Sara (Mrs. Isaac Evans) has sent me word of the sad, sad loss that has befallen poor Chrissey and Edward--a loss in which I feel that I have a share; for that angelic little being had great interest for me; she promised to pay so well for any care spent on her. I can imagine poor Edward's almost frantic grief, and I dread the effect on Chrissey's weak frame of her more silent suffering. Anything you can tell me about them will be read very eagerly. I begin to feel the full value of a letter; so much so that, if ever I am convinced that any one has the least anxiety to hear from me, I shall always reckon it among the first duties to sit down without delay, giving no ear to the suggestions of my idleness and aversion to letter-writing. Indeed, I am beginning to find it really pleasant to write to my friends, now that I am so far away from them; and I could soon fill a sheet to you, if your silence did not weigh too heavily on my heart. My health is by no means good yet; seldom good enough not to be a sort of drag on my mind; so you must make full allowance for too much egotism and susceptibility in me. It seems to be three years instead of three months since I was in England and amongst you, and I imagine that all sorts of revolutions must have taken place in the interim; whereas to you, I dare say, remaining in your old home and among your every-day duties, the time has slipped away so rapidly that you are unable to understand my anxiety to hear from you. I think the climate here is not particularly healthy; I suppose, from the vicinity of the lake, which, however, becomes so dear to me that one cannot bear to hear it accused. Good-bye, dear Fanny; a thousand blessings to you, whether you write to me or not, and much gratitude if you do. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 13th Sept. 1849.] My boxes arrived last Friday. The expense was fr. 150--perfectly horrible! Clearly, I must give myself for food to the fowls of the air or the fishes of the lake. It is a consolation to a mind imbued with a lofty philosophy that, when one can get nothing to eat, one can still be eaten--the evil is only apparent. It is quite settled that I cannot stay at Plongeon; I must move into town. But, alas! I must pay fr. 200 per month. If I were there I should see more conversable people than here. Do you think any one would buy my "Encyclopædia Britannica" at half-price, and my globes? If so, I should not be afraid of exceeding my means, and I should have a little money to pay for my piano, and for some lessons of different kinds that I want to take. The "Encyclopædia" is the last edition, and cost £42, and the globes £8 10_s._ I shall never have anywhere to put them, so it is folly to keep them, if any one will buy them. No one else has written to me, though I have written to almost all. I would rather have it so than feel that the debt was on my side. When will you come to me for help, that I may be able to hate you a little less? I shall leave here as soon as I am able to come to a decision, as I am anxious to feel settled, and the weather is becoming cold. This house is like a bird-cage set down in a garden. Do not count this among my letters. I am good for nothing to-day, and can write nothing well but bitterness, so that I will not trust myself to say another word. The Baronne de Ludwigsdorff seems to have begun to like me very much, and is really kind; so you see Heaven sends kind souls, though they are by no means kindred ones. Poor Mrs. Locke is to write to me--has given me a little ring; says, "Take care of yourself, my child--have some tea of your own--you'll be quite another person if you get some introductions to clever people; you'll get on well among a certain set--that's true;" it is her way to say "that's true" after all her affirmations. She says, "You won't find any kindred spirits at Plongeon, my dear." [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 20th Sept. 1849.] I am feeling particularly happy because I have had very kind letters from my brother and sisters. I am ashamed to fill sheets about myself, but I imagined that this was precisely what you wished. Pray correct my mistake, if it be one, and then I will look over the Calvin manuscripts, and give you some information of really general interest, suited to our mutual capacities. Mme. Ludwigsdorff is so good to me--a charming creature--so anxious to see me comfortably settled--petting me in all sorts of ways. She sends me tea when I wake in the morning--orange-flower water when I go to bed--grapes--and her maid to wait on me. She says if I like she will spend the winter after this at Paris with me, and introduce me to her friends there; but she does not mean to attach herself to me, because I shall never like her long. I shall be tired of her when I have sifted her, etc. She says I have more intellect than _morale_, and other things more true than agreeable; however, she is "greatly interested" in me; has told me her troubles and her feelings, she says, in spite of herself; for she has never been able before in her life to say so much even to her old friends. It is a mystery she cannot unravel. She is a person of high culture, according to the ordinary notions of what feminine culture should be. She speaks French and German perfectly, plays well, and has the most perfect polish of manner--the most thorough refinement, both socially and morally. She is tall and handsome, a striking-looking person, but with a sweet feminine expression when she is with those she likes; dresses exquisitely; in fine, is all that I am not. I shall tire you with all this, but I want you to know what good creatures there are here as elsewhere. Miss F. tells me that the first day she sat by my side at dinner she looked at me and thought to herself, "That is a grave lady; I do not think I shall like her much;" but as soon as I spoke to her, and she looked into my eyes, she felt she could love me. Then she lent me a book written by her cousin--a religious novel--in which there is a fearful infidel who will not believe, and hates all who do, etc. Then she invited me to walk with her, and came to talk in my room; then invited me to go to the Oratoire with them, till I began to be uncomfortable under the idea that they fancied I was evangelical, and that I was gaining their affection under false pretences; so I told Miss F. that I was going to sacrifice her good opinion, and confess my heresies. I quite expected, from their manner and character, that they would forsake me in horror--but they are as kind as ever. They never go into the _salon_ in the evening, and I have almost forsaken it, spending the evening frequently in Mme. de Ludwigsdorff's room, where we have some delightful tea. The tea of the house here is execrable; or, rather, as Mrs. A. says, "How glad we ought to be that it has no taste at all; it might have a very bad one!" I like the A.'s; they are very good-natured. Mrs. A., a very ugly but lady-like little woman, who is under an infatuation "as it regards" her caps--always wearing the brightest rose-color or intensest blue--with a complexion not unlike a dirty primrose glove. The rest of the people are nothing to me, except, indeed, dear old Mlle. de Phaisan, who comes into my room when I am ill, with "Qu'est ce que vous avez, ma bonne?" in the tone of the kindest old aunt, and thinks that I am the most amiable douce creature, which will give you a better opinion of her charity than her penetration. Dear creatures! no one is so good as you yet. I have not yet found any one who can bear comparison with you; not in kindness to me--_ça va sans dire_--but in solidity of mind and in expansion of feeling. This is a very coarse thing to say, but it came to the end of my pen, and _litera scripta manet_--at least, when it comes at the end of the second page. I shall certainly stay at Geneva this winter, and shall return to England as early as the spring weather will permit, always supposing that nothing occurs to alter my plans. I am still thin; so how much will be left of me next April I am afraid to imagine. I shall be length without breadth. Cara's assurance that you are well and comfortable is worth a luncheon to me, which is just the thing I am generally most in want of, for we dine at six now. I love to imagine you in your home; and everything seems easy to me when I am not disturbed about the health or well-being of my loved ones. It is really so; I do not say it out of any sort of affectation, benevolent or otherwise. I am without carefulness, alas! in more senses than one. Thank Sara very heartily for her letter. I do not write a special sheet for her to-day, because I have to write to two or three other people, but she must not the less believe how I valued a little private morsel from her; and also that I would always rather she wrote "from herself" than "to me"--that is my theory of letter-writing. Your letters are as welcome as Elijah's ravens--I thought of saying the dinner-bell, only that would be too gross! I get impatient at the end of the ten days which it takes for our letters to go to and fro; and I have not the least faith in the necessity for keeping the sheet three or four days before Mr. Bray can find time to write his meagre bit. If you see the Miss Franklins, give my love to them; my remembrances to Mr. and Mrs. Whittem; love to Miss Sibree always. Hearty love to Clapton[27] and Woodford;[28] and a very diffusive benevolence to the world in general, without any particular attachment to A or B. I am trying to please Mr. Bray. Good-bye, dear souls. _Dominus vobiscum._ [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Thursday, 4th Oct. 1849.] I am anxious for you to know my new address, as I shall leave here on Tuesday. I think I have at last found the very thing. I shall be the only lodger. The _appartement_ is _assez joli_, with an alcove, so that it looks like a sitting-room in the daytime--the people, an artist of great respectability, and his wife, a most kind-looking, lady-like person, with two boys, who have the air of being well educated. They seem very anxious to have me, and are ready to do anything to accommodate me. I shall live with them--that is, dine with them; breakfast in my own room. The terms are fr. 150 per month, light included. M. and Mme. d'Albert are middle-aged, musical, and, I am told, have _beaucoup d'esprit_. I hope this will not exceed my means for four or five months. There is a nice, large _salon_ and a good _salle à manger_. I am told that their society is very good. Mme. de Ludwigsdorff was about going there a year ago, and it was she who recommended it to me. I hope Sara's fears are supererogatory--a proof of a too nervous solicitude about me, for which I am grateful, though it does me no good to hear of it. I want encouraging rather than warning and checking. I believe I am so constituted that I shall never be cured of my faults except by God's discipline. If human beings would but believe it, they do me the most good by saying to me the kindest things truth will permit; and really I cannot hope those will be superlatively kind. The reason I wished to raise a little extra money is that I wanted to have some lessons and other means of culture--not for my daily bread, for which I hope I shall have enough; but, since you think my scheme impracticable, we will dismiss it. _Au reste_, be in no anxiety about me. Nothing is going wrong that I know of. I am not an absolute fool and weakling. When I am fairly settled in my new home I will write again. My address will be--M. d'Albert Durade, Rue des Chanoines, No. 107. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 4th Oct. 1849.] The blessed compensation there is in all things made your letter doubly precious for having been waited for, and it would have inspired me to write to you again much sooner, but that I have been in uncertainty about settling myself for the winter, and I wished to send you my future address. I am to move to my new home on Tuesday the 9th. I shall not at all regret leaving here; the season is beginning to be rather sombre, though the glorious chestnuts here are still worth looking at half the day. You have heard of some of the people whom I have described in my letters to Rosehill. The dear little old maid, Mlle. de Phaisan, is quite a good friend to me--extremely prosy, and full of tiny details; but really people of that calibre are a comfort to one occasionally, when one has not strength enough for more stimulating things. She is a sample of those happy souls who ask for nothing but the work of the hour, however trivial; who are contented to live without knowing whether they effect anything, but who do really effect much good, simply by their calm and even _maintien_. I laugh to hear her say in a tone of remonstrance--"Mme. de Ludwigsdorff dit qu'elle s'ennuie quand les soirées sont longues: moi, je ne conçois pas comment on peut s'ennuyer quand on a de l'ouvrage ou des jeux ou de la conversation." When people who are dressing elegantly and driving about to make calls every day of their life have been telling me of their troubles--their utter hopelessness of ever finding a vein worth working in their future life--my thoughts have turned towards many whose sufferings are of a more tangible character, and I have really felt all the old commonplaces about the equality of human destinies, always excepting those spiritual differences which are apart not only from poverty and riches, but from individual affections. Dear Chrissey has found time and strength to write to me, and very precious her letter was, though I wept over it. "Deep, abiding grief must be mine," she says, and I know well it must be. The mystery of trial! It falls with such avalanche weight on the head of the meek and patient. I wish I could do something of more avail for my friends than love them and long for their happiness. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 11th Oct. 1849.] M. and Mme. d'Albert are really clever people--people worth sitting up an hour longer to talk to. This does not hinder madame from being an excellent manager--dressing scrupulously, and keeping her servants in order. She has hung my room with pictures, one of which is the most beautiful group of flowers conceivable thrown on an open Bible, painted by herself. I have a piano which I hire. There is also one in the _salon_. M. d'Albert plays and sings, and in the winter he tells me they have parties to sing masses and do other delightful things. In fact, I think I am just in the right place. I breakfast in my own room at half-past eight, lunch at half-past twelve, and dine at four or a little after, and take tea at eight. From the tea-table I have gone into the _salon_ and chatted until bedtime. It would really have been a pity to have stayed at Plongeon, out of reach of everything, and with people so little worth talking to. I have not found out the _desagrémens_ here yet. It is raining horribly, but this just saves me from the regret I should have felt at having quitted the chestnuts of Plongeon. That _campagne_ looked splendid in its autumn dress. George Eliot retained so warm an admiration and love for M. d'Albert Durade to the end of her life that it seems fitting here to mention that he still lives, carrying well the weight of eighty winters. He is _conservateur_ of the Athénée--a permanent exhibition of works of art in Geneva; and he published only last year (1883) a French translation of the "Scenes of Clerical Life," having already previously published translations of "Adam Bede," "Felix Holt," "Silas Marner," and "Romola." The description of his personal appearance, in the following letter, still holds good, save that the gray hair has become quite white. He lost his wife in 1873; and it will be seen from subsequent letters that George Eliot kept up a faithful attachment to her to the end. They were both friends after her own heart. The old apartment is now No. 18, instead of No. 107, Rue des Chanoines, and is occupied as the printing-office of the _Journal de Genève_. But half of the rooms remain just as they were five-and-thirty years ago. The _salon_, wainscoted in imitation light-oak panels, with a white China stove, and her bedroom opening off it--as she had often described it to me; and M. d'Albert has still in his possession the painting of the bunch of beautiful flowers thrown on an open Bible mentioned in the last letter. He told me that when Miss Evans first came to look at the house she was so horrified with the forbidding aspect of the stairs that she declared she would not go up above the first floor; but when she got inside the door she was reconciled to her new quarters. Calvin's house is close to the Rue des Chanoines, and she was much interested in it. It will be seen that she did some work in physics under Professor de la Rive; but she principally rested and enjoyed herself during the stay at Geneva. It was exactly the kind of life she was in need of at the time, and the letters show how much she appreciated it. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 26th Oct. 1849.] I languished for your letter before it came, and read it three times running--judge whether I care less for you than of old. It is the best of blessings to know that you are well and cheerful; and when I think of all that might happen in a fortnight to make you otherwise, especially in these days of cholera and crises, I cannot help being anxious until I get a fresh assurance that at least five days ago all was well. Before I say anything about myself, I must contradict your suspicion that I paint things too agreeably for the sake of giving you pleasure. I assure you my letters are subjectively true; the falsehood, if there be any, is in my manner of seeing things. But I will give you some _vérités positives_, in which, alas! poor imagination has hitherto been able to do little for the world. Mme. d'Albert anticipates all my wants, and makes a spoiled child of me. I like these dear people better and better--everything is so in harmony with one's moral feeling that I really can almost say I never enjoyed a more complete _bien être_ in my life than during the last fortnight. For M. d'Albert, I love him already as if he were father and brother both. His face is rather haggard-looking, but all the lines and the wavy gray hair indicate the temperament of the artist. I have not heard a word or seen a gesture of his yet that was not perfectly in harmony with an exquisite moral refinement--indeed, one feels a better person always when he is present. He sings well, and plays on the piano a little. It is delightful to hear him talk of his friends--he admires them so genuinely--one sees so clearly that there is no reflex egotism. His conversation is charming. I learn something every dinner-time. Mme. d'Albert has less of genius and more of cleverness--a really lady-like person, who says everything well. She brings up her children admirably--two nice, intelligent boys;[29]--the youngest, particularly, has a sort of Lamartine expression, with a fine head. It is so delightful to get among people who exhibit no meannesses, no worldlinesses, that one may well be enthusiastic. To me it is so blessed to find any departure from the rule of giving as little as possible for as much as possible. Their whole behavior to me is as if I were a guest whom they delighted to honor. Last night we had a little knot of their most intimate musical friends, and M. and Mme. d'Albert introduced me to them as if they wished me to know them--as if they wished me to like their friends and their friends to like me. The people and the evening would have been just after your own hearts. In fact, I have not the slightest pretext for being discontented--not the shadow of a discomfort. Even the little housemaid Jeanne is charming; says to me every morning, in the prettiest voice: "Madame a-t-elle bien dormi cette nuit?"--puts fire in my _chauffe-pied_ without being told--cleans my rooms most conscientiously. There--I promise to weary you less for the future with my descriptions. I could not resist the temptation to speak gratefully of M. and Mme. d'Albert. Give my love to Mrs. Pears--my constant, ever-fresh remembrance. My love to Miss Rebecca Franklin--tell her I have only spun my web to Geneva; it will infallibly carry me back again across the gulf, were it twice as great. If Mr. Froude preach the new word at Manchester, I hope he will preach it so as to do without an after-explanation, and not bewilder his hearers in the manner of Mephistopheles when he dons the doctor's gown of Faust. I congratulate you on the new edition,[30] and promise to read it with a disposition to admire when I am at Rosehill once more. I am beginning to lose respect for the petty acumen that sees difficulties. I love the souls that rush along to their goal with a full stream of sentiment--that have too much of the positive to be harassed by the perpetual negatives--which, after all, are but the disease of the soul, to be expelled by fortifying the principle of vitality. Good-bye, dear loves; sha'n't I kiss you when I am in England again--in England! I already begin to think of the journey as an impossibility. Geneva is so beautiful now, the trees have their richest coloring. Coventry is a fool to it--but, then, you are at Coventry, and you are better than lake, trees, and mountains. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 28th Oct. 1849.] We have had some delicious autumn days here. If the fine weather last, I am going up the Salève on Sunday with M. d'Albert. On one side I shall have a magnificent view of the lake, the town, and the Jura; on the other, the range of Mont Blanc. The walks about Geneva are perfectly enchanting. "Ah!" says poor Mlle. de Phaisan, "nous avons un beau pays si nous n'avions pas ces Radicaux!" The election of the Conseil d'�tat is to take place in November, and an _émeute_ is expected. The actual government is Radical, and thoroughly detested by all the "respectable" classes. The vice-president of the Conseil and the virtual head of the government is an unprincipled, clever fellow, horribly in debt himself, and on the way to reduce the government to the same position. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Oct. 1849.] I like my town life vastly. I shall like it still better in the winter. There is an indescribable charm to me in this form of human nest-making. You enter a by no means attractive-looking house, you climb up two or three flights of cold, dark-looking stone steps, you ring at a very modest door, and you enter a set of rooms, snug, or comfortable, or elegant. One is so out of reach of intruders, so undiverted from one's occupations by externals, so free from cold, rushing winds through hall doors--one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree. I have always had a hankering after this sort of life, and I find it was a true instinct of what would suit me. Just opposite my windows is the street in which the Sisters of Charity live, and, if I look out, I generally see either one of them or a sober-looking ecclesiastic. Then a walk of five minutes takes me out of all streets, within sight of beauties that I am sure you too would love, if you did not share my enthusiasm for the town. I have not another minute, having promised to go out before dinner--so, dearest, take my letter as a hasty kiss, just to let you know how constantly I love you--how, the longer I live and the more I have felt, the better I know how to value you. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 4th Dec. 1849.] I write at once to answer your questions about business. Spinoza and I have been divorced for several months. My want of health has obliged me to renounce all application. I take walks, play on the piano, read Voltaire, talk to my friends, and just take a dose of mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becoming quite soft. If you are anxious to publish the translation in question I could, after a few months, finish the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" to keep it company; but I confess to you that I think you would do better to abstain from printing a translation. What is wanted in English is not a translation of Spinoza's works, but a true estimate of his life and system. After one has rendered his Latin faithfully into English, one feels that there is another yet more difficult process of translation for the reader to effect, and that the only mode of making Spinoza accessible to a larger number is to study his books, then shut them, and give an analysis. For those who read the very words Spinoza wrote there is the same sort of interest in his style as in the conversation of a person of great capacity who has led a solitary life, and who says from his own soul what all the world is saying by rote; but this interest hardly belongs to a translation. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Dec. 1849.] Your letter is very sweet to me, giving me a picture of your quiet life. How shall I enable you to imagine mine, since you know nothing of the localities? My good friends here only change for the better. Mme. d'Albert is all affection; M. d'Albert all delicacy and intelligence; the friends to whom they have introduced me very kind in their attentions. In fact, I want nothing but a little more money, to feel more at ease about my fires, etc. I am in an atmosphere of love and refinement; even the little servant Jeanne seems to love me, and does me good every time she comes into the room. I can say anything to M. and Mme. d'Albert. M. d'A. understands everything, and if madame does not understand, she believes--that is, she seems always sure that I mean something edifying. She kisses me like a mother, and I am baby enough to find that a great addition to my happiness. _Au reste_, I am careful for nothing; I am a sort of supernumerary spoon, and there will be no damage to the set if I am lost. My heart-ties are not loosened by distance--it is not in the nature of ties to be so; and when I think of my loved ones as those to whom I can be a comforter, a help, I long to be with them again. Otherwise, I can only think with a shudder of returning to England. It looks to me like a land of gloom, of _ennui_, of platitude; but in the midst of all this it is the land of duty and affection, and the only ardent hope I have for my future life is to have given to me some woman's duty--some possibility of devoting myself where I may see a daily result of pure, calm blessedness in the life of another. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 4th Dec. 1849.] How do you look? I hope that _bandeau_ of silvery locks is not widening too fast on the head I love so well--that the eyes are as bright as ever. Your letter tells me they will beam as kindly as ever when I see them once more. Never make apologies about your letters, or your words, or anything else. It is your soul to which I am wedded; and do I not know too well how the soul is doubly belied--first, by the impossibility of being in word and act as great, as loving, as good as it wills to be; and again, by the miserable weaknesses of the friends who see the words and acts through all sorts of mists raised by their own passions and preoccupations? In all these matters I am the chief of sinners, and I am tempted to rejoice in the offences of my friends, because they make me feel less humiliation. I am quite satisfied to be at Geneva instead of Paris; in fact, I am becoming passionately attached to the mountains, the lake, the streets, my own room, and, above all, the dear people with whom I live. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 23d Dec. 1849.] A thousand Christmas pleasures and blessings to you--good resolutions and bright hopes for the New Year! Amen. People who can't be witty exert themselves to be pious or affectionate. Henceforth I tell you nothing whatever about myself; for if I speak of agreeables, and say I am contented, Mr. Bray writes me word that you are all trying to forget me. If I were to tell you of disagreeables and privations and sadness, Sara would write: "If you are unhappy now, you will be so _à fortiori_ ten years hence." Now, since I have a decided objection to doses sent by post which upset one's digestion for a fortnight, I am determined to give you no pretext for sending them. You shall not know whether I am well or ill, contented or discontented, warm or cold, fat or thin. But remember that I am so far from being of the same mind as Mr. Bray, that good news of you is necessary to my comfort. I walk more briskly, and jump out of bed more promptly, after a letter that tells me you are well and comfortable, that business is promising, that men begin to speak well of you, etc. "I am comforted in your comfort," as saith St. Paul to the troublesome Corinthians. When one is cabined, cribbed, confined in one's self, it is good to be enlarged in one's friends. Good Mr. Marshall! We wish to keep even unamiable people when death calls for them, much more good souls like him. I am glad he had had one more pleasant visit to Cara for her to think of. Dear Sara's letter is very charming--not at all physicky--rather an agreeable draught of _vin sucré_. Dear Mr. Hennell, we shall never look upon his like. I am attending a course of lectures on Experimental Physics by M. le Professeur de la Rive, the inventor, among other things, of electroplating. The lectures occur every Wednesday and Saturday. It is time for me to go. I am distressed to send you this shabby last fragment of paper, and to write in such a hurry, but the days are really only two hours long, and I have so many things to do that I go to bed every night miserable because I have left out something I meant to do. Good-bye, dear souls. Forget me if you like, you cannot oblige me to forget you; and the active is worth twice of the passive all the world over! The earth is covered with snow, and the government is levelling the fortifications. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 28th Jan. 1850.] You leave me a long time without news of you, though I told you they were necessary as a counteractive to the horrors of this terrible winter. Are you really so occupied as to have absolutely no time to think of me? I console myself, at least to-day, now we have a blue sky once more after two months of mist, with thinking that I am excluded by pleasanter ideas--that at least you are well and comfortable, and I ought to content myself with that. The fact is, I am much of Touchstone's mind--in respect my life is at Geneva, I like it very well, but in respect it is not with you, it is a very vile life. I have no yearnings to exchange lake and mountains for Bishop Street and the Radford Fields, but I have a great yearning to kiss you all and talk to you for three days running. I do not think it will be possible for me to undertake the journey before the end of March. I look forward to it with great dread. I see myself looking utterly miserable, ready to leave all my luggage behind me at Paris for the sake of escaping the trouble of it. We have had Alboni here--a very fat siren. There has been some capital acting of comedies by friends of M. d'Albert--one of them is superior to any professional actor of comedy I have ever seen. He reads _vaudevilles_ so marvellously that one seems to have a whole troupe of actors before one in his single person. He is a handsome man of fifty, full of wit and talent, and he married about a year ago. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 9th Feb. 1850.] It is one of the provoking contrarieties of destiny that I should have written my croaking letter when your own kind, consolatory one was on its way to me. I have been happier ever since it came. After mourning two or three months over Chrissey's account of your troubles, I can only dwell on that part of your letter which tells that there is a little more blue in your sky--that you have faith in the coming spring. Shall you be as glad to see me as to hear the cuckoo? I mean to return to England as soon as the Jura is passable without sledges--probably the end of March or beginning of April. I have a little _Heimweh_ "as it regards" my friends. I yearn to see those I have loved the longest, but I shall feel real grief at parting from the excellent people with whom I am living. I feel they are my _friends_; without entering into or even knowing the greater part of my views, they understand my character and have a real interest in me. I have infinite tenderness from Mme. d'Albert. I call her always "maman;" and she is just the creature one loves to lean on and be petted by. In fact, I am too much indulged, and shall go back to England as undisciplined as ever. This terribly severe winter has been a drawback on my recovering my strength. I have lost whole weeks from headache, etc., but I am certainly better now than when I came to Mme. d'Albert. You tell me to give you these details, so I obey. Decidedly England is the most comfortable country to be in in winter--at least, for all except those who are rich enough to buy English comforts everywhere. I hate myself for caring about carpets, easy-chairs, and coal fires--one's soul is under a curse, and can preach no truth while one is in bondage to the flesh in this way; but, alas! habit is the purgatory in which we suffer for our past sins. I hear much music. We have a reunion of musical friends every Monday. For the rest, I have refused _soirées_, which are as stupid and unprofitable at Geneva as in England. I save all more interesting details, that I may have them to tell you when I am with you. I am going now to a _séance_ on Experimental Physics by the celebrated Professor de la Rive. This letter will at least convince you that I am not eaten up by wolves, as they have been fearing at Rosehill. The English papers tell of wolves descending from the Jura and devouring the inhabitants of the villages, but we have been in happy ignorance of these editors' horrors. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 15th Feb. 1850.] If you saw the Jura to-day! The snow reveals its forests, ravines, and precipices, and it stands in relief against a pure blue sky. The snow is on the mountains only, now, and one is tempted to walk all day, particularly when one lies in bed till ten, as your exemplary friend sometimes does. I have had no discipline, and shall return to you more of a spoiled child than ever. Indeed, I think I am destined to be so to the end--one of the odious swarm of voracious caterpillars soon to be swept away from the earth by a tempest. I am getting better bodily. I have much less headache, but the least excitement fatigues me. Certainly, if one cannot have a malady to carry one off rapidly, the only sensible thing is to get well and fat; and I believe I shall be driven to that alternative. You know that George Sand writes for the theatre? Her "François le Champi--une Comédie," is simplicity and purity itself. The seven devils are cast out. We are going to have more acting here on Wednesday. M. Chamel's talent makes maman's _soirées_ quite brilliant. You will be amused to hear that I am sitting for my portrait--at M. d'Albert's request, not mine. If it turns out well, I shall long to steal it to give to you; but M. d'Albert talks of painting a second, and in that case I shall certainly beg one. The idea of making a study of my visage is droll enough. I have the kindest possible letters from my brother and sisters, promising me the warmest welcome. This helps to give me courage for the journey; but the strongest magnet of all is a certain little group of three persons whom I hope to find together at Rosehill. Something has been said of M. d'Albert accompanying me to Paris. I am saddened when I think of all the horrible anxieties of trade. If I had children, I would make them carpenters and shoemakers; that is the way to make them Messiahs and Jacob Boehms. As for us, who are dependent on carpets and easy-chairs, we are reprobates, and shall never enter into the kingdom of heaven. I go to the Genevese churches every Sunday, and nourish my heterodoxy with orthodox sermons. However, there are some clever men here in the Church, and I am fortunate in being here at a time when the very cleverest is giving a series of conferences. I think I have never told you that we have a long German lad of seventeen in the house--the most taciturn and awkward of lads. He said very naïvely, when I reproached him for not talking to a German young lady at a _soirée_, when he was seated next her at table--"Je ne savais que faire de mes jambes." They had placed the poor _garçon_ against one of those card-tables--all legs, like himself. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 1st March, 1850.] The weather is so glorious that I think I may set out on my journey soon after the 15th. I am not quite certain yet that M. d'Albert will not be able to accompany me to Paris; in any case, a package of so little value will get along safely enough. I am so excited at the idea of the time being so near when I am to leave Geneva--a real grief--and see my friends in England--a perfectly overwhelming joy--that I can do nothing. I am frightened to think what an idle wretch I am become. And you all do not write me one word to tell me you long for me. I have a great mind to elope to Constantinople, and never see any one any more! It is with a feeling of regret that we take leave of the pleasant town of Geneva, its lake and mountains, and its agreeable little circle of acquaintance. It was a peacefully happy episode in George Eliot's life, and one she was always fond of recurring to, in our talk, up to the end of her life. _SUMMARY._ JUNE, 1849, TO MARCH, 1850. Goes abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Bray--Geneva--Life at Campagne Plongeon--Letters to Brays describing surroundings--Mrs. Locke--The St. Germain family--Anxiety about her boxes with books, etc.--Hears M. Meunier preach--Patriotism the first of virtues--Mme. Cornelius--Mme. de Ludwigsdorff--"_Fête_ of Navigation" on the lake--Demand for letters--Prophetic anticipation of position seven years later--Wishes to sell some of her books and globes to get music lessons--Letter to Mrs. Houghton--Loss of Mrs. Clarke's child--Love of Lake of Geneva--Letters to Brays--Mme. Ludwigsdorff wishes her to spend winter in Paris--Mlle. de Phaisan--Finds apartment in Geneva, No. 107 Rue des Chanoines, with M. and Mme. d'Albert--Enjoyment of their society--Remarks on translations of Spinoza--Hope of a woman's duty--Attachment to Geneva--Yearning for friends at home--Alboni--Private theatricals--Portrait by M. d'Albert--Remarks on education of children--Leaves Geneva by Jura. FOOTNOTES: [26] It may be noted as a curious verification of this presentiment that "Scenes of Clerical Life" were published in 1856--just seven years later. [27] Mrs. Hennell. [28] Mr. and Mrs. C. Hennell. [29] Mr. Charles Lewes tells me that when he went to stay with the d'Alberts at Geneva, many years afterwards, they mentioned how much they had been struck by her extraordinary discernment of the character of these two boys. [30] "Philosophy of Necessity," by Charles Bray. CHAPTER V. M. d'Albert and his charge left Geneva towards the end of March, and as the railway was not yet opened all the way to France, they had to cross the Jura in sledges, and suffered terribly from the cold. They joined the railway at Tonnerre, and came through Paris, arriving in England on the 23d of March. After a day in London, Miss Evans went straight to her friends at Rosehill, where she stayed for a few days before going on to Griff. It will have been seen that she had set her hopes high on the delights of home-coming, and with her too sensitive, impressionable nature, it is not difficult to understand, without attributing blame to any one, that she was pretty sure to be laying up disappointment for herself. All who have had the experience of returning from a bright, sunny climate to England in March will recognize in the next letters the actual presence of the east wind, the leaden sky, the gritty dust, and _le spleen_. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Mch. 1850, from Rosehill.] No; I am not in England--I am only nearer the beings I love best. I try to forget all geography, and that I have placed myself irretrievably out of reach of nature's brightest glories and beauties to shiver in a wintry flat. I am unspeakably grateful to find these dear creatures looking well and happy, in spite of worldly cares, but your clear face and voice are wanting to me. But I must wait with patience, and perhaps by the time I have finished my visits to my relations you will be ready to come to Rosehill again. I want you to scold me, and make me good. I am idle and naughty--_on ne peut plus_--sinking into heathenish ignorance and woman's frivolity. Remember, you are one of my guardian angels. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, beginning of April, 1850, from Griff.] Will you send the enclosed note to Mrs. C. Hennell? I am not quite sure about her direction, but I am anxious to thank her for her kindness in inviting me. Will you also send me an account of Mr. Chapman's prices for lodgers, and if you know anything of other boarding-houses, etc., in London? Will you tell me what you can? I am not asking you merely for the sake of giving you trouble. I am really anxious to know. Oh, the dismal weather and the dismal country and the dismal people. It was some envious demon that drove me across the Jura. However, I am determined to sell everything I possess, except a portmanteau and carpet-bag and the necessary contents, and be a stranger and a foreigner on the earth for evermore. But I must see you first; that is a yearning I still have in spite of disappointments. From Griff she went to stay with her sister, Mrs. Clarke, at Meriden, whence she writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 24th April, 1850.] Have you any engagement for the week after next? If not, may I join you on Saturday the 4th, and invite M. d'Albert to come down on the following Monday? It appears he cannot stay in England longer than until about the second week in May. I am uncomfortable at the idea of burdening even your friendship with the entertainment of a person purely for my sake. It is indeed the greatest of all the great kindnesses you have shown me. Write me two or three kind words, dear Cara. I have been so ill at ease ever since I have been in England that I am quite discouraged. Dear Chrissey is generous and sympathizing, and really cares for my happiness. [Illustration: Rosehill.] On the 4th of May Miss Evans went to Rosehill, and on the 7th M. d'Albert joined the party for a three days' visit. The strong affection existing between Mr. and Mrs. Bray and their guest, and the more congenial intellectual atmosphere surrounding them, led Miss Evans to make her home practically at Rosehill for the next sixteen months. She stayed there continuously till the 18th November, and, among other things, wrote a review of Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect." In October Mr. Mackay and Mr. Chapman, the editor of the _Westminster Review_, came to stay at Rosehill, and there was probably some talk then about her assisting in the editorial work of the _Review_, but it was not until the following spring that any definite understanding on this subject was arrived at. Meantime the article on Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect" came out in the January, 1851, number of the _Westminster_. It contains the following remarkable passages: "Our civilization, and yet more, our religion, are an anomalous blending of lifeless barbarisms, which have descended to us like so many petrifactions from distant ages, with living ideas, the offspring of a true process of development. We are in bondage to terms and conceptions, which, having had their roots in conditions of thought no longer existing, have ceased to possess any vitality, and are for us as spells which have lost their virtue. The endeavor to spread enlightened ideas is perpetually counteracted by these _idola theatri_, which have allied themselves, on the one hand, with men's better sentiments, and, on the other, with institutions in whose defence are arrayed the passions and the interests of dominant classes. Now, although the teaching of positive truth is the grand means of expelling error, the process will be very much quickened if the negative argument serve as its pioneer; if, by a survey of the past, it can be shown how each age and each race has had a faith and a symbolism suited to its need and its stage of development, and that for succeeding ages to dream of retaining the spirit, along with the forms, of the past, is as futile as the embalming of the dead body in the hope that it may one day be resumed by the living soul.... It is Mr. Mackay's faith that divine revelation is not contained exclusively or pre-eminently in the facts and inspirations of any one age or nation, but is coextensive with the history of human development, and is perpetually unfolding itself to our widened experience and investigation, as firmament upon firmament becomes visible to us in proportion to the power and range of our exploring-instruments. The master-key to this revelation is the recognition of the presence of undeviating law in the material and moral world--of that invariability of sequence which is acknowledged to be the basis of physical science, but which is still perversely ignored in our social organization, our ethics, and our religion. It is this invariability of sequence which can alone give value to experience, and render education, in the true sense, possible. The divine yea and nay, the seal of prohibition and of sanction, are effectually impressed on human deeds and aspirations, not by means of Greek and Hebrew, but by that inexorable law of consequences whose evidence is confirmed instead of weakened as the ages advance; and human duty is comprised in the earnest study of this law and patient obedience to its teaching. While this belief sheds a bright beam of promise on the future career of our race, it lights up what once seemed the dreariest region of history with new interest; every past phase of human development is part of that education of the race in which we are sharing; every mistake, every absurdity, into which poor human nature has fallen, may be looked on as an experiment of which we may reap the benefit. A correct generalization gives significance to the smallest detail, just as the great inductions of geology demonstrate in every pebble the working of laws by which the earth has become adapted for the habitation of man. In this view religion and philosophy are not merely conciliated, they are identical; or, rather, religion is the crown and consummation of philosophy--the delicate corolla which can only spread out its petals in all their symmetry and brilliance to the sun when root and branch exhibit the conditions of a healthy and vigorous life." Miss Evans seems to have been in London from the beginning of January till the end of March, 1851; and Mr. Chapman made another fortnight's visit to Rosehill at the end of May and beginning of June. It was during this period that, with Miss Evans's assistance, the prospectus of the new series of the _Westminster Review_ was determined on and put in shape. At the end of July she went with Mrs. Bray to visit Mr. and Mrs. Robert Noel, at Bishop Steignton, in Devonshire. Mrs. Bray had some slight illness there, and Miss Evans writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 5th Aug. 1851.] I am grieved indeed if anything might have been written, which has not been written, to allay your anxiety about Cara. Her letter yesterday explained what has been the matter. I knew her own handwriting would be pleasanter to you than any other. I have been talking to her this morning about the going to London or to Rosehill. She seems to prefer London. A glance or two at the Exposition, she thinks, would do her no harm. To-day we are all going to Teignmouth. She seems to like the idea of sitting by the waves. The sun is shining gloriously, and all things are tolerably promising. I am going to walk on before the rest and have a bath. They went to London on the 13th of August, saw the Crystal Palace, and returned to Rosehill on the 16th. At the end of that month, Mr. George Combe (the distinguished phrenologist) arrived on a visit, and he and Mrs. Combe became good friends to Miss Evans, as will be seen from the subsequent correspondence. They came on a second visit to Rosehill the following month--Mr. Chapman being also in the house at the same time--and at the end of September Miss Evans went to stay with the Chapmans at No. 142 Strand, as a boarder, and as assistant editor of the _Westminster Review_. A new period now opens in George Eliot's life, and emphatically the most important period, for now she is to be thrown in contact with Mr. Lewes, who is to exercise so paramount an influence on all her future, with Mr. Herbert Spencer, and with a number of writers then representing the most fearless and advanced thought of the day. Miss Frederica Bremer, the authoress, was also boarding with the Chapmans at this time, as will be seen from the following letters: [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, end of Sept. 1851.] Mr. Mackay has been very kind in coming and walking out with me, and that is the only variety I have had. Last night, however, we had an agreeable enough gathering. Foxton[31] came, who, you know, is trying, with Carlyle and others, to get a chapel for Wilson at the West End--in which he is to figure as a seceding clergyman. I enclose you two notes from Empson (he is the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_) as a guarantee that I have been trying to work. Again, I proposed to write a review of Greg for the _Westminster_, not for money, but for love of the subject as connected with the "Inquiry." Mr. Hickson referred the matter to Slack again, and he writes that he shall not have room for it, and that the subject will not suit on this occasion, so you see I am obliged to be idle, and I like it best. I hope Mr. Bray is coming soon to tell me everything about you. I think I shall cry for joy to see him. But do send me a little note on Monday morning. Mrs. Follen called the other day, in extreme horror at Miss Martineau's book. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, end of Sept. 1851.] Dr. Brabant returned to Bath yesterday. He very politely took me to the Crystal Palace, the theatre, and the Overland Route. On Friday we had Foxton, Wilson, and some other nice people, among others a Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has just brought out a large work on "Social Statics," which Lewes pronounces the best book he has seen on the subject. You must see the book, if possible. Mr. Chapman is going to send you Miss Martineau's work, or rather Mr. Atkinson's,[32] which you must review in the _Herald_. Whatever else one may think of the book, it is certainly the boldest I have seen in the English language. I get nothing done here, there are so many _distractions_--moreover, I have hardly been well a day since I came. I wish I were rich enough to go to the coast, and have some plunges in the sea to brace me. Nevertheless do not suppose that I don't enjoy being here. I like seeing the new people, etc., and I am afraid I shall think the country rather dull after it. I am in a hurry to-day. I must have two hours' work before dinner, so imagine everything I have not said, or, rather, reflect that this scrap is quite as much as you deserve after being so slow to write to me. The reference, in the above letter, to Mr. Lewes must not be taken as indicating personal acquaintance yet. It is only a quotation of some opinion heard or read. Mr. Lewes had already secured for himself a wide reputation in the literary world by his "Biographical History of Philosophy," his two novels, "Ranthorpe," and "Rose, Blanche, and Violet"--all of which had been published five or six years before--and his voluminous contributions to the periodical literature of the day. He was also, at this time, the literary editor of the _Leader_ newspaper, so that any criticism of his would carry weight, and be talked about. Much has already been written about his extraordinary versatility, the variety of his literary productions, his social charms, his talent as a _raconteur_, and his dramatic faculty; and it will now be interesting, for those who did not know him personally, to learn the deeper side of his character, which will be seen, in its development, in the following pages. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, end of Sept. 1851.] I don't know how long Miss Bremer will stay, but you need not wish to see her. She is to me equally unprepossessing to eye and ear. I never saw a person of her years who appealed less to my purely instinctive veneration. I have to reflect every time I look at her that she is really Frederica Bremer. Fox is to write the article on the Suffrage, and we are going to try Carlyle for the Peerage, Ward refusing, on the ground that he thinks the improvement of the physical condition of the people so all-important that he must give all his energies to that. He says, "Life is a bad business, but we must make the best of it;" to which philosophy I say Amen. Dr. Hodgson is gone, and all the fun with him. I was introduced to Lewes the other day in Jeff's shop--a sort of miniature Mirabeau in appearance.[33] [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 2d Oct. (?) 1851.] Professor Forbes is to write us a capital scientific article, whereat I rejoice greatly. The Peerage apparently will not "get itself done," as Carlyle says. It is not an urgent question, nor does one see that, if the undue influence of the Peers on the elections for the Commons were done away with, there would be much mischief from the House of Lords remaining for some time longer _in statu quo_. I have been reading Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" with great pleasure--not for its presentation of Sterling, but of Carlyle. There are racy bits of description in his best manner, and exquisite touches of feeling. Little rapid characterizations of living men too--of Francis Newman, for example--"a man of fine university and other attainments, of the sharpest cutting and most restlessly advancing intellect, and of the mildest pious enthusiasm." There is an inimitable description of Coleridge and his eternal monologue--"To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether one like it or not, can in the end be exhilarating to no creature." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Oct. 1851.] All the world is doing its _devoir_ to the great little authoress (Miss Bremer). I went to the exhibition on Saturday to hear the final "God save the Queen" and the three times three--"C'êtait un beau moment." Mr. Greg thought the review "well done, and in a kindly spirit," but thought there was not much in it--dreadfully true, since there was only all his book. I think he did not like the apology for his want of theological learning, which, however, was just the thing most needed, for the _Eclectic_ trips him up on that score. Carlyle was very amusing the other morning to Mr. Chapman about the Exhibition. He has no patience with the prince and "that Cole" assembling Sawneys from all parts of the land, till you can't get along Piccadilly. He has been worn to death with bores all summer, who present themselves by twos and threes in his study, saying, "Here we are," etc., etc. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Oct. 1851.] I wish you could see Miss Bremer's albums, full of portraits, flowers, and landscapes, all done by herself. A portrait of Emerson, marvellously like; one of Jenny Lind, etc. Last night we had quite a charming _soirée_--Sir David Brewster and his daughter; Mackay, author of a work on popular education you may remember to have seen reviewed in the _Leader_; the Ellises, the Hodgsons, and half a dozen other nice people. Miss Bremer was more genial than I have seen her--played on the piano, and smiled benevolently. Altogether, I am beginning to repent of my repugnance. Mackay approves our prospectus _in toto_. He is a handsome, fine-headed man, and a "good opinion." We are getting out a circular to accompany the prospectus. I have been kept down-stairs by Mr. Mackay for the last two hours, and am hurried, but it was a necessity to write _ein paar Worte_ to you. Mr. Mackay has written an account of his book for the catalogue. I have been using my powers of eloquence and flattery this morning to make him begin an article on the "Development of Protestantism." Mr. Ellis was agreeable--really witty. He and Mrs. Ellis particularly cordial to me, inviting me to visit them without ceremony. I love you all better every day, and better the more I see of other people. I am going to one of the Birkbeck schools. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3rd Nov. 1851.] I must tell you a story Miss Bremer got from Emerson. Carlyle was very angry with him for not believing in a devil, and to convert him took him amongst all the horrors of London--the gin-shops, etc.--and finally to the House of Commons, plying him at every turn with the question, "Do you believe in a devil noo?" There is a severe attack on Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" in yesterday's _Times_--unfair as an account of the book, but with some truth in its general remarks about Carlyle. There is an article, evidently by James Martineau, in the _Prospective_, which you must read, "On the Unity of the Logical and Intuitive in the Ultimate Grounds of Religious Belief." I am reading with great amusement (!) J. H. Newman's "Lectures on the Position of Catholics." They are full of clever satire and description. My table is groaning with books, and I have done very little with them yet, but I trust in my star, which has hitherto helped me, to do all I have engaged to do. Pray remember to send the MS. translation of Schleiermacher's little book, and also the book itself. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 15th Nov. 1851.] When Mr. Noel had finished his farewell visit to-day, Mr. Flower was announced, so my morning has run away in chat. Time wears, and I don't get on so fast as I ought, but I must scribble a word or two, else you will make my silence an excuse for writing me no word of yourselves. I am afraid Mr. Noel and Mr. Bray have given you a poor report of me. The last two days I have been a little better, but I hardly think existing arrangements can last beyond this quarter. Mr. Noel says Miss L. is to visit you at Christmas. I hope that is a mistake, as it would deprive me of my hoped-for rest amongst you. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Monday, 23d Nov. 1851.] On Saturday afternoon came Mr. Spencer to ask Mr. Chapman and me to go to the theatre; so I ended the day in a godless manner, seeing the "Merry Wives of Windsor." You must read Carlyle's denunciation of the opera, published in the _Keepsake_! The _Examiner_ quotes it at length. I send you the enclosed from Harriet Martineau. Please to return it. The one from Carlyle you may keep till I come. He is a naughty fellow to write in the _Keepsake_, and not for us, after I wrote him the most insinuating letter, offering him three glorious subjects. Yesterday we went to Mr. Mackay's, Dr. Brabant being there. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 27th Nov. 1851.] Carlyle called the other day, strongly recommending Browning, the poet, as a writer for the _Review_, and saying, "We shall see," about himself. In other respects we have been stagnating since Monday, and now I must work, work, work, which I have scarcely done two days consecutively since I have been here. Lewes says his article on "Julia von Krüdener"[34] will be glorious. He sat in the same box with us at the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and helped to carry off the dolorousness of the play. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Tuesday, 22d Dec. 1851.] Alas! the work is so heavy just for the next three days, all the revises being yet to come in, and the proof of my own article;[35] and Mr. Chapman is so overwhelmed with matters of detail, that he has earnestly requested me to stay till Saturday, and I cannot refuse, but it is a deep disappointment to me. My heart will yearn after you all. It is the first Christmas Day I shall have passed without any Christmas feeling. On Saturday, if you will have me, nothing shall keep me here any longer. I am writing at a high table, on a low seat, in a great hurry. Don't you think my style is editorial? Accordingly, on Saturday, the 29th December, 1851, she did go down to Rosehill, and stayed there till 12th January, when she returned to London, and writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 12th Jan. 1852.] I had a comfortable journey all alone, except from Weedon to Blisworth. When I saw a coated animal getting into my carriage, I thought of all horrible stories of madmen in railways; but his white neckcloth and thin, mincing voice soon convinced me that he was one of those exceedingly tame animals, the clergy. A kind welcome and a good dinner--that is the whole of my history at present. I am in anything but company trim, or spirits. I can do nothing in return for all your kindness, dear Cara, but love you, as I do most heartily. You and all yours, for their own sake first, but if it were not so, for yours. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Jan. 1852.] Harriet Martineau called on Monday morning with Mr. Atkinson. Very kind and cordial. I honor her for her powers and industry, and should be glad to think highly of her. I have no doubt that she is fascinating when there is time for talk. We have had two agreeable _soirées_. Last Monday I was talking and listening for two hours to Pierre Leroux--a dreamy genius. He was expounding to me his ideas. He belongs neither to the school of Proudhon, which represents Liberty only--nor to that of Louis Blanc, which represents Equality only--nor to that of Cabet, which represents Fraternity. Pierre Leroux's system is the _synthèse_ which combines all three. He has found the true _pont_ which is to unite the love of self with love of one's neighbor. He is, you know, a very voluminous writer. George Sand has dedicated some of her books to him. He dilated on his views of the "Origin of Christianity." Strauss deficient, because he has not shown the _identity of the teaching of Jesus with that of the Essenes_. This is Leroux's favorite idea. I told him of your brother. He, moreover, traces Essenism back to Egypt, and thence to India--the cradle of all religions, etc., etc., with much more, which he uttered with an unction rather amusing in a _soirée tête-à-tête_. "Est ce que nous sommes faits pour chercher le bonheur? Est ce là votre idée--dites moi." "Mais non--nous sommes faits, je pense, pour nous développer le plus possible." "Ah! c'est ça." He is in utter poverty, going to lecture--_autrement il faut mourir_. Has a wife and children with him. He came to London in his early days, when he was twenty-five, to find work as a printer. All the world was in mourning for the Princess Charlotte. "Et moi, je me trouvais avoir _un habit vert-pomme_." So he got no work; went back to Paris; by hook or by crook founded the _Globe_ journal; knew St. Simon; disagrees with him entirely, as with all other theorists except Pierre Leroux. We are trying Mazzini to write on "Freedom _v._ Despotism," and have received an admirable article on "The New Puritanism,"[36] _i.e._, "Physical Puritanism," from Dr. Browne, the chemist of Edinburgh, which, I think, will go in the next number. I am in a miserable state of languor and low spirits, in which everything is a trouble to me. I must tell you a bit of Louis Blanc's English, which Mr. Spencer was reciting the other night. The _petit homme_ called on some one, and said, "I come to tell you how you are. I was at you the other day, but you were not." [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 2d Feb. 1852.] We went to quite a gay party at Mrs. Mackay's on Saturday. Good Mr. Mackay has been taking trouble to get me to Hastings for my health--calling on Miss Fellowes, daughter of the "Religion of the Universe," and inducing her to write me a note of invitation. Sara will be heartily welcome. Unfortunately, I had an invitation to the Parkes's, to meet Cobden, on Saturday evening. I was sorry to miss that. Miss Parkes[37] is a dear, ardent, honest creature; and I hope we shall be good friends. I have nothing else to tell you. I am steeped in dulness within and without. Heaven send some lions to-night to meet Fox, who is coming. An advertisement we found in the _Times_ to-day--"To gentlemen. A _converted_ medical man, of gentlemanly habits and fond of Scriptural conversation, wishes to meet with a gentleman of Calvinistic views, thirsty after truth, in want of a daily companion. A little temporal aid will be expected in return. Address, Verax!" [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 8th Feb. 1852.] We are going to Mr. Ellis's, at Champion Hill, to-morrow evening. I am better now. Have rid myself of all distasteful work, and am trying to love the glorious destination of humanity, looking before and after. We shall be glad to have Sara. Miss Sara Hennell arrived on a visit to the Strand next day--the 9th February--and stayed till the 17th. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 16th Feb. 1852.] I have not merely had a headache--I have been really ill, and feel very much shattered. We (Miss Evans and Miss Sara Hennell) dined yesterday at Mrs. Peter Taylor's,[38] at Sydenham. I was not fit to go, especially to make my _début_ at a strange place; but the country air was a temptation. The thick of the work is just beginning, and I am bound in honor not to run away from it, as I have shirked all labor but what is strictly editorial this quarter. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 20th Feb. 1852.] We went to the meeting of the Association for the Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge on Wednesday, that I might hear Cobden, in whom I was wofully disappointed. George Dawson's speech was admirable. I think it undesirable to fix on a London residence at present, as I want to go to Brighton for a month or two next quarter. I am seriously concerned at my languid body, and feel the necessity of taking some measures to get vigor. Lewes inquired for Sara last Monday, in a tone of interest. He was charmed with her, as who would not be that has any taste? Do write to me, dear Cara; I want comforting: this world looks ugly just now; all people rather worse than I have been used to think them. Put me in love with my kind again, by giving me a glimpse of your own inward self, since I cannot see the outer one. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th Mch. 1852.] I can sympathize with you in your troubles, having been a housekeeper myself, and known disappointment in trusted servants. Ah, well! we have a good share of the benefits of our civilization, it is but fair that we should feel some of the burden of its imperfections. Thank you a thousand times for wishing to see me again. I should really like to see you in your own nice, fresh, healthy-looking home again; but until the end of March I fear I shall be a prisoner, from the necessity for constant work. Still, it is possible that I may have a day, though I am quite unable to say when. You will be still more surprised at the notice of the _Westminster_ in _The People_, when you know that Maccoll himself wrote it. I have not seen it, but had been told of its ill-nature. However, he is too good a man to write otherwise than sincerely; and our opinion of a book often depends on the state of the liver! [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 25th Mch. 1852.] I had two offers last night--not of marriage, but of music--which I find it impossible to resist. Mr. Herbert Spencer proposed to take me on Thursday to hear "William Tell," and Miss Parkes asked me to go with her to hear the "Creation" on Friday. I have had so little music this quarter, and these two things are so exactly what I should like, that I have determined to put off, for the sake of them, my other pleasure of seeing you. So, pray, keep your precious welcome warm for me until Saturday, when I shall positively set off by the two o'clock train. Harriet Martineau has written me a most cordial invitation to go to see her before July, but that is impossible. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 27th Mch. 1852.] I am grieved to find that you have to pay for that fine temperament of yours in attacks of neuralgia. Your silence did not surprise me, after the account you had given me of your domestic circumstances, but I have wished for you on Monday evenings. Your cordial assurance that you shall be glad to see me sometimes is one of those pleasant things--those life-preservers--which relenting destiny sends me now and then to buoy me up. For you must know that I am not a little desponding now and then, and think that old friends will die off, while I shall be left without the power to make new ones. You know how sad one feels when a great procession has swept by one, and the last notes of its music have died away, leaving one alone with the fields and sky. I feel so about life sometimes. It is a help to read such a life as Margaret Fuller's. How inexpressibly touching that passage from her journal--"I shall always reign through the intellect, but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be sweet?" I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was sweet at last. But I am running on about feelings when I ought to tell you facts. I am going on Wednesday to my friends in Warwickshire for about ten days or a fortnight. When I come back, I hope you will be quite strong and able to receive visitors without effort--Mr. Taylor too. I _did_ go to the _conversazione_; but you have less to regret than you think. Mazzini's speeches are better read than heard. Proofs are come, demanding my immediate attention, so I must end this hasty scribble. On the 3d April Miss Evans went to Rosehill, and stayed till the 14th. On her return she writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 17th April, 1852.] There was an article on the bookselling affair in the _Times_ of yesterday, which must be the knell of the Association. Dickens is to preside at a meeting in this house on the subject some day next week. The opinions on the various articles in the _Review_ are, as before, ridiculously various. The _Economist_ calls the article on Quakerism "admirably written." Greg says the article on India is "very masterly;" while he calls Mazzini's "sad stuff--mere verbiage." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st April, 1852.] If there is any change in my affection for you it is that I love you more than ever, not less. I have as perfect a friendship for you as my imperfect nature can feel--a friendship in which deep respect and admiration are sweetened by a sort of flesh-and-blood sisterly feeling and the happy consciousness that I have your affection, however undeservedly, in return. I have confidence that this friendship can never be shaken; that it must last while I last, and that the supposition of its ever being weakened by a momentary irritation is too contemptibly absurd for me to take the trouble to deny it. As to your whole conduct to me, from the first day I knew you, it has been so generous and sympathetic that, if I did not heartily love you, I should feel deep gratitude--but love excludes gratitude. It is impossible that I should ever love two women better than I love you and Cara. Indeed, it seems to me that I can never love any so well; and it is certain that I can never have any friend--not even a husband--who would supply the loss of those associations with the past which belong to you. Do believe in my love for you, and that it will remain as long as I have my senses, because it is interwoven with my best nature, and is dependent, not on any accidents of manner, but on long experience, which has confirmed the instinctive attraction of earlier days. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 22d April, 1852.] Our fortunes here are, as usual, checkered-- "Twist ye, twine ye, even so Mingle human weal and woe." Grote is very friendly, and has propitiated J. S. Mill, who will write for us when we want him. We had quite a brilliant _soirée_ yesterday evening. W. R. Greg, Forster (of Rawdon), Francis Newman, the Ellises, and Louis Blanc, were the stars of greatest magnitude. I had a pleasant talk with Greg and Forster. Greg was "much pleased to have made my acquaintance." Forster, on the whole, appeared to think that people should be glad to make _his_ acquaintance. Greg is a short man, but his brain is large, the anterior lobe very fine, and a moral region to correspond. Black, wiry, curly hair, and every indication of a first-rate temperament. We have some very nice Americans here--the Pughs--friends of the Parkes's, really refined, intellectual people. Miss Pugh, an elderly lady, is a great abolitionist, and was one of the Women's Convention that came to England in 1840, and was not allowed to join the Men's Convention. But I suppose we shall soon be able to say, _nous avons changé tout cela_. I went to the opera on Saturday--"I Martiri," at Covent Garden--with my "excellent friend, Herbert Spencer," as Lewes calls him. We have agreed that we are not in love with each other, and that there is no reason why we should not have as much of each other's society as we like. He is a good, delightful creature, and I always feel better for being with him. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 2d May, 1852.] I like to remind you of me on Sunday morning, when you look at the flowers and listen to music; so I send a few lines, though I have not much time to spare to-day. After Tuesday I will write you a longer letter, and tell you all about everything. I am going to the opera to-night to hear the "Huguenots." See what a fine thing it is to pick up people who are short-sighted enough to like one. On the 4th of May a meeting, consisting chiefly of authors, was held at the house in the Strand, for the purpose of hastening the removal of the trade restrictions on the Commerce of Literature, and it is thus described in the following letter: [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 5th May, 1852.] The meeting last night went off triumphantly, and I saluted Mr. Chapman with "See the Conquering Hero Comes" on the piano at 12 o'clock; for not until then was the last magnate, except Herbert Spencer, out of the house. I sat at the door for a short time, but soon got a chair within it, and heard and saw everything. Dickens in the chair--a position he fills remarkably well, preserving a courteous neutrality of eyebrows, and speaking with clearness and decision. His appearance is certainly disappointing--no benevolence in the face, and, I think, little in the head; the anterior lobe not by any means remarkable. In fact, he is not distinguished-looking in any way--neither handsome nor ugly, neither fat nor thin, neither tall nor short. Babbage moved the first resolution--a bad speaker, but a great authority. Charles Knight is a beautiful, elderly man, with a modest but firm enunciation; and he made a wise and telling speech which silenced one or two vulgar, ignorant booksellers who had got into the meeting by mistake. One of these began by complimenting Dickens--"views held by such worthy and important gentlemen, _which is your worthy person in the chair_." Dickens looked respectfully neutral. The most telling speech of the evening was Prof. Tom Taylor's--as witty and brilliant as one of George Dawson's. Prof. Owen's, too, was remarkably good. He had a resolution to move as to the bad effect of the trade restrictions on scientific works, and gave his own experience in illustration. Speaking of the slow and small sale of scientific books of a high class, he said, in his silvery, bland way--alluding to the boast that the retail booksellers _recommended_ the works of less known authors--"for which limited sale we are doubtless indebted to the kind recommendation of our friends, the retail booksellers"--whereupon these worthies, taking it for a _bonâ fide_ compliment, cheered enthusiastically. Dr. Lankester, Prof. Newman, Robert Bell, and others, spoke well. Owen has a tremendous head, and looked, as he was, the greatest celebrity of the meeting. George Cruikshank, too, made a capital speech, in an admirable moral spirit. He is the most homely, genuine-looking man; not unlike the pictures of Captain Cuttle. I went to hear the "Huguenots" on Saturday evening. It was a rich treat. Mario and Grisi and Formes, and that finest of orchestras under Costa. I am going to a concert to-night. This is all very fine, but, in the meantime, I am getting as haggard as an old witch under London atmosphere and influences. I shall be glad to have sent me my Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, and Wordsworth, if you will be so good as to take the trouble of packing them. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Monday, 12th(?) May, 1852.] My days have slipped away in a most mysterious fashion lately--chiefly, I suppose, in long walks and long talks. Our Monday evenings are dying off--not universally regretted--but we are expecting one or two people to-night. I have nothing to tell except that I went to the opera on Thursday, and heard "La Juive," and, moreover, fell in love with Prince Albert, who was unusually animated and prominent. He has a noble, genial, intelligent expression, and is altogether a man to be proud of. I am going next Thursday to see Grisi in "Norma." She is quite beautiful this season, thinner than she was, and really younger looking. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th May, 1852.] My brightest spot, next to my love of _old_ friends, is the deliciously calm, _new_ friendship that Herbert Spencer gives me. We see each other every day, and have delightful _camaraderie_ in everything. But for him my life would be desolate enough. What a wretched lot of old, shrivelled creatures we shall be by and by. Never mind, the uglier we get in the eyes of others the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship, and now it is in a slight degree my experience. Mme. d'Albert has sent me the sweetest letter, just like herself; and I feel grateful to have such a heart remembering and loving me on the other side of the Jura. They are very well and flourishing. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Wednesday, 2d June, 1852.] I am bothered to death with article-reading and scrap-work of all sorts: it is clear my poor head will never produce anything under these circumstances; _but I am patient_. I am ashamed to tease you so, but I must beg of you to send me George Sand's works; and also I shall be grateful if you will lend me--what I think you have--an English edition of "Corinne," and Miss Austen's "Sense and Sensibility." Harriet Martineau's article on "Niebuhr" will not go in the July number. I am sorry for it; it is admirable. After all, she is a _trump_--the only Englishwoman that possesses thoroughly the art of writing. On Thursday morning I went to St. Paul's to see the charity children assembled, and hear their singing. Berlioz says it is the finest thing he has heard in England; and this opinion of his induced me to go. I was not disappointed; it is worth doing once, especially as we got out before the sermon. I had a long call from George Combe yesterday. He says he thinks the _Westminster_, under _my_ management, the most important means of enlightenment of a literary nature in existence; the _Edinburgh_, under Jeffrey, nothing to it, etc.!!! I wish _I_ thought so too. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 21st June, 1852.] Your joint assurance of welcome strengthens the centripetal force that would carry me to you; but, on the other hand, sundry considerations are in favor of the centrifugal force, which, I suppose, will carry me to Broadstairs or Ramsgate. On the whole, I prefer to keep my visit to you as a _bonne-bouche_, when I am just in the best physical and mental state for enjoying it. I hope to get away on Saturday, or on Wednesday at the latest. I think the third number of the _Review_ will be capital; thoroughly readable, and yet not frothy. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 23d June, 1852.] I have assured Herbert Spencer that you will think it a sufficiently formal answer to the invitation you sent him through Mr. Lewes, if I tell you that he will prefer waiting for the pleasure of a visit to you until I am with you--if you will have him then. I spent the evening at Mr. Parkes's on Monday. Yesterday Herbert Spencer brought his father to see me--a large-brained, highly informed man, with a certain quaintness and simplicity, altogether very pleasing. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th June, (?) 1852.] After all, I begin to hope that our next number will be the best yet. Forbes is good; Froude ditto; and James Martineau, if I may judge from a glance at a few of his pages, admirable. Lewes has written us an agreeable article on "Lady Novelists." There is a mysterious contribution to the independent section. We are hoping that an article on "Edinburgh Literary Men," yet to come, will be very good. If not, we shall put in "Niebuhr;" it is capital. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, end of June, 1852.] The opera, Chiswick Flower Show, the French play, and the Lyceum, all in one week, brought their natural consequences of headache and hysterics--all yesterday. At five o'clock I felt quite sure that life was unendurable. This morning, however, the weather and I are both better, having cried ourselves out and used up all our clouds; and I can even contemplate living six months longer. Was there ever anything more dreary than this June? [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday morning, 2d July, 1852.] I am busy packing to-day, and am going to Mr. Parkes's to dinner. Miss Parkes has introduced me to Barbara Smith,[39] whose expression I like exceedingly, and hope to know more of her. I go to Broadstairs on Saturday. I am sadly in want of the change, and would much rather present myself to you all when I can do you more credit as a friend. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th July, 1852.] I warn you against Ramsgate, which is a strip of London come out for an airing. Broadstairs is perfect; and I have the snuggest little lodging conceivable, with a motherly good woman and a nice little damsel of fourteen to wait on me. There are only my two rooms in this cottage, but lodgings are plentiful in the place. I have a sitting-room about eight feet by nine, and a bedroom a little larger; yet in that small space there is almost every comfort. I pay a guinea a week for my rooms, so I shall not ruin myself by staying a month, unless I commit excesses in coffee and sugar. I am thinking whether it would not be wise to retire from the world and live here for the rest of my days. With some fresh paper on the walls, and an easy-chair, I think I could resign myself. Come and tell me your opinion. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th July, 1852.] I thought of you last night, when I was in a state of mingled rapture and torture--rapture at the sight of a glorious evening sky, torture at the sight and hearing of the belaboring given to the poor donkey which was drawing me from Ramsgate home. I had a note from Miss Florence Nightingale yesterday. I was much pleased with her. There is a loftiness of mind about her which is well expressed by her form and manner. Glad you are pleased with the _Westminster_. I do think it a rich number--matter for a fortnight's reading and thought. Lewes has not half done it justice in the _Leader_. To my mind the "Niebuhr" article is as good as any of them. If you could see me in my quiet nook! I am half ashamed of being in such clover, both spiritually and materially, while some of my friends are on the dusty highways, without a tuft of grass or a flower to cheer them. A letter from you will be delightful. We seem to have said very little to each other lately. But I always know--rejoice to know--that there is the same Sara for me as there is the same green earth and arched sky, when I am good and wise enough to like the best thing. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 21st July, 1852.] Do not be anxious about me--there is no cause. I am profiting, body and mind, from quiet walks and talks with nature, gathering "lady's bedstraw" and "rest-harrow," and other pretty things; picking up shells (not in the Newtonian sense, but literally); reading Aristotle, to find out what is the chief good; and eating mutton-chops, that I may have strength to pursue it. If you insist on my writing about "emotions," why, I must get some up expressly for the purpose. But I must own I would rather not, for it is the grand wish and object of my life to get rid of them as far as possible, seeing they have already had more than their share of my nervous energy. I shall not be in town on the 2d of August--at least, I pray Heaven to forbid it. Mrs. Bray paid a visit to Broadstairs from the 3d to the 12th August, and the next letter is addressed to her. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Thursday, 14th (?) Aug. 1852.] Are you really the better for having been here? Since you left I have been continually regretting that I could not make your visit pleasanter. I was irritable and out of sorts; but you have an apparatus for secreting happiness--that's it. Providence, seeing that I wanted weaning from this place, has sent a swarm of harvest-bugs and lady-birds. These, with the half-blank, half-dissipated feeling which comes on after having companions and losing them, make me think of returning to London on Saturday week with more resignation than I have felt before. I am very well and "plucky"--a word which I propose to substitute for happy, as more truthful. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Aug. 1852.] For the last two months I have been at this pretty, quiet place, which "David Copperfield" has made classic, far away from London noise and smoke. I am sorry now that I brought with me Fox's "Lectures," which I had not managed to read before I left town. But I shall return thither at the end of next week, and I will at once forward the volume to Gary Lane. One sees no novels less than a year old at the sea-side, so I am unacquainted with the "Blithedale Romance," except through the reviews, which have whetted my curiosity more than usual. Hawthorne is a grand favorite of mine, and I shall be sorry if he do not go on surpassing himself. It is sad to hear of your only going out to consult a physician. Illness seems to me the one woe for which there is no comfort--no compensation. But perhaps you find it otherwise, for you have a less rebellious spirit than I, and suffering seems to make you look all the more gentle. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 22d Aug. 1852.] Thinking of you this morning--as I often do, though you may not suppose so--it was "borne in on my mind" that I must write to you, and I obey the inspiration without waiting to consider whether there may be a corresponding desire on your part to hear from me. I live in a world of cares and joys so remote from the one in which we used to sympathize with each other that I find positive communication with you difficult. But I am not unfaithful to old loves--they were sincere, and they are lasting. I hope you will not think it too much trouble to write me a little news of yourself. I want very much to know if your health continues good, and if there has been any change in your circumstances, that I may have something like a true conception of you. All is well with me so far as my individuality is concerned, but I have plenty of friends' troubles to sorrow over. I hope you have none to add to the number. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Aug. 1852.] I celebrated my return to London by the usual observance--that is to say, a violent headache, which is not yet gone, and of course I am in the worst spirits, and my opinion of things is not worth a straw. I tell you this that you may know why I only send you this scrap instead of the long letter which I have _in petto_ for you, and which would otherwise have been written yesterday. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Sept. 1852.] Somehow my letters--except those which come under the inexorable imperative _must_ (the "ought" I manage well enough to shirk)--will not get written. The fact is, I am in a croaking mood, and I am waiting and waiting for it to pass by, so if my pen croaks in spite of my resolutions to the contrary, please to take no notice of it. Ever since I came back I have felt something like the madness which imagines that the four walls are contracting and going to crush one. Harriet Martineau (in a private letter shown to me), with incomprehensible ignorance, jeers at Lewes for introducing _psychology_ as a science in his Comte papers. Why, Comte himself holds psychology to be a necessary link in the chain of science. Lewes only suggests a change in its relations. There is a great, dreary article on the Colonies by my side, asking for reading and abridgment, so I cannot go on scribbling--indeed, my hands are so hot and tremulous this morning that it will be better for you if I leave off. Your little loving notes are very precious to me; but I say nothing about matters of feeling till my good genius has returned from his excursions; the evil one has possession just now. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 11th Sept. 1852.] The week has really yielded nothing worth telling you. I am a few degrees more wizened and muddle-headed; and the articles for the _Review_ are, on the whole, unsatisfactory. I fear a discerning public will think this number a sad falling-off. This is the greater pity, that said public is patronizing us well at present. Scarcely a day passes that some one does not write to order the _Review_, as a permanent subscriber. You may as well expect news from an old spider or bat as from me. I can only tell you what I think of the "Blithedale Romance," of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the American Fishery Dispute--all which, I am very sure, you don't want to know. Do have pity on me, and make a little variety in my life, by all sending me a scrap--never mind if it be only six lines apiece. Perhaps something will befall me one day or other. As it is, nothing happens to me but the ringing of the dinner-bell and the arrival of a proof. I have no courage to walk out. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 18th Sept. 1852.] Lewes called on me the other day and told me of a conversation with Professor Owen, in which the latter declared his conviction that the cerebrum was not the organ of the mind, but the cerebellum rather. He founds on the enormous comparative size of brain in the grampus! The professor has a huge anterior lobe of his own. What would George Combe say if I were to tell him? But every great man has his paradox, and that of the first anatomist in Europe ought to be a startling one. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Saturday, Sept. 1852.] We shall make a respectable figure after all--nine articles, and two or three of them good, the rest not bad. The _Review_ has been selling well lately, in spite of its being the end of the quarter. We have made splendid provision for January--Froude, Harriet Martineau, Theodore Parker, Samuel Brown, etc., etc. The autumnal freshness of the mornings makes me dream of mellowing woods and gossamer threads. I am really longing for my journey. Bessie Parkes spent last evening with me, chatting of experience. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 2d Oct. 1852.] Pity me--I have had the headache for four days incessantly. But now I am well, and even the Strand seems an elysium by contrast. I set off on Tuesday for Edinburgh by express. This is awfully expensive, but it seems the only way of reaching there alive with my frail body. I have had the kindest notes from the Combes and from Harriet Martineau. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 7th Oct. 1852.] Here I am in this beautiful Auld Reekie once more--hardly recognizing myself for the same person as the _damozel_ who left it by the coach with a heavy heart some six years ago. The Combes are all kindness, and I am in clover--an elegant house, glorious fires, and a comfortable carriage--in short, just in the circumstances to nourish sleek optimism, convince one that this is _le meilleur des mondes possibles_, and make one shudder at the impiety of all who doubt it. Last evening Mr. Robert Cox came to tea, to be introduced to me as my _cicerone_ through the lions of Edinburgh. The talk last night was pleasant enough, though, of course, all the interlocutors besides Mr. Combe have little to do but shape elegant modes of negation and affirmation, like the people who are talked to by Socrates in Plato's dialogues--"Certainly," "that I firmly believe," etc. I have a beautiful view from my room window--masses of wood, distant hills, the Firth, and four splendid buildings, clotted far apart--not an ugly object to be seen. When I look out in the morning, it is as if I had waked up in Utopia or Icaria, or one of Owen's parallelograms. The weather is perfect--all the more delightful to me for its northern sharpness, which is just what I wanted to brace me. I have been out walking and driving all day, and have only time before dinner to send this _paar Worte_, but I may have still less time to-morrow. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 12th Oct. 1852.] Between the beauty of the weather and the scenery, and the kindness of good people, I am tipsy with pleasure. But I shall tell you nothing of what I see and do, because that would be taking off some of the edge from your pleasure in seeing me. One's dear friend who has nothing at all to tell one is a bore. Is it not so, honor bright? I enjoy talking to Mr. Combe; he can tell me many things, especially about men in America and elsewhere, which are valuable; and, besides, I sometimes manage to get in more than a negative or affirmative. He and Mrs. Combe are really affectionate to me, and the mild warmth of their regard, with the perfect order and elegance of everything about me, are just the soothing influence to do me good. They urge me to stay longer, but I shall adhere to my original determination of going to Miss Martineau's on the 20th, and I do not _mean_ to stay with her longer than the 25th. We are going to-day to Craigcrook (Jeffrey's place), a beautiful spot, which old October has mellowed into his richest tints. Such a view of Edinburgh from it! [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Oct. 1852.] Those who know the article on Whewell to be Mill's, generally think it good, but I confess to me it is unsatisfactory. The sun _does_ shine here, albeit this is the 12th October. I wish you could see the view from Salisbury Crag. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Oct. 1852.] Yes, he is an apostle. An apostle, it is true, with a back and front drawing-room, but still earnest, convinced, consistent, having fought a good fight, and now peacefully enjoying the retrospect of it. I shall leave these good friends with regret, almost with repentings, that I did not determine to pay them a longer visit. I have had a pleasant note from Miss Martineau this morning, with a vignette of her house--I suppose to make me like all the better the idea of going there. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Thursday night, 22d Oct. 1852.] The coach brought me to Miss Martineau's gate at half-past six yesterday evening, and she was there, with a beaming face, to welcome me. Mr. Atkinson joined us this morning, and is a very agreeable addition. There has been an intelligent gentleman visitor to-day, who is interested in Miss Martineau's building society; and we have been trudging about, looking at cottages and enjoying the sight of the mountains, spite of the rain and mist. The weather is not promising, that is the worst of it. Miss M. is charming in her own home--quite handsome from her animation and intelligence. She came behind me, put her hands round me, and kissed me in the prettiest way this evening, telling me she was so glad she had got me here. I send you her note that you may have an idea of "The Knoll." [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 24th Oct. 1852.] We had a fine day yesterday, and went to Borrowdale. I have not been well since I have been here. Still I manage to enjoy, certainly not myself, but my companions and the scenery. I shall set off from here on Tuesday morning, and shall be due at the Coventry station, I believe, at 5.50. After a pleasant ten days' visit to Rosehill, Miss Evans returned to London on the 3d November. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 6th Nov. 1852.] To get into a first-class carriage, fall asleep, and awake to find one's self where one would be, is almost as good as having Prince Hussein's carpet. This was my easy way of getting to London on Thursday. By 5 o'clock I had unpacked my boxes and made my room tidy, and then I began to feel some satisfaction in being settled down where I am of most use just now. After dinner came Herbert Spencer, and spent the evening. Yesterday morning Mr. Greg called on his way to Paris, to express his regret that he did not see me at Ambleside. He is very pleasing, but somehow or other he frightens me dreadfully. I am going to plunge into Thackeray's novel now ("Esmond"). [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Saturday, Nov. (?) 1852.] Oh, this hideous fog! Let me grumble, for I have had headache the last three days, and there seems little prospect of anything else in such an atmosphere. I am ready to vow that I will not live in the Strand again after Christmas. If I were not choked by the fog, the time would trot pleasantly withal, but of what use are brains and friends when one lives in a light such as might be got in the chimney? "Esmond" is the most uncomfortable book you can imagine. You remember how you disliked "François le Champi." Well, the story of "Esmond" is just the same. The hero is in love with the daughter all through the book, and marries the mother at the end. You should read the debates on the opening of Parliament in the _Times_. Lord Brougham, the greatest of English orators, perpetrates the most delicious _non sequitur_ I have seen for a long time. "My Lords, I believe that any disturbance of the repose of the world is very remote, _because it is our undeniable right and an unquestionable duty_ to be prepared with the means of defence, should such an event occur." These be thy gods, O Israel! [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Monday, 20th Nov. 1852.] I perceive your reading of the golden rule is "Do as you are done by;" and I shall be wiser than to expect a letter from you another Monday morning, when I have not earned it by my Saturday's billet. The fact is, both callers and work thicken--the former sadly interfering with the latter. I will just tell you how it was last Saturday, and that will give you an idea of my days. My task was to read an article of Greg's in the _North British_ on "Taxation," a heap of newspaper articles, and all that J. S. Mill says on the same subject. When I had got some way into this _magnum mare_, in comes Mr. Chapman, with a thick German volume. "Will you read enough of this to give me your opinion of it?" Then of course I must have a walk after lunch, and when I had sat down again, thinking that I had two clear hours before dinner, rap at the door--Mr. Lewes, who, of course, sits talking till the second bell rings. After dinner another visitor, and so behold me, at 11 P.M., still very far at sea on the subject of Taxation, but too tired to keep my eyes open. We had Bryant the poet last evening--a pleasant, quiet, elderly man. Do you know of this second sample of plagiarism by D'Israeli, detected by the _Morning Chronicle_?[40] It is worth sending for its cool impudence. Write me some news about trade, at all events. I could tolerate even Louis Napoleon, if somehow or other he could have a favorable influence on the Coventry trade. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 4th Dec. 1852.] Another week almost "with the years beyond the flood." What has it brought you? To me it has brought articles to read--for the most part satisfactory--new callers, and letters to nibble at my time, and a meeting of the Association for the Abolition of Taxes on Knowledge. I am invited to go to the Leigh Smiths on Monday evening to meet Mr. Robert Noel. Herbert Spencer is invited, too, because Mr. Noel wants especially to see him. Barbara Smith speaks of Mr. R. Noel as their "dear German friend." So the Budget is come out, and I am to pay income-tax. All very right, of course. An enlightened personage like me has no "ignorant impatience of taxation." I am glad to hear of the Lectures to Young Men and the banquet of the Laborers' Friend Society. "Be not weary in well-doing." Thanks to Sara for her letter. She must not mind paying the income-tax; it is a right principle that Dizzy is going upon; and with her great conscientiousness she ought to enjoy being flayed on a right principle. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 10th Dec. 1852.] I am not well--all out of sorts--and what do you think I am minded to do? Take a return ticket, and set off by the train to-morrow 12 o'clock, have a talk with you and a blow over the hill, and come back relieved on Monday. I the rather indulge myself in this, because I think I shall not be able to be with you until some time after Christmas. Pray forgive me for not sending you word before. I have only just made up my mind. This visit to Rosehill lasted only from the 11th to 13th December, and the following short note is the next communication: [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 19th (?) Dec. 1852.] I am very wretched to-day on many accounts, and am only able to write you two or three lines. I have heard this morning that Mr. Clarke is dangerously ill. Poor Chrissey and her children. Thank you for your kind letter. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 21st Dec. 1852.] I dare say you will have heard, before you receive this, that Edward Clarke is dead. I am to go to the funeral, which will take place on Friday. I am debating with myself as to what I ought to do now for poor Chrissey, but I must wait until I have been on the spot and seen my brother. If you hear no more from me, I shall trust to your goodness to give me a bed on Thursday night. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Christmas Day, 25th Dec. 1852, from Meriden.] Your love and goodness are a comforting presence to me everywhere, whether I am ninety or only nine miles away from you. Chrissey bears her trouble much better than I expected. We hope that an advantageous arrangement may be made about the practice; and there is a considerable sum in debts to be collected. I shall return to town on Wednesday. It would have been a comfort to see you again before going back, but there are many reasons for not doing so. I am satisfied now that my duties do not lie _here_, though the dear creatures here will be a constant motive for work and economy. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 31st Dec. 1852.] I arrived here only yesterday. I had agreed with Chrissey that, all things considered, it was wiser for me to return to town; that I could do her no substantial good by staying another week, while I should be losing time as to other matters. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 7th Jan. 1853.] I am out of spirits about the _Review_. I should be glad to run away from it altogether. But one thing is clear, that it would be a great deal worse if I were not here. This is the only thought that consoles me. We are thinking of sending Chrissey's eldest boy to Australia. A patient of his father's has offered to place him under suitable protection at Adelaide, and I strongly recommend Chrissey to accept her offer--that is, if she will let it be available a year hence; so I have bought Sidney's book on Australia, and am going to send it to Chrissey, to enlighten her about matters there, and accustom her mind to the subject. You are "jolly," I dare say, as good people have a right to be. Tell me as much of your happiness as you can, that I may rejoice in your joy, having none of my own. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Jan. 1853.] I begin to feel for other people's wants and sorrows a little more than I used to do. Heaven help us! said the old religion; the new one, from its very lack of that faith, will teach us all the more to help one another. Tell Sara she is as good as a group of spice-islands to me; she wafts the pleasantest influences, even from a distance. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Jan. 1853.] Pray do not lay the sins of the article on the "Atomic Theory" to poor Lewes's charge. How you could take it for his I cannot conceive. It is as remote from his style, both of thinking and writing, as anything can be. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 18th Jan. 1853.] This week has yielded nothing to me but a crop of very large headaches. The pain has gone from my head at last, but I am feeling very much shattered, and find it easier to cry than to do anything else. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st Feb. 1853.] My complaint, of which I am now happily rid, was rheumatism in the right arm; a sufficient reason, you will see, for my employing a scribe to write that promise which I now fulfil. I am going into the country, perhaps for a fortnight, so that, if you are kind enough to come here on Wednesday evening, I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you. All the more reason for writing to you, in spite of cold feet and the vilest pens in the world. Francis Newman is likely to come once or twice in the season; not more. He has, of course, a multitude of engagements, and many more attractive ones than a _soirée_ in the Strand. Never mention me to him in the character of editress. I think--at least, I am told--that he has no high estimate of woman's powers and functions. But let that pass. He is a very pure, noble being, and it is good only to look at such. The article on "Slavery," in the last number of the _Westminster_--which I think the best article of them all--is by W. E. Forster, a Yorkshire manufacturer, who married Dr. Arnold's daughter. He is a very earnest, independent thinker, and worth a gross of literary hacks who have the "trick" of writing. I hope you are interested in the Slavery question, and in America generally--that cradle of the future. I used resolutely to turn away from American politics, and declare that the United States was the last region of the world I should care to visit. Even now I almost loathe the _common_ American type of character. But I am converted to a profound interest in the history, the laws, the social and religious phases of North America, and long for some knowledge of them. Is it not cheering to think of the youthfulness of this little planet, and the immensely greater youthfulness of our race upon it? to think that the higher moral tendencies of human nature are yet only in their germ? I feel this more thoroughly when I think of that great western continent, with its infant cities, its huge, uncleared forests, and its unamalgamated races. I dare say you have guessed that the article on "Ireland" is Harriet Martineau's. Herbert Spencer did _not_ contribute to the last number. _� propos_ of articles, do you see the _Prospective Review_? There is an admirable critique of Kingsley's "Phaethon" in it, by James Martineau. But perhaps you may not be as much in love with Kingsley's genius, and as much "riled" by his faults, as I am. Of course you have read "Ruth" by this time. Its style was a great refreshment to me, from its finish and fulness. How women have the courage to write, and publishers the spirit to buy, at a high price, the false and feeble representations of life and character that most feminine novels give, is a constant marvel to me. "Ruth," with all its merits, will not be an enduring or classical fiction--will it? Mrs. Gaskell seems to me to be constantly misled by a love of sharp contrasts--of "dramatic" effects. She is not contented with the subdued coloring, the half-tints, of real life. Hence she agitates one for the moment, but she does not secure one's lasting sympathy; her scenes and characters do not become typical. But how pretty and graphic are the touches of description! That little attic in the minister's house, for example, which, with its pure white dimity bed-curtains, its bright-green walls, and the rich brown of its stained floor, remind one of a snowdrop springing out of the soil. Then the rich humor of Sally, and the sly satire in the description of Mr. Bradshaw. Mrs. Gaskell has, certainly, a charming mind, and one cannot help loving her as one reads her books. A notable book just come out is Wharton's "Summary of the Laws relating to Women." "Enfranchisement of women" only makes creeping progress; and that is best, for woman does not yet deserve a much better lot than man gives her. I am writing to you the last thing, and am so tired that I am not quite sure whether I finish my sentences. But your divining power will supply their deficiencies. The first half of February was spent in visits to the Brays and to Mrs. Clarke, at Attleboro, and on returning to London Miss Evans writes: [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 15th Feb. 1853.] I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I have been reading "Villette," a still more wonderful book than "Jane Eyre." There is something almost preternatural in its power. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 19th Feb. 1853.] Mrs. Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has had from Mrs. Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying: "I am a little bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a decidedly used-up article." The whole letter is most fascinating, and makes one love her. "Villette," "Villette"--have you read it? [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 25th Feb. 1853.] We had an agreeable evening on Wednesday--a Mr. Huxley being the centre of interest. Since then I have been headachy and in a perpetual rage over an article that gives me no end of trouble, and will not be satisfactory after all. I should like to stick red-hot skewers through the writer, whose style is as sprawling as his handwriting. For the rest, I am in excellent spirits, though not in the best health or temper. I am in for loads of work next quarter, but I shall not tell you what I am going to do. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 19th Mch. 1853.] I have been ready to tear my hair with disappointment about the next number of the _Review_. In short, I am a miserable editor. I think I shall never have the energy to move--it seems to be of so little consequence where I am or what I do. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Mch. 1853.] On Saturday I was correcting proofs literally from morning till night; yesterday ditto. The _Review_ will be better than I once feared, but not so good as I once hoped. I suppose the weather has chilled your charity as well as mine. I am very hard and Mephistophelian just now, but I lay it all to this second winter. We had a pleasant evening last Wednesday. Lewes, as always, genial and amusing. He has quite won my liking, in spite of myself. Of course, Mr. Bray highly approves the recommendation of the Commissioners on _Divorce_. I have been to Blandford Square (Leigh Smith's) to an evening party this week. Dined at Mr. Parkes's on Sunday, and am invited to go there again to-night to meet the Smiths. Lewes was describing Currer Bell to me yesterday as a little, plain, provincial, sickly looking old maid. Yet what passion, what fire in her! Quite as much as in George Sand, only the clothing is less voluptuous. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th April, 1853.] What do you think of my going to Australia with Chrissey and all her family?--to settle them, and then come back. I am just going to write to her, and suggest the idea. One wants _something_ to keep up one's faith in happiness--a ray or two for one's friends, if not for one's self. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 16th April, 1853.] We had an agreeable _soirée_ last Wednesday. I fell in love with Helen Faucit. She is the most poetic woman I have seen for a long time; there is the ineffable charm of a fine character which makes itself felt in her face, voice, and manner. I am taking doses of agreeable follies, as you recommend. Last night I went to the French theatre, and to-night I am going to the opera to hear "William Tell." People are very good to me. Mr. Lewes, especially, is kind and attentive, and has quite won my regard, after having had a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other people in the world, he is much better than he seems. A man of heart and conscience, wearing a mask of flippancy. When the warm days come, and the bearskin is under the acacia, you must have me again. 6th May.--Went to Rosehill and returned on 23d to Strand. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 17th June, 1853.] On Wednesday I dined at Sir James Clark's, where the Combes are staying, and had a very pleasant evening. The Combes have taken lodgings in Oxford Terrace, where I mean to go. It is better than the Strand--trees waving before the windows, and no noise of omnibuses. Last Saturday evening I had quite a new pleasure. We went to see Rachel again, and sat on the stage between the scenes. When the curtain fell we walked about and saw the green-room, and all the dingy, dusty paraphernalia that make up theatrical splendor. I have not yet seen the "Vashti" of Currer Bell in Rachel, though there was some approach to it in Adrienne Lecouvreur. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th June, 1853.] On Saturday we will go to Ockley, near Dorking, where are staying Miss Julia Smith, Barbara Smith, and Bessie Parkes. I shall write to the Ockley party to-day and tell them of the probability that they will see you. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d Aug. 1853, from St. Leonards.] I never felt the delight of the thorough change that the coast gives one so much as now, and I shall be longing to be off with you again in October. I am on a delightful hill looking over the heads of the houses, and having a vast expanse of sea and sky for my only view. The bright weather and genial air--so different from what I have had for a year before--make me feel as happy and stupid as a well-conditioned cow. I sit looking at the sea and the sleepy ships with a purely animal _bien être_. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 9th Aug. 1853.] It would have been a satisfaction to your benevolence to see me sitting on the beach laughing at the _Herald's_ many jokes, and sympathizing with your indignation against Judge Maule. It always helps me to be happy when I know that you are so; but I do not choose to vindicate myself against doubts of that, because it is unworthy of you to entertain them. I am going on as well as possible physically--really getting stout. I should like to have a good laugh with you immensely. How nice it would be to meet you and Cara on the beach this evening, and instead of sending you such a miserable interpreter of one's feelings as a letter, give you the look and the hand of warm affection! This British Channel really looks as blue as the Mediterranean to-day. What weather! [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Aug. 1853.] For the first time in my experience I am positively revelling in the _Prospective_. James Martineau transcends himself in beauty of imagery in the article on Sir William Hamilton, but I have not finished him yet. Yesterday it rained _sans_ intermission, and of course I said _cui bono?_ and found my troubles almost more than I could bear; but to-day the sun shines, and there is blue above and blue below, consequently I find life very glorious, and myself a particularly fortunate _diavolessa_. The landlord of my lodgings is a German, comes from Saxe-Weimar, knows well the Duchess of Orleans, and talked to me this morning of _Mr._ Schiller and _Mr._ Goethe. _� propos_ of Goethe, there is a most true, discriminating passage about him in the article on Shakespeare in the _Prospective_. _Mr._ Goethe is one of my companions here, and I had felt some days before reading the passage the truth which it expresses. Subjoined is the passage from the _Prospective Review_ of August, 1853: "Goethe's works are too much in the nature of literary studies; the mind is often deeply impressed by them, but one doubts if the author was. He saw them as he saw the houses of Weimar and the plants in the act of metamorphosis. He had a clear perception of their fixed condition and their successive transitions, but he did not really (at least so it seems to us) comprehend their motive power. In a word, he appreciated their life but not their liveliness.... And we trace this not to a defect in imaginative power--a defect which it would be a simple absurdity to impute to Goethe--but to the tone of his character and the habits of his mind. He moved hither and thither through life, but he was always a man apart. He mixed with unnumbered kinds of men, with courts and academies, students and women, camps and artists, but everywhere he was with them, yet not of them. In every scene he was there, and he made it clear that he was there with a reserve and as a stranger. He went there _to experience_. As a man of universal culture, and well skilled in the order and classification of human life, the fact of any one class or order being beyond his reach or comprehension seemed an absurdity; and it was an absurdity. He thought that he was equal to moving in any description of society, and he was equal to it; but then, on that account, he was absorbed in none." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Sept. 1853.] As for me, I am in the best health and spirits. I have had a letter from Mr. Combe to-day, urging me to go to Edinburgh, but I have made an engagement with Mr. Chapman to do work which will oblige me to remain in London. Mrs. P. is a very bonny, pleasant-looking woman, with a smart drawing-room and liberal opinions--in short, such a friend as self-interest, well understood, would induce one to cultivate. I find it difficult to meet with any lodgings at once tolerable and cheap. My theory is to _live_ entirely--that is, pay rent and find food--out of my positive income, and then work for as large a surplus as I can get. The next number of the _Review_ will be better than usual. Froude writes on the "Book of Job"! He at first talked of an article on the three great _subjective_ poems--Job, Faust, and Hamlet--an admirable subject--but it has shrunk to the Book of Job alone. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Oct. 1853.] I have been busied about my lodgings all afternoon. I am not going to Albion Street, but to 21 Cambridge Street, Hyde Park Square. I hope you will be pleased with our present number. If you don't think the "Universal Postulate" first-rate, I shall renounce you as a critic. Why don't you write grumbling letters to me when you are out of humor with life, instead of making me ashamed of myself for ever having grumbled to you? I have been a more good-for-nothing correspondent than usual lately; this affair of getting lodgings, added to my other matters, has taken up my time and thoughts. I have promised to do some work to-night and to-morrow for a person[41] who is rather more idle than myself, so I have not a moment to spare. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Oct. 1853.] I am reading "The Religion of the Heart" (Leigh Hunt's), and am far more pleased with it than I expected to be. I have just fallen on two passages with which you will agree. "Parker ... is full of the poetry of religion; Martineau equally so, with a closer style and incessant eloquence of expression, perhaps a perilous superabundance of it as regards the claims of matter over manner; and his assumptions of perfection in the character of Jesus are so reiterated and peremptory that in a man of less evident heart and goodness they might almost look like a very unction of insincerity or of policy, of doubt forcing itself to seem undoubting. Hennell's 'Christian Theism' is one long, beautiful discourse proclaiming the great Bible of Creation, and reconciling Pagan and Christian Philosophy." Good Sir James Clark stopped me in the Park yesterday, as I was sauntering along with eyes on the clouds, and made very fatherly inquiries about me, urging me to spend a quiet evening with him and Lady Clark next week--which I will certainly do; for they are two capital people, without any snobbery. I like my lodgings--the housekeeper cooks charming little dinners for me, and I have not one disagreeable to complain of at present, save such as are inseparable from a ground-floor. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 29th Oct. 1853.] Last night I saw the first fine specimen of a man in the shape of a clergyman that I ever met with--Dawes, the Dean of Hereford. He is the man who has been making the experiment of mingling the middle and lower classes in schools. He has a face so intelligent and benignant that children might grow good by looking at it. Harriet Martineau called yesterday. She is going to her brother's at Birmingham soon. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Nov. 1853.] Mr. Lewes was at Cambridge about a fortnight ago, and found that Herbert Spencer was a great deal talked of there for the article on the "Universal Postulate," as well as other things. Mr. Lewes himself has a knot of devotees there who make his "History of Philosophy" a private text-book. Miss Martineau's "Comte" is out now. Do you mean to _do_ it? or Mr. Lewes's? We can get no one to write an article on Comte for the next number of the _Westminster_--Bain, our last hope, refusing. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 5th Nov. 1853.] I think you would find some capital extracts for the _Herald_ (Coventry), in the article on "Church Parties" in the _Edinburgh_. The _Record_ is attempting a reply to it, in which it talks of the truculent infidelity of _Voltaire_ AND _Robespierre_! Has A. sent you his book on the Sabbath? If ever I write a book I will make a present of it to nobody; it is the surest way of taking off the edge of appetite for it, if no more. I am as well as possible; and certainly, when I put my head into the house in the Strand, I feel that I have gained, or, rather, escaped, a great deal physically by my change. Have you known the misery of writing with a _tired_ steel pen, which is reluctant to make a mark? If so, you will know why I leave off. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 7th Nov. 1853.] Chrissey has just sent me a letter, which tells that you have been suffering severely, and that you are yet very ill. I must satisfy my own feelings by telling you that I grieve at this, though it will do you little good to know it. Still, when _I_ am suffering, I do care for sympathy, and perhaps you are of the same mind. If so, think of me as your loving sister, who remembers all your kindness to her, all the pleasant hours she has had with you, and every little particular of her intercourse with you, however long and far she may have been removed from you. Dear Fanny, I can never be indifferent to your happiness or sorrow, and in this present sad affliction my thoughts and love are with you. I shall tease you with no words about myself _now_--perhaps by and by it will amuse you to have a longer letter. [Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Bray, 8th Nov. 1853.] Hitherto I have been spending £9 per month--at least after that rate--but I have had frequent guests. I am exceedingly comfortable, and feel quite at home now. Harriet Martineau has been very kind--called again on Tuesday, and yesterday sent to invite me to go to Lady Compton's, where she is staying, on Saturday evening. This, too, in spite of my having vexed her by introducing Mr. Lewes to her, which I did as a desirable bit of peacemaking. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1853 (thirty-fourth birthday).] I begin this year more happily than I have done most years of my life. "Notre vraie destinée," says Comte, "se compose de _resignation_ et _d'activité_"--and I seem more disposed to both than I have ever been before. Let us hope that we shall both get stronger by the year's activity--calmer by its resignation. I know it may be just the contrary--don't suspect me of being a canting optimist. We _may_ both find ourselves at the end of the year going faster to the hell of conscious moral and intellectual weakness. Still, there is a possibility--even a probability--the other way. I have not seen Harriet Martineau's "Comte" yet--she is going to give me a copy--but Mr. Lewes tells me it seems to him admirably well done. I told Mr. Chapman yesterday that I wished to give up my connection with the editorship of the _Westminster_. He wishes me to continue the present state of things until April. I shall be much more satisfied on many accounts to have done with that affair; but I shall find the question of supplies rather a difficult one this year, as I am not likely to get any money either for "Feuerbach" or for "The Idea of a Future Life,"[42] for which I am to have "half profits"=0/0! I hope you will appreciate this _bon-mot_ as I do--"C'est un homme admirable--il se tait en sept langues!"[43] [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 2d Dec. 1853.] I am going to detail all my troubles to you. In the first place, the door of my sitting-room doesn't quite fit, and a draught is the consequence. Secondly, there is a piano in the house which has decidedly entered on its second childhood, and this piano is occasionally played on by Miss P. with a really enviable _aplomb_. Thirdly, the knocks at the door startle me--an annoyance inseparable from a ground-floor room. Fourthly, Mrs. P. scolds the servants _stringendo e fortissimo_ while I am dressing in the morning. Fifthly--there is no fifthly. I really have not another discomfort when I am well, which, alas! I have not been for the last ten days; so, while I have been up to the chin in possibilities of enjoyment, I have been too sick and headachy to use them. One thing is needful--a good digestion. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 28th Dec. 1853.] Spent Christmas Day alone at Cambridge Street. How shall I thank you enough for sending me that splendid barrel of beet-root, so nicely packed? I shall certainly eat it and enjoy it, which, I fancy, is the end you sought, and not thanks. Don't suppose that I am looking miserable--_au contraire_. My only complaints just now are idleness and dislike-to-getting-up-in-the-morningness, whereby the day is made too short for what I want to do. I resolve every day to conquer the flesh the next, and, of course, am a little later in consequence. I dined with Arthur Helps yesterday at Sir James Clark's--very snug--only he and myself. He is a sleek man, with close-snipped hair; has a quiet, humorous way of talking, like his books. At the beginning of January, 1854, there was another visit to Mrs. Clarke, at Attleboro, for ten days. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 6th Feb. 1854.] In the last number of the _Scotsman_ which I sent you there was a report of a speech by Dr. Guthrie at the Education meeting, containing a passage which I meant to have copied. He is speaking of the impossibility of teaching morality with the "Bible shut," and says that in that case the teacher would be obliged to resort to "congruity and the fitness of things," about which the boy knows nothing more than that the apple is _fit_ for his mouth. What is wanted to convince the boy of his sin is, "Thou God seest me," and "Thou bleeding Lamb, the best morality is love of thee!" Mr. Lewes came a few minutes after you left, and desired me to tell you that he was sorry to miss you. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 6th April, 1854.] Thank you for your very kind letter, which I received this morning. It is pleasant to think of you as quite well, and enjoying your sea-breezes. But do you imagine me sitting with my hands crossed, ready to start for any quarter of the world at the shortest notice. It is not on those terms that people, not rich, live in London. I shall be deep in proof-sheets till the end of May, and shall only dismiss them to make material for new ones. I dare say you will pity me. But, as one of Balzac's characters says, after maturity, "La vie n'est que l'exercice d'une habitude dans un milieu préféré;" and I could no more live out of my _milieu_ than the haddocks I dare say you are often having for dinner. My health is better. I had got into a labyrinth of headaches and palpitations, but I think I am out of it now, and I hope to keep well. I am not the less obliged to you, dear Fanny, for wishing to have me with you. But to leave London now would not be agreeable to me, even if it were morally possible. To see you again would certainly be a pleasure, but I hope that will come to pass without my crossing the Irish Channel. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Saturday, 18th April, 1854.] I am rather overdone with the week's work, and the prospect of what is to come next. Poor Lewes is ill, and is ordered not to put pen to paper for a month; so I have something to do for him in addition to my own work, which is rather pressing. He is gone to Arthur Helps, in Hampshire, for ten days, and I really hope this total cessation from work, in obedience to a peremptory order, will end in making him better than he has been for the last year. No opera and no fun for me for the next month. Happily, I shall have no time to regret it. Plenty of bright sun on your anemone bed. How lovely your place must look, with its fresh leaves! [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 23d May, 1854.] It is quite possible that I may wish to go to the Continent, or twenty other things. Mr. Lewes is going on a walking excursion to Windsor to-day with his doctor, who pronounces him better, but not yet fit for work. However, he is obliged to do a little, and must content himself with an _approximation_ to his doctor's directions. In this world all things are approximations, and in the system of the Dog Star too, in spite of Dr. Whewell. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Friday, no date, 1854.] My troubles are purely psychical--self-dissatisfaction, and despair of achieving anything worth the doing. I can truly say they vanish into nothing before any fear for the happiness of those I love. Thank you for letting me know how things are, for indeed I could not bear to be shut out from your anxieties. When I spoke of myself as an island, I did not mean that I was so exceptionally. We are all islands-- "Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits dwell and roam apart"-- and this seclusion is sometimes the most intensely felt at the very moment your friend is caressing you or consoling you. But this gradually becomes a source of satisfaction instead of repining. When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business--that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives, and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to our own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf, that at mid-day there will be no trace of. This is no high-flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection, which I find useful to me every day. I expect to see Mr. Lewes back again to-day. His poor head--his only fortune--is not well yet; and he has had the misery of being _ennuyé_ with idleness, without perceiving the compensating physical improvement. Still, I hope the good he has been getting has been greater than he has been conscious of. I expect "Feuerbach" will be all in print by the end of next week, and there are no skippings, except such as have been made on very urgent grounds. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Tuesday, 6th June, 1854.] Thanks for your assurance of welcome. I will trust to it when the gods send favorable circumstances. But I see no probability of my being able to be with you before your other midsummer visitors arrive. I delight to think that you are all a little more cheery. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Wednesday, 28th June, 1854.] I reached the Euston Station as dusty as an old ledger, but with no other "incommodity." I went to the Lyceum last night to see "Sunshine through the Clouds,"[44] a wonderfully original and beautiful piece by Mme. de Girardin, which makes one cry rather too much for pleasure. Vestris acts finely the bereaved mother, passing through all the gradations of doubt and hope to the actual recovery of her lost son. My idea of you is rather bright just now, and really helps to make me enjoy all that is enjoyable. That is part of the benefit I have had from my pleasant visit, which was made up of sunshine, green fields, pleasant looks, and good eatables--an excellent compound. Will you be so kind as to send my books by railway, _without_ the Shelley? [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Monday, 4th July, 1854.] Pray consider the Strauss MSS. waste paper. _I_ shall never want them again. I dined with your old acquaintance, Dr. Conolly, at Sir James Clark's, the other day. He took me down to dinner, and we talked of you. The translation of Ludwig Feuerbach's "Wesen des Christenthums" was published in July in "Chapman's Quarterly Series," with Miss Evans's name on the titlepage as the translator, the first and only time her real name appeared in print. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th July, 1854.] I am going to pack up the Hebrew Grammar, the Apocryphal Gospels, and your pretty Titian, to be sent to you. Shall I despatch them by rail or deposit them with Mr. Chapman, to be asked for by Mr. Bray when he comes to town? I shall soon send you a good-bye, for I am preparing to go abroad (?). Herbert Spencer's article on the "Genesis of Science" is a good one. He will stand in the Biographical Dictionaries of 1854 as "Spencer, Herbert, an original and profound philosophical writer, especially known by his great work, ... which gave a new impulse to psychology, and has mainly contributed to the present advanced position of that science, compared with that which it had attained in the middle of the last century. The life of this philosopher, like that of the great Kant, offers little material for the narrator. Born in the year 1820," etc. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 20th July, 1854.] Dear friends--all three--I have only time to say good-bye, and God bless you. _Poste Restante_, Weimar, for the next six weeks, and afterwards Berlin. Ever your loving and grateful Marian. We have now been led up to the most important event in George Eliot's life--her union with Mr. George Henry Lewes. Here, as elsewhere, it seems to me to be of the first importance that she should speak for herself; and there is, fortunately, a letter to Mrs. Bray, dated in September, 1855--fourteen months after the event--which puts on record the point of view from which she regarded her own action. I give this letter here (out of its place as to date); and I may add, what, I think, has not been mentioned before, that not only was Mr. Lewes's previous family life irretrievably spoiled, but his home had been wholly broken up for nearly two years. In forming a judgment on so momentous a question, it is, above all things, necessary to understand what was actually undertaken, what was actually achieved; and, in my opinion, this can best be arrived at, not from any outside statement or arguments, but by consideration of the whole tenor of the life which follows, in the development of which Mr. Lewes's true character, as well as George Eliot's, will unfold itself. No words that any one else can write, no arguments any one else can use, will, I think, be so impressive as the life itself. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Sept. 1855.] If there is any one action or relation of my life which is, and always has been, profoundly serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes. It is, however, natural enough that you should mistake me in many ways, for not only are you unacquainted with Mr. Lewes's real character and the course of his actions, but also it is several years now since you and I were much together, and it is possible that the modifications my mind has undergone may be quite in the opposite direction of what you imagine. No one can be better aware than yourself that it is possible for two people to hold different opinions on momentous subjects with equal sincerity, and an equally earnest conviction that their respective opinions are alone the truly moral ones. If we differ on the subject of the marriage laws, I at least can believe of you that you cleave to what you believe to be good; and I don't know of anything in the nature of your views that should prevent you from believing the same of me. _How far_ we differ I think we neither of us know, for I am ignorant of your precise views; and, apparently, you attribute to me both feelings and opinions which are not mine. We cannot set each other quite right in this matter in letters, but one thing I can tell you in few words. Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do _not_ act as I have done. That any unworldly, unsuperstitious person who is sufficiently acquainted with the realities of life can pronounce my relation to Mr. Lewes immoral, I can only understand by remembering how subtile and complex are the influences that mould opinion. But I _do_ remember this: and I indulge in no arrogant or uncharitable thoughts about those who condemn us, even though we might have expected a somewhat different verdict. From the majority of persons, of course, we never looked for anything but condemnation. We are leading no life of self-indulgence, except, indeed, that, being happy in each other, we find everything easy. We are working hard to provide for others better than we provide for ourselves, and to fulfil every responsibility that lies upon us. Levity and pride would not be a sufficient basis for that. Pardon me if, in vindicating myself from some unjust conclusions, I seem too cold and self-asserting. I should not care to vindicate myself if I did not love you and desire to relieve you of the pain which you say these conclusions have given you. Whatever I may have misinterpreted before, I do not misinterpret your letter this morning, but read in it nothing else than love and kindness towards me, to which my heart fully answers yes. I should like never to write about myself again; it is not healthy to dwell on one's own feelings and conduct, but only to try and live more faithfully and lovingly every fresh day. I think not one of the endless words and deeds of kindness and forbearance you have ever shown me has vanished from my memory. I recall them often, and feel, as about everything else in the past, how deficient I have been in almost every relation of my life. But that deficiency is irrevocable, and I can find no strength or comfort except in "pressing forward towards the things that are before," and trying to make the present better than the past. But if we should never be very near each other again, dear Cara, do bear this faith in your mind, that I was not insensible or ungrateful to all your goodness, and that I am one among the many for whom you have not lived in vain. I am very busy just now, and have been obliged to write hastily. Bear this in mind, and believe that no meaning is mine which contradicts my assurance that I am your affectionate and earnest friend. _SUMMARY._ MARCH, 1850, TO JULY, 1854. Return to England with M. d'Albert--Depressing effect of change--Visit to Rosehill--Visit to brother and sister at Griff and Meriden--Deeper depression--To Rosehill again with M. d'Albert--Makes her home there for sixteen months--Reviews Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect" in _Westminster_--Meets Mr. Chapman, the editor of the _Westminster_--Helps to settle Prospectus of new series of the _Review_--Visits Robert Noel at Bishop Steignton with Mrs. Bray--Visit to London--Crystal Palace--Returns to Rosehill, and meets Mr. and Mrs. George Combe--Goes to London as assistant editor of the _Westminster Review_--Letters to Brays--Review writing: Dr. Brabant, Foxton, Wilson--Meets Mr. Herbert Spencer--Miss Martineau--Distractions of London--Low health--Miss Bremer--Introduction to Mr. Lewes--Opinion of House of Lords--Carlyle's "Life of Sterling"--Carlyle anecdotes--Mackay--James Martineau--J. H. Newman's Lectures--Translation of Schleiermacher--Letter from Carlyle--Intimacy begins with Mr. Lewes--Reviews Carlyle's "Sterling" in _Westminster_--Visit to Rosehill--Returns to Strand--Harriet Martineau--Pierre Leroux--Louis Blanc--Miss Bessie Parkes--Mrs. Peter Taylor--"Margaret Fuller's Life"--Description of _Westminster_ reviewers--Growing intimacy with Mr. Herbert Spencer--Meeting of authors and booksellers at Mr. Chapman's--Admiration of Prince Albert--Grisi--Hack work of _Review_--Appreciation of Miss Martineau's writings--Singing of charity children at St. Paul's--George Combe's opinion of _Westminster_ editing--Barbara Leigh Smith--Visit to Broadstairs--Florence Nightingale--Return to Strand--Depression--Professor Owen on the Cerebellum--Visit to Combes at Edinburgh, and to Harriet Martineau at Ambleside--Return to London--Reading "Esmond"--Lord Brougham's speech--Work in Strand--Bryant--Visit to Rosehill--Death of Edward Clarke--Visit to widowed sister at Meriden--Return to Strand--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor--Views on America--"Ruth"--Visit to Rosehill, and to Mrs. Clarke at Attleboro--Return to Strand--Reading "Villette"--Letter from Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen--Meets Huxley--Thinks of going to Australia to settle Mrs. Clarke--Admiration of Helen Faucit--Growing regard for Mr. Lewes--Kindness of Sir James Clark--Visit to Ockley--Change to St. Leonard's--Improvement in health--Return to Strand--Spencer's "Universal Postulate"--Removal to 21 Cambridge Street--Leigh Hunt's "Religion of the Heart"--Dawes, Dean of Hereford--Harriet Martineau--Comte--Contemplates publishing "The Idea of a Future Life"--Meets Arthur Helps--Intimate relations with Mr. Lewes--Translation of Feuerbach--Visit to Rosehill--Return to London--Feuerbach completed--Estimate of Herbert Spencer--Good-bye to Brays--Union with Mr. Lewes--Letter to Mrs. Bray thereon. FOOTNOTES: [31] Frederick Foxton, author of "Popular Christianity: its Transition State and Probable Development." [32] "Man's Nature and Development," by Martineau and Atkinson. [33] This was a merely formal and casual introduction. That George Eliot was ever brought into close relations with Mr. Lewes was due to Mr. Herbert Spencer having taken him to call on her in the Strand later in this year. [34] Appeared in January, 1852, number of the _Westminster Review_, No. 1 of the New Series. [35] Review of Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" in _Westminster_, Jan. 1852. [36] Published in the April, 1852, number of the _Westminster_. [37] Now Madame Belloc, who remained to the end one of George Eliot's closest friends. [38] Mrs. Peter Taylor remained a lifelong and a valued friend of George Eliot's, and many interesting letters in this volume are addressed to her. I am glad also to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to her for procuring for me two other sets of correspondence--the letters addressed to Mrs. Beecher Stowe and to Mrs. William Smith. [39] Afterwards Madame Bodichon--one of the three or four most intimate friends of George Eliot, whose name will very often appear in subsequent pages. [40] Funeral oration on the Duke of Wellington. [41] Correcting _Leader_ proofs for Mr. Lewes. [42] Advertised in 1853-54 as to appear by "Marian Evans" in "Chapman's Quarterly Series," but never published. [43] Lord Acton tells me he first heard this _bon-mot_, in 1855, related of Immanuel Bekker, the philologist. [44] Translated and adapted from the French, "La joie fait peur," by Mr. Lewes, under the name of Slingsby Lawrence. CHAPTER VI. [Sidenote: Journal, 20th July, 1854.] I said a last farewell to Cambridge Street on 20th July, 1854, and found myself on board the _Ravensbourne_, bound for Antwerp. The day was glorious, and our passage perfect. The sunset was lovely, but still lovelier the dawn as we were passing up the Scheldt between two and three in the morning. The crescent moon, the stars, the first faint blush of the dawn reflected in the glassy river, the dark mass of clouds on the horizon, which sent forth flashes of lightning, and the graceful forms of the boats and sailing-vessels, painted in jet-black on the reddish gold of the sky and water, made up an unforgettable picture. Then the sun rose and lighted up the sleepy shores of Belgium, with their fringe of long grass, their rows of poplars, their church spires and farm buildings. [Sidenote: 21st July.] The great treat at Antwerp was the sight of the Descent from the Cross, which, with its pendant, the Elevation of the Cross, has been undergoing restoration. In the latter the face of Jesus is sublime in its expression of agony and trust in the Divine. It is certainly the finest conception of the suffering Christ I have ever seen. The rest of the picture gave me no pleasure. But in the Descent from the Cross, color, form, and expression alike impressed me with the sense of grandeur and beauty. A little miserable copy of the picture placed near it served as an admirable foil. [Sidenote: 22d July.] We went to the museum and saw Rubens's Crucifixion, even more beautiful to me than the Descent from the Cross. These two pictures profoundly impressed me with the miserable lack of breadth and grandeur in the conceptions of our living artists. The reverence for the old masters is not all humbug and superstition. [Sidenote: 30th July.] We breakfasted in the public room at the hotel at Cologne, and were joined there by Dr. Brabant and Strauss. After a short interview with them we went on board the steamboat which was to take us to Coblentz. [Sidenote: Weimar, Description, Aug.-Oct. 1854.] It was very pretty to look out of the window, when dressing, on a garden that reminded one of an English village: the town is more like a huge village, or market-town, than the precincts of a court. G. called on Schöll, and in the afternoon he (Schöll) came and took us to the _Schloss_, where we saw the Dichter Zimmer--a suite of rooms dedicated to Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland. In each room there is the bust of the poet who is its presiding genius; and the walls of the Goethe and Schiller rooms are decorated with frescoes representing scenes from their works. The Wieland room is decorated with arabesques only. The idea of these rooms is a very pretty one, but the frescoes are badly executed. I am delighted with Schöll. He is a bright-looking, well-made man, with his head finely set on his shoulders, very little like a German. We discovered, after we had known him some time, that he is an Austrian, and so has more southern blood in his veins than the heavy Thuringians. His manners are hearty and cordial, and his conversation really instructive: his ideas are so thoroughly shaped and so admirably expressed. Sauppe is also a _Gelehrter_, director of the gymnasium, and editor of a series of classics which are being brought out; and he is evidently thought a great deal of in Weimar. We went with the Schölls and Sauppes to Tiefurt, and saw the queer little _Schloss_ which used to be Amalia's residence. Tiefurt was a favorite resort of ours, for the walk to it is a very pleasant one, and the Tiefurt park is a little paradise. The Ilm is seen here to the best advantage: it is clearer than at Weimar, and winds about gracefully among fine trees. One of the banks is a high, steep declivity, which shows the trees in all their perfection. In autumn, when the yellow and scarlet were at their brightest, these banks were fairy-like in their beauty. It was here that Goethe and his court friends got up the performance of "Die Fischerin" by torchlight. About ten days after our arrival at Weimar we made an excursion to Ettersburg, one of the duke's summer residences, interesting to us beforehand as the scene of private theatricals and _sprees_ in the Goethe days. We carried provisions with us, and Keats's poems. The morning was one of the brightest and hottest that August ever bestowed, and it required some resolution to trudge along the shadeless _chaussée_, which formed the first two or three miles of our way. One compensating pleasure was the sight of the beautiful mountain ashes in full berry, which, alternately with cherry-trees, border the road for a considerable distance. I felt a child's love for the bunches of coral standing out against the blue sky. The _Schloss_ is a house of very moderate size, and no pretension of any kind. Two flights of steps lead up to the door, and the balustrades are ornamented with beautiful creepers. A tiny sort of piazza under the steps is ornamented with creepers too, and has pretty earthenware vases filled with plants hanging from the ceiling. We felt how much beauty might be procured at small expense in looking at these things. A beautiful walk through a beech wood took us to the _Mooshütte_, before which stands the beech whereon Goethe and his friends cut their names, and from which Goethe denounced Waldemar. We could recognize some of the initials. With Ettersburg I shall always associate Arthur Helps, for he was with us on the second and last time we saw it. He came to Weimar quite unexpectedly on the 29th August, and the next evening we all three drove to Ettersburg. He said the country just round Weimar reminded him of Spain. This led him to talk of his Spanish travels, and he told us some delightful stories in a delightful way. At one inn he was considerably embarrassed in eating his dinner by the presence of a handsome woman, who sat directly opposite to him, resting on her elbows, and fixing her dark eyes on him with a fearful intensity of interest. This woman was the cook, anxious to know that her dishes were acceptable to the stranger. Under this terrible surveillance he did not dare to omit a single dish, though sorely longing to do so. Our greatest expedition from Weimar was to Ilmenau. We set out with a determination to find the Gabel-Bach and Kickel-hahn (Goethe's residence) without the encumbrance of a guide. We found the man who inhabits the simple wooden house which used to be Carl August's hunting-box. He sent a man on with us to show us the way to the Kickel-hahn, which we at last reached--I with weary legs. There is a magnificent view of hills from this spot; but Goethe's tiny wooden house is now closely shut in by fir-trees, and nothing can be seen from the windows. His room, which forms the upper floor of the house, is about ten or twelve feet square. It is now quite empty, but there is an interesting memorial of his presence in these wonderful lines, written by his own hand, near the window-frame: "Ueber allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh, In allen Wipfeln Spürest du Kaum einen Hauch; Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur, balde Ruhest du auch." We wrote our names near one of the windows. About the middle of September the theatre opened, and we went to hear "Ernani." Liszt looked splendid as he conducted the opera. The grand outline of his face and floating hair were seen to advantage as they were thrown into dark relief by the stage lamps. We were so fortunate as to have all three of Wagner's most celebrated operas while we were at Weimar. G., however, had not patience to sit out more than two acts of "Lohengrin;" and, indeed, I too was weary. The declamation appeared to me monotonous, and situations, in themselves trivial or disagreeable, were dwelt on fatiguingly. Without feeling competent to pass a judgment on this opera as music, one may venture to say that it fails in one grand requisite of art, based on an unchangeable element in human nature--the need for contrast. With the "Fliegender Holländer" I was delighted; the poem and the music were alike charming. The "Tannhäuser," too, created in me a great desire to hear it again. Many of the situations, and much of the music, struck me as remarkably fine. And I appreciated these operas all the better retrospectively when we saw "Der Freischütz," which I had never before heard and seen on the stage. The effect of the delicious music, with which one is so familiar, was completely spoiled by the absence of recitative, and the terrible _lapsus_ from melody to ordinary speech. The bacchanalian song seemed simply ridiculous, sung at a little pot-house table at a party of _two_, one of whom was sunk in melancholy; and the absurdity reached a _ne plus ultra_ when Caspar climbed the tree, apparently with the sole purpose of being shot. _� propos_ of the theatre, we were immensely amused to learn that a fair, small-featured man, who somehow always looked to me as if he had just come out of the shell, had come to Weimar to fit himself for a dramatic writer by going behind the scenes! He had as yet written nothing, but was going to work in what he considered a _gründlich_ way. When we passed along the Schiller Strasse, I used to be very much thrilled by the inscription, "Hier wohnte Schiller," over the door of his small house. Very interesting it is to see his study, which is happily left in its original state. In his bedroom we saw his skull for the first time, and were amazed at the smallness of the intellectual region. There is an intensely interesting sketch of Schiller lying dead, which I saw for the first time in the study; but all pleasure in thinking of Schiller's portraits and bust is now destroyed to me by the conviction of their untruthfulness. Rauch told us that he had a _miserabled Stirne_.[45] Waagen says that Tieck the sculptor told him there was something in Schiller's whole person which reminded him of a _camel_. Goethe's house is much more important-looking, but, to English eyes, far from being the palatial residence which some German writers think it. The entrance-hall is certainly rather imposing, with its statues in niches, and broad staircase. The latter was made after his own design, and was an "after-shine" of Italian tastes. The pictures are wretched, the casts not much better--indeed, I remember nothing which seemed intrinsically worth looking at. The MS. of his "Römische Elegien," written by himself in the Italian character, is to be seen here; and one likes to look at it better than at most of the other things. G. had obtained permission from Frau v. Goethe to see the studio and Schlafzimmer, which are not open to the public, and here our feelings were deeply moved. We entered first a small room containing drawers and shelves devoted to his mineralogical collections. From these we passed into the study. It is rather a dark room, for there are only two small windows--German windows. A plain deal table stands in the middle, and near the chair, against this table, is a high basket, where, I was afterwards told, Goethe used to put his pocket-handkerchief. A long sort of writing-table and bookcase united stands against one wall. Here hangs the pin-cushion, just as he left it, with visiting-cards suspended on threads, and other trifles which greatness and death have made sacred. Against the opposite wall, where you enter the bedroom, there is a high writing-desk, on which stands a little statue of Napoleon in creamy glass. The bedroom is very small. By the side of the bed stands a stuffed arm-chair, where he used to sit and read while he drank his coffee in the morning. It was not until very late in his life that he adopted the luxury of an arm-chair. From the other side of the study one enters the library, which is fitted up in a very makeshift fashion, with rough deal shelves, and bits of paper, with Philosophy, History, etc., written on them, to mark the classification of the books. Among such memorials one breathes deeply, and the tears rush to one's eyes. There is one likeness of Goethe that is really startling and thrilling from the idea it gives one of perfect resemblance. It is painted on a cup, and is a tiny miniature, but the execution is so perfect that, on applying a magnifying glass, every minute stroke has as natural an appearance as the texture of a flower or the parts of an insect under the microscope. Equally interesting is the _Gartenhaus_, which we used to see almost every day in our walks. Within, it is a not uncomfortable, homely sort of cottage; no furniture is left in it, and the family want to sell it. It stands on a pleasant slope fronting the west, and there is a charming bit of garden and orchard attached to it. Close to the garden hedge runs the road which leads to Ober Weimar, and on the other side of this road a meadow stretches to the trees which border the Ilm. A bridge nearly opposite the Gartenhaus takes one to the Borkenhaus, Carl August's little retreat, from which he used to telegraph to Goethe. The road to Ober Weimar was one of our favorite walks, especially towards the end of our stay at Weimar, when we were glad of all the sunshine we could get. Sometimes we used to turn out of it, up a grove of weeping birches, into the ploughed fields at the top of the slope on which the Gartenhaus and other little villas stand. Here we enjoyed many a lovely sunset; one, in particular, was marvellously splendid. The whole hemisphere was golden, towards the east tinted with rose-color. From this little height we looked on the plantations of the park, in their autumnal coloring, the town, with its steep-roofed church and its castle tower, colored a gay green, the line of chestnuts along the Belvedere Chaussée, and Belvedere itself peeping from its nest of trees. Another very favorite walk of mine was the _Webicht_, a beautiful wood through which ran excellent carriage-roads and grassy footpaths. How richly have I enjoyed skirting this wood and seeing, on the other side, the sky arching grandly down over the open fields, the evening red flushing the west over the town, and the bright stars come out as if to relieve the sun in his watch over mortals. And then the winding road through the Webicht on the side towards Tiefurt, with its tall, overarching trees now bending their mossy trunks forward, now standing with stately erectness like lofty pillars; and the charming grassy paths through the heart of the wood, among its silvery-barked birches! The Webicht lies towards Tiefurt, and one side of it is bordered by the road thither. I remember, as we were returning from Tiefurt one evening, a beautiful effect of the setting sunlight pouring itself under the trees, and making the road before us almost crimson. One of our pleasantest acquaintances at Weimar was the French ambassador, the Marquis de Ferrière, a very favorable specimen of a Frenchman, but intensely French. His genial soul and perfect good-humor gave one the same sort of _bien-être_ as a well-stuffed arm-chair and a warm hearthrug. In the course of conversation, speaking of Yvan's accounts of his travels (the marquis was first secretary to the Chinese embassy which Yvan accompanied), he said, "C'était faux d'un bout à l'autre; mais c'était spirituel, paradoxal, amusant--enfin _tout ce qu'il fallait pour un journal_." Another day he observed that the famous words of Napoleon to his Egyptian army, "Forty centuries look down on you from the summits of these pyramids," were characteristic of the French national feeling, as those of Nelson, "England expects the man to make his duty" were of the English. This is a fair specimen of the correctness with which one generally hears English quoted; and we often reminded ourselves that it was a mirror in which we might see our own German. Liszt's conversation is charming. I never met with a person whose manner of telling a story was so piquant. The last evening but one that he called on us, wishing to express his pleasure in G.'s article about him, he very ingeniously conveyed that expression in a story about Spontini and Berlioz. Spontini visited Paris while Liszt was living there, and haunted the opera--a stiff, self-important personage, with high shirt-collars, the least attractive individual imaginable; Liszt turned up his own collars, and swelled out his person, so as to give us a vivid idea of the man. Every one would have been glad to get out of Spontini's way--indeed, elsewhere "on feignait de le croire mort," but at Paris, as he was a member of the Institute, it was necessary to recognize his existence. Liszt met him at Erard's more than once. On one of these occasions Liszt observed to him that Berlioz was a great admirer of his (Spontini's), whereupon Spontini burst into a terrible invective against Berlioz as a man who, with the like of him, was ruining art, etc. Shortly after the "Vestale" was performed, and forthwith appeared an enthusiastic article by Berlioz on Spontini's music. The next time Liszt met him of the high collars he said, "You see I was not wrong in what I said about Berlioz's admiration of you." Spontini swelled in his collars, and replied, "Monsieur, Berlioz a du talent comme critique!" Liszt's replies were always felicitous and characteristic. Talking of Mme. d'Agoult, he told us that when her novel "Nelida" appeared, in which Liszt himself is pilloried as a delinquent, he asked her, "Mais pourquoi avez-vous tellement maltraité ce pauvre Lehmann?" The first time we were asked to breakfast at his house, the Altenburg, we were shown into the garden, where, in a saloon formed by overarching trees, the _déjeuner_ was set out. We found Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the lyric poet, Dr. Schade--a _Gelehrter_, and Cornelius. Presently came a Herr--or Doctor--Raff, a musician, who has recently published a volume called "Wagnerfrage." Soon after we were joined by Liszt and the Princess Marie, an elegant, gentle-looking girl of seventeen, and last by the Princess Wittgenstein, with her nephew, Prince Eugène, and a young French artist, a pupil of Scheffer. The princess was tastefully dressed in a morning-robe of some semi-transparent white material, lined with orange-color, which formed the bordering and ornamented the sleeves, a black lace jacket, and a piquant cap set on the summit of her comb, and trimmed with violet color. When the cigars came, Hoffman was requested to read some of his poetry, and he gave us a bacchanalian poem with great spirit. I sat next to Liszt, and my great delight was to watch him and observe the sweetness of his expression. Genius, benevolence, and tenderness beam from his whole countenance, and his manners are in perfect harmony with it. Then came the thing I had longed for--his playing. I sat near him, so that I could see both his hands and face. For the first time in my life I beheld real inspiration--for the first time I heard the true tones of the piano. He played one of his own compositions--one of a series of religious fantasies. There was nothing strange or excessive about his manner. His manipulation of the instrument was quiet and easy, and his face was simply grand--the lips compressed, and the head thrown a little backward. When the music expressed quiet rapture or devotion a smile flitted over his features; when it was triumphant the nostrils dilated. There was nothing petty or egoistic to mar the picture. Why did not Scheffer paint him thus, instead of representing him as one of the three Magi? But it just occurs to me that Scheffer's idea was a sublime one. There are the two aged men who have spent their lives in trying to unravel the destinies of the world, and who are looking for the Deliverer--for the light from on high. Their young fellow-seeker, having the fresh inspiration of early life, is the first to discern the herald star, and his ecstasy reveals it to his companions. In this young Magus, Scheffer has given a portrait of Liszt; but even here, where he might be expected to idealize unrestrainedly, he falls short of the original. It is curious that Liszt's face is the type that one sees in all Scheffer's pictures; at least, in all I have seen. In a little room which terminates the suite at the Altenburg there is a portrait of Liszt, also by Scheffer--the same of which the engraving is familiar to every one. This little room is filled with memorials of Liszt's triumphs and the worship his divine talent has won. It was arranged for him by the princess, in conjunction with the Arnims, in honor of his birthday. There is a medallion of him by Schwanthaler, a bust by an Italian artist, also a medallion by Rietschl--very fine--and cabinets full of jewels and precious things--the Weimar gifts of the great. In the music _salon_ stand Beethoven's and Mozart's pianos. Beethoven's was a present from Broadwood, and has a Latin inscription intimating that it was presented as a tribute to his illustrious genius. One evening Liszt came to dine with us at the Erb Prinz, and introduced M. Rubinstein, a young Russian, who is about to have an opera of his performed in Weimar. Our expenses at Weimar, including wine and washing, were £2 6_s._ per week. Dear Weimar! We were sorry to say good-bye to it, with its pleasant group of friends. On the 4th of November, after a stay of just three months, we turned our backs on it "to seek fresh streets and faces new" at Berlin. [Sidenote: Berlin, Recollections, Nov. 1854 to Mch. 1855.] There are certain persons without any physiognomy, the catalogue of whose features, as, item, a Roman nose, item, a pair of black eyes, etc., gives you the entire contents of their faces. There is no difference of opinion about the looks of such people. All the world is agreed either that they are pretty or ugly. So it is with Berlin. Every one tells you it is an uninteresting modern city, with broad, monotonous streets; and when you see it, you cannot for the life of you get up an emotion of surprise, or make a remark about the place which you have not heard before. The day after our arrival was Sunday, 6th November; the sun shone brightly, and we went to walk in the Linden, elbowing our way among the _promeneurs endimanchés_, who looked remarkably smart and handsome after the Thuringians. We had not gone far when we met a nice-looking old gentleman, with an order round his neck, and a gold-headed cane in his hand, who exclaimed, on seeing G., "Ist's möglich?" and then bade him heartily welcome. I saw at once it was the Varnhagen of whom I had heard so often. His niece, arrayed in smiles and a pink bonnet, was with him. For the first six weeks, when the weather permitted, we took long walks in the Thiergarten, where the straight and uniform avenues of insignificant trees contrasted very disadvantageously with the charming variety of our beloved park at Weimar. Still, we now and then noticed a beautiful wintry effect, especially in the part most remote from the town, where the trees are finer and the arrangements more varied. One walk, which skirted the Thiergarten on the right-hand side coming from the town, we were particularly fond of, because it gave us on one side an open view, with water and a boat or two, which, touched by the magic of sunshine, was pleasant to see. At Berlin it was "a day of small things" with regard to the beautiful, and we made much of little. Our little circle of acquaintances was very agreeable and varied. Varnhagen was a real treasure to G., for his library supplied all the deficiencies of the public one, where to ask for books was generally like "sinking buckets into empty wells." He is a man of real culture, kindliness, and polish (Germanly speaking); and he has besides that thorough liberalism, social, religious, and political, which sets the mind at ease in conversation, and delivers it from the fear of running against some prejudice, or coming suddenly on the sunk fence of some miserable limitation. The first morning he called on us he talked of his terrible disappointment in Carlyle, a subject to which he often returned. He evidently felt an antipathy to the "Teufelsdröckh," which, indeed, it was not difficult to understand from the mere _manière d'étre_ of the two men. They had corresponded for years before they saw each other; and Varnhagen was, and is, a great admirer of Carlyle's best work, but he was thoroughly repelled by his rough, paradoxical talk, and, more justifiably, by the despotic doctrines which it has been his humor to teach of late. We were amused to hear that Carlyle said he should think no one could die at Berlin, "for in beds _without curtains_ what Christian could give up the ghost?" At Varnhagen's we met, for the first time, Professor Stahr, who was there with Fanny Lewald, Fräulein Solmar, Frau Muisch, Dr. Ring, Dr. Vehse, Gräfin von Kalkreuth, and Director Wilhelm Schadow, author of "Der Moderne Vasari." We talked of Goethe. Varnhagen brought out autographs and portraits, and read us an epigram of his own on the want of liberality which Goethe's family show about opening his house to the public. He showed us a portrait of Kleist, who shot himself, in company with Frau Vogel, near an inn on the way to Potsdam. There was no love-affair between them; they were both thoroughly unhappy--he poor and hopeless for the future; and she suffering from an incurable disease. In the evening they both wrote, on a single sheet of paper, letters to their friends, communicating their intention (this sheet Varnhagen possesses). Early in the morning they rose, took a cup of coffee, went to the brink of a piece of water in the neighborhood of the inn, and there shot themselves. Du Bois Reymond spoke very decidedly of the German civilization as inferior to the English. Varnhagen, when well, is a regular visitor at Fräulein Solmar's, who for many years has kept an open _salon_ for her friends every evening but one in the week. Here the three-cornered chair next the sofa was reserved for him, except when General Pfuhl was there. This General Pfuhl is a fine specimen of an old soldier, who is at the same time a man of instruction and of strong social sympathies. He has been in the service of Prussia, has been within a hair's-breadth of being frozen to death, "and so following." He spoke French admirably, and always had something interesting and characteristic to tell or say. His appreciatory groans, always in the right place, when G. was reading "Shylock" did us both good, under the chills of a German audience. Fräulein Solmar is a remarkably accomplished woman--probably between fifty and sixty, but of that agreeable _Wesen_ which is so free from anything startling in person or manner, and so at home in everything one can talk of, that you think of her simply as a delightful presence, and not as a woman of any particular age. She converses perfectly in French, well in English, and well also, as we were told, in Italian. There is not the slightest warmth of manner or expression in her, but always the same even cheerfulness and intelligence--in fact, she is the true type of the mistress of the _salon_. During the first half of our stay in Berlin we went about once a week to her house; but bad health and bad weather kept us away during the last six weeks, except for one or two evenings. Baron Sternberg, the novelist, used frequently to glide in when we were there, and cast strange, cold glances around, talking quietly to Fräulein Assing or some other lady who sat in a distant parallel of latitude. One evening a Frenchman there amused us by saying that he found in Meyerbeer's "Huguenots" the whole spirit of the epoch of Charles IX. "Lisez les Chroniques"--"de Froissart?" suggested Mlle. Solmar. "Oui, quelque chose comme ça; ou bien les Chroniques de Brantôme ou de _Mérimée_, et vous trouverez que Meyerbeer a parfaitement exprimé tout cela; du moins c'est ce que je trouve, moi." I said, "Mais peut-être, Monsieur, c'est votre génie à vous qui a fait entrer les idées dans la musique." He answered with complacent deprecation. G. looked immovably serious, but was inwardly tickled by the audacity of my compliment, and the evident acceptance of it. A still more interesting acquaintance was Professor Gruppe, who has written great books on the Greek drama and on Philosophy; has been a political writer; is a lyric and epic poet; has invented a beautiful kind of marbled paper for binding books; is an enthusiastic huntsman, and, withal, the most simple, kind-hearted creature in the world. His little wife, who is about twenty years younger than himself, seems to adore him, and it is charming to see the group they and their two little children make in their dwelling, up endless flights of stairs in the Leipziger Platz. Very pleasant evenings we had there, chatting or playing whist, or listening to readings of Gruppe's poems. We used to find him in a gray cloth _Schlafrock_, which I fancy was once a great-coat, and a brown velvet cap surmounting his thin gray hairs. I never saw a combination at all like that which makes up Gruppe's character. Talent, fertility, and versatility that seem to indicate a fervid temperament, and yet no scintillation of all this in his talk and manner; on the contrary, he seems slow at apprehending other people's ideas, and is of an almost childish _naiveté_ in the value he attaches to poor jokes, and other trivialities. _� propos_ of jokes, we noticed that during the whole seven months of our stay in Germany we never heard one witticism, or even one felicitous idea or expression, from a German! Gruppe has a delightful library, with rare books, and books too good to be rare; and we often applied to him for some of them. He lent me "Lessing," and that is an additional circumstance to remember with pleasure in connection with the Laocoon. He one evening gave us an interesting account of his work on the cosmic system of the Greeks, and read us a translation, by himself, of one of the Homeric hymns--Aphrodite--which is very beautiful, a sort of _Gegenstück_ to "Der Gott und die Bajadere:" and generally we were glad when he took up the book. He read us a specimen of his epic poem, "Firdusi," which pleased us. The fable on which this poem is founded is fine. The sultan had engaged Firdusi to write a great poem on his exploits, and had promised to pay for this one hundred thousand pieces (gold being understood). Firdusi had delighted in the thought of this sum, which he intended to devote to the benefit of his native city. When the poem was delivered, and the sack of money given to Firdusi, he found that the pieces were silver! He burst into a song of scorn against the sultan, and paid the miserable sum to his bath-man. Gruppe thinks Shakespeare more extensively sold in Germany than any other book, except the Bible and Schiller! One night we attempted "Brag" or "Pocher," but Gruppe presently became alarmed at G.'s play, and said "Das würde an zwölf Groschen reichen." He drew some Jews' faces with a pen admirably. We were invited to meet Waagen, whom we found a very intelligent and amusing man. He told us a story about Goethe, who said of some one, "I thank thee, Almighty God, that thou hast produced no second edition of this man!" and an amusing judgment passed on Goethe himself, that he was "Kein dummer Mann!" Also a story of a lady who went to see him, as an intellectual adorer, and began to spout to him, as his masterpiece, "Fest gemauert in der Erden,"[46] etc. Another pleasant friend was Edward Magnus, the portrait-painter, an acute, intelligent, kind-hearted man, with real talent in his art. He was the only German we met with who seemed conscious of his countrymen's deficiencies. He showed in every possible way a hearty desire to do us service--sent us books, came to chat with us, showed us his portraits, and, when we were going away, brought us lithographs of some paintings of his, that we might carry away a remembrance of him. He has travelled very extensively, and had much intercourse with distinguished people, and these means of culture have had some of their best effects on his fine temperament and direct, truthful mind. He told us a rich story about Carlyle. At a dinner-party, given by Magnus in his honor, Wiese and Cornelius were deploring Goethe's want of evangelical sentiment. Carlyle was visibly uneasy, fumbling with his dinner-napkin. At last he broke out thus: "Meine Herren kennen sie die Anekdote von dem Manne der die Sonne lästerte weil sie ihm sein Cigarre nicht anstecken liess?"[47] In the little room where we used to be ushered to wait for him there was a portrait of Thorwaldsen and one of Mendelssohn, both of whom he knew well. I was surprised to find in his _atelier_ the original of the portrait of Jenny Lind, with which I was so familiar. He was going to send it, together with Sontag's portrait, to the exhibition at Paris. His brother, the chemist, was also a bright, good-natured-looking man. We were invited to a large evening party at his house, and found very elegant rooms, with a remarkable assemblage of celebrated men--Johannes Müller, Du Bois Reymond, Rose, Ehrenberg, etc. Some of the women were very pretty and well dressed. The supper, brought round on trays, was well appointed; and altogether the party was well managed. We spent one evening with Professor Stahr and his wife--Fanny Lewald--after their marriage. Stahr has a copy of the charming miniature of Schiller, taken when he was about thirty--a miniature in the possession of a certain Madame von Kalb. There are the long _Gänsehals_,[48] the aquiline nose, the blue eyes and auburn hair. It is a most real and striking portrait. I saw also a portrait and bust of Madame d'Agoult here, both rather handsome. The first evening Stahr told us some of the grievances which the Prussians have to bear from their government, and among the rest the vexatious necessity for a "concession" or license, before any, the simplest vocation, can be entered on. He observed, with justice, that the English are apt to suppose the German Revolution of '48 was mere restlessness and aping of other nations, when in fact there were real oppressions which the Germans had to bear, and which they had borne with a patience that the English would not imitate for a month. By far the most distinguished-looking man we saw at Berlin, and, indeed, next to Liszt, in Germany, was Rauch the sculptor. Schöll had given G. a letter for him, and soon after it had been left at his house he called on us in the evening, and at once won our hearts by his beautiful person and the benignant and intelligent charm of his conversation. He is indeed the finest old man I ever saw--more than seventy-six, I believe, but perfectly upright, even stately, in his carriage. His features are harmonious, his complexion has a delicate freshness, his silky white hair waves gracefully round his high forehead, and his brown eyes beam with benevolence and intelligence. He is above the common height, and his stature and beauty together ennoble the gray working surtout and cap which he wears in his _atelier_ into a picturesque and distinguished costume. The evening he was with us he talked delightfully of Goethe, dwelling especially on his lovable nature. He described very graphically Goethe's way of introducing subjects, showing plates, etc., bringing in the cast of Schiller's skull, and talking of it and other little particulars of interest. We went one morning to his _atelier_, and found him superintending his pupil's work at a large group representing Moses with his hands held up by Aaron and Hur. It was extremely interesting to me to see Rauch's original little clay model of this group, for I had never seen statuary in that first stage before. The intense expression of entreaty in the face of the Moses was remarkable. But the spirit of this group is so alien to my sympathies that I could feel little pleasure in the idea of its production. On the other hand, my heart leaped at the sight of old Kant's quaint figure, of which Rauch is commissioned to produce a colossal statue for Königsberg. In another _atelier_, where the work is in a different stage, we saw a splendid marble monument, nearly completed, of the late king of Hanover. Pitiable that genius and spotless white marble should be thrown away on such human trash! Our second visit to Rauch's _atelier_ was paid shortly before we left Berlin. The group of Moses, Aaron, and Hur was clothed up, and the dark-eyed, olive-complexioned pupil was at work on a pretty little figure of Hope--a child stepping forward with upturned face, a bunch of flowers in her hand. In the other _atelier_ we saw a bust of Schleiermacher, which, with the equestrian statue of Fritz, and its pedestal, Rauch was going to send to the Paris Exhibition. Schleiermacher's face is very delicately cut, and indicates a highly susceptible temperament. The colossal head of Fritz, seen on a level with one's eye, was perfectly startling from its living expression. One can't help fancying that the head is thinking and that the eyes are seeing. Dessoir the actor was another pleasant variety in our circle of acquaintance. He created in us a real respect and regard for him, not only by his sincere devotion to his art, but by the superiority of feeling which shone through all the little details of his conduct and conversation. Of lowly birth, and entirely self-taught, he is by nature a gentleman. Without a single physical gift as an actor, he succeeds, by force of enthusiasm and conscientious study, in arriving at a representation which commands one's attention and feelings. I was very much pleased by the simplicity with which he one day said, "Shakespeare ist mein Gott; ich habe keinen anderen Gott:" and indeed one saw that his art was a religion to him. He said he found himself inevitably led into singsong declamation by Schiller, but with Shakespeare it was impossible to be declamatory. It was very agreeable to have him as a companion now and then in our walks, and to have him read or discuss Shakespeare for an hour or two in the evening. He told us an amusing story about his early days. When he was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, acting at Spandau, he walked to Berlin (about nine miles) and back in the evening, accompanied by a watchmaker named Naundorff, an enthusiast for the theatre. On their way Dessoir declaimed at the top of his voice, and was encouraged by the applause of his companion to more and more exertion of lungs and limbs, so that people stared at them, and followed them, as if they thought them two madmen. This watchmaker was Louis XVII.! Dessoir also imitated admirably Aldridge's mode of advancing to kill Duncan--like a wild Indian lurking for a not much wilder beast. He paid us the very pretty attention of getting up a dinner for us at Dietz's, and inviting Rötscher and Förster to meet us; and he supplied us with tickets for the theatre, which, however, was a pleasure we used sparingly. The first time we went was to see "Nathan der Weise"--a real enjoyment, for the elegant theatre was new to us, and the scenery was excellent; better than I saw there on any subsequent occasion. Döring performed Nathan, and we thus saw him for the first time to great advantage; for, though he drags down this part, as he does all others, the character of Nathan sets limits which he cannot overstep; and though we lose most of its elevation in Döring's acting, we get, _en revanche_, an admirable ease and naturalness. His fine, clear voice and perfect enunciation told excellently in the famous monologue, and in the whole scene with Saladin. Our hearts swelled and the tears came into our eyes as we listened to the noble words of dear Lessing, whose great spirit lives immortally in this crowning work of his. Our great anxiety was to see and hear Johanna Wagner, so we took tickets for the "Orpheus," which Mlle. Solmar told us she thought her best part. We were thoroughly delighted both with her and her music. The caricatures of the Furies, the ballet-girls, and the butcher-like Greek shades in Elysium, the ugly, screaming Eurydice, and the droll appearance of Timzek as Amor, in which she looked like a shop-girl who has donned a masquerade dress impromptu, without changing her headdress--all these absurdities were rather an amusement than a drawback to our pleasure; for the Orpheus was perfect in himself, and looked like a noble horse among mules and donkeys. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Jan. 1855.] Our days are so accurately parcelled out that my time for letter-writing is rather restricted, and for every letter I write I have to leave out something which we have learned to think necessary. We have been to hear "Fidelio" this evening--not well executed, except so far as the orchestra was concerned; but the divine music positively triumphs over the defects of execution. One is entirely wrapped in the _idea_ of the composer. Last week we had "Orpheus and Eurydice," and I heard, for the first time, at once an opera of Gluck's and Johanna Wagner. It is one of the glories of Berlin to give Gluck's operas, and it is also something of a glory to have "die Wagner." She is really a fine actress and a fine singer; her voice is not ravishing, but she is mistress of it. I thought of you that evening, and wished you could hear and see what I know would interest you greatly--I refer rather to Gluck's opera than to Johanna Wagner. The scene in which Orpheus (Johanna Wagner) enters Tartarus, is met by the awful Shades, and charms them into ecstatic admiration till they make way for him to pass on, is very fine. The voices--except in the choruses--are all women's voices; and there are only three characters--Orpheus, Amor, and Eurydice. One wonders that Pluto does not come as a basso; and one would prefer Mercury as a tenor to Amor in the shape of an ugly German soprano; but Gluck wished it otherwise, and the music is delightful. I am reading a charming book by Professor Stahr--who is one of our acquaintances here--"Torso: Kunst, Künstler, und Kunst Werke der Alten." It feeds the fresh interest I am now feeling in art. Professor Stahr is a very erudite man, and, what is very much rarer among Germans, a good writer, who knows how to select his materials, and has, above all, a charming talent for description. We saw at his house the other night the first portrait of Schiller which _convinces_ me of a likeness to him. It is the copy of a miniature which has never been engraved. The face is less beautiful than that of the ordinary busts and portraits, but is very remarkable--the eyes blue, the complexion very fair (the picture was taken in his youth), and the hair sunny. He has the long "goose-neck" which he describes as belonging to Carl Moor in the "Robbers," and the forehead is _fuyant_ in correspondence with the skull. The piteous contrast there is between the anxiety poor Schiller is constantly expressing about a livelihood--about the thalers he has to pay for this and the thalers he has to receive for that--and Goethe's perfect ease in that respect! For the "History of the Netherlands" he got little more than fifteen shillings per sheet. I am very much interested in Professor Gruppe as a type of the German _Gelehrter_. He has written books on everything--on the Greek drama, a great book on the cosmic system of the Greeks, an epic, numberless lyric poems, etc.; he has a philosophical work and a history of literature in the press; is professor of philosophy at the university; is enthusiastic about boar-hunting, and has written a volume of hunting poems--and _ich weiss nicht was_. Withal he is as simple as a child. When we go to see them in the evening we find him wrapped in a moth-eaten gray coat and a cap on his head. Then he reads us a translation of one of the Homeric hymns, and goes into the most naïve _impersonal_ ecstasy at the beauty of his own poetry (which is really good). The other night he read us part of an epic which is still in MS., and is to be read before the king--such is the fashion here. And his little wife, who is about twenty years younger than himself, listens with loving admiration. Altogether, they and their two little children are a charming picture. [Sidenote: Berlin, Recollections, 1854-55.] We went to only one concert, for which Vivier was kind enough to send us tickets. It was given by him and Roger, assisted by Arabella Goddard and Johanna Wagner. Roger's singing of the "Erl King" was a treat not to be forgotten. He gave the full effect to Schubert's beautiful and dramatic music; and his way of falling from melody into awe-struck speech in the final words "_War todt_" abides with one. I never felt so thoroughly the beauty of that divine ballad before. The king was present in all his toothlessness and blinkingness; and the new princess from Anhalt Dessau, young and delicate-looking, was there too. Arabella Goddard played the "Harmonious Blacksmith" charmingly, and then Wagner sang badly two ineffective German songs, and Halévy's duet from the "Reine de Chypre" with Roger. Vivier is amusing. He says Germans take off their hats on all possible pretexts--not for the sake of politeness, but _pour être embarrassants_. They have wide streets, simply to embarrass you, by making it impossible to descry a shop or a friend. A German always has _three_ gloves--"On ne sait pas pourquoi." There is a dog-tax in order to maintain a narrow _trottoir_ in Berlin, and every one who keeps a dog feels authorized to keep the _trottoir_ and move aside for no one. If he has two dogs he drives out of the _trottoir_ the man who has only one: the very dogs begin to be aware of it. If you kick one when he is off the _trottoir_ he will bear it patiently, but on the _trottoir_ he resents it vehemently. He gave us quite a bit of Molière in a description of a mystification at a restaurant. He says to the waiter--"Vous voyez ce monsieur là. C'est le pauvre M. Colignon." (Il faut qu'il soit quelq'un qui prend très peu--une tasse de café ou comme ça, et qui ne dépense pas trop.) "Je suis son ami. Il est fou. Je le garde. Combien doit-il payer?" "Un franc." "Voilà." Then Vivier goes out. Presently the so-called M. Colignon asks how much he has to pay, and is driven to exasperation by the reiterated assurance of the waiter--"C'est payé, M. Colignon." The first work of art really worth looking at that one sees at Berlin is the "Rosse-bändiger" in front of the palace. It is by a sculptor named Cotes, who made horses his especial study; and certainly, to us, they eclipsed the famous Colossi at Monte Cavallo, casts of which are in the new museum. The collection of pictures at the old museum has three gems, which remain in the imagination--Titian's Daughter, Correggio's Jupiter and Io, and his Head of Christ on the Handkerchief. I was pleased also to recognize among the pictures the one by Jan Steen, which Goethe describes in the "Wahlverwandschaften" as the model of a _tableau vivant_, presented by Luciane and her friends. It is the daughter being reproved by her father, while the mother is emptying her wine-glass. It is interesting to see the statue of Napoleon, the worker of so much humiliation to Prussia, placed opposite that of Julius Cæsar. They were very happy months we spent at Berlin, in spite of the bitter cold which came on in January and lasted almost till we left. How we used to rejoice in the idea of our warm room and coffee as we battled our way from dinner against the wind and snow! Then came the delightful long evening, in which we read Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, and Macaulay, with German _Pfefferkuchen_ and _Semmels_ at the end to complete the _noctes cenæque deûm_. We used often to turn out for a little walk in the evening, when it was not too cold, to refresh ourselves by a little pure air as a change from the stove-heated room. Our favorite walk was along the Linden, in the broad road between the trees. We used to pace to old Fritz's monument, which loomed up dark and mysterious against the sky. Once or twice we went along the gas-lighted walk towards Kroll's. One evening in our last week we went on to the bridge leading to the Wilhelm Stadt, and there by moon and gas light saw the only bit of picturesqueness Berlin afforded us. The outline of the Schloss towards the water is very varied, and a light in one of the windows near the top of a tower was a happy accident. The row of houses on the other side of the water was shrouded in indistinctness, and no ugly object marred the scene. The next day, under the light of the sun, it was perfectly prosaic. Our _table d'hôte_ at the Hotel de l'Europe was so slow in its progress from one course to another, and there was so little encouragement to talk to our neighbors, that we used to take our books by way of beguiling the time. Lessing's "Hamburgische Briefe," which I am not likely to take up again, will thus remain associated in my memory with my place at the _table d'hôte_. The company here, as almost everywhere else in Berlin, was sprinkled with officers. Indeed, the swords of officers threaten one's legs at every turn in the streets, and one sighs to think how these unproductive consumers of _Wurst_, with all their blue and scarlet broadcloth, are maintained out of the pockets of the community. Many of the officers and privates are startlingly tall; indeed, some of them would match, I should think, with the longest of Friedrich Wilhelm's _lange Kerle_. It was a bitterly cold, sleety morning--the 11th of March--when we set out from Berlin, leaving behind us, alas! G.'s rug, which should have kept his feet warm on the journey. Our travelling companions to Cologne were fat Madame Roger, her little daughter, and her dog, and a queen's messenger--a very agreeable man, who afterwards persuaded another of the same vocation to join us for the sake of warmth. This poor man's teeth were chattering with cold, though he was wrapped in fur; and we, all furless as we were, pitied him, and were thankful that at least we were not feverish and ill, as he evidently was. We saw the immortal old town of Wolfenbüttel at a distance, as we rolled along; beyond this there was nothing of interest in our first day's journey, and the only incident was the condemnation of poor Madame Roger's dog to the dog-box, apart from its mistress with her warm cloaks. She remonstrated in vain with a brutal German official, and it was amusing to hear him say to her in German, "Wenn sie Deutsch nicht verstehen können." "Eh bien--prenez la." "Ah! quel satan de pays!" was her final word, as she held out the shivering little beast. We stayed at Cologne, and next morning walked out to look at the cathedral again. Melancholy as ever in its impression upon me! From Cologne to Brussels we had some rather interesting companions, in two French artists who were on their way from Russia. Strange beings they looked to us at first, in their dirty linen, Russian caps, and other queer equipments; but in this, as in many other cases, I found that a first impression was an extremely mistaken one--for instead of being, as I imagined, common, uncultivated men, they were highly intelligent. At Brussels, as we took our supper, we had the pleasure of looking at Berlioz's fine head and face, he being employed in the same way on the other side of the table. The next morning to Calais. They were pleasant days those at Weimar and Berlin, and they were working days. Mr. Lewes was engaged in completing his "Life of Goethe," which had been begun some time before, but which was now for the most part rewritten. At Weimar, George Eliot wrote the article on Victor Cousin's "Madame de Sablé" for the _Westminster Review_. It was begun on 5th August, and sent off on 8th September. At Berlin she nearly finished the translation of Spinoza's "Ethics"--begun on 5th November--and wrote an article on Vehse's "Court of Austria," which was begun on 23d January, and finished 4th March, 1855. Besides this writing, I find the following among the books that were engaging their attention; and in collecting the names from George Eliot's Journal, I have transcribed any remarks she makes on them: Sainte-Beuve, Goethe's "Wahlverwandschaften," Rameau's "Neffe," "Egmont," "The Hoggarty Diamond," Moore's "Life of Sheridan"--a first-rate specimen of bad biographical writing; "Götz" and the "Bürger General," Uhland's poems, "Wilhelm Meister," Rosenkranz on the Faust Sage, Heine's poems, Shakespeare's plays ("Merchant of Venice," "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Cæsar"--very much struck with the masculine style of this play, and its vigorous moderation, compared with "Romeo and Juliet"--"Antony and Cleopatra," "Henry IV.," "Othello," "As You Like It," "Lear"--sublimely powerful--"Taming of the Shrew," "Coriolanus," "Twelfth Night," "Measure for Measure," "Midsummer-Night's Dream," "Winter's Tale," "Richard III.," "Hamlet"); Lessing's "Laocoon"--the most un-German of all the German books that I have ever read. The style is strong, clear, and lively; the thoughts acute and pregnant. It is well adapted to rouse an interest both in the classics and in the study of art; "Emilia Galotti" seems to me a wretched mistake of Lessing's. The Roman myth of Virginius is grand, but the situation, transported to modern times and divested of its political bearing, is simply shocking. Read "Briefe über Spinoza" (Jacobi's), "Nathan der Weise," Fanny Lewald's "Wandlungen," "Minna von Barnhelm," "Italiänische Reise," the "Residence in Rome;" a beautiful description of Rome and the Coliseum by moonlight--a fire made in the Coliseum sending its smoke, silvered by the moonlight, through the arches of the mighty walls. Amusing story of Goethe's landlady's cat worshipping Jupiter by licking his beard--a miracle, in her esteem, explained by Goethe as a discovery the cat had made of the oil lodging in the undulations of the beard. "Residence in Naples"--pretty passage about a star seen through a chink in the ceiling as he lay in bed. It is remarkable that when Goethe gets to Sicily he is, for the first time in Italy, enthusiastic in his descriptions of natural beauty. Read Scherr's "Geschichte Deutscher Cultur und Sitte"--much interested in his sketch of German poetry in the Middle Ages; "Iphigenia." Looked into the "Xenien," and amused ourselves with their pointlessness. "Hermann and Dorothea," "Tasso," "Wanderjahre"--_à mourir d'ennui_; Heine's "Geständnisse"--immensely amused with the wit of it in the first fifty pages, but afterwards it burns low, and the want of principle and purpose make it wearisome. Lessing's "Hamburgische Briefe." Read Goethe's wonderful observations on Spinoza. Particularly struck with the beautiful modesty of the passage in which he says he cannot presume to say that he thoroughly understands Spinoza. Read "Dichtung und Wahrheit," Knight's "Studies of Shakespeare." Talked of the "Wahlverwandschaften" with Stahr--he finding fault with the _dénouement_, which I defended. Read Stahr's "Torso"--too long-winded a style for reading aloud. Knight's "History of Painting." Compared several scenes of "Hamlet" in Schlegel's translation with the original. It is generally very close, and often admirably well done; but Shakespeare's strong, concrete language is almost always weakened. For example, "Though this hand were _thicker than_ itself in brother's blood" is rendered, "Auch um und um in Bruder's Blut getauchet." The prose speeches of Hamlet lose all their felicity in the translation. Read Stahr on the Eginetan Sculptures, "Die Neue Melusine," "West-�stliche Divan," Gervinus on Shakespeare--found it unsatisfactory; Stahr's "Ein Jahr in Italien"--the description of Florence excellent. Read the wonderfully beautiful "Römische Elegien" again, and some of the Venetian epigrams, Vehse's "Court of Austria"--called on Miss Assing to try and borrow the book from Varnhagen. He does not possess it, so G. called on Vehse, and asked him to lend it to me. He was very much pleased to do so. Read the "Zueignung," the "Gedichte," and several of the ballads. Looked through Wraxall's "Memoirs." Read Macaulay's "History of England." Wrote article on Stahr. This writing and reading, combined with visiting, theatre-going, and opera-going, make a pretty full life for these eight months--a striking contrast to the coming months of complete social quietness in England. Both lives had their attractions, the superficial aspects of which may be summed up in a passage from the Journal, dated 13th March, 1855, on arrival at the Lord Warden Hotel, at Dover: English mutton and an English fire were likely to be appreciated by creatures who had had eight months of Germany, with its questionable meat and its stove-heated rooms. The taste and quietude of a first-rate English hotel were also in striking contrast with the heavy finery, the noise, and the indiscriminate smoking of German inns. But, after all, Germany is no bad place to live in; and the Germans, to counterbalance their want of taste and politeness, are at least free from the bigotry of exclusiveness of their more refined cousins. I even long to be among them again--to see Dresden and Munich and Nürnberg and the Rhine country. May the day soon come! _SUMMARY._ JULY, 1854, TO MARCH, 1855. Leaves London with Mr. Lewes for Antwerp--Rubens's pictures--Cologne--Dr. Brabant and Strauss--Weimar--Schöll--The Dichter Zimmer--Sauppe--Tiefurt--Ettersburg--Arthur Helps--Gabel-Bach and Kickel-hahn--Liszt--Wagner's operas--"Der Freischütz"--Schiller's house--Goethe's house--Gartenhaus--Ober Weimar--The Webicht--Marquis de Ferrière--Liszt anecdotes--Cornelius--Raff--Princess Wittgenstein--Liszt's playing--Scheffer's picture--Expenses at Weimar--Leave for Berlin--Meet Varnhagen--Thiergarten--Acquaintances in Berlin--Fräulein Solmar--Professor Gruppe--Epic of Firdusi--Waagen--Edward Magnus--Professor Stahr and Fanny Lewald--Rauch the sculptor--Kant's statue--Dessoir the actor--"Nathan der Weise"--Döring's acting--Johanna Wagner--Letter to Miss Hennell--"Fidelio"--Reading Stahr's "Torso"--Likeness of Schiller--Vivier--Roger and Arabella Goddard--The Rosse-bändiger--Pictures--Cold in Berlin--View of Schloss from bridge--Leave Berlin for England--Books read--Article written on "Madame de Sablé"--Translation of Spinoza's "Ethics"--Article on Vehse's "Court of Austria"--Article on Stahr. FOOTNOTES: [45] A wretched forehead. [46] First line of Schiller's "Song of the Bell." [47] "Gentlemen, do you know the story of the man who railed at the sun because it would not light his cigar?" [48] Goose-neck. CHAPTER VII. [Sidenote: Journal, Mch. 1855.] _March 14._--Took lodgings at 1 Sydney Place, Dover. _March 15._--A lovely day. As I walked up the Castle hill this afternoon the town, with its background of softly rounded hills shrouded in sleepy haze, its little lines of water looking golden in the sun, made a charming picture. I have written the preface to the Third Book of "Ethics," read Scherr, and Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis." _March 16._--I read Shakespeare's "Passionate Pilgrim" at breakfast, and found a sonnet in which he expresses admiration of Spenser (Sonnet viii.): "Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, needs no defence."[49] I must send word of this to G., who has written in his "Goethe" that Shakespeare has left no line in praise of a contemporary. I could not resist the temptation of walking out before I sat down to work. Came in at half-past ten, and translated Spinoza till nearly one. Walked out again till two. After dinner read "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and some of the "Sonnets." That play disgusted me more than ever in the final scene, where Valentine, on Proteus's mere begging pardon, when he has no longer any hope of gaining his ends, says: "All that was mine in Sylvia, I give thee!" Silvia standing by. Walked up the Castle hill again, and came in at six. Read Scherr, and found an important hint that I have made a mistake in a sentence of my article on "Austria" about the death of Franz von Sickingen. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Mch. 1855.] I dare say you will be surprised to see that I write from Dover. We left Berlin on the 11th. I have taken lodgings here for a little while, until Mr. Lewes has concluded some arrangements in London; and, with the aid of lovely weather, am even enjoying my solitude, though I don't mind how soon it ends. News of you all at Rosehill--how health and business and all other things are faring--would be very welcome to me, if you can find time for a little note of homely details. I am well and calmly happy--feeling much stronger and clearer in mind for the last eight months of new experience. We were sorry to leave our quiet rooms and agreeable friends in Berlin, though the place itself is certainly ugly, and _am Ende_ must become terribly wearisome for those who have not a vocation there. We went again and again to the new museum to look at the casts of the Parthenon Sculptures, and registered a vow that we would go to feast on the sight of the originals the first day we could spare in London. I had never cast more than a fleeting look on them before, but now I can in some degree understand the effect they produced on their first discovery. [Sidenote: Journal, 1855.] _March 25._--A note from Mr. Chapman, in which he asks me to undertake part of the Contemporary Literature for the _Westminster Review_. _April 18._--Came to town, to lodgings in Bayswater. _April 23._--Fixed on lodgings at East Sheen. _April 25._--Went to the British Museum. _April 28._--Finished article on "Weimar," for _Fraser_. During this month George Eliot was finishing the translating and revising of Spinoza's "Ethics," and was still reading Scherr's book, Schrader's "German Mythology"--a poor book--"The Tempest," "Macbeth," "Niebelungenlied," "Romeo and Juliet," article on "Dryden" in the _Westminster_, "Reineke Fuchs," "Genesis of Science," Gibbon, "Henry V.," "Henry VIII.," first, second, and third parts of "Henry VI.," "Richard II." _May 2._--Came to East Sheen, and settled in our lodgings. _May 28._--Sent Belles-lettres section to _Westminster Review_. During May several articles were written for the _Leader_. _June 13._--Began Part IV. of Spinoza's "Ethics." Began also to read Cumming, for article in the _Westminster_. We are reading in the evenings now Sydney Smith's letters, Boswell, Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," "The Odyssey," and occasionally Heine's "Reisebilder." I began the second book of the "Iliad," in Greek, this morning. _June 21._--Finished article on Brougham's "Lives of Men of Letters." _June 23._--Read "Lucrezia Floriani." We are reading White's "History of Selborne" in the evening, with Boswell and the "Odyssey." [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d June, 1855.] I have good hope that you will be deeply interested in the "Life of Goethe." It is a book full of feeling, as well as of thought and information, and I even think will make you love Goethe as well as admire him. Eckermann's is a wonderful book, but only represents Goethe at eighty. We were fortunate enough to be in time to see poor Eckermann before his _total_ death. His mind was already half gone, but the fine brow and eyes harmonized entirely with the interest we had previously felt in him. We saw him in a small lodging, surrounded by singing birds, and tended by his son--an intelligent youth of sixteen, who showed some talent in drawing. I have written a castigation of Brougham for the _Leader_, and shall be glad if your sympathy goes along with it. Varnhagen has written "Denkwurdigkeiten," and all sorts of literature, and is, or, rather was, the husband of _Rahel_, the greatest of German women. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st July, 1855.] It was surely you who wrote the notice of the _Westminster_ in the _Herald_ (Coventry) which we received this morning. I am very much pleased with your appreciation of Mr. Lewes's article. You hardly do justice to Froude's article on "Spinoza." I don't at all agree with Froude's own views, but I think his account of Spinoza's doctrines admirable. Mr. Lewes is still sadly ailing--tormented with tooth and face ache. This is a terrible trial to us poor scribblers, to whom health is money, as well as all other things worth having. I have just been reading that Milton suffered from indigestion--quite an affecting fact to me. I send you a letter which I have had from Barbara Smith. I think you will like to see such a manifestation of her strong, noble nature. On 1st August, 1855, Mr. Lewes went down to Ramsgate for change, taking his three boys with him for a week's holiday. Meantime George Eliot was continuing her article-writing, and in this week wrote an article for the _Leader_, having written one for the same journal three weeks before. On 22d August she wrote another article for the _Leader_, and on the 24th she finished the one on Cumming for the _Westminster_. Mr. C. Lewes tells me that he remembers it was after reading this article that his father was prompted to say to George Eliot, while walking one day with her in Richmond Park, that it convinced him of the true genius in her writing. Mr. Lewes was not only an accomplished and practised literary critic, but he was also gifted with the inborn insight accompanying a fine artistic temperament, which gave unusual weight to his judgment. Up to this time he had not been quite sure of anything beyond great talent in her productions. The first three weeks in September were again busily occupied in article-writing. She contributed three papers to the _Leader_, as well as the Belles-lettres section for the October number of the _Westminster_. On the 19th September they left East Sheen, and after spending a couple of weeks at Worthing for a sea change, they took rooms at 8 Park Shot, Richmond, which remained their home for more than three years. Here some of George Eliot's most memorable literary work was accomplished. Both she and Mr. Lewes were now working very hard for what would bring immediate profit, as they had to support not only themselves but his children and their mother. They had only one sitting-room between them; and I remember, in a walk on St. George's Hill, near Weybridge, in 1871, she told me that the scratching of another pen used to affect her nerves to such an extent that it nearly drove her wild. On the 9th October she finished an article on Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft, and on the 12th October one on Carlyle for the _Leader_, and began an article on Heine for the January number of the _Westminster_. In October there are the following letters to the Brays: [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, Monday, Oct. (?) 1855.] Since you have found out the "Cumming," I write by to-day's post just to say that it _is_ mine, but also to beg that you will not mention it as such to any one likely to transmit the information to London, as we are keeping the authorship a secret. The article appears to have produced a strong impression, and that impression would be a little counteracted if the author were known to be a _woman_. I have had a letter addressed "to the author of Article No. 4," begging me to print it separately "for the good of mankind in general!" It is so kind of you to rejoice in anything I do at all well. I am dreadfully busy again, for I am going to write an article for the _Westminster Review_ again, besides my other work. We enjoy our new lodgings very much--everything is the pink of order and cleanliness. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Oct. 1855.] Why you should object to Herbert Spencer speaking of Sir William Hamilton's contributions to a theory of perception as "valuable" I am unable to conceive. Sir William Hamilton has been of service to him as well as to others; and instead of repressing acknowledgments of merit in others, I should like them to be more freely given. I see no dignity, or anything else that is good, in ignoring one's fellow-beings. Herbert Spencer's views, like every other man's views, could not have existed without the substratum laid by his predecessors. But perhaps you mean something that I fail to perceive. Your bit of theology is very fine. Here is a delicious Hibernicism in return. In a treatise on consumption, sent yesterday, the writer says: "There is now hardly any _difference_ on this subject--at least _I_ feel none." Our life has no incidents except such as take place in our own brains, and the occasional arrival of a longer letter than usual. Yours are always read aloud and enjoyed. Nevertheless our life is intensely occupied, and the days are far too short. We are reading Gall's "Anatomie et Physiologie du Cerveau," and Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," aloud in the evenings; and I am trying to fix some knowledge about plexuses and ganglia in my soft brain, which generally only serves me to remember that there is something I ought to remember, and to regret that I did not put the something down in my note-book. For "Live and learn," we should sometimes read "Live and grow stupid." [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 21st Nov. 1855.] You will receive by rail to-morrow a copy of the "Life and Works of Goethe" (published on 1st November), which I hope you will accept as a keepsake from me. I should have been glad to send it you earlier, but as Mr. Lewes has sold the copyright of the first edition, he has only a small number of copies at his disposal, and so I doubted whether I ought to ask for one. I think you will find much to interest you in the book. I can't tell you how I value it, as the best product of a mind which I have every day more reason to admire and love. We have had much gratification in the expression of individual opinion. The press is very favorable, but the notices are for the most part too idiotic to give us much pleasure, except in a pecuniary point of view. I am going out to-day, for the first time for nearly a fortnight. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Nov. 1855.] I have just finished a long article on Heine for the _Westminster Review_, which none of you will like. _En revanche_, Mr. Lewes has written one on "Lions and Lion Hunters," which you will find amusing. On the 12th December the Belles-lettres section for the January number of the _Westminster Review_ was finished and sent off, and the next entry in the Journal is dated: [Sidenote: Journal, 1855.] _Dec. 24, 1855._--For the last ten days I have done little, owing to headache and other ailments. Began the "Antigone," read Von Bohlen on "Genesis," and Swedenborg. Mr. Chapman wants me to write an article on "Missions and Missionaries," for the April number of the _Westminster_, but I think I shall not have it ready till the July number. In the afternoon I set out on my journey to see my sister, and arrived at her house about eight o'clock, finding her and her children well. _Dec. 29, 1855._--Returned to Richmond. G. away at Vernon Hill (Arthur Helps's), having gone thither on Wednesday. _Dec. 30, 1855._--Read the "Shaving of Shagpat" (George Meredith's). _Dec. 31, 1855._--Wrote a review of "Shagpat." [Sidenote: Journal, 1856.] _Jan. 1, 1856._--Read Kingsley's "Greek Heroes," and began a review of Von Bohlen. _Jan. 5, 1856._--G. came home. _Jan. 6, 1856._--Began to revise Book IV. of Spinoza's "Ethics," and continued this work through the week, being able to work but slowly. Finished Kahnis's "History of German Protestantism." _Jan. 16, 1856._--Received a charming letter from Barbara Smith, with a petition to Parliament that women may have a right to their earnings. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Jan. 1856.] I believe there have been at least a thousand copies of the "Goethe" sold, which is a wonderfully good sale in less than three months for a thirty-shilling book. We have a charming collection of letters, both from remarkable acquaintances and remarkable non-acquaintances, expressing enthusiastic delight in the book--letters all the more delightful because they are quite spontaneous, and spring from a generous wish to let the author know how highly the writers value his work. If you want some idle reading, get the "Shaving of Shagpat," which, I think, you will say deserves all the praise I gave it. [Sidenote: Journal, 1856.] _Feb. 19, 1856._--Since the 6th January I have been occupied with Spinoza; and, except a review of Griswold's "American Poets," have done nothing else but translate the Fifth Book of the "Ethics," and revise the whole of my translation from the beginning. This evening I have finished my revision. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Feb. 1856.] I was so glad to have a little news of you. I should like to hear much oftener, but our days are so accurately parcelled out among regular occupations that I rarely manage to do anything not included in the programme; and, without reading Mrs. Barbauld on the "Inconsistency of Human Expectations," I know that receiving letters is inconsistent with not writing any. Have you seen any numbers of the _Saturday Review_, a new journal, on which "all the talents" are engaged? It is not properly a newspaper, but--what its title expresses--a political and literary review. We are delighting ourselves with Ruskin's third volume, which contains some of the finest writing I have read for a long time (among recent books). I read it aloud for an hour or so after dinner; then we jump to the old dramatists, when Mr. Lewes reads to me as long as his voice will hold out, and after this we wind up the evening with Rymer Jones's "Animal Kingdom," by which I get a confused knowledge of branchiæ, and such things--perhaps, on the whole, a little preferable to total ignorance. These are our _noctes_--without _cenæ_ for the present--occasionally diversified by very dramatic singing of Figaro, etc., which, I think, must alarm "that good man, the clergyman," who sits below us. We have been half laughing, half indignant, over Alison's new volume of his "History of Europe," in which he undertakes to give an account of German literature. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th Feb. 1856.] What you tell me of Harriet Martineau interests me very much. I feel for her terrible bodily suffering, and think of her with deep respect and admiration. Whatever may have been her mistakes and weaknesses, the great and good things she has done far outweigh them; and I should be grieved if anything in her memoir should cast a momentary shadow over the agreeable image of her that the world will ultimately keep in its memory. I wish less of our piety were spent on imaginary perfect goodness, and more given to real _im_perfect goodness. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Feb. 1856.] I am very happy for you to keep the sheets, and to get signatures (for the Women's Petition that they should have legal right to their own earnings). Miss Barbara Smith writes that she must have them returned to her before the 1st of March. I am glad you have taken up the cause, for I do think that, with proper provisos and safeguards, the proposed law would help to raise the position and character of women. It is one round of a long ladder stretching far beyond our lives. During March, George Eliot wrote only the Belles-lettres section for the April number of the _Westminster_, having resigned the subject of "Missions" to Harriet Martineau. She also wrote two articles for the _Saturday Review_, and two for the _Leader_. And there are the following letters in March to the Brays, in which allusion is made to their leaving the old home at Rosehill, owing to the unsatisfactory state of the Coventry business. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 26th Mch. 1856.] We are flourishing in every way except in health. Mr. Lewes's head is still infirm, but he manages, nevertheless, to do twice as much work as other people. I am always a croaker, you know, but my ailments are of a small kind, their chief symptoms being a muddled brain; and, as my pen is not of the true literary order which will run along without the help of brains, I don't get through so much work as I should like. By the way, when the Spinoza comes out, be so good as not to mention my name in connection with it. I particularly wish not to be known as the translator of the "Ethics," for reasons which it would be "too tedious to mention." You don't know what a severely practical person I am become, and what a sharp eye I have to the main chance. I keep the purse, and dole out sovereigns with all the pangs of a miser. In fact, if you were to feel my bump of acquisitiveness, I dare say you would find it in a state of inflammation, like the "veneration" of that clergyman to whom Mr. Donovan said, "Sir, you have recently been engaged in prayer." I hope you recognized your own wit about the one-eyed dissenters, which was quoted in the _Leader_ some time ago. You always said no one did so much justice to your jokes as I did. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 31st Mch. 1856.] My mind is more rebellious than yours, and I can't help being saddened by the idea of you and Cara being in any other home than the dear old one. But I know that your cheerful courage is yet stronger in deed than in word. Will not business or pleasure bring you to London soon, and will you not come to see us? We can give you a bed--not a sumptuous one, but one which you will perhaps not find intolerable for a night. I know the trip up the Thames is charming, and we should like to do it with you, but I don't think we can manage it this summer. We are going to send or take the boys (Mr. Lewes's sons) to school in Germany at midsummer, and are at present uncertain about our arrangements. If we can _send_ them, we shall go to the coast as soon as the warm weather comes, and remain there for three months. But our plans are not yet crystallized. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 1st April, 1856.] After I wrote you yesterday morning we had a letter from Germany which has made Mr. Lewes incline to defer sending the boys thither till next year. But he is anxious to remove them from their present school: and, in the course of our consultations on the subject, we thought of Mr. John Sibree as a person in whom we should feel confidence as to the moral influence he would exercise as a tutor. The risk of placing children with entire strangers is terrible. So I tease you with another letter to ask you if Mr. J. Sibree continues in the same position as formerly, and if he is still anxious to obtain pupils. What a delicious day! We are going to have a holiday at the Zoological Gardens. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th April, 1856.] Thank you for taking the trouble to write me a full account of matters so interesting to me. I hope you will be able thoroughly to enjoy this last precious summer on the pretty lawn, where it is one of my pleasures on sunshiny days to think of you all strolling about or seated on the Bearskin. We are very thankful for the Hofwyl circular, and have almost decided to send the two eldest boys there. But it is necessary to weigh all things carefully before coming to a determination; as, not being either swindlers or philanthropists, we don't like to incur obligations which there is not a reasonable certainty of our being able to meet. I am much obliged to Mr. Bray, too, for sending Mr. John Sibree's letter. Mr. Lewes had already received an answer from him declining his proposition, but we were interested to read his very characteristic letter to his sister, which proved to Mr. Lewes that I had given him a correct description of the man. The next few weeks are, perhaps, the most signally important and interesting of all in George Eliot's development. There are unmistakable signs of the rising of the sap of creative production. In the middle of April Mr. Herbert Spencer, who had been abroad for some time, returned to England, and dined with them at Park Shot on the 15th, and on the 18th they went with him to Sydenham. On the 22d April George Eliot began her article on Young; and on the 29th she began to read Riehl's book,[50] on which she was to write another article for the _Westminster_. On the 8th of May they set off for Ilfracombe, and we have the following "recollections" of that place: [Sidenote: Ilfracombe, Recollections, 1856.] It was a cold, unfriendly day--the 8th of May--on which we set out for Ilfracombe with our hamper of glass jars, which we meant for our sea-side vivarium. We had to get down at Windsor, and were not sorry that the interval was long enough to let us walk round the castle, which I had never seen before except from a distance. The famous "slopes," the avenues in the park, and the distant landscape, looked very lovely in the fresh and delicate greens of spring; and the castle is surely the most delightful royal residence in the world. We took our places from Windsor all the way to Exeter; and at Bristol, where we had to wait three hours, the misery of my terrible headache was mitigated by the interest we felt in seeing the grand old Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, forever associated with the memory of Chatterton. "It stands, the maestrie of a human hand, The pride of Bristowe and the western land." It was cheering, the next morning after our arrival at Ilfracombe, to get up with a head rather less aching, and to walk up and down the little garden of Runnymede Villa in the bright sunshine. I had a great deal of work before me--the writing of an article on Riehl's book, which I had not half read, as well as the article on Belles-lettres; but my head was still dizzy, and it seemed impossible to sit down to writing at once in these new scenes, so we determined to spend the day in explorations. From our windows we had a view of the higher part of the town, and generally it looked uninteresting enough; but what is it that light cannot transfigure into beauty? One evening, after a shower, as the sun was setting over the sea behind us, some peculiar arrangement of clouds threw a delicious evening light on the irregular cluster of houses, and merged the ugliness of their forms in an exquisite flood of color--as a stupid person is made glorious by a noble deed. A perfect rainbow arched over the picture. From one end of the Capstone we have an admirable bit for a picture. In the background rises old Helesborough, jutting out far into the sea--rugged and rocky as it fronts the waves, green and accessible landward; in front of this stands Lantern Hill, a picturesque mass of green and gray, surmounted by an old bit of building that looks as if it were the habitation of some mollusk that had secreted its shell from the material of the rock; and quite in the foreground, contrasting finely in color with the rest, are some lower perpendicular rocks of dark-brown tints, patched here and there with vivid green. In hilly districts, where houses and clusters of houses look so tiny against the huge limbs of mother earth, one cannot help thinking of man as a parasitic animal--an epizoan making his abode in the skin of the planetary organism. In a flat country, a house or a town looks imposing; there is nothing to rival it in height, and we may imagine the earth a mere pedestal for us. But when one sees a house stuck on the side of a great hill, and, still more, a number of houses, looking like a few barnacles, clustered on the side of a great rock, we begin to think of the strong family likeness between ourselves and all other building, burrowing, house-appropriating, and shell-secreting animals. The difference between a man with his house and a mollusk with its shell lies in the number of steps or phenomena interposed between the fact of individual existence and the completion of the building. Whatever other advantages we may have over mollusks and insects in our habitations, it is clear that their architecture has the advantage of ours in beauty--at least, considered as the architecture of the species. Look at man in the light of a shell-fish, and it must be admitted that his shell is generally ugly; and it is only after a great many more "steps or phenomena" that he secretes here and there a wonderful shell in the shape of a temple or a palace. On our first zoophyte hunt it was characteristic of the wide difference there is between having eyes and _seeing_, that in this region of sea-anemones, where the Mesembryanthemum especially is as plenty as blackberries, we climbed about for two hours without seeing one anemone, and went in again with scarcely anything but a few stones and weeds to put into our jars. On our next hunt, however, after we had been out some time, G. exclaimed, "I see an anemone!" and we were immensely excited by the discovery of this little red Mesembryanthemum, which we afterwards disdained to gather, as much as if it had been a nettle. It was a _crescendo_ of delight when we found a "strawberry," and a _fortissimo_ when I, for the first time, saw the pale, fawn-colored tentacles of an _Anthea cereus_ viciously waving like little serpents in a low-tide pool. But not a polype for a long, long while could even G. detect, after all his reading; so necessary is it for the eye to be educated by objects as well as ideas. Every day I gleaned some little bit of naturalistic experience, either through G.'s calling on me to look through the microscope, or from hunting on the rocks; and this in spite of my preoccupation with my article, which I worked at considerably _à contre-coeur_, despairing of it ever being worth anything. When at last, by the 17th of June, both my articles were despatched, I felt delightfully at liberty, and determined to pay some attention to seaweeds, which I had never seen in such beauty as at Ilfracombe. For hitherto I had been chiefly on chalky and sandy shores, where there were no rock-pools to show off the lovely colors and forms of the algæ. There are tide-pools to be seen almost at every other step on the shore at Ilfracombe; and I shall never forget their appearance when we first arrived there. The _Corallina officinalis_ was then in its greatest perfection, and with its purple-pink fronds threw into relief the dark olive fronds of the Laminariæ on one side, and the vivid green of the Ulva and Enteromorpha on the other. After we had been there a few weeks the Corallina was faded; and I noticed the _Mesagloia vermicularis_ and the _M. virescens_, which look very lovely in the water, from the white cilia, which make the most delicate fringe to their yellow-brown, whip-like fronds, and some of the common Polysiphoniæ. These tide-pools made me quite in love with seaweeds, so I took up Landsborough's book and tried to get a little more light on their structure and history. Our zoological expeditions alternated with delicious inland walks. I think the country looked its best when we arrived. It was just that moment in spring when the leaves are in full leaf, but still keep their delicate varieties of coloring, and that _transparency_ which belongs only to this season. And the furze was in all its golden glory! It was almost like the fading away of the evening red, when the furze blossoms died off from the hills, and the only contrast left was that of the marly soil with the green crops and woods. The primroses were the contemporaries of the furze, and sprinkled the sides of the hills with their pale stars almost as plentifully as daisies or buttercups elsewhere. But the great charm of all Devonshire lanes is the springs that you detect gurgling in shady recesses, covered with liverwort, with here and there waving tufts of fern and other broad-leaved plants that love obscurity and moisture. We seemed to make less of our evenings at Ilfracombe than we have ever done elsewhere. We used often to be tired with our hunting or walking; and we were reading books which did not make us take them up very eagerly--Gosse's "Rambles on the Devonshire Coast," for example; Trench's "Calderon," and other volumes, taken up in a desultory way. One bit of reading we had there, however, which interested me deeply. It was Masson's "Life of Chatterton," which happily linked itself with the impressions I had received from the sight of the old church at Bristol. Mr. Tugwell's (the curate) acquaintance was a real acquisition to us, not only because he was a companion and helper in zoological pursuits, but because to know him was to know of another sweet nature in the world. It is always good to know, if only in passing, a charming human being; it refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks. One Sunday evening we walked up to his pretty house to carry back some proofs of his, and he induced us to go in and have coffee with him. He played on his harmonium, and we chatted pleasantly. The last evening of our stay at Ilfracombe he came to see us in Mrs. Webster's drawing-room, and we had music till nearly eleven o'clock--a pleasant recollection! We only twice took the walk beyond Watermouth towards Berrynarbor. The road lies through what are called the "Meadows," which look like a magnificent park. A stream, fringed with wild-flowers and willows, runs along the valley, two or three yards from the side of the road. This stream is clear as crystal, and about every twenty yards it falls over a little artificial precipice of stones. The long grass was waving in all the glory of June, before the mower has come to make it suffer a "love change" from beauties into sweet odors; and the slopes on each side of us were crowned or clothed with fine trees. The last time we went through these meadows was on our last day at Ilfracombe. Such sunlight and such deep peace on the hills and by the stream! Coming back, we rested on a gate under the trees, and a blind man came up to rest also. He told us, in his slow way, what a fine, "healthy spot" this was--yes, a very healthy spot--a healthy spot. And then we went on our way, and saw his face no more. I have talked of the Ilfracombe lanes without describing them, for to describe them one ought to know the names of all the lovely wild-flowers that cluster on their banks. Almost every yard of these banks is a "Hunt" picture--a delicious crowding of mosses and delicate trefoil and wild strawberries and ferns great and small. But the crowning beauty of the lanes is the springs that gush out in little recesses by the side of the road--recesses glossy with liverwort and feathery with fern. Sometimes you have the spring when it has grown into a brook, either rushing down a miniature cataract by the lane-side, or flowing gently as a "braided streamlet" across your path. I never before longed so much to know the names of things as during this visit to Ilfracombe. The desire is part of the tendency that is now constantly growing in me to escape from all vagueness and inaccuracy into the daylight of distinct, vivid ideas. The mere fact of naming an object tends to give definiteness to our conception of it. We have then a sign which at once calls up in our minds the distinctive qualities which mark out for us that particular object from all others. We ascended the Tors only twice; for a tax of 3_d._ per head was demanded on this luxury, and we could not afford a sixpenny walk very frequently: yet the view is perhaps the very finest to be had at Ilfracombe. Bay behind bay, fringed with foam, and promontory behind promontory, each with its peculiar shades of purple light--the sweep of the Welsh coast faintly visible in the distance, and the endless expanse of sea, flecked with ships, stretching on our left. [Sidenote: Ilfracombe, Recollections, June, 1856.] One evening we went down to the shore through the "Tunnels" to see the sunset. Standing in the "Ladies' Cove," we had before us the sharp fragments of rock jutting out of the waves and standing black against the orange and crimson sky. How lovely to look into that brilliant distance and see the ship on the horizon seeming to sail away from the cold and dim world behind it right into the golden glory! I have always that sort of feeling when I look at sunset; it always seems to me that there in the West lies a land of light and warmth and love. On the 26th of June we said good-bye to Ilfracombe. The sight of the cockle-women at Swansea, where we had to wait, would make a fine subject for a painter. One of them was the grandest woman I ever saw--six feet high, carrying herself like a Greek warrior, and treading the earth with unconscious majesty. Her face was weather-beaten and wizened, but her eyes were bright and piercing, and the lines of her face, with its high cheek-bones, strong and characteristic. The guard at the railway station told us that one of the porters had been insolent the other day to a cockle-woman, and that she immediately pitched him off the platform into the road below! [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 6th June, 1856.] When we arrived here I had not even read a great book on which I had engaged to write a long article by the beginning of this month; so that between work and zoology and bodily ailments my time has been full to overflowing. We are enchanted with Ilfracombe. I really think it is the loveliest sea-place I ever saw, from the combination of fine rocky coast with exquisite inland scenery. But it would not do for any one who can't climb rocks and mount perpetual hills; for the peculiarity of this country is, that it is all hill and no valley. You have no sooner got to the foot of one hill than you begin to mount another. You would laugh to see our room decked with yellow pie-dishes, a _foot-pan_, glass jars and phials, all full of zoophytes, or mollusks, or anellides--and, still more, to see the eager interest with which we rush to our "preserves" in the morning to see if there has been any mortality among them in the night. We have made the acquaintance of a charming little zoological curate here, who is a delightful companion on expeditions, and is most good-natured in lending and giving apparatus and "critturs" of all sorts. Mr. Pigott[51] is coming here with his yacht at the end of June, and we hope then to go to Clovelly--Kingsley's Clovelly--and perhaps other places on the coast that we can't reach on foot. After this we mean to migrate to Tenby, for the sake of making acquaintance with its mollusks and medusæ. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 8th June, 1856.] I received your kind letter only yesterday, but I write a few words in answer at once, lest, as it so often happens, delay should beget delay. It is never too late to write generous words, and although circumstances are not likely to allow of our acquiring a more intimate knowledge of each other from personal intercourse, it will always be a pleasant thought to me that you have remembered me kindly, and interpreted me nobly. You are one of the minority who know how to "use their imagination in the service of charity." I have suffered so much from misunderstanding created by letters, even to old friends, that I never write on private personal matters, unless it be a rigorous duty or necessity to do so. Some little phrase or allusion is misinterpreted, and on this false basis a great fabric of misconception is reared, which even explanatory conversations will not remove. Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly on under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th June, 1856.] Yes, indeed, I do remember old Tenby days, and had set my heart on being in the very same house again; but, alas! it had just been let. It is immensely smartened up, like the place generally, since those old times, and is proportionately less desirable for quiet people who have no flounces and do not subscribe to new churches. Tenby looks insignificant in picturesqueness after Ilfracombe; but the two objects that drew us hither, zoology and health, will flourish none the worse for the absence of tall precipices and many-tinted rocks. The air is delicious--soft, but not sultry--and the sands and bathing such as are to be found nowhere else. St. Catherine's Rock, with its caverns, is our paradise. We go there with baskets, hammers and chisels, and jars and phials, and come home laden with spoils. Altogether, we are contented to have been driven away from Ilfracombe by the cold wind, since a new place is new experience, and Mr. Lewes has never been here before. To me there is the additional pleasure--half melancholy--of recalling all the old impressions and comparing them with the new. I understand your wish to have as much of Rosehill as possible this year, and I am so glad that you will associate a visit from Herbert Spencer with this last summer. I suppose he is with you now. If so, give him my very evil regards, and tell him that because he has not written to us we will diligently _not_ tell him a great many things he would have liked to know. We have a project of going into St. Catherine's caverns with lanterns, some night when the tide is low, about eleven, for the sake of seeing the zoophytes preparing for their midnight revels. The Actiniæ, like other belles, put on their best faces on such occasions. Two things we have lost by leaving Ilfracombe for which we have no compensation--the little zoological curate, Mr. Tugwell, who is really one of the best specimens of the clergyman species I have seen; and the pleasure of having Miss Barbara Smith there for a week, sketching the rocks, and putting our love of them into the tangible form of a picture. We are looking out now for Mr. Pigott in his yacht; and his amiable face will make an agreeable variety on the sands. I thought "Walden"[52] (you mean "Life in the Woods," don't you?) a charming book, from its freshness and sincerity as well as for its bits of description. It is pleasant to think that Harriet Martineau can make so much of her last days. Her energy and her habit of useful work are admirable. During the stay at Ilfracombe and Tenby not much literary work was done, except the articles on Young and on Riehl's book. There was a notice of Masson's Essays and the Belles-lettres section for the July number of the _Westminster_, and a review for the _Leader_. There is mention, too, of the reading of Beaumarchais' "Memoirs," Milne Edwards's "Zoology," Harvey's sea-side book, and "Coriolanus," and then comes this significant sentence in her Journal: [Sidenote: Journal, 1856.] _July 20, 1856._--The fortnight has slipped away without my being able to show much result for it. I have written a review of the "Lover's Seat," and jotted down some recollections of Ilfracombe; besides these trifles, and the introduction to an article already written, I have done no _visible_ work. But I have absorbed many ideas and much bodily strength; indeed, I do not remember ever feeling so strong in mind and body as I feel at this moment. On Saturday, the 12th, Barbara Smith arrived, and stayed here till Wednesday morning. We enjoyed her society very much, but were deeply touched to see that three years had made her so much older and sadder. Her activity for great objects is admirable; and contact with her is a fresh inspiration to work while it is day. We have now taken up Quatrefages again. The "Memoirs" of Beaumarchais yielded me little fruit. Mr. Chapman invites me to contribute to the _Westminster_ for this quarter. I am anxious to begin my fiction-writing, and so am not inclined to undertake an article that will give me much trouble, but, at all events, I will finish my article on Young. _July 21._--We had a delightful walk on the north sands, and hunted with success. A sunny, happy day. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th July, 1856.] Glad to hear at last some news of your Essay--hoping to hear more and better by and by. I didn't like to think that your labor would be thrown away, except so far as it must do good to yourself by clearing up your ideas. Not that your ideas were muddy, but the last degree of clearness can only come by writing. Mr. Pigott is with us just now, and we are meditating a nocturnal visit to St. Catherine's caves with him. Our visit to Tenby has been very useful zoologically, but we are not otherwise greatly in love with the place. It seems tame and vulgar after Ilfracombe. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 6th Aug. 1856.] Thank you for your kind note,[53] so like yourself. Such things encourage me, and help me to do better. I never think what I write is good for anything till other people tell me so, and even then it always seems to me as if I should never write anything _else_ worth reading. Ah, how much good we may do each other by a few friendly words, and the opportunities for them are so much more frequent than for friendly deeds! We want people to feel with us more than to act for us. Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards to you. He, too, was very pleased with your letter, for he cares more about getting approbation for me than for himself. _He_ can do very well without it. On the 8th August they left Tenby, and on 9th arrived at Richmond "with terrible headache, but enjoyed the sense of being 'at home' again." On the 18th, "walked in Kew Park, and talked with G. of my novel. Finished 'César Birotteau' aloud." On the 25th August Mr. Lewes set off for Hofwyl, near Berne, taking his two eldest boys, Charles and Thornton, to place them at school there. He returned on 4th September, and in his absence George Eliot had been busy with her article on "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists." This was finished on the 12th September, and on the 19th she sent off the Belles-lettres section for the October number of the _Westminster_. We have now arrived at the period of the new birth, and, fortunately, in the following memorandum, we have George Eliot's own words as to how it came about: [Sidenote: How I came to write fiction.] September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it was then I began to write fiction. It had always been a vague dream of mine that some time or other I might write a novel; and my shadowy conception of what the novel was to be, varied, of course, from one epoch of my life to another. But I never went further towards the actual writing of the novel than an introductory chapter describing a Staffordshire village and the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts of a novel. My "introductory chapter" was pure description, though there were good materials in it for dramatic presentation. It happened to be among the papers I had with me in Germany, and one evening at Berlin something led me to read it to George. He was struck with it as a bit of concrete description, and it suggested to him the possibility of my being able to write a novel, though he distrusted--indeed, disbelieved in--my possession of any dramatic power. Still, he began to think that I might as well try some time what I could do in fiction, and by and by, when we came back to England, and I had greater success than he ever expected in other kinds of writing, his impression that it was worth while to see how far my mental power would go towards the production of a novel, was strengthened. He began to say very positively, "You must try and write a story," and when we were at Tenby he urged me to begin at once. I deferred it, however, after my usual fashion with work that does not present itself as an absolute duty. But one morning, as I was thinking what should be the subject of my first story, my thoughts merged themselves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined myself writing a story, of which the title was "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton." I was soon wide awake again and told G. He said, "Oh, what a capital title!" and from that time I had settled in my mind that this should be my first story. George used to say, "It may be a failure--it may be that you are unable to write fiction. Or, perhaps, it may be just good enough to warrant your trying again." Again, "You may write a _chef-d'oeuvre_ at once--there's no telling." But his prevalent impression was, that though I could hardly write a _poor_ novel, my effort would want the highest quality of fiction--dramatic presentation. He used to say, "You have wit, description, and philosophy--those go a good way towards the production of a novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment." We determined that if my story turned out good enough we would send it to Blackwood; but G. thought the more probable result was that I should have to lay it aside and try again. But when we returned to Richmond I had to write my article on "Silly Novels," and my review of Contemporary Literature for the _Westminster_, so that I did not begin my story till September 22. After I had begun it, as we were walking in the park, I mentioned to G. that I had thought of the plan of writing a series of stories, containing sketches drawn from my own observation of the clergy, and calling them "Scenes from Clerical Life," opening with "Amos Barton." He at once accepted the notion as a good one--fresh and striking; and about a week afterwards, when I read him the first part of "Amos," he had no longer any doubt about my ability to carry out the plan. The scene at Cross Farm, he said, satisfied him that I had the very element he had been doubtful about--it was clear I could write good dialogue. There still remained the question whether I could command any pathos; and that was to be decided by the mode in which I treated Milly's death. One night G. went to town on purpose to leave me a quiet evening for writing it. I wrote the chapter from the news brought by the shepherd to Mrs. Hackit, to the moment when Amos is dragged from the bedside, and I read it to G. when he came home. We both cried over it, and then he came up to me and kissed me, saying, "I think your pathos is better than your fun." The story of the "Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton" was begun on 22d September and finished on the 5th November, and I subjoin the opening correspondence between Mr. Lewes and Mr. John Blackwood, to exhibit the first effect it produced: [Sidenote: Letter from G. H. Lewes, to John Blackwood, 6th Nov. 1856.] "I trouble you with a MS. of 'Sketches of Clerical Life' which was submitted to me by a friend who desired my good offices with you. It goes by this post. I confess that before reading the MS. I had considerable doubts of my friend's powers as a writer of fiction; but, after reading it, these doubts were changed into very high admiration. I don't know what you will think of the story, but, according to my judgment, such humor, pathos, vivid presentation, and nice observation have not been exhibited (in this style) since the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' and, in consequence of that opinion, I feel quite pleased in negotiating the matter with you. "This is what I am commissioned to say to you about the proposed series. It will consist of tales and sketches illustrative of the actual life of our country clergy about a quarter of a century ago--but solely in its _human_, and not at all in its _theological_ aspects; the object being to do what has never yet been done in our literature, for we have had abundant religious stories, polemical and doctrinal, but since the 'Vicar' and Miss Austen, no stories representing the clergy like every other class, with the humors, sorrows, and troubles of other men. He begged me particularly to add, that--as the specimen sent will sufficiently prove--the tone throughout will be sympathetic, and not at all antagonistic. "Some of these, if not all, you may think suitable for 'Maga.' If any are sent of which you do not approve, or which you do not think sufficiently interesting, these he will reserve for the separate republication, and for this purpose he wishes to retain the copyright. Should you only print one or two, he will be well satisfied; and still better, if you should think well enough of the series to undertake the separate republication." [Sidenote: Letter from John Blackwood, to G. H. Lewes, 12th Nov. 1856.] "I am happy to say that I think your friend's reminiscences of Clerical Life will do. If there is any more of the series written I should like to see it, as, until I saw more, I could not make any decided proposition for the publication of the tales, in whole or in part, in the Magazine. This first specimen, 'Amos Barton,' is unquestionably very pleasant reading. Perhaps the author falls into the error of trying too much to explain the characters of his actors by description instead of allowing them to evolve in the action of the story; but the descriptions are very humorous and good. The death of Milly is powerfully done, and affected me much. I am not sure whether he does not spoil it a little by specifying so minutely the different children and their names. The wind-up is perhaps the lamest part of the story; and there, too, I think the defect is caused by the specifications as to the fortunes of parties of whom the reader has no previous knowledge, and cannot, consequently, feel much interest. At first, I was afraid that in the amusing reminiscences of childhood in church there was a want of some softening touch, such as the remembrance of a father or mother lends, in after-years, to what was at the time considerable penance. "I hate anything of a sneer at real religious feeling as cordially as I despise anything like cant, and I should think this author is of the same way of thinking, although his clergymen, with one exception, are not very attractive specimens of the body. The revulsion of feeling towards poor Amos is capitally drawn, although the asinine stupidity of his conduct about the countess had disposed one to kick him. "I dare say I shall have a more decided opinion as to the merits of the story when I have looked at it again and thought over it; but in the meantime I am sure that there is a happy turn of expression throughout, also much humor and pathos. If the author is a new writer, I beg to congratulate him on being worthy of the honors of print and pay. I shall be very glad to hear from you or him soon." [Sidenote: Letter from G. H. Lewes to John Blackwood, Saturday, Nov. 1856.] "I have communicated your letter to my clerical friend, who, though somewhat discouraged by it, has taken my advice, and will submit the second story to you when it is written. At present he has only written what he sent you. His avocations, he informs me, will prevent his setting to work for the next three weeks or so, but as soon as he is at liberty he will begin. "I rate the story much higher than you appear to do, from certain expressions in your note, though you too appreciate the humor and pathos and the happy turn of expression. It struck me as being fresher than any story I have read for a long while, and as exhibiting, in a high degree, that faculty which I find to be the rarest of all--viz., the dramatic ventriloquism. "At the same time I told him that I thoroughly understood your editorial caution in not accepting from an unknown hand a series on the strength of one specimen." [Sidenote: Letter from John Blackwood to G. H. Lewes, 18th Nov. 1856.] "I was very far from intending that my letter should convey anything like disappointment to your friend. On the contrary, I thought the tale very good, and intended to convey as much. But I dare say I expressed myself coolly enough. Criticism would assume a much soberer tone were critics compelled _seriously to act_ whenever they expressed an opinion. Although not much given to hesitate about anything, I always think twice before I put the decisive mark 'In type for the Magazine' on any MS. from a stranger. Fancy the intense annoyance (to say nothing of more serious considerations) of publishing, month after month, a series about which the conviction gradually forces itself on you that you have made a total blunder. "I am sorry that the author has no more written, but if he cares much about a speedy appearance, I have so high an opinion of this first tale that I will waive my objections, and publish it without seeing more--not, of course, committing myself to go on with the other tales of the series unless I approved of them. I am very sanguine that I will approve, as, in addition to the other merits of 'Amos,' I agree with you that there is great freshness of style. If you think also that it would stimulate the author to go on with the other tales with more spirit, I will publish 'Amos' at once. He could divide into two parts. I am blocked up for December, but I could start him in January. "I am glad to hear that your friend is, as I supposed, a clergyman. Such a subject is best in clerical hands, and some of the pleasantest and least-prejudiced correspondents I have ever had are English clergymen. "I have not read 'Amos Barton' a second time, but the impression on my mind of the whole character, incidents, and feeling of the story is very distinct, which is an excellent sign." [Sidenote: Letter from G. H. Lewes to John Blackwood, Saturday, Nov. 1856.] "Your letter has greatly restored the shaken confidence of my friend, who is unusually sensitive, and, unlike most writers, is more anxious about _excellence_ than about appearing in print--as his waiting so long before taking the venture proves. He is consequently afraid of failure, though not afraid of obscurity; and by failure he would understand that which I suspect most writers would be apt to consider as success--so high is his ambition. "I tell you this that you may understand the sort of shy, shrinking, ambitious nature you have to deal with. I tried to persuade him that you really _did_ appreciate his story, but were only hesitating about committing yourself to a series; and your last letter has proved me to have been right--although, as he never contemplated binding you to the publication of any portion of the series to which you might object, he could not at first see your position in its true light. "All is, however, clear now. He will be gratified if you publish 'Amos Barton' in January, as it will give him ample time to get the second story ready, so as to appear when 'Barton' is finished, should you wish it. He is anxious, however, that you should publish the general title of 'Scenes of Clerical Life;' and I think you may do this with perfect safety, since it is quite clear that the writer of 'Amos Barton' is capable of writing at least one more story suitable to 'Maga;' and two would suffice to justify the general title. "Let me not forget to add that when I referred to 'my clerical friend,' I meant to designate the writer of the clerical stories--not that he was a clericus. I am not at liberty to remove the veil of anonymity, even as regards social position. Be pleased, therefore, to keep the whole secret, and not even mention _my_ negotiation, or in any way lead guessers (should any one trouble himself with such a guess--_not_ very likely) to jump from me to my friend." On Christmas Day, 1856, "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" was begun, and during December and January the following are mentioned among the books read: The "Ajax" of Sophocles, Miss Martineau's "History of the Peace," Macaulay's "History" finished, Carlyle's "French Revolution," Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," and "Mansfield Park." [Sidenote: Letter from John Blackwood, to the author of "Amos Barton," 29th Dec. 1856.] "Along with this I send a copy of the January number of the Magazine, in which you will find the first part of 'Amos Barton.' It gives me very great pleasure to begin the number with 'Amos,' and I put him in that position because his merits well entitle him to it, and also because it is a vital point to attract public attention to the _first_ part of a series, to which end being the first article of the first number of the year may contribute. "I have already expressed to our friend Mr. Lewes the very high opinion I entertain of 'Amos,' and the expectations I have formed of the series, should his successors prove equal to him, which I fully anticipate. "It is a long time since I have read anything so fresh, so humorous, and so touching. The style is capital, conveying so much in so few words. "Those who have seen the tale here are chiefly members of my own family, and they are all enthusiastic in praise. "You may recollect that I expressed a fear that in the affecting and highly wrought scene of poor Milly's death, the attempt to individualize the children by reiterating their names weakened the effect, as the reader had not been prepared to care for them individually, but simply as a group--the children of Milly and the sorrow-stricken curate. My brother says, 'No. Do not advise the author to touch anything so exquisite.' Of course you are the best judge. "I now send proof of the conclusion of 'Amos,' in acknowledgment of which, and of the first part, I have the pleasure of enclosing a check for £52 10_s._--fifty guineas. "If the series goes on as I anticipate, there is every prospect that a republication as a separate book, at some time or other, will be advisable. We would look upon such republication as a joint property, and would either give you a sum for your interest in it, or publish on the terms of one half of the clear profits, to be divided between author and publisher, as might be most agreeable to you. "I shall be very glad to hear from you, either direct or through Mr. Lewes; and any intelligence that the successors of 'Amos' are taking form and substance will be very acceptable. "I shall let you know what the other contributors and the public think of 'Amos' as far as I can gather a verdict, but in the meantime I may congratulate you on having achieved a preliminary success at all events." [Sidenote: Letter from the author of "Amos Barton" to John Blackwood, Jan. 1857.] Your letter has proved to me that the generous editor and publisher--generous both in word and in deed--who makes the author's path smooth and easy, is something more than a pleasant tradition. I am very sensitive to the merits of checks for fifty guineas, but I am still more sensitive to that cordial appreciation which is a guarantee to me that my work was worth doing for its own sake. If the "Scenes of Clerical Life" should be republished, I have no doubt we shall find it easy to arrange the terms. In the meantime, the most pressing business is to make them worth republishing. I think the particularization of the children in the deathbed scene has an important effect on the imagination. But I have removed all names from the "conclusion" except those of Patty and Dickey, in whom, I hope, the reader has a personal interest. I hope to send you the second story by the beginning of February. It will lie, for the most part, among quite different scenes and persons from the last--opening in Shepperton once more, but presently moving away to a distant spot and new people, whom, I hope, you will not like less than "Amos" and his friends. But if any one of the succeeding stories should seem to you unsuitable to the pages of "Maga," it can be reserved for publication in the future volume, without creating any difficulty. Thank you very warmly for the hearty acceptance you have given to my first story. [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] The first part of "Amos Barton" appeared in the January number of _Blackwood_. Before the appearance of the Magazine, on sending me the proof, Mr. John Blackwood already expressed himself with much greater warmth of admiration; and when the first part had appeared he sent me a charming letter, with a check for fifty guineas, and a proposal about republication of the series. When the story was concluded he wrote me word how Albert Smith had sent him a letter saying he had never read anything that affected him more than Milly's death, and, added Blackwood, "The men at the club seem to have mingled their tears and their tumblers together. It will be curious if you should be a member and be hearing your own praises." There was clearly no suspicion that I was a woman. It is interesting, as an indication of the value there is in such conjectural criticism generally, to remember that when G. read the first part of "Amos" to a party at Helps's, they were all sure I was a clergyman--a Cambridge man. Blackwood seemed curious about the author, and, when I signed my letter "George Eliot," hunted up some old letters from Eliot Warburton's brother to compare the handwritings, though, he said, "'Amos' seems to me not in the least like what that good artilleryman would write." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Feb. 1857.] Thank you for fulfilling your promise to let me know something of the criticisms passed on my story. I have a very moderate respect for "opinions of the press," but the private opinions of intelligent people may be valuable to me. In reference to artistic presentation much adverse opinion will, of course, arise from a dislike to the _order_ of art rather than from a critical estimate of the execution. Any one who detests the Dutch school in general will hardly appreciate fairly the merits of a particular Dutch painting. And against this sort of condemnation one must steel one's self as one best can. But objections which point out to me any vice of manner, or any failure in producing an intended effect, will be really profitable. For example, I suppose my scientific illustrations must be at fault, since they seem to have obtruded themselves disagreeably on one of my readers. But if it be a sin to be at once a man of science and a writer of fiction, I can declare my perfect innocence on that head, my scientific knowledge being as superficial as that of the most "practised writers." I hope to send you a second story in a few days, but I am rather behindhand this time, having been prevented from setting to work for some weeks by other business. Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my _incognito_, having observed that a _nom de plume_ secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation. Perhaps, therefore, it will be well to give you my prospective name, as a tub to throw to the whale in case of curious inquiries; and accordingly I subscribe myself, best and most sympathizing of editors, yours very truly, GEORGE ELIOT. I may mention here that my wife told me the reason she fixed on this name was that George was Mr. Lewes's Christian name, and Eliot was a good, mouth-filling, easily pronounced word. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Feb. 1857.] First let me thank you very heartily for your letter of the 10th. Except your own very cordial appreciation, which is so much beyond a mere official acceptance, that little fact about Albert Smith has gratified me more than anything else in connection with the effect of "Amos." If you should happen to hear an opinion from Thackeray, good or bad, I should like to know it. You will see that I have availed myself of your suggestions on points of language. I quite recognize the justice of your criticisms on the French phrases. They are not in keeping with my story. But I am unable to alter anything in relation to the delineation or development of character, as my stories always grow out of my psychological conception of the _dramatis personæ_. For example, the behavior of Caterina in the gallery is essential to my conception of her nature, and to the development of that nature in the plot. My artistic bent is directed not at all to the presentation of eminently irreproachable characters, but to the presentation of mixed human beings in such a way as to call forth tolerant judgment, pity, and sympathy. And I cannot stir a step aside from what I _feel_ to be _true_ in character. If anything strikes you as untrue to human nature in my delineations, I shall be very glad if you will point it out to me, that I may reconsider the matter. But, alas! inconsistencies and weaknesses are not untrue. I hope that your doubts about the plot will be removed by the further development of the story. Meanwhile, warmest thanks for your encouraging letters. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 24th Feb. 1857.] I am the more inclined to think that I shall admire your book because you are suspected of having given undue preponderance to the Christian argument: for I have a growing conviction that we may measure true moral and intellectual culture by the comprehension and veneration given to all forms of thought and feeling which have influenced large masses of mankind--and of all intolerance the intolerance calling itself philosophical is the most odious to me. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Mch. 1857.] Thank you for the copy of "Maga" and for the accompanying check. One has not many correspondents whose handwriting has such agreeable associations as yours. I was particularly pleased with that extract you were so good as to send me from Mr. Swayne's letter. Dear old "Goldie" is one of my earliest and warmest admirations, and I don't desire a better fate than to lie side by side with him in people's memories. The Rev. Mr. Swayne had written to Blackwood saying that "Amos," in its charming tendencies, reminded him of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Blackwood had written, much delighted with the two first parts of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," which were sent to him together. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Mch. 1857.] I began, oddly enough you will perhaps think, by reading through the "Answers of Infidelity,"[54] those being the most interesting parts of the book to me. Some of your own passages I think very admirable--some of them made me cry, which is always a sign of the highest pleasure writing can give me. But in many of the extracts, I think, Infidelity cuts a very poor figure. Some are feeble, some _bad_, and terribly discrepant in the tone of their thought and feeling from the passages which come fresh from your own mind. The disadvantage arising from the perpetual shifting of the point of view is a disadvantage, I suppose, inseparable from the plan, which I cannot admire or feel to be effective, though I can imagine it may be a serviceable form of presentation to some inquirers. The _execution_ I do admire. I think it shows very high and rare qualities of mind--a self-discipline and largeness of thought which are the highest result of culture. The "Objections of Christianity," which I have also read, are excellently put, and have an immense advantage over the "Answers of Infidelity" in their greater homogeneity. The first part I have only begun and glanced through, and at present have no other observation to make than that I think you might have brought a little more artillery to bear on Christian morality. But nothing is easier than to find fault--nothing so difficult as to _do_ some real work. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 5th Mch. 1857.] I think I wrote very brusquely and disagreeably to you the other day, but the impertinence was altogether in the form and not at all in the feeling. I always have uncomfortable sensations after writing objections and criticisms when they relate to things I substantially admire. It is inflicting a hurt on my own veneration. I showed the passage on the eye, p. 157, to Herbert Spencer, and he agrees with us that you have not stated your idea so as to render it a logical argument against design. You appear to imply that development and gradation in organs and functions are opposed to that conception, which they are not. I suppose you are aware that we all three hold the conception of creative design to be untenable. We only think you have not made out a good case against it. Thank you for sending me some news of Harriet Martineau. I have often said lately, "I wonder how she is." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1857.] I am glad you retain a doubt in favor of the _dagger_, and wish I could convert you to entire approval, for I am much more satisfied when your feeling is thoroughly with me. But it would be the death of my story to substitute a dream for the real scene. Dreams usually play an important part in fiction, but rarely, I think, in actual life. So many of us have reason to know that criminal impulses may be felt by a nature which is nevertheless guarded by its entire constitution from the commission of crime, that I can't help hoping that my Caterina will not forfeit the sympathy of all my readers. The answer you propose to give to curious inquirers is the best possible. For several reasons I am very anxious to retain my _incognito_ for some time to come, and, to an author not already famous, anonymity is the highest _prestige_. Besides, if George Eliot turns out a dull dog and an ineffective writer--a mere flash in the pan--I, for one, am determined to cut him on the first intimation of that disagreeable fact. The fates have willed that this shall be a very melancholy story, and I am longing to be a little merrier again. On the 16th March Mr. Lewes and George Eliot started for Plymouth, Penzance, and the Scilly Isles, and we have the following recollections of their stay there: [Sidenote: Recollections, Scilly Isles, March-May, 1857.] I had never before seen a granite coast, and on the southern side of the island of St. Mary's one sees such a coast in its most striking and characteristic forms. Rectangular crevices, the edges of which have been rounded by weather, give many of the granite masses a resemblance to bales of wool or cotton heaped on each other; another characteristic form is the mushroom-shaped mass, often lying poised on the summits of more cubical bowlders or fragments; another is the immense flat platform stretching out like a pier into the sea; another the oval basins formed by the action of the rain-water on the summits of the rocks and bowlders. The coloring of the rocks was very various and beautiful; sometimes a delicate grayish-green, from the shaggy byssus which clothes it, chiefly high up from the water; then a light, warm brown; then black; occasionally of a rich yellow; and here and there purplish. Below the rocks, on the coast, are almost everywhere heaps of white bowlders, sometimes remarkably perfect ovals, and looking like huge eggs of some monstrous bird. Hardly any weed was to be seen on the granite, except here and there in a rock-pool, green with young ulva; and no barnacles incrust the rock, no black mussels, scarcely any limpets. The waves that beat on this coast are clear as crystal, and we used to delight in watching them rear themselves like the horses of a mighty sea-god as they approached the rocks on which they were broken into eddies of milky foam. Along a great part of this southern coast there stretch heathy or furzy downs, over which I used to enjoy rambling immensely; there is a sense of freedom in those unenclosed grounds that one never has in a railed park, however extensive. Then, on the north side of the island, above Sandy Bar, what a view we used to get of the opposite islands and reefs, with their delicious violet and yellow tints--the tall ship or two anchored in the Sound, changing their aspect like living things, and when the wind was at all high the white foam prancing round the reefs and rising in fountain-like curves above the screen of rocks! Many a wet and dirty walk we had along the lanes, for the weather was often wet and almost always blustering. Now and then, however, we had a clear sky and a calm sea, and on such days it was delicious to look up after the larks that were soaring above us, or to look out on the island and reef studded sea. I never enjoyed the lark before as I enjoyed it at Scilly--never felt the full beauty of Shelley's poem on it before. A spot we became very fond of towards the close of our stay was Carne Lea, where, between two fine, jutting piles of granite, there was a soft down, gay with the pretty pink flowers of the thrift, which, in this island, carpets the ground like greensward. Here we used to sit and lie in the bright afternoons, watching the silver sunlight on the waves--bright silver, not golden--it is the morning and evening sunlight that is golden. A week or two after our arrival we made the acquaintance of Mr. Moyle, the surgeon, who became a delightful friend to us, always ready to help with the contents of his surgery or anything else at his command. We liked to have him come and smoke a cigar in the evening, and look in now and then for a little lesson in microscopy. The little indications of the social life at Scilly that we were able to pick up were very amusing. I was repeatedly told, in order to make me aware who Mr. Hall was, that he married a Miss Lemon. The people at St. Mary's imagine that the lawyers and doctors at Penzance are a sort of European characters that every one knows. We heard a great deal about Mr. Quill, an Irishman, the Controller of the Customs; and one day, when we were making a call on one of the residents, our host said two or three times, at intervals, "I wish you knew Quill!" At last, on our farewell call, we saw the distinguished Quill, with his hair plastered down, his charming smile, and his trousers with a broad stripe down each leg. Our host amused us by his contempt for curs: "Oh, I wouldn't have a cur--there's nothing to look at in a cur!"[55] [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th April, 1857.] The smallest details, written in the hastiest way, that will enable me to imagine you as you are, are just what I want; indeed, all I care about in correspondence. We are more and more in love with these little islands. There is not a tree to be seen, but there are grand granite hills on the coast, such as I never saw before, and furze-covered hills with larks soaring and singing above them, and zoological wonders on the shore to fill our bottles and our souls at once. For some time I have been unusually weak and knock-up-able. Our landlady is an excellent woman, but, like almost all peculiarly domestic women, has not more than rudimentary ideas of cooking; and in an island where you can get nothing but beef, except by sending to Penzance, that supreme science has its maximum value. She seems to think eating a purely arbitrary procedure--an abnormal function of mad people who come to Scilly; and if we ask her what the people live on here, is quite at a loss to tell us, apparently thinking the question relates to the abstruser portion of natural history. But I insist, and give her a culinary lecture every morning, and we do, in the end, get fed. Altogether our life here is so far better than the golden age that we work as well as play. That is the happy side of things. But there is a very sad one to me which I shall not dwell upon--only tell you of. More than a week ago I received the news that poor Chrissey had lost one of her pretty little girls of fever; that the other little one--they were the only two she had at home with her--was also dangerously ill, and Chrissey herself and her servant apparently attacked by typhus too. The thought of her in this state is a perpetual shadow to me in the sunshine. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th April, 1857.] I shudder at entering on such great subjects (as "Design") in letters; my idle brain wants lashing to work, like a negro, and will do nothing under a slighter stimulus. We are enjoying a retrogression to old-fashioned reading. I rush on the slightest pretext to Sophocles, and am as excited about blind old Oedipus as any young lady can be about the latest hero with magnificent eyes. But there is _one_ new book we have been enjoying, and so, I hope, have you--the "Life of Charlotte Brontë." Deeply affecting throughout; in the early part romantic, poetic, as one of her own novels; in the later years tragic, especially to those who know what sickness is. Mrs. Gaskell has done her work admirably, both in the industry and care with which she has gathered and selected her material, and in the feeling with which she has presented it. There is one exception, however, which I regret very much. She sets down Branwell's conduct entirely to remorse. Remorse may make sad work with a man, but it will not make such a life as Branwell's was in the last three or four years, unless the germs of vice had sprouted and shot up long before, as it seems clear they had in him. What a tragedy!--that picture of the old father and the three sisters trembling, day and night, in terror at the possible deeds of their drunken, brutal son and brother! That is the part of the life which affects me most. [Sidenote: Letter to Isaac P. Evans, 16th April, 1857.] I have been looking anxiously for some further tidings of Chrissey since your last letter, which told me that she and Kate were better, though not out of danger. I try to hope that no news is good news; but if you do not think it troublesome to write, I shall be thankful to have that hope changed into certainty. Meanwhile, to save multiplying letters--which I know you are not fond of--I mention now what will take no harm from being mentioned rather prematurely. I should like Chrissey to have £15 of my next half-year's income, due at the beginning of June, to spend in taking a change of air as soon as she is able to do so; and perhaps, if it were desirable for her to leave before the money has been paid in, you would be so kind as to advance it for a few weeks. I am writing, of course, in ignorance of her actual state; but I should think it must be good for her, as soon as she is able to move, to leave that fever-infected place for a time, and I know the money must have gone very fast in recent expenses. I only suggest the change of air as the thing that I should think best for Chrissey; but, in any case, I should like her to have the money, to do what she pleases with it. If she is well enough please to give her the enclosed note, in which I have suggested to her what I have just written to you. I am much obliged to you for your last letter, and shall be still more so if you will write me word of Chrissey's present condition. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st May, 1857.] Thank you for the pleasant notes of impressions concerning my story, sent to me through Lewes. I will pay attention to your caution about the danger of huddling up my stories. Conclusions are the weak point of most authors, but some of the fault lies in the very nature of a conclusion, which is at best a negation. There must be something wrong in the winding-up of "Amos," for I have heard of two persons who are disappointed with the conclusion. But the story never presented itself to me as possible to be protracted after Milly's death. The drama ends there. I am thinking of writing a short epilogue to "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," and I will send it you with the proof from Jersey, where, on a strict promise that I am not to be dissected, I shall shortly join our friend Lewes. The third story will be very different from either of the preceding, which will perhaps be an advantage, as poor Tina's sad tale was necessarily rather monotonous in its effects. The epilogue to "Mr. Gilfil" was written sitting on the Fortification Hill, Scilly Isles, one sunshiny morning. [Sidenote: Jersey, Recollections, 1857.] It was a beautiful moment (12th May) when we came to our lodgings at Gorey. The orchards were all in blossom--and this is an island of orchards. They cover the slopes; they stretch before you in shady, grassy, indefinite extent through every other gateway by the roadside; they flourish in some spots almost close to the sea. What a contrast to the Scilly Isles! There you stand on the hills like a sparrow on the housetop; here you are like the same sparrow when he is hopping about on the branches with green above him, green below, and green all round. Gorey stands in Granville Bay, where the grand old castle of Mont Orgueil stands and keeps guard on a fine rocky promontory overlooking the little harbor dotted with fishing craft. There is a charming piece of common, or down, where you can have the quietest, easiest walking, with a carpet of minute wild-flowers that are not hindered from flourishing by the sandy rain of the coast. I delighted extremely in the brownish-green softness of this undulating common, here and there varied with a patch of bright green fern--all the prettier for two little homesteads set down upon it, with their garden-fence and sheltering trees. It was pretty in all lights, but especially the evening light, to look round at the castle and harbor, the village and the scattered dwellings peeping out from among trees on the hill. The castle is built of stone which has a beautiful pinkish-gray tint, and the bright green ivy hangs oblique curtains on its turreted walls, making it look like a natural continuation or outgrowth of the rocky and grassy height on which it stands. Then the eye wanders on to the right and takes in the church standing half-way down the hill, which is clothed with a plantation, and shelters the little village, with its cloud of blue smoke; still to the right, and the village breaks off, leaving nothing but meadows in front of the slope that shuts out the setting sun, and only lets you see a hint of the golden glory that is reflected in the pink, eastern clouds. The first lovely walk we found inland was the Queen's Fern Valley, where a broad strip of meadow and pasture lies between two high slopes covered with woods and ferny wilderness. When we first saw this valley it was in the loveliest spring-time; the woods were a delicious mixture of red and tender green and purple. We have watched it losing that spring beauty and passing into the green and flowery luxuriance of June, and now into the more monotonous summer tint of July. When the blossoms fell away from the orchards my next delight was to look at the grasses mingled with the red sorrel; then came the white umbelliferous plants, making a border or inner frame for them along the hedgerows and streams. Another pretty thing here is the luxuriance of the yellow iris, that covers large pieces of moist ground with its broad blades. Everywhere there are tethered cows, looking at you with meek faces--mild-eyed, sleek, fawn-colored creatures, with delicate, downy udders. Another favorite walk of ours was round by Mont Orgueil, along the coast. Here we had the green or rocky slope on one side of us, and on the other the calm sea stretching to the coast of France, visible on all but the murkiest days. But the murky days were not many during our stay, and our evening walks round the coast usually showed us a peaceful, scarcely rippled sea, plashing gently on the purple pebbles of the little scalloped bays. There were two such bays within the boundary of our sea-side walk in that direction, and one of them was a perpetual wonder to us, in the luxuriant verdure of meadows and orchards and forest-trees that sloped down to the very shore. No distressed look about the trees as if they were ever driven harshly back by the winter winds--it was like an inland slope suddenly carried to the coast. As for the inland walks, they are inexhaustible. The island is one labyrinth of delicious roads and lanes, leading you by the most charming nooks of houses with shady grounds and shrubberies, delightful farm homesteads, and trim villas. It was a sweet, peaceful life we led here. Good creatures, the Amys, our host and hostess, with their nice boy and girl, and the little white kid--the family pet. No disagreeable sounds to be heard in the house, no unpleasant qualities to hinder one from feeling perfect love to these simple people. We have had long rambles and long readings. But our choice of literature has been rather circumscribed in this out-of-the-way place. The "Life of George Stephenson" has been a real profit and pleasure. I have read Draper's "Physiology" aloud for grave evening hours, and such books as Currer Bell's "Professor," Mlle. d'Auny's "Mariage en Province," and Miss Ferrier's "Marriage," for lighter food. The last, however, we found ourselves unable to finish, notwithstanding Miss Ferrier's high reputation. I have been getting a smattering of botany from Miss Catlow and from Dr. Thomson's little book on wild-flowers, which have created at least a longing for something more complete on the subject. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d May, 1857.] Such hedgerows in this island! Such orchards, white against the green slopes, and shady walks by the woodside, with distracting wild-flowers. We enjoy the greenery and variety of this bushy island all the better for our stay on bare Scilly, which we had gone to and fro upon till we knew it by heart. Our little lodgings are very snug--only 13_s._ a week--a nice little sitting-room, with a workroom adjoining for Mr. Lewes, who is at this moment in all the bliss of having discovered a parasitic worm in a cuttlefish. We dine at five, and our afternoons are almost exhausted in rambling. I hope to get up my strength in this delicious quiet, and have fewer interruptions to work from headache than I have been having since Christmas. I wonder if I should have had the happiness of seeing Cara if I had been at Richmond now. I would rather see her than any one else in the world--except poor Chrissey. Tell me when you have read the life of Currer Bell. Some people think its revelations in bad taste--making money out of the dead, wounding the feelings of the living, etc. What book is there that some people or other will not find abominable? We thought it admirable, cried over it, and felt the better for it. We read Cromwell's letters again at Scilly with great delight. In May Mr. Lewes writes to Mr. John Blackwood: "We were both amused with the divination of the Manx seer and his friend Liggers." This is the first mention of the individual, whose real name was Liggins of Nuneaton, who afterwards became notorious for laying claim to the authorship of the "Scenes of Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede." "Janet's Repentance" had been begun on the 18th April, and the first three parts were finished in Jersey. In reference to the "Scenes of Clerical Life" there are the following entries in the Journal: [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] _May 2._--Received letter from Blackwood expressing his approbation of Part IX. of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story." He writes very pleasantly, says the series is attributed by many to Bulwer, and that Thackeray thinks highly of it. This was a pleasant fillip to me, who am just now ready to be dispirited on the slightest pretext. _May 21._--The other day we had a pleasant letter from Herbert Spencer, saying that he had heard "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" discussed by Baynes and Dallas, as well as previously by Pigott, all expressing warm approval, and curiosity as to the author. _May 26._--Received a pleasant letter from Blackwood, enclosing one from Archer Gurney to the author of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story." I subjoin this letter, as it is the first she received in her character of a creative author, and it still bears a pencil memorandum in her writing: "This letter he brought up to me at Jersey after reading it, saying, with intense joy, 'Her fame is beginning.'" [Sidenote: Letter from Rev. Archer Gurney, to the author of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," 14th May, 1857.] "BUCKINGHAM (BUCKS), _Thursday, 14th May, 1857_. "Sir,--Will you consider it impertinent in a brother author and old reviewer to address a few lines of earnest sympathy and admiration to you, excited by the purity of your style, originality of your thoughts, and absence of all vulgar seeking for effect in those 'Scenes of Clerical Life' now appearing in _Blackwood_? If I mistake not much, your muse of invention is no hackneyed one, and your style is too peculiar to allow of your being confounded with any of the already well-known writers of the day. Your great and characteristic charm is, to my mind, Nature. You frequently, indeed, express what I may call brilliant ideas, but they always seem to come unsought for, never, as in Lytton, for instance, to be elaborated and placed in the most advantageous light. I allude to such brief aphoristic sayings as 'Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms'--'All with that brisk and cheerful air which a sermon is often observed to produce when it is quite finished.' By-the-bye. I am one of the cloth, and might take exception to certain hints, perhaps, but these are dubious. What I see plainly I admire honestly, and trust that more good remains behind. Will you always remain equally natural? That is the doubt. Will the fear of the critic, or the public, or the literary world, which spoils almost every one, never master you? Will you always write to please yourself, and preserve the true independence which seems to mark a real supremacy of intellect? But these questions are, I fear, impertinent. I will conclude. Pardon this word of greeting from one whom you may never see or know, and believe me your earnest admirer, ARCHER GURNEY. "The Author of 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story.'" [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] _June._--Blackwood writes from London that he hears nothing but approval of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story." Lord Stanley, among other people, had spoken to him about the "Clerical Scenes," at Bulwer's, and was astonished to find Blackwood in the dark as to the author. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 2d June, 1857.] I send you by the same post with this the first part of my third story, which I hope will not disappoint you. The part is, I think, rather longer than my parts have usually been, but it would have been injurious to the effect of the story to pause earlier. Pleasant letters like yours are the best possible stimulus to an author's powers, and if I don't write better and better the fault will certainly not lie in my editor, who seems to have been created in pre-established harmony with the organization of a susceptible contributor. This island, too, with its grassy valleys and pretty, indented coast is not at all a bad haunt for the Muses, if, as one may suppose, they have dropped their too scanty classical attire, and appear in long dresses and brown hats, like decent Christian women likely to inspire "Clerical Scenes." Moreover, having myself a slight zoological weakness, I am less alarmed than most people at the society of a zoological maniac. So that, altogether, your contributor is in promising circumstances, and if he doesn't behave like an animal in good condition, is clearly unworthy of his keep. I am much gratified to have made the conquest of Professor Aytoun; but with a parent's love for the depreciated child, I can't help standing up for "Amos" as better than "Gilfil." Lewes seems to have higher expectations from the third story than from either of the preceding; but I can form no judgment myself until I have quite finished a thing, and see it aloof from my actual self. I can only go on writing what I feel, and waiting for the proof that I have been able to make others feel. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th June, 1857.] Richmond is _not_ fascinating in "the season" or through the summer. It is hot, noisy, and haunted with Cockneys; but at other times we love the Park with an increasing love, and we have such a kind, good landlady there, that it always seems like going home when we return to Park Shot. She writes to us: "I hope you will make your fortune--but you must always live with me," which, considering that she gets less out of us than other lodgers, is a proof of affection in a landlady. Yes! we like our wandering life at present, and it is fructifying, and brings us material in many ways; but we keep in perspective the idea of a cottage among green fields and cows, where we mean to settle down (after we have once been to Italy), and buy pots and kettles and keep a dog. Wherever we are we work hard--and at work which brings _present_ money; for we have too many depending on us to be _dilettanti_ or idlers. I wish it to be understood that I should never invite any one to come and see me who did not ask for the invitation. You wonder how my face has changed in the last three years. Doubtless it is older and uglier, but it ought not to have a bad expression, for I never have anything to call out my ill-humor or discontent, which you know were always ready enough to come on slight call, and I have everything to call out love and gratitude. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. John Cash (Miss Mary Sibree), 6th June, 1857.] Your letter was very sweet to me. The sense of my deficiencies in the past often presses on me with a discouraging weight, and to know that any one can remember me lovingly, helps me to believe that there has been some good to balance the evil. I like to think of you as a happy wife and mother; and since Rosehill must have new tenants, I like to think that you and yours are there rather than any one else, not only because of my own confidence in your nature, but because our dear friends love you so much as a neighbor. You know I can never feel otherwise than sorry that they should not have ended their days in that pretty home; but the inevitable regret is softened as much as possible by the fact that the home has become yours. It is very nice to hear that Mrs. Sibree can relish anything of my writing. She was always a favorite with me; and I remember very vividly many pleasant little conversations with her. Seventy-two! How happy you are to have a dear, aged mother, whose heart you can gladden. I was a good deal touched by the letter your brother wrote to you about accepting, or, rather, declining, more pupils. I feel sure that his sensitive nature has its peculiar trials and struggles in this strange life of ours, which some thick-skinned mortals take so easily. I am very happy--happy in the highest blessing life can give us, the perfect love and sympathy of a nature that stimulates my own to healthful activity. I feel, too, that all the terrible pain I have gone through in past years, partly from the defects of my own nature, partly from outward things, has probably been a preparation for some special work that I may do before I die. That is a blessed hope, to be rejoiced in with trembling. But even if that hope should be unfulfilled, I am contented to have lived and suffered for the sake of what has already been. You see your kind letter has made me inclined to talk about myself, but, as we do not often have any communication with each other, I know it will be a gratification to your sympathetic nature to have a few direct words from me that will assure you of my moral well-being. I hope your little ones are just like you--just as fair and sweet-tempered. [Sidenote: Journal, June, 1857.] I sent off the first part of "Janet's Repentance," but to my disappointment Blackwood did not like it so well--seemed to misunderstand the characters, and to be doubtful about the treatment of clerical matters. I wrote at once to beg him to give up printing the story if he felt uncomfortable about it, and he immediately sent a very anxious, cordial letter, saying the thought of putting a stop to the series "gave him quite a turn:" he "did not meet with George Eliots every day"--and so on. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 11th June, 1857.] I am not much surprised and not at all hurt by your letter received to-day with the proof. It is a great satisfaction--in fact, my only satisfaction--that you should give me your judgment with perfect frankness. I am able, I think, to enter into an editor's doubts and difficulties, and to see my stories in some degree from your point of view as well as my own. My answer is written after considering the question as far as possible on all sides, and as I feel that I shall not be able to make any other than _superficial_ alterations in the proof, I will, first of all, say what I can in explanation of the spirit and future course of the present story. The collision in the drama is not at all between "bigoted churchmanship" and evangelicalism, but between _ir_religion and religion. Religion in this case happens to be represented by evangelicalism; and the story, so far as regards the _persecution_, is a real bit in the religious history of England, that happened about eight-and-twenty years ago. I thought I had made it apparent in my sketch of Milby feelings, on the advent of Mr. Tryan, that the conflict lay between immorality and morality--irreligion and religion. Mr. Tryan will carry the reader's sympathy. It is through him that Janet is brought to repentance. Dempster's vices have their natural evolution in deeper and deeper moral deterioration (though not without softening touches), and death from intemperance. Everything is softened from the fact, so far as art is permitted to soften and yet to remain essentially true. My sketches, both of Churchmen and Dissenters, with whom I am almost equally acquainted, are drawn from close observation of them in real life, and not at all from hearsay or from the descriptions of novelists. If I were to undertake to alter language or character. I should be attempting to represent some vague conception of what may possibly exist in other people's minds, but has no existence in my own. Such of your marginal objections as relate to a mere detail I can meet without difficulty by alteration; but as an artist I should be utterly powerless if I departed from my own conceptions of life and character. There is nothing to be done with the story, but either to let Dempster and Janet and the rest be as I _see_ them, or to renounce it as too painful. I am keenly alive at once to the scruples and alarms an editor may feel, and to my own utter inability to write under cramping influence, and on this double ground I should like you to consider whether it will not be better to close the series for the Magazine _now_. I dare say you will feel no difficulty about publishing a volume containing the story of "Janet's Repentance," and I shall accept that plan with no other feeling than that you have been to me the most liberal and agreeable of editors, and are the man of all others I would choose for a publisher. My irony, so far as I understand myself, is not directed against opinions--against any class of religious views--but against the vices and weaknesses that belong to human nature in every sort of clothing. But it is possible that I may not affect other minds as I intend and wish to affect them, and you are a better judge than I can be of the degree in which I may occasionally be offensive. I should like _not_ to be offensive--I should like to touch every heart among my readers with nothing but loving humor, with tenderness, with belief in goodness. But I may have failed in this case of "Janet," at least so far as to have made you feel its publication in the Magazine a disagreeable risk. If so, there will be no harm done by closing the series with No. 2, as I have suggested. If, however, I take your objections to be deeper than they really are--if you prefer inserting the story in spite of your partial dissatisfaction, I shall, of course, be happy to appear under "Maga's" wing still. When I remember what have been the successes in fiction, even as republications from "Maga," I can hardly believe that the public will regard my pictures as exceptionally coarse. But in any case there are too many prolific writers who devote themselves to the production of pleasing pictures, to the exclusion of all disagreeable truths, for me to desire to add to their number. In this respect, at least, I may have some resemblance to Thackeray, though I am not conscious of being in any way a disciple of his, unless it constitute discipleship to think him, as I suppose the majority of people with any intellect do, on the whole the most powerful of living novelists. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 8th June, 1857.] I feel every day a greater disinclination for theories and arguments about the origin of things in the presence of all this mystery and beauty and pain and ugliness that floods one with conflicting emotions. We are reading "Aurora Leigh" for the third time, with more enjoyment than ever. I know no book that gives me a deeper sense of communion with a large as well as beautiful mind. It is in process of appearing in a third edition, and no wonder. If I live five years longer the positive result of my existence on the side of truth and goodness will outweigh the small negative good that would have consisted in my not doing anything to shock others, and I can conceive no consequences that will make me repent the past. Do not misunderstand me, and suppose that I think myself heroic or great in any way. Far enough from that! Faulty, miserably faulty I am--but least of all faulty where others most blame. On the 24th July the pleasant sojourn at Jersey came to an end. The travellers returned to 8 Park Shot, Richmond, where Miss Sara Hennell paid them a visit at the end of the month, and Dr. and Mrs. Bodichon (_née_ Miss Barbara L. Smith) came on the 4th of August. On the 12th August there is an entry in the Journal, "Finished the 'Electra' of Sophocles, and began �schylus's 'Agamemnon,'" and then come the following letters: [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, Tuesday, 17th Aug. 1857.] Lewes has just given me your letter of the 15th, with the accompanying one from the Rev. W. P. Jones. Mr. Tryan is not a portrait of any clergyman, living or dead. He is an ideal character, but I hope probable enough to resemble more than one evangelical clergyman of his day. If Mr. Jones's deceased brother was like Mr. Tryan so much the better, for in that case he was made of human nature's finer clay. I think you will agree with me that there are few clergymen who would be depreciated by an identification with Mr. Tryan. But I should rather suppose that the old gentleman, misled by some similarity in outward circumstances, is blind to the discrepancies which must exist where no portrait was intended. As to the rest of my story, so far as its elements were suggested by real persons, those persons have been, to use good Mr. Jones's phrase, "long in eternity." I think I told you that a persecution of the kind I have described did actually take place, and belongs as much to the common store of our religious history as the Gorham Controversy, or as Bishop Blomfield's decision about wax candles. But I only know the _outline_ of the real persecution. The details have been filled in from my imagination. I should consider it a fault which would cause me lasting regret if I had used reality in any other than the legitimate way common to all artists, who draw their materials from their observation and experience. It would be a melancholy result of my fictions if I gave _just_ cause of annoyance to any good and sensible person. But I suppose there is no perfect safeguard against erroneous impressions or a mistaken susceptibility. We are all apt to forget how little there is about us that is unique, and how very strongly we resemble many other insignificant people who have lived before us. I shouldn't wonder if several nieces of pedantic maiden ladies saw a portrait of their aunt in Miss Pratt, but I hope they will not think it necessary, on that ground, to increase the already troublesome number of your correspondents. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Aug. 1857.] We went to see Rosa Bonheur's picture the other day. What power! That is the way women should assert their rights. Writing is part of my religion, and I can write no word that is not prompted from within. At the same time I believe that almost all the best books in the world have been written with the hope of getting money for them. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Sept. 1857.] Unless there be any strong reason to the contrary, I should like to close the series with this story. According to my calculation, which, however, may be an erroneous one, the three stories will make two good volumes--_i.e._, good as to bulk. I have a subject in my mind which will not come under the limitations of the title "Clerical Life," and I am inclined to take a large canvas for it and write a novel. In case of my writing fiction for "Maga" again, I should like to be considerably beforehand with my work, so that you can read a thoroughly decisive portion before beginning to print. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1857.] The days are very peaceful--peacefully busy. One always feels a deeper calm as autumn comes on. I should be satisfied to look forward to a heaven made up of long autumn afternoon walks, quite delivered from any necessity of giving a judgment on the woman question, or of reading newspapers about Indian mutinies. I am so glad there are thousands of good people in the world who have very decided opinions, and are fond of working hard to enforce them. I like to feel and think everything and do nothing, a pool of the "deep contemplative" kind. Some people _do_ prosper--that is a comfort. The rest of us must fall back on the beatitudes--"Blessed are the poor"--that is Luke's version, you know, and it is really, on the whole, more comforting than Matthew's. I'm afraid there are few of us who can appropriate the blessings of the "poor in spirit." We are reading one of the most wonderful books in French or any other literature--Monteil's "Histoire des Français des divers �tats"--a history written on an original plan. If you see any account of it, read that account. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, Saturday, 17th Oct. 1857.] I am very much gratified that my Janet has won your heart and kept up your interest in her to the end. My new story haunts me a good deal, and I shall set about it without delay. It will be a country story--full of the breath of cows and the scent of hay. But I shall not ask you to look at it till I have written a volume or more, and then you will be able to judge whether you will prefer printing it in the Magazine, or publishing it as a separate novel when it is completed. By the way, the sheets of the "Clerical Scenes" are not come, but I shall not want to make any other than verbal and literal corrections, so that it will hardly be necessary for me to go through the sheets _and_ the proofs, which I must, of course, see. I enclose a titlepage with a motto. But if you don't like the motto, I give it up. I've not set my heart on it. I leave the number of copies to be published, and the style of getting up, entirely to your discretion. As to the terms, I wish to retain the copyright, according to the stipulation made for me by Lewes when he sent "Amos Barton;" and whatever you can afford to give me for the first edition I shall prefer having as a definite payment rather than as half profits. You stated, in a letter about "Amos Barton," your willingness to accede to either plan, so I have no hesitation in expressing my wishes. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Oct. 1857.] "Open to conviction," indeed! I should think so. I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid. These are my only prejudices. I _was_ pleased with Mr. Call.[56] He is a man one really cares to talk to--has thoughts, says what he means, and listens to what others say. We should quite like to see him often. And I cannot tell you how much I have felt Mrs. Call's graceful as well as kind behavior to me. Some months ago, before the new edition of the "Biographical History of Philosophy" came out, Mr. Lewes had a letter from a working-man at Leicester, I think, who said that he and some fellow-students met together, on a Sunday, to read the book aloud and discuss it. He had marked some errors of the press and sent them to Mr. Lewes for his new edition. Wasn't that pretty? [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 30th Oct. 1857.] "Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails" is my gospel. There can be no harm in preaching _that_ to women at any rate. But I should be sorry to undertake any more specific enunciation of doctrine on a question so entangled as the "woman question." The part of the Epicurean gods is always an easy one; but because I prefer it so strongly myself, I the more highly venerate those who are struggling in the thick of the contest. "La carrière ouverte aux taléns," whether the talents be feminine or masculine, I am quite confident is a right maxim. Whether "La carrière ouverte à la Sottise" be equally just when made equally universal, it would be too much like "taking sides" for me to say. There are only three entries in the journal for October. [Sidenote: Journal, Oct. 1857.] _Oct. 9._--Finished "Janet's Repentance." I had meant to carry on the series, and especially I longed to tell the story of the "Clerical Tutor," but my annoyance at Blackwood's want of sympathy in the first part (although he came round to admiration at the third part) determined me to close the series and republish them in two volumes. _Oct. 22._--Began my new novel, "Adam Bede." _Oct. 29._--Received a letter from Blackwood offering me £120 for the first edition of "Scenes of Clerical Life." [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Oct. 1857.] I am quite contented with the sum (£120) you offer me for the edition, being thoroughly confident of your disposition to do the best you can for me. I perceive your hope of success for the "Scenes" is not strong, and you certainly have excellent means of knowing the probabilities in such a case. I am not aware that the motto has been used before, but if you suspect it, we had better leave it out altogether. A stale motto would hardly be an ornament to the titlepage. [Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1st Nov. 1857.] How I wish I could get to you by some magic, and have one walk over the hill with you again. Letters are poor things compared with five minutes of looking and speaking, and one kiss. Nevertheless, I do like to have a little letter now and then, though I don't for a moment ask it if you have no spontaneous impulse to give it. I can't help losing belief that people love me--the unbelief is in my nature, and no sort of fork will drive it finally out. I can't help wondering that you can think of _me_ in the past with much pleasure. It all seems so painful to me--made up of blunders and selfishness--and it only comes back upon me as a thing to be forgiven. That is honest, painful truth, and not sentimentality. But I am thankful if others found more good than I am able to remember. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 7th Nov. 1857.] It is pleasant to have the first sheet of one's proof--to see one's paragraphs released from the tight-lacing of double columns, and expanding themselves at their ease. I perceive clearly the desirableness of the short number--for my observation of literary affairs has gone far enough to convince me that neither critical judgment nor practical experience can guarantee any opinion as to rapidity of sale in the case of an unknown author; and I shudder at the prospect of encumbering my publisher's bookshelves. My new story is in progress--slow progress at present. A little sunshine of success would stimulate its growth, I dare say. Unhappily, I am as impressionable as I am obstinate, and as much in need of sympathy from my readers as I am incapable of bending myself to their tastes. But if I can only find a public as cordial and agreeable in its treatment of me as my editor, I shall have nothing to wish. Even my thin skin will be comfortable then. The page is not a shabby one, after all; but I fear the fact of two volumes instead of three is a fatal feature in my style in the eyes of librarians. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Nov. 1857.] One is glad to have one's book (_à propos_ of review of Lewes's "History of Philosophy") spoken well of by papers of good circulation, because it is possible, though not certain, that such praise may help the sale; but otherwise it is hardly worth while to trouble one's self about newspaper reviews, unless they point out some error, or present that very rare phenomenon, a true appreciation, which is the most delicious form in which sympathy can reach one. So much sectarian feeling usually arises in discussions on the subject of phrenology that I confess the associations of the word are not agreeable to me. The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant; and I am often in danger of secreting that sort of venom. [Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 15th Nov. 1857.] It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then, when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand. It is an old weakness of mine to have no faith in affection that does not express itself; and when friends take no notice of me for a long while I generally settle down into the belief that they have become indifferent or have begun to dislike me. That is not the best mental constitution; but it might be worse--for I don't feel obliged to dislike _them_ in consequence. I, for one, ought not to complain if people think worse of me than I deserve, for I have very often reason to be ashamed of my thoughts about others. They almost always turn out to be better than I expected--fuller of kindness towards me at least. In the fundamental doctrine of your book (the philosophy of necessity)--that mind presents itself under the same conditions of invariableness of antecedent and consequent as all other phenomena (the only difference being that the true antecedent and consequent are proportionately difficult to discover as the phenomena are more complex)--I think you know that I agree. And every one who knows what science means must also agree with you that there can be no social science without the admission of that doctrine. I dislike extremely a passage in which you appear to consider the disregard of individuals as a lofty condition of mind. My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. The fact that in the scheme of things we see a constant and tremendous sacrifice of individuals, is, it seems to me, only one of the many proofs that urge upon us our total inability to find in our own natures a key to the Divine mystery. I could more readily turn Christian, and worship Jesus again, than embrace a Theism which professes to explain the proceedings of God. But I don't feel at all wise in these matters. I have a few strong impressions which serve me for my own support and guidance, but do not in the least qualify me to speak as a theorist. Mr. Lewes sends you his kind remembrances, and will not like you any the worse for cutting him up. He has had to perform that office for his own friends sometimes. I suppose phrenology is an open question, on which everybody has a right to speak his mind. Mr. Lewes, feeling the importance of the subject, desired to give it its due place in his "History of Philosophy," and, doing so, he must, of course, say what _he_ believes to be the truth, not what other people believe to be the truth. If you will show where he is mistaken, you will be doing him a service as well as phrenology. His arguments may be bad; but I will answer for him that he has not been guilty of any intentional unfairness. With regard to their system, phrenologists seem to me to be animated by the same sort of spirit as that of religious dogmatists, and especially in this--that in proportion as a man approximates to their opinions without identifying himself with them, they think him offensive and contemptible. It is amusing to read from the opposite side complaints against Mr. Lewes for giving too high a position to phrenology, and a confident opinion that "phrenologists, by their ridiculous pretensions, merit all the contempt that has been thrown on them." Thus doctors differ! But I am much less interested in crusades for or against phrenology than in your happiness at Ivy Cottage.[57] Happiness means all sorts of love and good feeling; and that is the best result that can ever come out of science. Do you know Buckle's "History of Civilization"? I think you would find it a suggestive book. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 24th Nov. 1857.] Anniversaries are sad things--to one who has lived long and done little. Herbert Spencer dined with us the other day--looks well, and is brimful of clever talk as usual. His volume of "Essays" is to come out soon. He is just now on a crusade against the notion of "species." We are reading Harriet Martineau's history with edification, and otherwise feeding our souls, which flourish very well, notwithstanding November weather. [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] _Nov. 28._--A glorious day, still autumnal and not wintry. We have had a delicious walk in the Park, and I think the coloring of the scenery is more beautiful than ever. Many of the oaks are still thickly covered with leaves of a rich yellow-brown; the elms, golden sometimes, still with lingering patches of green. On our way to the Park the view from Richmond hill had a delicate blue mist over it, that seemed to hang like a veil before the sober brownish-yellow of the distant elms. As we came home, the sun was setting on a fog-bank, and we saw him sink into that purple ocean--the orange and gold passing into green above the fog-bank, the gold and orange reflected in the river in more sombre tints. The other day, as we were coming home through the Park, after having walked under a sombre, heavily clouded sky, the western sun shone out from under the curtain, and lit up the trees and grass, thrown into relief on a background of dark purple cloud. Then, as we advanced towards the Richmond end of the Park, the level, reddening rays shone on the dry fern and the distant oaks, and threw a crimson light on them. I have especially enjoyed this autumn, the delicious greenness of the turf, in contrast with the red and yellow of the dying leaves. _Dec. 6_ (_Sunday_).--Finished the "Agamemnon" to-day. In the evenings of late we have been reading Harriet Martineau's "Sketch of the British Empire in India," and are now following it up with Macaulay's articles on Clive and Hastings. We have lately read Harriet Martineau's Introduction to the "History of the Peace." _Dec. 8._--I am reading "Die Familie," by Riehl, forming the third volume of the series, the two first of which, "Land und Volk" and "Die Bürgerliche Gesellschaft," I reviewed for the _Westminster_. A letter from Blackwood to-day tells us that Major Blackwood, during his brother's absence in England, having some reasons, not specified, for being more hopeful about the "Clerical Scenes," resolved to publish 1000 instead of 750; and in consequence of this Blackwood promises to pay me an additional £60 when 750 shall have been sold off. He reports that an elderly clergyman has written to him to say that "Janet's Repentance" is exquisite--another vote to register along with that of Mrs. Nutt's rector, who "cried over the story like a child." _Dec. 10._--Major Blackwood called--an unaffected, agreeable man. It was evident to us, when he had only been in the room a few minutes, that he knew I was George Eliot. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 11th Dec. 1857.] Lewes has read to me your last kind letter, and I am not insensible to the "practical cheerer" it contains. But I rejoice with trembling at the additional 250, lest you should have to repent of them. I have certainly had a good deal of encouragement to believe that there are many minds, both of the more cultured sort and of the common novel-reading class, likely to be touched by my stories; but the word "many" is very elastic, and often shrinks frightfully when measured by a financial standard. When one remembers how long it was before Charles Lamb's Essays were known familiarly to any but the elect few, the very strongest assurance of merit or originality--supposing one so happy as to have that assurance--could hardly do more than give the hope of _ultimate_ recognition. [Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Dec. 1857.] Our affairs are very prosperous just now, making sunshine in a shady, or, rather, in a foggy place. It is a great happiness to me that Mr. Lewes gets more and more of the recognition he deserves; pleasant letters and speeches have been very numerous lately, especially about his "Sea-side Studies," which have appeared in _Blackwood_, and are soon to appear--very much improved and enlarged--in a separate volume. Dear Carlyle writes, _à propos_ of his "Friedrich:" "I have had such a fourteen months as was never appointed me before in this world--sorrow, darkness, and disgust my daily companions; and no outlook visible, except getting a detestable business turned off, or else being driven mad by it." That is his exaggerated way of speaking; and writing is always painful to him. Do you know he is sixty-two! I fear this will be his last book. Tell Mr. Bray I am reading a book of Riehl's, "The Family," forming the sequel to his other volumes. He will be pleased to hear that so good a writer agrees with him on several points about the occupations of women. The book is a good one; and if I were in the way of writing articles, I should write one on it. There is so much to read, and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger. Time is like the Sibylline leaves, getting more precious the less there remains of it. That, I believe, is the correct allusion for a fine writer to make on the occasion. [Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Dec. 1857.] I give up the motto, because it struck you as having been used before; and though I copied it into my note-book when I was re-reading "Amelia" a few months ago, it is one of those obvious quotations which never _appear_ fresh, though they may actually be made for the first time. I shall be curious to know the result of the subscription. There are a few persons to whom I should like a copy of the volume to be sent, and I enclose a list of them. [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] _Dec. 17._--Read my new story to G. this evening as far as the end of the third chapter. He praised it highly. I have finished "Die Familie," by Riehl--a delightful book. I am in the "Choephoræ" now. In the evenings we are reading "History of the Thirty Years' Peace" and Béranger. Thoroughly disappointed in Béranger. _Dec. 19_ (_Saturday_).--Alone this evening with very thankful, solemn thoughts--feeling the great and unhoped-for blessings that have been given me in life. This last year, especially, has been marked by inward progress and outward advantages. In the spring George's "History of Philosophy" appeared in the new edition; his "Sea-side Studies" have been written with much enjoyment, and met with much admiration, and now they are on the verge of being published with bright prospects. Blackwood has also accepted his "Physiology of Common Life;" the "Goethe" has passed into its third German edition; and, best of all, G.'s head is well. I have written the "Scenes of Clerical Life"--my first book; and though we are uncertain still whether it will be a success as a separate publication, I have had much sympathy from my readers in _Blackwood_, and feel a deep satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that will perhaps remain, like a primrose root in the hedgerow, and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to come. [Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 23d Dec. 1857.] Buckle's is a book full of suggestive material, though there are some strangely unphilosophic opinions mixed with its hardy philosophy. For example, he holds that there is no such thing as _race_ or _hereditary transmission_ of qualities! (I should tell you, at the same time, that he is a necessitarian and a physiological-psychologist.) It is only by such negations as these that he can find his way to the position which he maintains at great length--that the progress of mankind is dependent entirely on the progress of knowledge, and that there has been no intrinsically moral advance. However, he presents that side of the subject which has, perhaps, been least adequately dwelt on. [Sidenote: Journal, 1857.] _Dec. 25_ (_Christmas Day_).--George and I spent this lovely day together--lovely as a clear spring day. We could see Hampstead from the Park so distinctly that it seemed to have suddenly come nearer to us. We ate our turkey together in a happy _solitude à deux_. _Dec. 31_ (_the last night of 1857_).--The dear old year is gone with all its _Weben_ and _Streben_. Yet not gone either; for what I have suffered and enjoyed in it remains to me an everlasting possession while my soul's life remains. This time last year I was alone, as I am now, and dear George was at Vernon Hill. I was writing the introduction to "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story." What a world of thoughts and feelings since then! My life has deepened unspeakably during the last year: I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual enjoyment, a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the past, a more solemn desire to be faithful to coming duties, than I remember at any former period of my life. And my happiness has deepened too; the blessedness of a perfect love and union grows daily. I have had some severe suffering this year from anxiety about my sister, and what will probably be a final separation from her--there has been no other real trouble. Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long, sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age. Our prospects are very bright too. I am writing my new novel. G. is full of his "Physiology of Common Life." He has just finished editing Johnston, for which he is to have 100 guineas, and we have both encouragement to think that our books just coming out, "Sea-side Studies" and "Scenes of Clerical Life," will be well received. So good-bye, dear 1857! May I be able to look back on 1858 with an equal consciousness of advancement in work and in heart. _SUMMARY._ MARCH, 1855, TO DECEMBER, 1857. Return to England--Dover--Bayswater--East Sheen--Books read--Articles written--Letters to Miss Hennell--"Life of Goethe"--Froude's article on Spinoza--Article-writing--"Cumming"--8 Park Shot, Richmond--Letter to Charles Bray--Effect of article on Cumming--Letter to Miss Hennell--Reading on Physiology--Article on Heine--Review for _Leader_, etc.--Books read--Visit to Mrs. Clarke at Attleboro--Sale of "Life of Goethe"--"Shaving of Shagpat"--Spinoza's "Ethics," translation finished--The _Saturday Review_--Ruskin--Alison--Harriet Martineau--Women's earnings--Articles and reviews--Wishes not to be known as translator of the "Ethics"--Article on Young begun--Visit to Ilfracombe--Description--Zoophyte hunting--Finished articles on Young and Riehl--Naturalistic experience--Delightful walks--Rev. Mr. Tugwell--Devonshire lanes and springs--Tendency to scientific accuracy--Sunsets--Cocklewomen at Swansea--Letters to Miss Hennell and Mrs. Peter Taylor--Tenby--Zoology--Thoreau's "Walden"--Feeling strong in mind and body--Barbara Leigh Smith comes to Tenby--George Eliot anxious to begin her fiction-writing--Mr. E. F. S. Pigott--Return to Richmond--Mr. Lewes takes his boys to Hofwyl--George Eliot writes article on "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists"--"How I came to write fiction"--Correspondence between Mr. Lewes and Mr. John Blackwood about MS. of "Amos Barton"--"Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" begun--Books read--Letter from John Blackwood to the author of "Amos Barton," sending copy of the January, 1857, number of the Magazine and fifty guineas--Reply--Blackwood's admiration--Albert Smith's appreciation--Letters to Blackwood--Name of George Eliot assumed--Dutch school in art--Artistic bent--Letter to Miss Hennell--Intolerance--Letter to John Blackwood on Mr. Swayne comparing writing to Goldsmith's--Letter to Miss Hennell on essay "Christianity and Infidelity"--Letter to Blackwood--Caterina and the dagger scene--Trip to Penzance and the Scilly Isles--Description of St. Mary's--Mr. Moyle, the surgeon--Social Life--Letter to Mrs. Bray, anxiety about sister--Letter to Miss Sara Hennell--"Life of Charlotte Brontë"--Letter to Isaac P. Evans--Mrs. Clarke's illness--Letter to Blackwood--Conclusions of stories--Jersey--Description of Gorey--Delightful walks--Reading Draper's "Physiology"--Miss Catlow and Dr. Thomson on wild-flowers--"Life of George Stephenson"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Life in Jersey--Liggins appears on the scene--"Janet's Repentance"--Series attributed to Bulwer--Thackeray thinks highly of it--Letter from Herbert Spencer about "Mr. Gilfil"--Letter from Archer Gurney--Lord Stanley thinks highly of the "Scenes"--Letter to Blackwood, with First Part of "Janet's Repentance"--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Richmond--Expression of face--Letter to Mrs. John Cash--Happiness in her life and hope in her work--Chilled by Blackwood's want of enthusiasm about "Janet"--Letter to John Blackwood on "Janet"--Letter to Miss Sarah Hennell--"Aurora Leigh"--Return to Richmond--Letter to John Blackwood on "Janet"--Letters to Miss Hennell--Rosa Bonheur--Thought not action--Mr. and Mrs. Call--Letter to John Blackwood--Haunted by new story--Letter to Charles Bray--"The Woman Question"--Close of "Clerical Scenes" series--"Adam Bede" begun--Receives £120 for first edition of "Scenes of Clerical Life"--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Unbelief in people's love--Letter to John Blackwood--Sheets of "Clerical Scenes"--Letter to Miss Hennell--Newspaper criticism--Letter to Charles Bray--"The Philosophy of Necessity"--Sympathy with individuals--Objection to Theism--Phrenology--Happiness the best result that can ever come out of science--Letters to Miss Hennell--Reading Riehl's "The Family"--Hunger for Knowledge--Buckle's "History of Civilization"--Autumn days at Richmond--Reading the "Agamemnon"--Harriett Martineau's "Sketch of the British Empire in India"--Macaulay's essays on Clive and Hastings--Major Blackwood calls and suspects identity of George Eliot--Reading the "Choephoræ"--"History of the Thirty Years' Peace," and Béranger--Thankfulness in reviewing experience of 1857. FOOTNOTES: [49] G. writes that this sonnet is Barnwell's.--[Note written later.] [50] "Land und Volk." [51] Mr. Edward Smyth Pigott, who remained to the end of their lives a very close and much valued friend of Mr. Lewes and George Eliot. [52] By Thoreau. [53] About the article on Riehl's book, "The Natural History of German Life." [54] "Baillie Prize Essay on Christianity and Infidelity: an Exposition of the Arguments on both Sides." By Miss Sara Hennell. [55] "Mill on the Floss," chap. iii. book iv. Bob Jakin. [56] Mr. W. M. W. Call, author of "Reverberations and other Poems," who married Mr. Charles Hennell's widow--formerly Miss Brabant. As will be seen from the subsequent correspondence, Mr. and Mrs. Call remained among the Lewes's warm friends to the end, and Mr. Call is the author of an interesting paper on George Eliot in the _Westminster Review_ of July, 1881. [57] The Brays' new house at Coventry. APPENDIX. As this volume is going through the press, I have to thank Mrs. John Cash of Coventry for the following valuable additional information in regard to the important subject of Miss Evans's change of religious belief in 1841-42, and for her further general recollections of the Coventry period of George Eliot's life: I was sixteen years of age in 1841; and, as I have already stated, my first remembrance of Miss Evans is of her call on my father and mother, with their friend and neighbor Mrs. Pears, when in conversation she gave expression to her great appreciation of the writings of Isaac Taylor. The controversy raised by the "Tracts for the Times," which gave occasion for the publication of Mr. Taylor's "Ancient Christianity," being now remote, I give the following extract from a footnote in Trench's "Notes on the Parables," to show the influence such a work as Mr. Taylor's would be likely to exercise on the mind of one who esteemed its author; and also the feeling it excited against an eminently religious man, by revelations which he desired and believed would serve the cause of New Testament Christianity. The note is on the "Tares." The quotation, containing the reference, is from Menken: "Many so-called Church historians (_authors of 'Ancient Christianity' and the like_), ignorant of the purpose and of the hidden glory of the Church, have their pleasure in the Tares, and imagine themselves wonderfully wise and useful when out of Church history (which ought to be the history of the Light and the Truth) they have made a shameful history of error and wickedness." It was upon her first or second interview with my mother that Miss Evans told her how shocked she had been by the apparent union of religious feeling with a low sense of morality among the people in the district she visited, who were mostly Methodists. She gave as an instance the case of a woman who, when a falsehood was clearly brought home to her by her visitors, said, "She did not feel that she had grieved the Spirit much." Now those readers of the letters to Miss Lewis who are acquainted with modern Evangelicalism, even in its "after-glow," especially as it was presented to the world by Church of England teaching and practice, will recognize its characteristics in the moral scrupulousness, the sense of obligation on the part of Christians to avoid the very appearance of evil, the practical piety, which those letters reveal. Mrs. Evans (Miss Lewis tells me) was a very serious, earnest-minded woman, anxiously concerned for the moral and religious training of her children: glad to place them under the care of such persons as the Misses Franklin, to whose school a mother of a different order objected, on the ground that "it was where that saint Mary Ann Evans had been." It is natural then that, early awed by and attracted towards beliefs cherished by the best persons she had known, and advocated in the best books she had read, the mind of Miss Evans should have been stirred by exhibitions of a _theoretic_ severance of religion from morality, whether presented among the disciples of "Ancient Christianity" or by the subjects of its modern revivals: it is probable that she may thereby have been led, as others have been, to a reconsideration of the creeds of Christendom, and to further inquiry concerning their origin. On the same grounds it is likely that the presentation of social virtues, apart from evangelical motives, would impress her; and I have authority for stating that to the inquiry of a friend in after-years, as to what influence she attributed the first unsettlement of her orthodox views, she quickly made answer: "Oh, Walter Scott's." Now I well remember her speaking to me of Robert Hall's confession that he had been made unhappy for a week by the reading of Miss Edgeworth's Tales, in which useful, good, and pleasant lives are lived with no reference to religious hopes and fears; and her drawing my attention to the real greatness of mind and sincerity of faith which this candid confession betokened. Such remarks, I think, throw light upon the _way_ in which her own evangelical belief had been affected by works in which its dogmas are not enforced as necessary springs of virtuous action. I give these scattered reminiscences, in evidence of the half-unconscious preparation (of which Mr. Cross speaks) for a change which was, in my judgment, more gradual in its development, as well as deeper in its character, than might be inferred from the record of its abrupt following upon Miss Evans's introduction to Mr. Hennell's "Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity." The evening's discussion with my father, to which I have referred in my previous communication in the "Life," is now vividly present to my mind. There was not only on her part a vehemence of tone, startling in one so quiet, but a crudeness in her objections, an absence of proposed solution of difficulties, which partly distressed and partly pleased me (siding as I did mentally with my father), and which was in strange contrast to the satisfied calm which marked her subsequent treatment of religious differences. Upon my father's using an argument (common enough in those days) drawn from the present condition of the Jews as a fulfilment of prophecy, and saying, "If I were tempted to doubt the truth of the Bible, I should only have to look at a Jew to confirm my faith in it." "Don't talk to me of the Jews!" Miss Evans retorted, in an irritated tone; "to think that they were deluded into expectations of a temporal deliverer, and then punished because they couldn't understand that it was a spiritual deliverer that was intended!" To something that followed from her, intimating the claim of creatures upon their Creator, my father objected, "But we have no claim upon God." "No claim upon God!" she reiterated indignantly; "we have the strongest possible claim upon him." I regret that I can recall nothing more of a conversation carried on for more than two hours; but I vividly remember how deeply Miss Evans was moved, and how, as she stood against the mantelpiece during the last part of the time, her delicate fingers, in which she held a small piece of muslin on which she was at work, trembled with her agitation. The impression allowed to remain upon the minds of her friends, for some time after she had made declaration of her heresies, was of her being in a troubled, unsettled state. So great were her simplicity and candor in acknowledging this, and so apparent was her earnest desire for truth, that no hesitation was felt in asking her to receive visits from persons of different persuasions, who were judged competent to bring forward the best arguments in favor of orthodox doctrines. One of these was a Baptist minister, introduced to her by Miss Franklin; he was said to be well read in divinity, and I remember him as an original and interesting preacher. After an interview with Miss Evans, meeting my father, he said: "That young lady must have had the devil at her elbow to suggest her doubts, for there was not a book that I recommended to her in support of Christian evidences that she had not read." Mr. Watts, one of the professors at Spring Hill College (Independent), Birmingham, a colleague of Mr. Henry Rogers, author of the "Eclipse of Faith," and who had himself studied at the Hallé University, and enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Tholück, was requested (I think by my mother) to call on Miss Evans. His acquaintance with German Rationalism (rare in England in those days) qualified him to enter into, and it was hoped to meet, difficulties raised by a critical study of the New Testament. After his first or second interview, my brother remembers his observing with emphasis, "_She_ has gone into the question;" and I can recall a reference made by him at a later date in my hearing to Miss Evans's discontent with her own solutions--or rather with her own standpoint at that time. This discontent, he said, "was so far satisfactory." Doubtless it gave him hope of the reconversion of one who had, as he told my mother, awakened deep interest in his own mind, as much by the earnestness which characterized her inquiries as by her exceptional attainments. From letters that passed between my brother and myself during his residence in Germany, I give the following extracts referring to this period. The first is from one of mine, dated September 2, 1842: "In my father's absence we (my mother and I) called on Miss Evans. She now takes up a different position. Her views are not altogether altered, but she says it would be extreme arrogance in so young a person to suppose she had obtained _yet_ any just ideas of truth. She had been reading Dr. Tholück's reply to Strauss's 'Life of Jesus,' but said Mr. Watts had advised her _not_ to read his 'Guido and Julius.'" In answer to this my brother says, in a letter dated Hallé, September 26, 1842, "You have given, doubtless, a very accurate account of Miss Evans's mode of stating her present sentiments. Mr. Watts's reason for advising that Dr. Tholück's 'Guido and Julius' be not read is, perhaps, that the reasoning is not satisfactory." In another letter, addressed to my brother at Hallé, and dated October 28, 1842, I tell him: "Last week mother and I spent an evening with Miss Evans. She seemed more settled in her views than ever, and rests her objections to Christianity on this ground, that Calvinism is Christianity, and, this granted, that it is a religion based on pure selfishness. She occupied, however, a great part of the time in pleading for works of imagination, maintaining that they perform an office for the mind which nothing else can. On the mention of Shakespeare, she praised him with her characteristic ardor, was shocked at the idea that mother should disapprove the perusal of his writings, and quite distressed lest, through her influence, I should be prevented from reading them. She could be content were she allowed no other book than Shakespeare; and in educating a child, this would be the first book she would place in its hands. "She seems to have read a great deal of Italian literature, and speaks with rapture of Metastasio's novels. She has lent me 'Le mie Prigioni' di Silvio Pellico, in his own tongue, as a book to begin with. She says there is a prevailing but very mistaken idea that Italian is an easy language, though she is exceedingly delighted with it. If at any time I wish to begin German, she would very much like to give me some instruction." In addition to the above relating to Shakespeare, I recall the protest that my mother's objection to his plays (my mother _had_ been an ardent lover of "the play"), on the ground that there were things in them that offended her, was as reasonable as the objection to walk in a beautiful garden, "because toads and weeds are to be found in it." In a letter dated March 6, 1843, I write to my brother: "Your request that you may be informed as to the precise nature of Miss Evans's philosophical views I shall find it very difficult to comply with, inasmuch as on our last interview she did not express herself so fully on this subject as formerly; indeed, I believe she is not now so desirous of controversy. She however appeared, to me at least, to have rather changed her ground on some points. For instance, she said she considered Jesus Christ as the embodiment of perfect love, and seemed to be leaning slightly to the doctrines of Carlyle and Emerson when she remarked that she considered the Bible a revelation in a certain sense, as she considered herself a revelation of the mind of Deity, etc. She was very anxious to know if you had heard Schelling." In a letter addressed to my brother at Spring Hill College, and dated October 28, 1844, I find this reference to Dr. Harris, who had been preaching a charity sermon in a chapel at Foleshill: "Miss Evans has just been reproaching me for not informing her of Dr. Harris's preaching, which she would have given anything to hear, as she says his 'Great Teacher' left more delightful impressions on her mind than anything she ever read, and is, she thinks, the best book that could be written by a man holding his principles." In the same letter I mention a second lesson in German given me by Miss Evans. In one written some time before, I tell my brother of her kind proposal, but add that my parents object "on account of her dangerous sentiments." She had, however, since called at our house one morning to renew it: and I well remember how eagerly I watched my mother, looking so affectionately at Miss Evans, and saying quietly, "You know, with your superior intellect, I cannot help fearing you might influence Mary, though you might not intend to do so. But," she went on to say, "her father does not agree with me: he does not see any danger, and thinks we ought not to refuse, as it is so very kind of you to be willing to take the trouble--and we know it would be a great advantage to her to learn German; for she will probably have to earn her living by teaching." Seeing at a glance how matters stood, Miss Evans turned round quickly to me, and said, "Come on Saturday at three o'clock, and bring what books you have." So I went, and began "Don Carlos," continuing to go, with some intervals occasioned by absence, pretty regularly on Saturday afternoons, for nearly two years; but it was not until the end of the second year, when I received Miss Evans's suggestion that the lessons were no longer necessary, and should be discontinued, that I fully realized what this companionship had been to me. The loss was like the loss of sunshine. No promise had been given that my religious belief should be undisturbed, nor was any needed. Interest was turned aside from Calvinism and Arminianism, which at an early age had engaged my attention, towards manifestations of nobility of character, and sympathy with human struggles and sufferings under varied conditions. The character of the "Marquis von Posa" (in "Don Carlos") roused an enthusiasm for heroism and virtue, which it was delightful to express to one who so fully shared it. Placing together one day the works of Schiller, which were in two or three volumes, Miss Evans said, "Oh, if _I_ had given these to the world, how happy I should be!" It must have been to confirm myself in my traditional faith by confession of it, that I once took upon myself to say to her how sure I was that there could be no true morality without evangelical belief. "Oh, it is so, is it?" she said, with the kindest smile, and nothing further passed. From time to time, however, her reverence and affection for the character of Christ and the Apostle Paul, and her sympathy with genuine religious feeling, were very clear to me. Expressing one day her horror of a crowd, she said, "I never would press through one, unless it were to see a second Jesus." The words startled me--the conception of Jesus Christ in my mind being so little associated with a human form; but they impressed me with a certain reality of feeling which I contrasted, as I did Miss Evans's abiding interest in great principles, with the somewhat factitious and occasional as well as fitful affection and concern manifest in many whom I looked up to as "converted" people. Once only do I remember such contrast being made by herself. She attended the service at the opening of a new church at Foleshill, with her father, and remarked to me the next day that, looking at the gayly dressed people, she could not help thinking how much easier life would be to her, and how much better she should stand in the estimation of her neighbors, if only she could take things as they did, be satisfied with outside pleasures, and conform to the popular beliefs without any reflection or examination. Once, too, after being in the company of educated persons "professing and calling themselves Christians," she commented to me on the _tone_ of conversation, often frivolous, sometimes ill-natured, that seemed yet to excite in no one any sense of impropriety. It must have been in those early days that she spoke to me of a visit from one of her uncles in Derbyshire, a Wesleyan, and how much she had enjoyed talking with him, finding she could enter into his feelings so much better than she had done in past times, when her views seemed more in accordance with his own, but were really less so. Among other books, I remember the "Life of Dr. Arnold" interested her deeply. Speaking of it to me one morning, she referred to a conversation she had had with a friend the evening before, and said they had agreed that it was a great good for such men to remain within the pale of orthodoxy, that so they might draw from the old doctrines the best that was to be got from them. Of criticisms on German books read with Miss Evans, I recall one or two. In the "Robbers," she criticised the attempt to enhance the horror of the situation of the abandoned father, by details of physical wretchedness, as a mistake in Art. "Wallenstein" she ranked higher from an intellectual point of view than any other work of Schiller's. The talk of the soldiers in the "Lager" she pointed out to me as "just what it would be." On my faint response, "I suppose it is!" she returned, "No, you do not _suppose_--we _know_ these things;" and then gave me a specimen of what might be a navvy's talk--"The sort of thing such people say, is, 'I'll break off your arm, and bloody your face with the stump.'" Mrs. Bray tells the following incident, as showing her quick perception of excellence from a new and unknown source. "We were sitting," Mrs. Bray says, "one summer afternoon on the lawn at Rosehill, July, 1850, when Marian came running to us from the house with the _Leader_ newspaper in her hand. 'Here is a new poet come into the world!' she exclaimed, and sitting down with us she read from the _Leader_ the poem called 'Hymn,' signed M., and ending with the fine stanza: "'When I have passed a nobler life in sorrow; Have seen rude masses grow to fulgent spheres; Seen how To-day is father of To-morrow, And how the Ages justify the Years, I praise Thee, God.' "The 'Hymn' is now reprinted in Mr. W. M. W. Call's volume of collected poems, called 'Golden Histories.'" Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy" was not so popular as his other works, but Miss Evans was deeply moved by it. Putting it into my hands one morning, she said, "There, read it--_you_ will care for it." The "Life of Jean Paul Richter," published in the Catholic Series (in which the head of Christ, by De la Roche, so dear to her, figures as a vignette), was read and talked of with great interest, as was his "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," translated by the late Mr. Edward Noel of Hampstead. Choice little bits of humor from the latter she greatly enjoyed. Margaret Fuller's "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," I think Miss Evans gave to me. I know it interested her, as did Emerson's "Essays." On his visit to Coventry, we could not, unfortunately, accept Mr. Bray's kind invitation to meet him at Rosehill; but after he had left, Miss Evans soon came up kindly to give us her impressions of him while they were fresh in her memory. She told us he had asked her what had first awakened her to deep reflection, and when she answered, "Rousseau's Confessions," he remarked that this was very interesting, inasmuch as Carlyle had told him that very book had had the same effect upon his mind. As _I_ heard Emerson's remark after his interviews with Miss Evans, it was, "That young lady has a calm, clear spirit." Intercourse, it will be seen, was kept up with my family, otherwise than through the lessons, by calls, and in little gatherings of friends in evenings, when we were favored to hear Miss Evans sing. Her voice was not strong, and I think she preferred playing on the piano; but her low notes were effective, and there was always an elevation in the rendering. As I knew Miss Evans, no one escaped her notice. In her treatment of servants, for instance, she was most considerate. "They come to me," she used to say, "with all their troubles," as indeed did her friends generally--sometimes, she would confess, to an extent that quite oppressed her. When any object of charity came under her notice, and power to help was within her reach, she was very prompt in rendering it. Our servant's brother or sister, or both of them, died, leaving children dependent on friends themselves poor. Miss Evans at once offered to provide clothing and school-fees for one of these, a chubby-faced little girl four or five years of age. Unexpectedly, however, an aunt at a distance proposed to adopt the child. I recollect taking her to say good-bye to her would-be benefactress, and can see her now, standing still and subdued in her black frock and cape, with Miss Evans kneeling down by her, and saying, after giving her some money, "Then I suppose there is nothing else we can do for her." My husband's mother, who was a member of the Society of Friends, established, with the help of her daughters and a few others interested, an Industrial Home for girls about the age of fourteen. It was in the year 1843, and was, therefore, one of the first institutions of the kind in England. The model was taken from something of the same order attempted by a young girl in France. The girls were, as far as practicable, to maintain themselves, working under conditions of comfort and protection more attainable than in their own homes. The idea was new; the Home could not be started without funds, and my mother undertook to collect for it in her own neighborhood. In a letter to me, written at this time, she tells me she is "not doing much to help dear Mrs. Cash," there being "a prejudice against the scheme;" but adds, "This morning Miss Evans called, and brought me two guineas from her father." I tell of this as one among many indications of Miss Evans's ever-growing zeal to serve humanity in a broader way, motived, as _she_ felt, by a higher aim than what she termed "desire to save one's soul by making up coarse flannel for the poor." In these broad views--in this desire to bring her less advantaged neighbors nearer to her own level, to meet them on common ground, to raise them above the liability to eleemosynary charity--she had Mr. Bray's full sympathy. To me she dwelt frequently upon his genuine benevolence, upon his ways of advancing the interests of the working men, as being, in her judgment, wise and good. She visited periodically, in turn with Mrs. Bray, myself, and a few others, an infant school which Mr. Bray had helped to start; and although this sort of work was so little suited to her, yet so much did she feel the duty of living for others, especially the less privileged, that one morning she came to Mrs. Bray, expressing strongly her desire to help in _any_ work that could be given her. The only thing that could be thought of was the illustration of some lessons in Natural History, on sheets of cardboard, needed then, when prints of the kind were not to be procured for schools. The class of animals to be illustrated by Mrs. Bray on the sheet taken by Miss Evans was the "Rodentiæ," and at the top a squirrel was to figure, the which she undertook to draw. This I have seen, half-finished--a witness to the willing mind; proof that its proper work lay otherwhere. Lectures at the Mechanics' Institute were matters of great interest to Miss Evans; and I remember the pleasure given her by the performance of the music of "Comus," with lecture by Professor Taylor, at our old St. Mary's Hall. In that hall, too, we heard the first lecture on total abstinence that I remember to have heard in Coventry, though of "Temperance Societies" we knew something. The lecturer was the Rev. Mr. Spencer, a clergyman at Hinton Charterhouse, near Bath, and uncle of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Miss Evans was present at the lecture, with Mr. Bray, who told me afterwards he had some difficulty in restraining her from going up, as soon as the lecture was over, to take the pledge, he thought, without due consideration. "I felt," she said, speaking to me afterwards of the lecturer, "that he had got hold of a power for good that was of incalculable worth." I need scarcely say that I received, along with lessons in German, some "rules and lessons for life" from Miss Evans. One of the first was an injunction to be accurate, enforced with the warning that the tendency is to grow less and less so as we get older. The other was tolerance. How well I can remember the remonstrance, "My dear child, the great lesson of life is tolerance." In the proverb, "Live and let live," she saw a principle involved, harder to act upon, she would say, than the maxims of benevolence--I think, because bringing less credit with it. The reading of dramas and romances naturally gives rise to discussion of their main theme. In treating of love and marriage, Miss Evans's feeling was so fine as to satisfy a young girl in her teens, with her impossible ideals. The conception of the union of two persons by so close a tie as marriage, without a previous union of minds as well as hearts, was to her dreadful. "How terrible it must be," she once said to me, "to find one's self tied to a being whose limitations you could see, and must know were such as to prevent your ever being understood!" She thought that though in England marriages were not professedly "arrangés," they were so too often practically: young people being brought together, and receiving intimations that mutual interest was desired and expected, were apt to drift into connections on grounds not strong enough for the wear and tear of life; and this, too, among the middle as well as in the higher classes. After speaking of these and other facts, of how things were and would be, in spite of likelihood to the contrary, she would end by saying, playfully, "Now, remember I tell you this, and I am sixty!" She thought the stringency of laws rendering the marriage-tie (at that date) irrevocable, practically worked injuriously; the effect being "that many wives took far less pains to please their husbands in behavior and appearance, because they knew their own position to be invulnerable." And at a later time she spoke of marriages on the Continent, where separations did not necessarily involve discredit, as being very frequently far happier. One claim, as she regarded it, from equals to each other was this, the right to hear from the aggrieved, "You have ill-treated me; do you not see your conduct is not fair, looked at from my side?" Such frankness would, she said, bring about good understanding better than reticent endurance. Her own filial piety was sufficiently manifest; but of the converse obligation, that of the claim of child upon parent, she was wont to speak thus strongly. "There may be," she would say, "conduct on the part of a parent which should exonerate his child from further obligation to him; but there cannot be action conceivable which should absolve the parent from obligation to serve his child, seeing that for that child's existence he is himself responsible." I did not at the time see the connection between this view and the change of a fundamental nature marked by Miss Evans's earlier contention for our "claim on God." The bearing of the above on orthodox religion I did not see. Some time ago, however, I came across this reflection, made by a clergyman of the Broad Church school--that since the _claims_ of children had, in the plea for schools, been based on the responsibility of parents towards them, a higher principle had been maintained on the platform than was preached from the pulpit, as the basis of the popular theology. In my previous communication in the "Life" I have already made mention of Miss Evans's sympathy with me in my own religious difficulties; and my obligations to her were deepened by her seconding my resolve to acknowledge how much of the traditional belief had fallen away from me and left a simpler faith. In this I found her best help when, as time passed on, my brother saw he could not conscientiously continue in the calling he had chosen. As, however, his heresies were not considered fatal, and he was esteemed by the professors and students of his college, there was for some time hesitation. In this predicament I wrote to him, a little favoring compromise. My mother also wrote. I took the letters to Miss Evans before posting them. She read mine first, with no remark, and then began my mother's, reading until she came upon these words--"In the meantime, let me entreat you not to utter any sentiments, either in the pulpit or in conversation, that you do not believe to be strictly true;" on which she said, turning to me, "Look, this is the important point, what your mother says here," and I immediately put my own letter into the fire. "What are you doing?" she quickly said; and when I answered, "You are right--my mother's letter is to the point, and that only need go," she nodded assent, and, keeping it, sent it enclosed with a few lines from herself. I knew what I had done and so did she: the giving up of the ministry to a young man without other resources was no light matter; and as I rose to go she said, "These are the tragedies for which the world cares so little, but which are so much to me." More than twenty years elapsed before I had again the privilege of seeing George Eliot, and that on one occasion only, after her final settlement in London. It touched me deeply to find how much she had retained of her kind interest in all that concerned me and mine, and I remarked on this to Mr. Lewes, who came to the door with my daughter and myself at parting. "Wonderful sympathy," I said. "Is it not?" said he; and when I added, inquiringly, "The power lies there?" "Unquestionably it does," was his answer; "she forgets nothing that has ever come within the curl of her eyelash; above all, she forgets no one who has ever spoken to her one kind word." END OF VOL. I. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious typographical errors were repaired. Duplicate sidenotes (repeated at the top of continuation pages) were deleted. Latin-1 file: _underscores_ enclose italicized content. P. 99 "[Greek: tho pascha]" and p. 139 "[Greek: nenikekas Galilaie]"--for the actual Greek script see the html version of this volume. 
7469	----	DANIEL DERONDA By George Eliot Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE SPOILED CHILD " II. MEETING STREAMS " III. MAIDENS CHOOSING " IV. GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE " V. MORDECAI " VI. REVELATIONS " VII. THE MOTHER AND THE SON " VIII. FRUIT AND SEED DANIEL DERONDA. BOOK I.--THE SPOILED CHILD. CHAPTER I. Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle; but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward, divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought really sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us to the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth, it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our story sets out. Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? Was the good or the evil genius dominant in those beams? Probably the evil; else why was the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was the wish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which the whole being consents? She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was occupied in gambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on a ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendid resorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same species of pleasure at a heavy cost of gilt mouldings, dark-toned color and chubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy--forming a suitable condenser for human breath belonging, in great part, to the highest fashion, and not easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere in the like proportion, at least by persons of little fashion. It was near four o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was well-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously constructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serried crowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention bent on the tables. The one exception was a melancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a fancy dress. He alone had his face turned toward the doorway, and fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child stationed as a masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant show, stood close behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table. About this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the outer rows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being mere spectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and then be observed putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just to see what the passion of gambling really was. Those who were taking their pleasure at a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed very distant varieties of European type: Livonian and Spanish, Graeco-Italian and miscellaneous German, English aristocratic and English plebeian. Here certainly was a striking admission of human equality. The white bejewelled fingers of an English countess were very near touching a bony, yellow, crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist to clutch a heap of coin--a hand easy to sort with the square, gaunt face, deep-set eyes, grizzled eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair which seemed a slight metamorphosis of the vulture. And where else would her ladyship have graciously consented to sit by that dry-lipped feminine figure prematurely old, withered after short bloom like her artificial flowers, holding a shabby velvet reticule before her, and occasionally putting in her mouth the point with which she pricked her card? There too, very near the fair countess, was a respectable London tradesman, blonde and soft-handed, his sleek hair scrupulously parted behind and before, conscious of circulars addressed to the nobility and gentry, whose distinguished patronage enabled him to take his holidays fashionably, and to a certain extent in their distinguished company. Not his the gambler's passion that nullifies appetite, but a well-fed leisure, which, in the intervals of winning money in business and spending it showily, sees no better resource than winning money in play and spending it yet more showily--reflecting always that Providence had never manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, and dispassionate enough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much and seeing others lose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeing others win. For the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. In his bearing there might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures he was fit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. Standing close to his chair was a handsome Italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him to place the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by an envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed over to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There was a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; but the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and--probably secure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance--immediately prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of an emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one eye-glass, and held out his hand tremulously when he asked for change. It could surely be no severity of system, but rather some dream of white crows, or the induction that the eighth of the month was lucky, which inspired the fierce yet tottering impulsiveness of his play. But, while every single player differed markedly from every other, there was a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the effect of a mask--as if they had all eaten of some root that for the time compelled the brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action. Deronda's first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull, gas-poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of Spanish shepherd-boys had seemed to him more enviable:--so far Rousseau might be justified in maintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind. But suddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. His attention was arrested by a young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him, was the last to whom his eyes traveled. She was bending and speaking English to a middle-aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next instant she returned to her play, and showed the full height of a graceful figure, with a face which might possibly be looked at without admiration, but could hardly be passed with indifference. The inward debate which she raised in Deronda gave to his eyes a growing expression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from the glow of mingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. At one moment they followed the movements of the figure, of the arms and hands, as this problematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with an air of firm choice; and the next they returned to the face which, at present unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game. The sylph was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in pale-gray, were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in order to pass them back again to the winning point, she looked round her with a survey too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a little of that nature which we call art concealing an inward exultation. But in the course of that survey her eyes met Deronda's, and instead of averting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantly conscious that they were arrested--how long? The darting sense that he was measuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was of different quality from the human dross around her, that he felt himself in a region outside and above her, and was examining her as a specimen of a lower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched the moment with conflict. It did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but it sent it away from her lips. She controlled herself by the help of an inward defiance, and without other sign of emotion than this lip-paleness turned to her play. But Deronda's gaze seemed to have acted as an evil eye. Her stake was gone. No matter; she had been winning ever since she took to roulette with a few napoleons at command, and had a considerable reserve. She had begun to believe in her luck, others had begun to believe in it: she had visions of being followed by a _cortège_ who would worship her as a goddess of luck and watch her play as a directing augury. Such things had been known of male gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy? Her friend and chaperon who had not wished her to play at first was beginning to approve, only administering the prudent advice to stop at the right moment and carry money back to England--advice to which Gwendolen had replied that she cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings. On that supposition the present moment ought to have made the flood-tide in her eager experience of gambling. Yet, when her next stake was swept away, she felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty she had (without looking) of that man still watching her was something like a pressure which begins to be torturing. The more reason to her why she should not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent to loss or gain. Her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they should quit the table. For reply Gwendolen put ten louis on the same spot: she was in that mood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of any end beyond the satisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the puerile stupidity of a dominant impulse includes luck among its objects of defiance. Since she was not winning strikingly, the next best thing was to lose strikingly. She controlled her muscles, and showed no tremor of mouth or hands. Each time her stake was swept off she doubled it. Many were now watching her, but the sole observation she was conscious of was Deronda's, who, though she never looked toward him, she was sure had not moved away. Such a drama takes no long while to play out: development and catastrophe can often be measured by nothing clumsier than the moment-hand. "Faites votre jeu, mesdames et messieurs," said the automatic voice of destiny from between the mustache and imperial of the croupier: and Gwendolen's arm was stretched to deposit her last poor heap of napoleons. "Le jeu ne va plus," said destiny. And in five seconds Gwendolen turned from the table, but turned resolutely with her face toward Deronda and looked at him. There was a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but it was at least better that he should have kept his attention fixed on her than that he disregarded her as one of an insect swarm who had no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite of his superciliousness and irony, it was difficult to believe that he did not admire her spirit as well as her person: he was young, handsome, distinguished in appearance--not one of these ridiculous and dowdy Philistines who thought it incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table with a sour look of protest as they passed by it. The general conviction that we are admirable does not easily give way before a single negative; rather when any of Vanity's large family, male or female, find their performance received coldly, they are apt to believe that a little more of it will win over the unaccountable dissident. In Gwendolen's habits of mind it had been taken for granted that she knew what was admirable and that she herself was admired. This basis of her thinking had received a disagreeable concussion, and reeled a little, but was not easily to be overthrown. In the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliant with gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along it or were seated on the ottomans. The Nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale sea-green feather fastened in silver falling backward over her green hat and light brown hair, was Gwendolen Harleth. She was under the wing, or rather soared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her at the roulette-table; and with them was a gentleman with a white mustache and clipped hair: solid-browed, stiff and German. They were walking about or standing to chat with acquaintances, and Gwendolen was much observed by the seated groups. "A striking girl--that Miss Harleth--unlike others." "Yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now--all green and silver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual." "Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind of girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty, Mr. Vandernoodt?" "Very. A man might risk hanging for her--I mean a fool might." "You like a _nez retroussé_, then, and long narrow eyes?" "When they go with such an _ensemble_." "The _ensemble du serpent_?" "If you will. Woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?" "She is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in her cheeks. It is a sort of Lamia beauty she has." "On the contrary, I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is a warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose with its gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her mouth--there never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so finely, eh, Mackworth?" "Think so? I cannot endure that sort of mouth. It looks so self-complacent, as if it knew its own beauty--the curves are too immovable. I like a mouth that trembles more." "For my part, I think her odious," said a dowager. "It is wonderful what unpleasant girls get into vogue. Who are these Langens? Does anybody know them?" "They are quite _comme il faut_. I have dined with them several times at the _Russie_. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her cousin. The girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as possible." "Dear me! and the baron?". "A very good furniture picture." "Your baroness is always at the roulette-table," said Mackworth. "I fancy she has taught the girl to gamble." "Oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece here and there. The girl is more headlong. But it is only a freak." "I hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. Are they rich? Who knows?" "Ah, who knows? Who knows that about anybody?" said Mr. Vandernoodt, moving off to join the Langens. The remark that Gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual this evening was true. But it was not that she might carry out the serpent idea more completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing Deronda, so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose measuring gaze she was still wincing. At last her opportunity came. "Mr. Vandernoodt, you know everybody," said Gwendolen, not too eagerly, rather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to her clear soprano. "Who is that near the door?" "There are half a dozen near the door. Do you mean that old Adonis in the George the Fourth wig?" "No, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadful expression." "Dreadful, do you call it? I think he is an uncommonly fine fellow." "But who is he?" "He is lately come to our hotel with Sir Hugo Mallinger." "Sir Hugo Mallinger?" "Yes. Do you know him?" "No." (Gwendolen colored slightly.) "He has a place near us, but he never comes to it. What did you say was the name of that gentleman near the door?" "Deronda--Mr. Deronda." "What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?" "Yes. He is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. You are interested in him?" "Yes. I think he is not like young men in general." "And you don't admire young men in general?" "Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can't at all guess what this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?" "Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on the terrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. He looked bored." "Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored." "I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I bring it about? Will you allow it, baroness?" "Why not?--since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new _rôle_ of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored," continued Madame von Langen, when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. "Until now you have always seemed eager about something from morning till night." "That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play I must break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen; unless you will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn." "Perhaps this Mr. Deronda's acquaintance will do instead of the Matterhorn." "Perhaps." But Gwendolen did not make Deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. Mr. Vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and when she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home. CHAPTER II. This man contrives a secret 'twixt us two, That he may quell me with his meeting eyes Like one who quells a lioness at bay. This was the letter Gwendolen found on her table:, DEAREST CHILD.--I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child--I wish I could prepare you for it better--but a dreadful calamity has befallen us all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally ruined--your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory--there is not a corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us, and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in the cloud--I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put yourself under some one else's care for the journey. But come as soon as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma, FANNY DAVILOW. The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for, had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a large part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would really come. She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off her hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth light-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room; and as on other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at herself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took no conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting for any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw herself in the corner of the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than to wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of "Poor mamma!" Her mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if Gwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have bestowed it on herself--for was she not naturally and rightfully the chief object of her mamma's anxiety too? But it was anger, it was resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might have gone on playing and won enough to support them all. Even now was it not possible? She had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she possessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in stylish society at German baths that there was no need to be ashamed of it; and even if she had not received her mamma's letter, she would probably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she happened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might have done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some intensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her disposal and a return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly would, still the money would be there. Gwendolen's imagination dwelt on this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been touched with the gambler's mania. She had gone to the roulette-table not because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely capable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of winning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with alternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank sensitively. For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way indebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry to any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and remonstrances. The course that held the least risk of intolerable annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning home, but her will was peremptory. Instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the scenes that might take place on the coming day--now by the tiresome explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was the presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, and--the two keen experiences were inevitably revived together--beholding her again forsaken by luck. This importunate image certainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate departure, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a change of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve when she came into her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the white blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of going to bed? Her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting. Before six o'clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a _naïve_ delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the cheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great or small. Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen could safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the Obere Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after seven. At that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on their walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the _Czarina_ from which eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener's door. This was a chance to be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had struck her fancy? This implicit falsehood passed through her mind as she remembered that the _Czarina_ was Deronda's hotel; but she was then already far up the Obere Strasse, and she walked on with her usual floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the revival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which gave little Mr. Wiener nothing to remark except her proud grace of manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a chain once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently part with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of raising needful money. Gwendolen's dominant regret was that after all she had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians unfortunate at play! But she was the Langens' guest in their hired apartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more than take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the remaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right on, day and night. As she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated herself in the _salon_ to await her friends and breakfast, she still wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should start. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens--the words which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed to pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for Miss Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen took it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She looked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma's letter. Something--she never quite knew what--revealed to her before she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just parted with. Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric handkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on which was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting--"_A stranger who has found Miss Harleth's necklace returns it to her with the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it._" Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner of the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid of a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of "the stranger" that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she do?--Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the "stranger" were he and no other, it would be something too gross for her to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again with that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was entangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling at her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor. Gwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling down her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony and contempt. One thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to quit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the public _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of seeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast was ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace, cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _nécessaire_, pressed her handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such signs of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with the account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing, instead of waiting for help from her friend's maid. There was much protestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she persisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be put into the ladies' compartment and go right on. She could rest exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing. In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the roulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels, and on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and her family were soon to say a last good-bye. CHAPTER III. "Let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered."--BOOK OF WISDOM. Pity that Offendene was not the home of Miss Harleth's childhood, or endeared to her by family memories! A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and--kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. At five years old, mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favor of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead. But this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been wanting in Gwendolen's life. It was only a year before her recall from Leubronn that Offendene had been chosen as her mamma's home, simply for its nearness to Pennicote Rectory, and that Mrs. Davilow, Gwendolen, and her four half-sisters (the governess and the maid following in another vehicle) had been driven along the avenue for the first time, on a late October afternoon when the rooks were crawing loudly above them, and the yellow elm-leaves were whirling. The season suited the aspect of the old oblong red-brick house, rather too anxiously ornamented with stone at every line, not excepting the double row of narrow windows and the large square portico. The stone encouraged a greenish lichen, the brick a powdery gray, so that though the building was rigidly rectangular there was no harshness in the physiognomy which it turned to the three avenues cut east, west and south in the hundred yards' breadth of old plantation encircling the immediate grounds. One would have liked the house to have been lifted on a knoll, so as to look beyond its own little domain to the long thatched roofs of the distant villages, the church towers, the scattered homesteads, the gradual rise of surging woods, and the green breadths of undulating park which made the beautiful face of the earth in that part of Wessex. But though standing thus behind a screen amid flat pastures, it had on one side a glimpse of the wider world in the lofty curves of the chalk downs, grand steadfast forms played over by the changing days. The house was but just large enough to be called a mansion, and was moderately rented, having no manor attached to it, and being rather difficult to let with its sombre furniture and faded upholstery. But inside and outside it was what no beholder could suppose to be inhabited by retired trades-people: a certainty which was worth many conveniences to tenants who not only had the taste that shrinks from new finery, but also were in that border-territory of rank where annexation is a burning topic: and to take up her abode in a house which had once sufficed for dowager countesses gave a perceptible tinge to Mrs. Davilow's satisfaction in having an establishment of her own. This, rather mysteriously to Gwendolen, appeared suddenly possible on the death of her step-father, Captain Davilow, who had for the last nine years joined his family only in a brief and fitful manner, enough to reconcile them to his long absences; but she cared much more for the fact than for the explanation. All her prospects had become more agreeable in consequence. She had disliked their former way of life, roving from one foreign watering-place or Parisian apartment to another, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of hired furniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her appear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two years at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had been put foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a person as herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a social position less than advantageous. Any fear of this latter evil was banished now that her mamma was to have an establishment; for on the point of birth Gwendolen was quite easy. She had no notion how her maternal grandfather got the fortune inherited by his two daughters; but he had been a West Indian--which seemed to exclude further question; and she knew that her father's family was so high as to take no notice of her mamma, who nevertheless preserved with much pride the miniature of a Lady Molly in that connection. She would probably have known much more about her father but for a little incident which happened when she was twelve years old. Mrs. Davilow had brought out, as she did only at wide intervals, various memorials of her first husband, and while showing his miniature to Gwendolen recalled with a fervor which seemed to count on a peculiar filial sympathy, the fact that dear papa had died when his little daughter was in long clothes. Gwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable step-father whom she had been acquainted with the greater part of her life while her frocks were short, said, "Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had not." Mrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over her face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a violence quite unusual in her, "You have no feeling, child!" Gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had never since dared to ask a question about her father. This was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the pain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible, that she should have a small bed in her mamma's room; for Mrs. Davilow's motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had been born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been forgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her. That healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little couch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still, grumbling a refusal. Mrs. Davilow went without the medicine and never reproached her daughter; but the next day Gwendolen was keenly conscious of what must be in her mamma's mind, and tried to make amends by caresses which cost her no effort. Having always been the pet and pride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and maids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it difficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it, and when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt, in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts which look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. Though never even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning insects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent remembrance of her having strangled her sister's canary-bird in a final fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again jarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy a white mouse for her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing herself on the ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her general superiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always made her wince. Gwendolen's nature was not remorseless, but she liked to make her penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her native force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded herself from penitential humiliation. There was more show of fire and will in her than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it. On this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had seen before--the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, Mr. Gascoigne--when all had got down from the carriage, and were standing under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could have a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and staircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood fire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all looked at Gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her decision. Of the girls, from Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in her tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they were girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. Miss Merry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. Mrs. Davilow's worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal which she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. Imagine a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient hacks. "Well, dear, what do you think of the place," said Mrs. Davilow at last, in a gentle, deprecatory tone. "I think it is charming," said Gwendolen, quickly. "A romantic place; anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for anything. No one need be ashamed of living here." "There is certainly nothing common about it." "Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We ought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to this. It would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my uncle and aunt Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna," added Gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise. "We are early," said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to the housekeeper who came forward, "You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?" "Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about the fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I've had 'em in all the rooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish some of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it's had, but I _think_ you'll see the brasses have been done justice to. I _think_ when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne come, they'll tell you nothing has been neglected. They'll be here at five, for certain." This satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the matted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, and followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening from the hall--the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, with a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the side-board, and a Christ breaking bread over the mantel-piece; the library with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and lastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber crowded with venerable knick-knacks. "Mamma, mamma, pray come here!" said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. "Here is an organ. I will be Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa (this was her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?" She had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its owner's slim waist. Mrs. Davilow smiled and said, "A charming picture, my dear!" not indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a housekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a background. "What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her. "I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs--nothing but ribs and darkness--I should think that is Spanish, mamma." "Oh, Gwendolen!" said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room. Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. "How horrible!" said Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said, "You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen." "How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse little creature?" said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, saying, "There is a lock--where is the key? Let the key be found, or else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the key be brought to me." At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, "Let us go up to our own room, mamma." The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady's-maid, telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness. "I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Startin," said Bugle, who had been busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather offended at this irony in a new servant. "I mean the young lady that's to command us all--and well worthy for looks and figure," replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. "She'll know what key it is." "If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle," Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. "I will help mamma." But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection. "That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color that sets you off?" said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand brushing back the stream of hair. "I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my head," said Gwendolen,--"only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint's noses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your perfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of character--a nose of all work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not do so well for tragedy." "Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world," said Mrs. Davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet on the table, and resting her elbow near it. "Now, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning away from the glass with an air of vexation, "don't begin to be dull here. It spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now. What have you to be gloomy about _now_?" "Nothing, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and beginning to take off her dress. "It is always enough for me to see you happy." "But you should be happy yourself," said Gwendolen, still discontentedly, though going to help her mamma with caressing touches. "Can nobody be happy after they are quite young? You have made me feel sometimes as if nothing were of any use. With the girls so troublesome, and Jocosa so dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything make-shift about us, and you looking so dull--what was the use of my being anything? But now you _might_ be happy." "So I shall, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, patting the cheek that was bending near her. "Yes, but really. Not with a sort of make-believe," said Gwendolen, with resolute perseverance. "See what a hand and arm!--much more beautiful than mine. Any one can see you were altogether more beautiful." "No, no, dear; I was always heavier. Never half so charming as you are." "Well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my being dull and not minding anything? Is that what marriage always comes to?" "No, child, certainly not. Marriage is the only happy state for a woman, as I trust you will prove." "I will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. I am determined to be happy--at least not to go on muddling away my life as other people do, being and doing nothing remarkable. I have made up my mind not to let other people interfere with me as they have done. Here is some warm water ready for you, mamma," Gwendolen ended, proceeding to take off her own dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by her mamma. There was silence for a minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while coiling the daughter's hair, "I am sure I have never crossed you, Gwendolen." "You often want me to do what I don't like." "You mean, to give Alice lessons?" "Yes. And I have done it because you asked me. But I don't see why I should, else. It bores me to death, she is so slow. She has no ear for music, or language, or anything else. It would be much better for her to be ignorant, mamma: it is her _rôle_, she would do it well." "That is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, Gwendolen, who is so good to you, and waits on you hand and foot." "I don't see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and put them in their proper places. The hardship is for me to have to waste my time on her. Now let me fasten up your hair, mamma." "We must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. For heaven's sake, don't be scornful to _them_, my dear child! or to your cousin Anna, whom you will always be going out with. Do promise me, Gwendolen. You know, you can't expect Anna to be equal to you." "I don't want her to be equal," said Gwendolen, with a toss of her head and a smile, and the discussion ended there. When Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne and their daughter came, Gwendolen, far from being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. She was introducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the comparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious--no, not anxious, but resolved that they should admire her. Mrs. Gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. But she was darker and slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less languid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector's wife bound to exert a beneficent authority. Their closest resemblance lay in a non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and obedience; but this, owing to the difference in their circumstances, had led them to very different issues. The younger sister had been indiscreet, or at least unfortunate in her marriages; the elder believed herself the most enviable of wives, and her pliancy had ended in her sometimes taking shapes of surprising definiteness. Many of her opinions, such as those on church government and the character of Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness. And there was much to encourage trust in her husband's authority. He had some agreeable virtues, some striking advantages, and the failings that were imputed to him all leaned toward the side of success. One of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more impressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. There were no distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness or of affected ease: in his Inverness cape he could not have been identified except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose which began with an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became straight, and iron-gray hair. Perhaps he owed this freedom from the sort of professional make-up which penetrates skin, tones and gestures and defies all drapery, to the fact that he had once been Captain Gaskin, having taken orders and a diphthong but shortly before his engagement to Miss Armyn. If any one had objected that his preparation for the clerical function was inadequate, his friends might have asked who made a better figure in it, who preached better or had more authority in his parish? He had a native gift for administration, being tolerant both of opinions and conduct, because he felt himself able to overrule them, and was free from the irritations of conscious feebleness. He smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which he did not share--at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which were much in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself, he preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his knowledge of Nesselrode's motives what would have been his conduct if our cabinet had taken a different course. Mr. Gascoigne's tone of thinking after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical rather than theological; not the modern Anglican, but what he would have called sound English, free from nonsense; such as became a man who looked at a national religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation to other things. No clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions, or less of mischievous impracticableness in relation to worldly affairs. Indeed, the worst imputation thrown out against him was worldliness: it could not be proved that he forsook the less fortunate, but it was not to be denied that the friendships he cultivated were of a kind likely to be useful to the father of six sons and two daughters; and bitter observers--for in Wessex, say ten years ago, there were persons whose bitterness may now seem incredible--remarked that the color of his opinions had changed in consistency with this principle of action. But cheerful, successful worldliness has a false air of being more selfish than the acrid, unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is summed up in the terrible words, "Sold, but not paid for." Gwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a man her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and more indifferent judge. At present it was a matter of extreme interest to her that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male relative, and that the family life would cease to be entirely, insipidly feminine. She did not intend that her uncle should control her, but she saw at once that it would be altogether agreeable to her that he should be proud of introducing her as his niece. And there was every sign of his being likely to feel that pride. He certainly looked at her with admiration as he said, "You have outgrown Anna, my dear," putting his arm tenderly round his daughter, whose shy face was a tiny copy of his own, and drawing her forward. "She is not so old as you by a year, but her growing days are certainly over. I hope you will be excellent companions." He did give a comparing glance at his daughter, but if he saw her inferiority, he might also see that Anna's timid appearance and miniature figure must appeal to a different taste from that which was attracted by Gwendolen, and that the girls could hardly be rivals. Gwendolen at least, was aware of this, and kissed her cousin with real cordiality as well as grace, saying, "A companion is just what I want. I am so glad we are come to live here. And mamma will be much happier now she is near you, aunt." The aunt trusted indeed that it would be so, and felt it a blessing that a suitable home had been vacant in their uncle's parish. Then, of course, notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom Gwendolen had always felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made four units utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an obtrusive influential fact in her life. She was conscious of having been much kinder to them than could have been expected. And it was evident to her that her uncle and aunt also felt it a pity there were so many girls:--what rational person could feel otherwise, except poor mamma, who never would see how Alice set up her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows till she had no forehead left, how Bertha and Fanny whispered and tittered together about everything, or how Isabel was always listening and staring and forgetting where she was, and treading on the toes of her suffering elders? "You have brothers, Anna," said Gwendolen, while the sisters were being noticed. "I think you are enviable there." "Yes," said Anna, simply. "I am very fond of them; but of course their education is a great anxiety to papa. He used to say they made me a tomboy. I really was a great romp with Rex. I think you will like Rex. He will come home before Christmas." "I remember I used to think you rather wild and shy; but it is difficult now to imagine you a romp," said Gwendolen, smiling. "Of course, I am altered now; I am come out, and all that. But in reality I like to go blackberrying with Edwy and Lotta as well as ever. I am not very fond of going out; but I dare say I shall like it better now you will be often with me. I am not at all clever, and I never know what to say. It seems so useless to say what everybody knows, and I can think of nothing else, except what papa says." "I shall like going out with you very much," said Gwendolen, well disposed toward this _naïve_ cousin. "Are you fond of riding?" "Yes, but we have only one Shetland pony amongst us. Papa says he can't afford more, besides the carriage-horses and his own nag; he has so many expenses." "I intend to have a horse and ride a great deal now," said Gwendolen, in a tone of decision. "Is the society pleasant in this neighborhood?" "Papa says it is, very. There are the clergymen all about, you know; and the Quallons, and the Arrowpoints, and Lord Brackenshaw, and Sir Hugo Mallinger's place, where there is nobody--that's very nice, because we make picnics there--and two or three families at Wanchester: oh, and old Mrs. Vulcany, at Nuttingwood, and--" But Anna was relieved of this tax on her descriptive powers by the announcement of dinner, and Gwendolen's question was soon indirectly answered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured for them in getting a place like Offendene. Except the rent, it involved no more expense than an ordinary house at Wanchester would have done. "And it is always worth while to make a little sacrifice for a good style of house," said Mr. Gascoigne, in his easy, pleasantly confident tone, which made the world in general seem a very manageable place of residence: "especially where there is only a lady at the head. All the best people will call upon you; and you need give no expensive dinners. Of course, I have to spend a good deal in that way; it is a large item. But then I get my house for nothing. If I had to pay three hundred a year for my house I could not keep a table. My boys are too great a drain on me. You are better off than we are, in proportion; there is no great drain on you now, after your house and carriage." "I assure you, Fanny, now that the children are growing up, I am obliged to cut and contrive," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I am not a good manager by nature, but Henry has taught me. He is wonderful for making the best of everything; he allows himself no extras, and gets his curates for nothing. It is rather hard that he has not been made a prebendary or something, as others have been, considering the friends he has made and the need there is for men of moderate opinions in all respects. If the Church is to keep its position, ability and character ought to tell." "Oh, my dear Nancy, you forget the old story--thank Heaven, there are three hundred as good as I. And ultimately, we shall have no reason to complain, I am pretty sure. There could hardly be a more thorough friend than Lord Brackenshaw--your landlord, you know, Fanny. Lady Brackenshaw will call upon you. And I have spoken for Gwendolen to be a member of our Archery Club--the Brackenshaw Archery Club--the most select thing anywhere. That is, if she has no objection," added Mr. Gascoigne, looking at Gwendolen with pleasant irony. "I should like it of all things," said Gwendolen. "There is nothing I enjoy more than taking aim--and hitting," she ended, with a pretty nod and smile. "Our Anna, poor child, is too short-sighted for archery. But I consider myself a first-rate shot, and you shall practice with me. I must make you an accomplished archer before our great meeting in July. In fact, as to neighborhood, you could hardly be better placed. There are the Arrowpoints--they are some of our best people. Miss Arrowpoint is a delightful girl--she has been presented at Court. They have a magnificent place--Quetcham Hall--worth seeing in point of art; and their parties, to which you are sure to be invited, are the best things of the sort we have. The archdeacon is intimate there, and they have always a good kind of people staying in the house. Mrs. Arrowpoint is peculiar, certainly; something of a caricature, in fact; but well-meaning. And Miss Arrowpoint is as nice as possible. It is not all young ladies who have mothers as handsome and graceful as yours and Anna's." Mrs. Davilow smiled faintly at this little compliment, but the husband and wife looked affectionately at each other, and Gwendolen thought, "My uncle and aunt, at least, are happy: they are not dull and dismal." Altogether, she felt satisfied with her prospects at Offendene, as a great improvement on anything she had known. Even the cheap curates, she incidentally learned, were almost always young men of family, and Mr. Middleton, the actual curate, was said to be quite an acquisition: it was only a pity he was so soon to leave. But there was one point which she was so anxious to gain that she could not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward securing it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her uncle's judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not merely prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been seen under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with her second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and cordially identified with her sister's family, and in having her affairs canvassed and managed with an authority which presupposed a genuine interest. Thus the question of a suitable saddle-horse, which had been sufficiently discussed with mamma, had to be referred to Mr. Gascoigne; and after Gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been provided from Wanchester, had sung to her hearers' admiration, and had induced her uncle to join her in a duet--what more softening influence than this on any uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not been too much taken up by graver matters?--she seized the opportune moment for saying, "Mamma, you have not spoken to my uncle about my riding." "Gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride--a pretty, light, lady's horse," said Mrs. Davilow, looking at Mr. Gascoigne. "Do you think we can manage it?" Mr. Gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows sarcastically at Gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on the elbow of her mamma's chair. "We could lend her the pony sometimes," said Mrs. Gascoigne, watching her husband's face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did. "That might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure to me. I cannot endure ponies," said Gwendolen. "I would rather give up some other indulgence and have a horse." (Was there ever a young lady or gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the sake of the favorite one specified?) "She rides so well. She has had lessons, and the riding-master said she had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount," said Mrs. Davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the horse, would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her. "There is the price of the horse--a good sixty with the best chance, and then his keep," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a tone which, though demurring, betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the demand. "There are the carriage-horses--already a heavy item. And remember what you ladies cost in toilet now." "I really wear nothing but two black dresses," said Mrs. Davilow, hastily. "And the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at present. Besides, Gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters lessons." Here Mrs. Davilow's delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. "If it were not for that, I must really have a more expensive governess, and masters besides." Gwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it. "That is good--that is decidedly good," said Mr. Gascoigne, heartily, looking at his wife. And Gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep young lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long drawing-room, and busied herself with arranging pieces of music. "The dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures," said Mrs. Davilow, in a pleading undertone. "I feel the expense is rather imprudent in this first year of our settling. But she really needs the exercise--she needs cheering. And if you were to see her on horseback, it is something splendid." "It is what we could not afford for Anna," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "But she, dear child, would ride Lotta's donkey and think it good enough." (Anna was absorbed in a game with Isabel, who had hunted out an old back-gammon-board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.) "Certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback," said Mr. Gascoigne. "And Gwendolen has the figure for it. I don't say the thing should not be considered." "We might try it for a time, at all events. It can be given up, if necessary," said Mrs. Davilow. "Well, I will consult Lord Brackenshaw's head groom. He is my _fidus Achates_ in the horsey way." "Thanks," said Mrs. Davilow, much relieved. "You are very kind." "That he always is," said Mrs. Gascoigne. And later that night, when she and her husband were in private, she said, "I thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for Gwendolen. She ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think of. Especially before we see how Fanny manages on her income. And you really have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself." "My dear Nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. This girl is really worth some expense: you don't often see her equal. She ought to make a first-rate marriage, and I should not be doing my duty if I spared my trouble in helping her forward. You know yourself she has been under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second family, keeping her always in the shade. I feel for the girl, And I should like your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your having married rather a better specimen of our kind than she did." "Rather better! I should think so. However, it is for me to be grateful that you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister and her children. I am sure I would not grudge anything to poor Fanny. But there is one thing I have been thinking of, though you have never mentioned it." "What is that?" "The boys. I hope they will not be falling in love with Gwendolen." "Don't presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no danger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is going to India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that cousins will not fall in love. If you begin with precautions, the affair will come in spite of them. One must not undertake to act for Providence in these matters, which can no more be held under the hand than a brood of chickens. The boys will have nothing, and Gwendolen will have nothing. They can't marry. At the worst there would only be a little crying, and you can't save boys and girls from that." Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was the comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, and would have the energy to do it. CHAPTER IV. "_Gorgibus._-- * * * Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte et sacrée: et que c'est faire en honnêtes gens, que de débuter par là. "_Madelon._--Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un roman serait bientôt fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d'abord Cyrus épousait Mandane, et qu'Aronce de plain-pied fût marié à Clélie! * * * Laissez-nous faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n'en pressez pas tant la conclusion." MOLIÈRE. _Les Précieuses Ridicules._ It would be a little hard to blame the rector of Pennicote that in the course of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at Gwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he be expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish his niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would approve as the best possible? It is rather to be set down to his credit that his feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. And in considering the relation of means to ends, it would have been mere folly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic--to have recommended that Gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda's in order that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have insisted that since a fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep herself out of the way. Mr. Gascoigne's calculations were of the kind called rational, and he did not even think of getting a too frisky horse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened with an accident and be rescued by a man of property. He wished his niece well, and he meant her to be seen to advantage in the best society of the neighborhood. Her uncle's intention fell in perfectly with Gwendolen's own wishes. But let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage as the direct end of her witching the world with her grace on horseback, or with any other accomplishment. That she was to be married some time or other she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her marriage would not be of a middling kind, such as most girls were contented with, she felt quietly, unargumentatively sure. But her thoughts never dwelt on marriage as the fulfillment of her ambition; the dramas in which she imagined herself a heroine were not wrought up to that close. To be very much sued or hopelessly sighed for as a bride was indeed an indispensable and agreeable guarantee of womanly power; but to become a wife and wear all the domestic fetters of that condition, was on the whole a vexatious necessity. Her observation of matrimony had inclined her to think it rather a dreary state in which a woman could not do what she liked, had more children than were desirable, was consequently dull, and became irrevocably immersed in humdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion; she could not look forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes to be taken with bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In Gwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the balance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort of standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move the world. She meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking manner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with admiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, seemed pleasant to her fancy. "Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet," said Miss Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come to carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young self-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled at Offendene, with the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club, and invitations to dine with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in her scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable chances; but Gwendolen's confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt well equipped for the mastery of life. With regard to much in her lot hitherto, she held herself rather hardly dealt with, but as to her "education," she would have admitted that it had left her under no disadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what remained of all things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently acquainted with through novels, plays and poems. About her French and music, the two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no ground for uneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and positive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons are born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to impresses them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on it, who can wonder if Gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny? There were many subjects in the world--perhaps the majority--in which she felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to appear stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she would not have felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had turned up in conversation. It must be remembered that no one had disputed her power or her general superiority. As on the arrival at Offendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been, what will Gwendolen think?--if the footman trod heavily in creaking boots, or if the laundress's work was unsatisfactory, the maid said, "This will never do for Miss Harleth"; if the wood smoked in the bedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much from this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to Gwendolen. If, when they were under the stress of traveling, she did not appear at the breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only question was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant--to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of pushing up to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry. Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork kept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer may seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain unusualness about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her graceful movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came into the room on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the use of things in general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. This potent charm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for Gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look for any other would be to ask the reason of daylight when the sun is shining. But beware of arriving at conclusions without comparison. I remember having seen the same assiduous, apologetic attention awarded to persons who were not at all beautiful or unusual, whose firmness showed itself in no very graceful or euphonious way, and who were not eldest daughters with a tender, timid mother, compunctious at having subjected them to inconveniences. Some of them were a very common sort of men. And the only point of resemblance among them all was a strong determination to have what was pleasant, with a total fearlessness in making themselves disagreeable or dangerous when they did not get it. Who is so much cajoled and served with trembling by the weak females of a household as the unscrupulous male--capable, if he has not free way at home, of going and doing worse elsewhere? Hence I am forced to doubt whether even without her potent charm and peculiar filial position Gwendolen might not still have played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her inborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to what she might say or do. However, she had the charm, and those who feared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her character--the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. For Macbeth's rhetoric about the impossibility of being many opposite things in the same moment, referred to the clumsy necessities of action and not to the subtler possibilities of feeling. We cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent; we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a moment is wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of repentance. CHAPTER V. "Her wit Values itself so highly, that to her All matter else seems weak." --_Much Ado About Nothing._ Gwendolen's reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle's expectations. From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Wanchester, where Mr. Quallon the banker kept a generous house, she was welcomed with manifest admiration, and even those ladies who did not quite like her, felt a comfort in having a new, striking girl to invite; for hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. Then, in order to have Gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who was disagreeable, for Mrs. Davilow always made a quiet, picturesque figure as a chaperon, and Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere in request for his own sake. Among the houses where Gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited, was Quetcham Hall. One of her first invitations was to a large dinner-party there, which made a sort of general introduction for her to the society of the neighborhood; for in a select party of thirty and of well-composed proportions as to age, few visitable families could be entirely left out. No youthful figure there was comparable to Gwendolen's as she passed through the long suite of rooms adorned with light and flowers, and, visible at first as a slim figure floating along in white drapery, approached through one wide doorway after another into fuller illumination and definiteness. She had never had that sort of promenade before, and she felt exultingly that it befitted her: any one looking at her for the first time might have supposed that long galleries and lackeys had always been a matter of course in her life; while her cousin Anna, who was really more familiar with these things, felt almost as much embarrassed as a rabbit suddenly deposited in that well-lit-space. "Who is that with Gascoigne?" said the archdeacon, neglecting a discussion of military manoeuvres on which, as a clergyman, he was naturally appealed to. And his son, on the other side of the room--a hopeful young scholar, who had already suggested some "not less elegant than ingenious," emendations of Greek texts--said nearly at the same time, "By George! who is that girl with the awfully well-set head and jolly figure?" But to a mind of general benevolence, wishing everybody to look well, it was rather exasperating to see how Gwendolen eclipsed others: how even the handsome Miss Lawe, explained to be the daughter of Lady Lawe, looked suddenly broad, heavy and inanimate; and how Miss Arrowpoint, unfortunately also dressed in white, immediately resembled a _carte-de-visite_ in which one would fancy the skirt alone to have been charged for. Since Miss Arrowpoint was generally liked for the amiable unpretending way in which she wore her fortunes, and made a softening screen for the oddities of her mother, there seemed to be some unfitness in Gwendolen's looking so much more like a person of social importance. "She is not really so handsome if you come to examine her features," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, later in the evening, confidentially to Mrs. Vulcany. "It is a certain style she has, which produces a great effect at first, but afterward she is less agreeable." In fact, Gwendolen, not intending it, but intending the contrary, had offended her hostess, who, though not a splenetic or vindictive woman, had her susceptibilities. Several conditions had met in the Lady of Quetcham which to the reasoners in that neighborhood seemed to have an essential connection with each other. It was occasionally recalled that she had been the heiress of a fortune gained by some moist or dry business in the city, in order fully to account for her having a squat figure, a harsh parrot-like voice, and a systematically high head-dress; and since these points made her externally rather ridiculous, it appeared to many only natural that she should have what are called literary tendencies. A little comparison would have shown that all these points are to be found apart; daughters of aldermen being often well-grown and well-featured, pretty women having sometimes harsh or husky voices, and the production of feeble literature being found compatible with the most diverse forms of _physique_, masculine as well as feminine. Gwendolen, who had a keen sense of absurdity in others, but was kindly disposed toward any one who could make life agreeable to her, meant to win Mrs. Arrowpoint by giving her an interest and attention beyond what others were probably inclined to show. But self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the prime of life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors, hastily conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. Gwendolen, with all her cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that form of stupidity: it followed in her mind, unreflectingly, that because Mrs. Arrowpoint was ridiculous she was also likely to be wanting in penetration, and she went through her little scenes without suspicion that the various shades of her behavior were all noted. "You are fond of books as well as of music, riding, and archery, I hear," Mrs. Arrowpoint said, going to her for a _tete-à-tete_ in the drawing-room after dinner. "Catherine will be very glad to have so sympathetic a neighbor." This little speech might have seemed the most graceful politeness, spoken in a low, melodious tone; but with a twang, fatally loud, it gave Gwendolen a sense of exercising patronage when she answered, gracefully: "It is I who am fortunate. Miss Arrowpoint will teach me what good music is. I shall be entirely a learner. I hear that she is a thorough musician." "Catherine has certainly had every advantage. We have a first-rate musician in the house now--Herr Klesmer; perhaps you know all his compositions. You must allow me to introduce him to you. You sing, I believe. Catherine plays three instruments, but she does not sing. I hope you will let us hear you. I understand you are an accomplished singer." "Oh, no!--'die Kraft ist schwach, allein die Lust ist gross,' as Mephistopheles says." "Ah, you are a student of Goethe. Young ladies are so advanced now. I suppose you have read everything." "No, really. I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice." For an instant Mrs. Arrowpoint's glance was a little sharper, but the perilous resemblance to satire in the last sentence took the hue of girlish simplicity when Gwendolen added, "I would give anything to write a book!" "And why should you not?" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, encouragingly. "You have but to begin as I did. Pen, ink, and paper are at everybody's command. But I will send you all I have written with pleasure." "Thanks. I shall be so glad to read your writings. Being acquainted with authors must give a peculiar understanding of their books: one would be able to tell then which parts were funny and which serious. I am sure I often laugh in the wrong place." Here Gwendolen herself became aware of danger, and added quickly, "In Shakespeare, you know, and other great writers that we can never see. But I always want to know more than there is in the books." "If you are interested in any of my subjects I can lend you many extra sheets in manuscript," said Mrs. Arrowpoint--while Gwendolen felt herself painfully in the position of the young lady who professed to like potted sprats. "These are things I dare say I shall publish eventually: several friends have urged me to do so, and one doesn't like to be obstinate. My Tasso, for example--I could have made it twice the size." "I dote on Tasso," said Gwendolen. "Well, you shall have all my papers, if you like. So many, you know, have written about Tasso; but they are all wrong. As to the particular nature of his madness, and his feelings for Leonora, and the real cause of his imprisonment, and the character of Leonora, who, in my opinion, was a cold-hearted woman, else she would have married him in spite of her brother--they are all wrong. I differ from everybody." "How very interesting!" said Gwendolen. "I like to differ from everybody. I think it is so stupid to agree. That is the worst of writing your opinions; you make people agree with you." This speech renewed a slight suspicion in Mrs. Arrowpoint, and again her glance became for a moment examining. But Gwendolen looked very innocent, and continued with a docile air: "I know nothing of Tasso except the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, which we read and learned by heart at school." "Ah, his life is more interesting than his poetry, I have constructed the early part of his life as a sort of romance. When one thinks of his father Bernardo, and so on, there is much that must be true." "Imagination is often truer than fact," said Gwendolen, decisively, though she could no more have explained these glib words than if they had been Coptic or Etruscan. "I shall be so glad to learn all about Tasso--and his madness especially. I suppose poets are always a little mad." "To be sure--'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling'; and somebody says of Marlowe, 'For that fine madness still he did maintain, Which always should possess the poet's brain.'" "But it was not always found out, was it?" said Gwendolen innocently. "I suppose some of them rolled their eyes in private. Mad people are often very cunning." Again a shade flitted over Mrs. Arrowpoint's face; but the entrance of the gentlemen prevented any immediate mischief between her and this too quick young lady, who had over-acted her _naïveté_. "Ah, here comes Herr Klesmer," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, rising; and presently bringing him to Gwendolen, she left them to a dialogue which was agreeable on both sides, Herr Klesmer being a felicitous combination of the German, the Sclave and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in spectacles. His English had little foreignness except its fluency; and his alarming cleverness was made less formidable just then by a certain softening air of silliness which will sometimes befall even Genius in the desire of being agreeable to Beauty. Music was soon begun. Miss Arrowpoint and Herr Klesmer played a four-handed piece on two pianos, which convinced the company in general that it was long, and Gwendolen in particular that the neutral, placid-faced Miss Arrowpoint had a mastery of the instrument which put her own execution out of question--though she was not discouraged as to her often-praised touch and style. After this every one became anxious to hear Gwendolen sing; especially Mr. Arrowpoint; as was natural in a host and a perfect gentleman, of whom no one had anything to say but that he married Miss Cuttler and imported the best cigars; and he led her to the piano with easy politeness. Herr Klesmer closed the instrument in readiness for her, and smiled with pleasure at her approach; then placed himself at a distance of a few feet so that he could see her as she sang. Gwendolen was not nervous; what she undertook to do she did without trembling, and singing was an enjoyment to her. Her voice was a moderately powerful soprano (some one had told her it was like Jenny Lind's), her ear good, and she was able to keep in tune, so that her singing gave pleasure to ordinary hearers, and she had been used to unmingled applause. She had the rare advantage of looking almost prettier when she was singing than at other times, and that Herr Klesmer was in front of her seemed not disagreeable. Her song, determined on beforehand, was a favorite aria of Belini's, in which she felt quite sure of herself. "Charming!" said Mr. Arrowpoint, who had remained near, and the word was echoed around without more insincerity than we recognize in a brotherly way as human. But Herr Klesmer stood like a statue--if a statue can be imagined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a statue. Gwendolen was pressed to keep her seat and double the general pleasure, and she did not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do so, she moved a little toward Herr Klesmer, saying with a look of smiling appeal, "It would be too cruel to a great musician. You cannot like to hear poor amateur singing." "No, truly; but that makes nothing," said Herr Klesmer, suddenly speaking in an odious German fashion with staccato endings, quite unobservable in him before, and apparently depending on a change of mood, as Irishmen resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or quarrelsome. "That makes nothing. It is always acceptable to see you sing." Was there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority--at least before the late Teutonic conquest? Gwendolen colored deeply, but, with her usual presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by moving away immediately; and Miss Arrowpoint, who had been near enough to overhear (and also to observe that Herr Klesmer's mode of looking at Gwendolen was more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent with good taste), now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to her and said, "Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly tolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his severity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of us. It is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every one else is admiring." "I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst," said Gwendolen, recovering herself. "I dare say I have been extremely ill taught, in addition to having no talent--only liking for music." This was very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind before. "Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said Herr Klesmer, quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "Still, you are not quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair organ. But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing is beneath you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state of culture--a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and thought of people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of deep, mysterious passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. It makes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger. And I shall see." "Oh, not now--by-and-by," said Gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at the sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance. For a lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was startling. But she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and Miss Arrowpoint helped her by saying, "Yes, by-and-by. I always require half an hour to get up my courage after being criticised by Herr Klesmer. We will ask him to play to us now: he is bound to show us what is good music." To be quite safe on this point Herr Klesmer played a composition of his own, a fantasia called _Freudvoll, Leidvoll, Gedankenvoll_--an extensive commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and he certainly fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the piano as that moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having an imperious magic in his fingers that seem to send a nerve-thrill through ivory key and wooden hammer, and compel the strings to make a quivering lingering speech for him. Gwendolen, in spite of her wounded egoism, had fullness of nature enough to feel the power of this playing, and it gradually turned her inward sob of mortification into an excitement which lifted her for the moment into a desperate indifference about her own doings, or at least a determination to get a superiority over them by laughing at them as if they belonged to somebody else. Her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks slightly flushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks. "I wish you would sing to us again, Miss Harleth," said young Clintock, the archdeacon's classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take her to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as Herr Klesmer's performance was ended, "That is the style of music for me. I never can make anything of this tip-top playing. It is like a jar of leeches, where you can never tell either beginnings or endings. I could listen to your singing all day." "Yes, we should be glad of something popular now--another song from you would be a relaxation," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, who had also come near with polite intentions. "That must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have no breadth of horizon. I have just learned that. I have been taught how bad my taste is, and am feeling growing pains. They are never pleasant," said Gwendolen, not taking any notice of Mrs. Arrowpoint, and looking up with a bright smile at young Clintock. Mrs. Arrowpoint was not insensible to this rudeness, but merely said, "Well, we will not press anything disagreeably," and as there was a perceptible outburst of imprisoned conversation just then, and a movement of guests seeking each other, she remained seated where she was, and looked around her with the relief of a hostess at finding she is not needed. "I am glad you like this neighborhood," said young Clintock, well-pleased with his station in front of Gwendolen. "Exceedingly. There seems to be a little of everything and not much of anything." "That is rather equivocal praise." "Not with me. I like a little of everything; a little absurdity, for example, is very amusing. I am thankful for a few queer people; but much of them is a bore." (Mrs. Arrowpoint, who was hearing this dialogue, perceived quite a new tone in Gwendolen's speech, and felt a revival of doubt as to her interest in Tasso's madness.) "I think there should be more croquet, for one thing," said young Clintock; "I am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a croquet club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it croquet is the game of the future. It wants writing up, though. One of our best men has written a poem on it, in four cantos;--as good as Pope. I want him to publish it--You never read anything better." "I shall study croquet to-morrow. I shall take to it instead of singing." "No, no, not that; but do take to croquet. I will send you Jenning's poem if you like. I have a manuscript copy." "Is he a great friend of yours?" "Well, rather." "Oh, if he is only rather, I think I will decline. Or, if you send it to me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which part I like best? Because it is not so easy to know a poem without reading it as to know a sermon without listening." "Decidedly," Mrs. Arrowpoint thought, "this girl is double and satirical. I shall be on my guard against her." But Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions from the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger grounds than those of personal liking, but because the trying little scene at the piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the gentle mind of Miss Arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and visits, her mother being otherwise occupied. CHAPTER VI. "Croyez-vous m'avoir humiliée pour m'avoir appris que la terre tourne autour du soleil? Je vous jure que je ne m'en estime pas moins." --FONTENELLE: _Pluralité des Mondes_. That lofty criticism had caused Gwendolen a new sort of pain. She would not have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not having had Miss Arrowpoint's musical advantages, so as to be able to question Herr Klesmer's taste with the confidence of thorough knowledge; still less, to admit even to herself that Miss Arrowpoint each time they met raised an unwonted feeling of jealousy in her: not in the least because she was an heiress, but because it was really provoking that a girl whose appearance you could not characterize except by saying that her figure was slight and of middle stature, her features small, her eyes tolerable, and her complexion sallow, had nevertheless a certain mental superiority which could not be explained away--an exasperating thoroughness in her musical accomplishment, a fastidious discrimination in her general tastes, which made it impossible to force her admiration and kept you in awe of her standard. This insignificant-looking young lady of four-and-twenty, whom any one's eyes would have passed over negligently if she had not been Miss Arrowpoint, might be suspected of a secret opinion that Miss Harleth's acquirements were rather of a common order, and such an opinion was not made agreeable to think of by being always veiled under a perfect kindness of manner. But Gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable light on itself. The musical Magus who had so suddenly widened her horizon was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward and forward between London and Quetcham soon began to be thought of as offering opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of mind. Meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at Brackenshaw Castle, the Firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her equanimity, being disposed to think approval more trustworthy than objection, and not being one of the exceptional persons who have a parching thirst for a perfection undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps it would have been rash to say then that she was at all exceptional inwardly, or that the unusual in her was more than her rare grace of movement and bearing, and a certain daring which gave piquancy to a very common egoistic ambition, such as exists under many clumsy exteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that the set of the head does not really determine the hunger of the inner self for supremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which the supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in which it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl, whose passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in consistency with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the sordid need of income. Gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the restraints of family conditions, and as ready to look through obligations into her own fundamental want of feeling for them, as if she had been sustained by the boldest speculations; but she really had no such speculations, and would at once have marked herself off from any sort of theoretical or practically reforming women by satirizing them. She rejoiced to feel herself exceptional; but her horizon was that of the genteel romance where the heroine's soul poured out in her journal is full of vague power, originality, and general rebellion, while her life moves strictly in the sphere of fashion; and if she wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies partly, so to speak, in her having on her satin shoes. Here is a restraint which nature and society have provided on the pursuit of striking adventure; so that a soul burning with a sense of what the universe is not, and ready to take all existence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive by the ordinary wirework of social forms and does nothing particular. This commonplace result was what Gwendolen found herself threatened with even in the novelty of the first winter at Offendene. What she was clear upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as ordinary young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she should set about leading any other, and what were the particular acts which she would assert her freedom by doing. Offendene remained a good background, if anything would happen there; but on the whole the neighborhood was in fault. Beyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not much excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came home after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had offended Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most girlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions of acting in charades or theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to bring about by force of will or contrivance. She had never acted--only made a figure in _tableaux vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that she could act well, and having been once or twice to the Théâtre Français, and also heard her mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams and cogitations as to how she would manage her destiny sometimes turned on the question whether she would become an actress like Rachel, since she was more beautiful than that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days before Christmas were passed pleasantly in the preparation of costumes, Greek, Oriental, and Composite, in which Gwendolen attitudinized and speechified before a domestic audience, including even the housekeeper, who was once pressed into it that she might swell the notes of applause; but having shown herself unworthy by observing that Miss Harleth looked far more like a queen in her own dress than in that baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not invited a second time. "Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?" said Gwendolen, one day when she had been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through scraps of scenes with much tragic intention. "You have better arms than Rachel," said Mrs. Davilow, "your arms would do for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is not so deep." "I can make it deeper, if I like," said Gwendolen, provisionally; then she added, with decision, "I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is more feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it seems when she does desperate actions." "There may be something in that," said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. "But I don't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. And if there is anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the men." "Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic criminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures." "Well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--I don't think you would be very bold in crime, thank God." "I am not talking about reality, mamma," said Gwendolen, impatiently. Then her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her cousin, as if taking an opportunity, and said, "Anna, do ask my uncle to let us get up some charades at the rectory. Mr. Middleton and Warham could act with us--just for practice. Mamma says it will not do to have Mr. Middleton consulting and rehearsing here. He is a stick, but we could give him suitable parts. Do ask, or else I will." "Oh, not till Rex comes. He is so clever, and such a dear old thing, and he will act Napoleon looking over the sea. He looks just like Napoleon. Rex can do anything." "I don't in the least believe in your Rex, Anna," said Gwendolen, laughing at her. "He will turn out to be like those wretched blue and yellow water-colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and worship." "Very well, you will see," said Anna. "It is not that I know what is clever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get a fellowship, and nobody is better at games. He is cleverer than Mr. Middleton, and everybody but you call Mr. Middleton clever." "So he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. But he _is_ a stick. If he had to say, 'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her,' he would say it in just the same tone as, 'Here endeth the second lesson.'" "Oh, Gwendolen!" said Anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions. "And it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you very much. I heard Warham say one day to mamma, 'Middleton is regularly spooney upon Gwendolen.' She was very angry with him; but I know what it means. It is what they say at college for being in love." "How can I help it?" said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously. "Perdition catch my soul if I love _him_." "No, of course; papa, I think, would not wish it. And he is to go away soon. But it makes me sorry when you ridicule him." "What shall you do to me when I ridicule Rex?" said Gwendolen, wickedly. "Now, Gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?" said Anna, her eyes filling with tears. "I could not bear it. But there really is nothing in him to ridicule. Only you may find out things. For no one ever thought of laughing at Mr. Middleton before you. Every one said he was nice-looking, and his manners perfect. I am sure I have always been frightened at him because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and his being a nephew of the bishop's, and all that. But you will not ridicule Rex--promise me." Anna ended with a beseeching look which touched Gwendolen. "You are a dear little coz," she said, just touching the tip of Anna's chin with her thumb and forefinger. "I don't ever want to do anything that will vex you. Especially if Rex is to make everything come off--charades and everything." And when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life of Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen's plans, left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open and flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. He was a fine open-hearted youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his father's and Anna's, but softer in expression than the one, and larger in scale than the other: a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying ordinary innocent things so much that vice had no temptation for him, and what he knew of it lay too entirely in the outer courts and little-visited chambers of his mind for him to think of it with great repulsion. Vicious habits were with him "what some fellows did"--"stupid stuff" which he liked to keep aloof from. He returned Anna's affection as fully as could be expected of a brother whose pleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and he had never known a stronger love. The cousins were continually together at the one house or the other--chiefly at Offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather where there was a more complete sway for Gwendolen; and whatever she wished became a ruling purpose for Rex. The charades came off according to her plans; and also some other little scenes not contemplated by her in which her acting was more impromptu. It was at Offendene that the charades and _tableaux_ were rehearsed and presented, Mrs. Davilow seeing no objection even to Mr. Middleton's being invited to share in them, now that Rex too was there--especially as his services were indispensable: Warham, who was studying for India with a Wanchester "coach," having no time to spare, and being generally dismal under a cram of everything except the answers needed at the forthcoming examination, which might disclose the welfare of our Indian Empire to be somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of Browne's Pastorals. Mr. Middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, Gwendolen having flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at first a little pained and jealous at her comradeship with Rex, he presently drew encouragement from the thought that this sort of cousinly familiarity excluded any serious passion. Indeed, he occasionally felt that her more formal treatment of himself was such a sign of favor as to warrant his making advances before he left Pennicote, though he had intended to keep his feelings in reserve until his position should be more assured. Miss Gwendolen, quite aware that she was adored by this unexceptionable young clergyman with pale whiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on the subject than that she had no objection to being adored: she turned her eyes on him with calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating hopes by seeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him--for all meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. Some persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of Anglican leanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things as well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general regarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse, would not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was daring in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in the clergyman's wife; or, that a young man informed by theological reading would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste of a lively, restless young lady like Miss Harleth. But are we always obliged to explain why the facts are not what some persons thought beforehand? The apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way of thinking. As for Rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor Middleton if he had been aware of the excellent curate's inward conflict, he was too completely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any person or thing. He did not observe Gwendolen; he only felt what she said or did, and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of information as to whether she was in the room or out. Before the end of the first fortnight he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for him to think of his life except as bound up with Gwendolen's. He could see no obstacles, poor boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers, since it was one with the unperturbed delight in her image, so that he could no more dream of her giving him pain than an Egyptian could dream of snow. She sang and played to him whenever he liked, was always glad of his companionship in riding, though his borrowed steeds were often comic, was ready to join in any fun of his, and showed a right appreciation of Anna. No mark of sympathy seemed absent. That because Gwendolen was the most perfect creature in the world she was to make a grand match, had not occurred to him. He had no conceit--at least not more than goes to make up the necessary gum and consistence of a substantial personality: it was only that in the young bliss of loving he took Gwendolen's perfection as part of that good which had seemed one with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-embodied nature. One incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts impressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect of her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, like him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises and her high spirits in society. After a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party should be invited to Offendene to witness the performances which went with so much satisfaction to the actors. Anna had caused a pleasant surprise; nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her little parts; one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly observation under her simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well by not trying to be comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had been Gwendolen's desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a charade would occur to her either waking or dreaming that suited her purpose of getting a statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To choose a motive from Racine was of no use, since Rex and the others could not declaim French verse, and improvised speeches would turn the scene into burlesque. Besides, Mr. Gascoigne prohibited the acting of scenes from plays: he usually protested against the notion that an amusement which was fitting for every one else was unfitting for a clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep the line of decorum as drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude his sanction of the young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's house--a very different affair from private theatricals in the full sense of the word. Everybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of Gwendolen's, and Rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the effect of her majesty would not be marred by any one's speech. This pleased her thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the tableau. "Something pleasant, children, I beseech you," said Mrs. Davilow; "I can't have any Greek wickedness." "It is no worse than Christian wickedness, mamma," said Gwendolen, whose mention of Rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark. "And less scandalous," said Rex. "Besides, one thinks of it as all gone by and done with. What do you say to Briseis being led away? I would be Achilles, and you would be looking round at me--after the print we have at the rectory." "That would be a good attitude for me," said Gwendolen, in a tone of acceptance. But afterward she said with decision, "No. It will not do. There must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous." "I have it," said Rex, after a little reflection. "Hermione as the statue in Winter's Tale? I will be Leontes, and Miss Merry, Paulina, one on each side. Our dress won't signify," he went on laughingly; "it will be more Shakespearian and romantic if Leontes looks like Napoleon, and Paulina like a modern spinster." And Hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence, but Gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be just enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the music as a signal for her to step down and advance; when Leontes, instead of embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment, and so the curtain was to fall. The antechamber with folding doors lent itself admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the establishment, with the addition of Jarrett the village carpenter, was absorbed in the preparations for an entertainment, which, considering that it was an imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since we know from ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of success than the original. Gwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this occasion, for she knew that Herr Klesmer was again at Quetcham, and she had taken care to include him among the invited. Klesmer came. He was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in serene contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding syllables more or less articulate--as taking up his cross meekly in a world overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws lest he should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse. Everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all that was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the incident occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of emotion. How it came about was at first a mystery. The tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of applause had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his permission that Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the statue move. Hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six inches, which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and instep, when at the given signal she should advance and descend. "Music, awake her, strike!" said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who, by special entreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood). Herr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord--but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in pale definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Everyone was startled, but all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were recalled by a piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of attitude, but with a change of expression that was terrifying in its terror. She looked like a statue into which a soul of Fear had entered: her pallid lips were parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their long lashes, were dilated and fixed. Her mother, less surprised than alarmed, rushed toward her, and Rex, too, could not help going to her side. But the touch of her mother's arm had the effect of an electric charge; Gwendolen fell on her knees and put her hands before her face. She was still trembling, but mute, and it seemed that she had self-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her signs of terror, for she presently allowed herself to be raised from her kneeling posture and led away, while the company were relieving their minds by explanation. "A magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!" said Klesmer to Miss Arrowpoint. And a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round. "Was it part of the play?" "Oh, no, surely not. Miss Harleth was too much affected. A sensitive creature!" "Dear me! I was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel; were you?" "No; how should I? Some eccentricity in one of the Earl's family long ago, I suppose." "How very painful! Pray shut it up." "Was the door locked? It is very mysterious. It must be the spirits." "But there is no medium present." "How do you know that? We must conclude that there is, when such things happen." "Oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from the piano that sent it open." This conclusion came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if possible to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was thought by Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in an undertone that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her taste. However, the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the lock with an emphasis rather offensively rationalizing--as who should say, "it will not start open again"--putting the key in his pocket as a security. However, Gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and evidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change she had made in the part of Hermione. But when Klesmer said to her, "We have to thank you for devising a perfect climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_," there was a flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a belief what was really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that the betrayal into a passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and wished her to understand that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen cherished the idea that now he was struck with her talent as well as her beauty, and her uneasiness about his opinion was half turned to complacency. But too many were in the secret of what had been included in the rehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides Klesmer took the trouble to soothe Gwendolen's imagined mortification. The general sentiment was that the incident should be let drop. There had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the panel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much alarm of conscience. It was the small Isabel, whose intense curiosity, unsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on the day of arrival at Offendene, had kept her on the watch for an opportunity of finding out where Gwendolen had put the key, of stealing it from the discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and getting on a stool to unlock the panel. While she was indulging her thirst for knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an approaching footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted hurriedly to lock it, but failing and not daring to linger, she withdrew the key and trusted that the panel would stick, as it seemed well inclined to do. In this confidence she had returned the key to its former place, stilling any anxiety by the thought that if the door were discovered to be unlocked nobody would know how the unlocking came about. The inconvenient Isabel, like other offenders, did not foresee her own impulse to confession, a fatality which came upon her the morning after the party, when Gwendolen said at the breakfast-table, "I know the door was locked before the housekeeper gave me the key, for I tried it myself afterward. Some one must have been to my drawer and taken the key." It seemed to Isabel that Gwendolen's awful eyes had rested on her more than on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said, with a trembling lip: "Please forgive me, Gwendolen." The forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if Gwendolen had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else's memory any case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror. She wondered at herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed like a brief remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her normal life; and in this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her helpless fear had shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in well-lit company. Her ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect. She had no permanent consciousness of other fetters, or of more spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever was presented to her under the name of religion, in the same way that some people dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in her, no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it had not occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she had had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was dependent. All these facts about herself she would have been ready to admit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. What she unwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be unaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread, though this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into connection with the religion taught her or with any human relations. She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for example, she was walking without companionship and there came some rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. The little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when some one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her will was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire. To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were sufficiently accounted for by her "sensitiveness" or the "excitability of her nature"; but these explanatory phrases required conciliation with much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery. Heat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of explaining character "sensitiveness" is in much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as a mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene he was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct with all feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful love, but able to love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his young wings and soared happily. CHAPTER VII. "_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by, _Willie_. Hey, ho, bonnilasse! _P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye, _W_. As clear as the crystal glasse. _P_. All as the sunny beame so bright, _W_. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame! _P_. Glaunceth from Phoebus' face forthright, _W_. So love into thy heart did streame." --SPENSER: _Shepard's Calendar_. "The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal superstition."--CHARLES LAMB. The first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent white cloud that seems to set off the blue. Anna was in the secret of Rex's feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said nothing to her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for granted that she knew it. For the first time, too, Anna could not say to Rex what was continually in her mind. Perhaps it might have been a pain which she would have had to conceal, that he should so soon care for some one else more than for herself, if such a feeling had not been thoroughly neutralized by doubt and anxiety on his behalf. Anna admired her cousin--would have said with simple sincerity, "Gwendolen is always very good to me," and held it in the order of things for herself to be entirely subject to this cousin; but she looked at her with mingled fear and distrust, with a puzzled contemplation as of some wondrous and beautiful animal whose nature was a mystery, and who, for anything Anna knew, might have an appetite for devouring all the small creatures that were her own particular pets. And now Anna's heart was sinking under the heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that Gwendolen would never care for Rex. What she herself held in tenderness and reverence had constantly seemed indifferent to Gwendolen, and it was easier to imagine her scorning Rex than returning any tenderness of his. Besides, she was always thinking of being something extraordinary. And poor Rex! Papa would be angry with him if he knew. And of course he was too young to be in love in that way; and she, Anna had thought that it would be years and years before any thing of that sort came, and that she would be Rex's housekeeper ever so long. But what a heart must that be which did not return his love! Anna, in the prospect of his suffering, was beginning to dislike her too fascinating cousin. It seemed to her, as it did to Rex, that the weeks had been filled with a tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned on the subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what he hoped would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his father of: and yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not only about his feelings but--which was more remarkable to Anna--about certain actions. She, on her side, was nervous each time her father or mother began to speak to her in private lest they should say anything about Rex and Gwendolen. But the elders were not in the least alive to this agitating drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime extremely lucid in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily missed by spectators who were running their eyes over the _Guardian_ or the _Clerical Gazette_, and regarded the trivialities of the young ones with scarcely more interpretation than they gave to the action of lively ants. "Where are you going, Rex?" said Anna one gray morning when her father had set off in his carriage to the sessions, Mrs. Gascoigne with him, and she had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the utmost approach he possessed to a hunting equipment. "Going to see the hounds throw off at the Three Barns." "Are you going to take Gwendolen?" said Anna, timidly. "She told you, did she?" "No, but I thought--Does papa know you are going?" "Not that I am aware of. I don't suppose he would trouble himself about the matter." "You are going to use his horse?" "He knows I do that whenever I can." "Don't let Gwendolen ride after the hounds, Rex," said Anna, whose fears gifted her with second-sight. "Why not?" said Rex, smiling rather provokingly. "Papa and mamma and aunt Davilow all wish her not to. They think it is not right for her." "Why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?" "Gwendolen minds nobody sometimes," said Anna getting bolder by dint of a little anger. "Then she would not mind me," said Rex, perversely making a joke of poor Anna's anxiety. "Oh Rex, I cannot bear it. You will make yourself very unhappy." Here Anna burst into tears. "Nannie, Nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?" said Rex, a little impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand. "She will not care for you one bit--I know she never will!" said the poor child in a sobbing whisper. She had lost all control of herself. Rex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving her to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable in vain. He did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness which all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he quickly explained them as springing from little Anna's tenderness, and began to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing her. Every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in a resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new determination to prove that he was right. This sort of certainty had just enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession which an untouched security might have delayed. Gwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when Rex appeared at the gate. She had provided herself against disappointment in case he did not appear in time by having the groom ready behind her, for she would not have waited beyond a reasonable time. But now the groom was dismissed, and the two rode away in delightful freedom. Gwendolen was in her highest spirits, and Rex thought that she had never looked so lovely before; her figure, her long white throat, and the curves of her cheek and chin were always set off to perfection by the compact simplicity of her riding dress. He could not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful lover like Rex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the true and the beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of his love. Most observers would have held it more than equally accountable that a girl should have like impressions about Rex, for in his handsome face there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging quality--as it were a trace of demon ancestry--which made some beholders hesitate in their admiration of Gwendolen. It was an exquisite January morning in which there was no threat of rain, but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a mild winter scene--the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows sprinkled with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple bareness of the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. The horses' hoofs made a musical chime, accompanying their young voices. She was laughing at his equipment, for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was enjoying her laughter; the freshness of the morning mingled with the freshness of their youth; and every sound that came from their clear throats, every glance they gave each other, was the bubbling outflow from a spring of joy. It was all morning to them, within and without. And thinking of them in these moments one is tempted to that futile sort of wishing--if only things could have been a little otherwise then, so as to have been greatly otherwise after--if only these two beautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves to each other then and there, and never through life have swerved from that pledge! For some of the goodness which Rex believed in was there. Goodness is a large, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one stage when we talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate future; is the germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put forth delicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are ready to be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. Each stage has its peculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a particular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by damage brought from foulness afar. "Anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the hounds this morning," said Rex, whose secret associations with Anna's words made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of subjects. "Did she?" said Gwendolen, laughingly. "What a little clairvoyant she is!" "Shall you?" said Rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it if the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons. "I don't know. I can't tell what I shall do till I get there. Clairvoyants are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. I am not fond of what is likely: it is always dull. I do what is unlikely." "Ah, there you tell me a secret. When once I knew what people in general would be likely to do, I should know you would do the opposite. So you would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. I shall be able to calculate on you. You couldn't surprise me." "Yes, I could. I should turn round and do what was likely for people in general," said Gwendolen, with a musical laugh. "You see you can't escape some sort of likelihood. And contradictoriness makes the strongest likelihood of all. You must give up a plan." "No, I shall not. My plan is to do what pleases me." (Here should any young lady incline to imitate Gwendolen, let her consider the set of her head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin protrusive, and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their position, ten to one Gwendolen's words would have had a jar in them for the sweet-natured Rex. But everything odd in her speech was humor and pretty banter, which he was only anxious to turn toward one point.) "Can you manage to feel only what pleases you?" said he. "Of course not; that comes from what other people do. But if the world were pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. Girls' lives are so stupid: they never do what they like." "I thought that was more the case of the men. They are forced to do hard things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too. And then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so after all you have your own way." "I don't believe it. I never saw a married woman who had her own way." "What should you like to do?" said Rex, quite guilelessly, and in real anxiety. "Oh, I don't know!--go to the North Pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go to be a queen in the East like Lady Hester Stanhope," said Gwendolen, flightily. Her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at a loss to give an answer of deeper origin. "You don't mean you would never be married?" "No; I didn't say that. Only when I married, I should not do as other women do." "You might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more dearly than anything else in the world," said Rex, who, poor youth, was moving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win distinction. "I know one who does." "Don't talk of Mr. Middleton, for heaven's sake," said Gwendolen, hastily, a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; "that is Anna's chant. I hear the hounds. Let us go on." She put her chestnut to a canter, and Rex had no choice but to follow her. Still he felt encouraged. Gwendolen was perfectly aware that her cousin was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of any consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful love herself. She wished the small romance of Rex's devotion to fill up the time of his stay at Pennicote, and to avoid explanations which would bring it to an untimely end. Besides, she objected, with a sort of physical repulsion, to being directly made love to. With all her imaginative delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of maidenhood in her. But all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the scene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and she exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with her. The color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen with a strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had never yet ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it, and so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and her uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent exercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other parts of the country, no lady of good position followed the Wessex hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby, the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been a kitchenmaid and still spoke like one. This last argument had some effect on Gwendolen, and had kept her halting between her desire to assert her freedom and her horror of being classed with Mrs. Gadsby. Some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally went to see the hounds throw off; but it happened that none of them were present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby, with her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not visible to make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check on the animal stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the hounds, the pawing of the horses, the varying voices of men, the movement hither and thither of vivid color on the background of green and gray stillness:--that utmost excitement of the coming chase which consists in feeling something like a combination of dog and horse, with the superadded thrill of social vanities and consciousness of centaur-power which belongs to humankind. Rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept nearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as effectually as a revolving lever. "Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth," said Lord Brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained pink, with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened deluge seem of no consequence. "We shall have a first-rate run. A pity you didn't go with us. Have you ever tried your little chestnut at a ditch? you wouldn't be afraid, eh?" "Not the least in the world," said Gwendolen. And that was true: she was never fearful in action and companionship. "I have often taken him at some rails and a ditch too, near--" "Ah, by Jove!" said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something was happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off his horse, Rex was bringing his sober hackney up to Gwendolen's side when--the hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if the whirl of the earth were carrying it; Gwendolen along with everything else; no word of notice to Rex, who without a second thought followed too. Could he let Gwendolen go alone? under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the run, but he was just now perturbed by the check which had been put on the impetus to utter his love, and get utterance in return, an impetus which could not at once resolve itself into a totally different sort of chase, at least with the consciousness of being on his father's gray nag, a good horse enough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits. Gwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and felt as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of risk, a core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But she thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too strong for her to reflect on his mortification. But Gwendolen was apt to think rather of those who saw her than of those whom she could not see; and Rex was soon so far behind that if she had looked she would not have seen him. For I grieve to say that in the search for a gate, along a lane lately mended, Primrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw Rex over his head. Fortunately a blacksmith's son who also followed the hounds under disadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck some even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear, and happened to be within sight of Rex's misfortune. He ran to give help which was greatly needed, for Rex was a great deal stunned, and the complete recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. Joel Dagge on this occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose knowledge is of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only knew perfectly well what was the matter with the horse, how far they were both from the nearest public-house and from Pennicote Rectory, and could certify to Rex that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but also offered experienced surgical aid. "Lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! I's seen Nash, the bone-setter, do it, and done it myself for our little Sally twice over. It's all one and the same, shoulders is. If you'll trusten to me and tighten your mind up a bit, I'll do it for you in no time." "Come then, old fellow," said Rex, who could tighten his mind better than his seat in the saddle. And Joel managed the operation, though not without considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so pitiably pale while tightening his mind, that Joel remarked, "Ah, sir, you aren't used to it, that's how it is. I's see lots and lots o' joints out. I see a man with his eye pushed out once--that was a rum go as ever I see. You can't have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things. But it went in again. I's swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I'm alive. Now, sirrey" (this was addressed to Primrose), "come alonk--you musn't make believe as you can't." Joel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to say more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped Rex to get home with as little delay as possible. There was no alternative but to get home, though all the while he was in anxiety about Gwendolen, and more miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an accident, than in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was about to cause his father. He comforted himself about her by reflecting that every one would be anxious to take care of her, and that some acquaintance would be sure to conduct her home. Mr. Gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his study, when he was interrupted by seeing poor Rex come in with a face which was not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a little distressed. He was secretly the favorite son, and a young portrait of the father; who, however, never treated him with any partiality--rather, with an extra rigor. Mr. Gascoigne having inquired of Anna, knew that Rex had gone with Gwendolen to the meet at the Three Barns. "What is the matter?" he said hastily, not laying down his pen. "I'm very sorry, sir; Primrose has fallen down and broken his knees." "Where have you been with him?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with a touch of severity. He rarely gave way to temper. "To the Three Barns to see the hounds throw off." "And you were fool enough to follow?" "Yes, sir. I didn't go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a hole." "And you got hurt yourself, I hope, eh!" "I got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for me. I'm just a little battered, that's all." "Well, sit down." "I'm very sorry about the horse, sir; I knew it would be a vexation to you." "And what has become of Gwendolen?" said Mr. Gascoigne, abruptly. Rex, who did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him, answered at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his previous paleness. Then he said, nervously, "I am anxious to know--I should like to go or send at once to Offendene--but she rides so well, and I think she would keep up--there would most likely be many round her." "I suppose it was she who led you on, eh?" said Mr. Gascoigne, laying down his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Rex with more marked examination. "It was natural for her to want to go: she didn't intend it beforehand--she was led away by the spirit of the thing. And, of course, I went when she went." Mr. Gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with quiet irony,--"But now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not furnished with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your cousin. You must give up that amusement. You have spoiled my nag for me, and that is enough mischief for one vacation. I shall beg you to get ready to start for Southampton to-morrow and join Stilfox, till you go up to Oxford with him. That will be good for your bruises as well as your studies." Poor Rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had been no better than a girl's. "I hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir." "Do you feel too ill?" "No, not that--but--" here Rex bit his lips and felt the tears starting, to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more firmly, "I want to go to Offendene, but I can go this evening." "I am going there myself. I can bring word about Gwendolen, if that is what you want." Rex broke down. He thought he discerned an intention fatal to his happiness, nay, his life. He was accustomed to believe in his father's penetration, and to expect firmness. "Father, I can't go away without telling her that I love her, and knowing that she loves me." Mr. Gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being more wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every consideration was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in the case. He had quickly made up his mind and to answer the more quietly, "My dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps of that sort. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during an idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it. There is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be totally rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first cousins are undesirable. Make up your mind to a brief disappointment. Life is full of them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a mild beginning for you." "No, not mild. I can't bear it. I shall be good for nothing. I shouldn't mind anything, if it were settled between us. I could do anything then," said Rex, impetuously. "But it's of no use to pretend that I will obey you. I can't do it. If I said I would, I should be sure to break my word. I should see Gwendolen again." "Well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter again--you will promise me that," said Mr. Gascoigne, quietly; and Rex did not, could not refuse. The rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for going to Offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that Gwendolen had got home safely. He found her more than safe--elated. Mr. Quallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and she had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that, Lord Brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself delighted with her spirited riding. All this was told at once to her uncle, that he might see how well justified she had been in acting against his advice; and the prudential rector did feel himself in a slight difficulty, for at that moment he was particularly sensible that it was his niece's serious interest to be well regarded by the Brackenshaws, and their opinion as to her following the hounds really touched the essence of his objection. However, he was not obliged to say anything immediately, for Mrs. Davilow followed up Gwendolen's brief triumphant phrases with, "Still, I do hope you will not do it again, Gwendolen. I should never have a moment's quiet. Her father died by an accident, you know." Here Mrs. Davilow had turned away from Gwendolen, and looked at Mr. Gascoigne. "Mamma, dear," said Gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over the question of the fears which Mrs. Davilow had meant to account for, "children don't take after their parents in broken legs." Not one word had yet been said about Rex. In fact there had been no anxiety about him at Offendene. Gwendolen had observed to her mamma, "Oh, he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair," and it could not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way for Lord Brackenshaw's bringing her home. But now Mr. Gascoigne said, with some emphasis, looking at Gwendolen, "Well, the exploit has ended better for you than for Rex." "Yes, I dare say he had to make a terrible round. You have not taught Primrose to take the fences, uncle," said Gwendolen, without the faintest shade of alarm in her looks and tone. "Rex has had a fall," said Mr. Gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into an arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers together, while he closed his lips and looked at Gwendolen, who said, "Oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, I hope?" with a correct look of anxiety such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses are all the while quick with triumph; and Mrs. Davilow, in the same moment, uttered a low "Good heavens! There!" Mr. Gascoigne went on: "He put his shoulder out, and got some bruises, I believe." Here he made another little pause of observation; but Gwendolen, instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only deepened the compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again, "Oh, poor fellow! it is nothing serious, then?" and Mr. Gascoigne held his diagnosis complete. But he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and went on still with a purpose. "He got his arm set again rather oddly. Some blacksmith--not a parishioner of mine--was on the field--a loose fish, I suppose, but handy, and set the arm for him immediately. So after all, I believe, I and Primrose come off worst. The horse's knees are cut to pieces. He came down in a hole, it seems, and pitched Rex over his head." Gwendolen's face had allowably become contented again, since Rex's arm had been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter part of her uncle's speech, her elated spirits made her features less unmanageable than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a descending scale of laughter. "You are a pretty young lady--to laugh at other people's calamities," said Mr. Gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he had not had counteracting reasons to be glad that Gwendolen showed no deep feeling on the occasion. "Pray forgive me, uncle. Now Rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the figure he and Primrose would cut--in a lane all by themselves--only a blacksmith running up. It would make a capital caricature of 'Following the Hounds.'" Gwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing where others might only see matter for seriousness. Indeed, the laughter became her person so well that her opinion of its gracefulness was often shared by others; and it even entered into her uncle's course of thought at this moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be fascinated by this young witch--who, however, was more mischievous than could be desired. "How can you laugh at broken bones, child?" said Mrs. Davilow, still under her dominant anxiety. "I wish we had never allowed you to have the horse. You will see that we were wrong," she added, looking with a grave nod at Mr. Gascoigne--"at least I was, to encourage her in asking for it." "Yes, seriously, Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a judicious tone of rational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, "I strongly recommend you--I shall ask you to oblige me so far--not to repeat your adventure of to-day. Lord Brackenshaw is very kind, but I feel sure that he would concur with me in what I say. To be spoken of as 'the young lady who hunts' by way of exception, would give a tone to the language about you which I am sure you would not like. Depend upon it, his lordship would not choose that Lady Beatrice or Lady Maria should hunt in this part of the country, if they were old enough to do so. When you are married, it will be different: you may do whatever your husband sanctions. But if you intend to hunt, you must marry a man who can keep horses." "I don't know why I should do anything so horrible as to marry without _that_ prospect, at least," said Gwendolen, pettishly. Her uncle's speech had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly; but she felt that she was committing herself, and after moving carelessly to another part of the room, went out. "She always speaks in that way about marriage," said Mrs. Davilow; "but it will be different when she has seen the right person." "Her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?" said Mr. Gascoigne. Mrs. Davilow shook her head silently. "It was only last night she said to me, 'Mamma, I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to make them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous.'" Mr. Gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the subject. The next morning at breakfast he said, "How are your bruises, Rex?" "Oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little." "You don't feel quite ready for a journey to Southampton?" "Not quite," answered Rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth. "Well, you can wait till to-morrow, and go to say goodbye to them at Offendene." Mrs. Gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her coffee lest she also should begin to cry, as Anna was doing already. Mr. Gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor Rex's acute attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. To let him know the hopelessness of his love from Gwendolen's own lips might be curative in more ways than one. "I can only be thankful that she doesn't care about him," said Mrs. Gascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. "There are things in Gwendolen I cannot reconcile myself to. My Anna is worth two of her, with all her beauty and talent. It looks very ill in her that she will not help in the schools with Anna--not even in the Sunday-school. What you or I advise is of no consequence to her: and poor Fannie is completely under her thumb. But I know you think better of her," Mrs. Gascoigne ended with a deferential hesitation. "Oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. It is only that she has a high spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. The point is, to get her well married. She has a little too much fire in her for her present life with her mother and sisters. It is natural and right that she should be married soon--not to a poor man, but one who can give her a fitting position." Presently Rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles' walk to Offendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see Gwendolen, but his father's real ground of action could not enter into his conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly cold-blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father's conclusions. When he got to the house, everybody was there but Gwendolen. The four girls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which was their school-room, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries about his arm. Mrs. Davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened, and where the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present; while Miss Merry, who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family affairs, doubted whether it would not be giving too much encouragement to that kind of character. Rex had never found the family troublesome before, but just now he wished them all away and Gwendolen there, and he was too uneasy for good-natured feigning. When at last he had said, "Where is Gwendolen?" and Mrs. Davilow had told Alice to go and see if her sister were come down, adding, "I sent up her breakfast this morning. She needed a long rest." Rex took the shortest way out of his endurance by saying, almost impatiently, "Aunt, I want to speak to Gwendolen--I want to see her alone." "Very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. I will send her there," said Mrs. Davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with Gwendolen, as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any bearing on the realities of life: it seemed merely part of the Christmas holidays which were spinning themselves out. Rex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on this interview. He had to walk up and down the drawing-room in expectation for nearly ten minutes--ample space for all imaginative fluctuations; yet, strange to say, he was unvaryingly occupied in thinking what and how much he could do, when Gwendolen had accepted him, to satisfy his father that the engagement was the most prudent thing in the world, since it inspired him with double energy for work. He was to be a lawyer, and what reason was there why he should not rise as high as Eldon did? He was forced to look at life in the light of his father's mind. But when the door opened and she whose presence he was longing for entered, there came over him suddenly and mysteriously a state of tremor and distrust which he had never felt before. Miss Gwendolen, simple as she stood there, in her black silk, cut square about the round white pillar of her throat, a black band fastening her hair which streamed backward in smooth silky abundance, seemed more queenly than usual. Perhaps it was that there was none of the latent fun and tricksiness which had always pierced in her greeting of Rex. How much of this was due to her presentiment from what he had said yesterday that he was going to talk of love? How much from her desire to show regret about his accident? Something of both. But the wisdom of ages has hinted that there is a side of the bed which has a malign influence if you happen to get out on it; and this accident befalls some charming persons rather frequently. Perhaps it had befallen Gwendolen this morning. The hastening of her toilet, the way in which Bugle used the brush, the quality of the shilling serial mistakenly written for her amusement, the probabilities of the coming day, and, in short, social institutions generally, were all objectionable to her. It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism. However it might be, Rex saw an awful majesty about her as she entered and put out her hand to him, without the least approach to a smile in eyes or mouth. The fun which had moved her in the evening had quite evaporated from the image of his accident, and the whole affair seemed stupid to her. But she said with perfect propriety, "I hope you are not much hurt, Rex; I deserve that you should reproach me for your accident." "Not at all," said Rex, feeling the soul within him spreading itself like an attack of illness. "There is hardly any thing the matter with me. I am so glad you had the pleasure: I would willingly pay for it by a tumble, only I was sorry to break the horse's knees." Gwendolen walked to the hearth and stood looking at the fire in the most inconvenient way for conversation, so that he could only get a side view of her face. "My father wants me to go to Southampton for the rest of the vacation," said Rex, his baritone trembling a little. "Southampton! That's a stupid place to go to, isn't it?" said Gwendolen, chilly. "It would be to me, because you would not be there." Silence. "Should you mind about me going away, Gwendolen?" "Of course. Every one is of consequence in this dreary country," said Gwendolen, curtly. The perception that poor Rex wanted to be tender made her curl up and harden like a sea-anemone at the touch of a finger. "Are you angry with me, Gwendolen? Why do you treat me in this way all at once?" said Rex, flushing, and with more spirit in his voice, as if he too were capable of being angry. Gwendolen looked round at him and smiled. "Treat you? Nonsense! I am only rather cross. Why did you come so very early? You must expect to find tempers in dishabille." "Be as cross with me as you like--only don't treat me with indifference," said Rex, imploringly. "All the happiness of my life depends on your loving me--if only a little--better than any one else." He tried to take her hand, but she hastily eluded his grasp and moved to the other end of the hearth, facing him. "Pray don't make love to me! I hate it!" she looked at him fiercely. Rex turned pale and was silent, but could not take his eyes off her, and the impetus was not yet exhausted that made hers dart death at him. Gwendolen herself could not have foreseen that she should feel in this way. It was all a sudden, new experience to her. The day before she had been quite aware that her cousin was in love with her; she did not mind how much, so that he said nothing about it; and if any one had asked her why she objected to love-making speeches, she would have said, laughingly, "Oh I am tired of them all in the books." But now the life of passion had begun negatively in her. She felt passionately averse to this volunteered love. To Rex at twenty the joy of life seemed at an end more absolutely than it can do to a man at forty. But before they had ceased to look at each other, he did speak again. "Is that last word you have to say to me, Gwendolen? Will it always be so?" She could not help seeing his wretchedness and feeling a little regret for the old Rex who had not offended her. Decisively, but yet with some return of kindness, she said, "About making love? Yes. But I don't dislike you for anything else." There was just a perceptible pause before he said a low "good-bye." and passed out of the room. Almost immediately after, she heard the heavy hall door bang behind him. Mrs. Davilow, too, had heard Rex's hasty departure, and presently came into the drawing-room, where she found Gwendolen seated on the low couch, her face buried, and her hair falling over her figure like a garment. She was sobbing bitterly. "My child, my child, what is it?" cried the mother, who had never before seen her darling struck down in this way, and felt something of the alarmed anguish that women, feel at the sight of overpowering sorrow in a strong man; for this child had been her ruler. Sitting down by her with circling arms, she pressed her cheek against Gwendolen's head, and then tried to draw it upward. Gwendolen gave way, and letting her head rest against her mother, cried out sobbingly, "Oh, mamma, what can become of my life? there is nothing worth living for!" "Why, dear?" said Mrs. Davilow. Usually she herself had been rebuked by her daughter for involuntary signs of despair. "I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them." "The time will come, dear, the time will come." Gwendolen was more and more convulsed with sobbing; but putting her arms round her mother's neck with an almost painful clinging, she said brokenly, "I can't bear any one to be very near me but you." Then the mother began to sob, for this spoiled child had never shown such dependence on her before: and so they clung to each other. CHAPTER VIII. What name doth Joy most borrow When life is fair? "To-morrow." What name doth best fit Sorrow In young despair? "To-morrow." There was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there only to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy, unbroken till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more positive signs of illness. Nothing could be said about his going to Southampton: instead of that, the chief thought of his mother and Anna was how to tend this patient who did not want to be well, and from being the brightest, most grateful spirit in the household, was metamorphosed into an irresponsive, dull-eyed creature who met all affectionate attempts with a murmur of "Let me alone." His father looked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the shortest way out of an unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable suffering, and went now and then to sit by him in silence for a few minutes, parting with a gentle pressure of his hand on Rex's blank brow, and a "God bless you, my boy." Warham and the younger children used to peep round the edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their lively brother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them to drive them back. The guardian who was always there was Anna, and her little hand was allowed to rest within her brother's, though he never gave it a welcoming pressure. Her soul was divided between anguish for Rex and reproach of Gwendolen. "Perhaps it is wicked of me, but I think I never _can_ love her again," came as the recurrent burden of poor little Anna's inward monody. And even Mrs. Gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she could not refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband. "I know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is not in love with the poor boy; but really. Henry, I think she is hard; she has the heart of a coquette. I can not help thinking that she must have made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have taken hold of him in that way. And some blame attaches to poor Fanny; she is quite blind about that girl." Mr. Gascoigne answered imperatively: "The less said on that point the better, Nancy. I ought to have been more awake myself. As to the boy, be thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. Let the thing die out as quickly as possible; and especially with regard to Gwendolen--let it be as if it had never been." The rector's dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape. Gwendolen in love with Rex in return would have made a much harder problem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands. But he had to go through some further difficulty. One fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual. Anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen for his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of the stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile, but it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help crying. "Nannie!" he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along with him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came to kiss him, he said: "What a plague I am!" Then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and shrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint occasional gleams:--something like that sad smile on Rex's face, Anna thought. He felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and did not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being left behind. Anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching him with yearning looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where wagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs. Gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again, Anna, seeing a return of speech in her brother's eyes, could not resist the impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee, looking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, "Do speak to me." And he spoke. "I'll tell you what I'm thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or somewhere of that sort." (Rex had not studied the character of our colonial possessions.) "Oh, Rex, not for always!" "Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work hard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide quiet." "And not take me with you?" said Anna, the big tears coming fast. "How could I?" "I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their families. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could make the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could learn how to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than anything--like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we made our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes." "Father and mother would not let you go." "Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with." There was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it ended in Rex's being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him when he spoke to his father on the subject. Of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her first, the question would have distressed her. "Well, my children!" said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered. It was a comfort to see Rex about again. "May we sit down with you a little, papa?" said Anna. "Rex has something to say." "With all my heart." It was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them with a face of the same structural type--the straight brow, the nose suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short upper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the same tone of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was at once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his brow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the habit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex would have seemed a vision of his father's youth, if it had been possible to imagine Mr. Gascoigne without distinct plans and without command, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of concealment than a sick animal; and Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with hair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of expression, as if they had one soul between them. "You know all about what has upset me, father," Rex began, and Mr. Gascoigne nodded. "I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it will be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn't do any reading. I should fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your consent to take another course, sir." Mr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow deepened, and Anna's trembling increased. "If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the colonies and work on the land there." Rex thought the vagueness of the phrase prudential; "the colonies" necessarily embracing more advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground than any particular settlement. "Oh, and with me, papa," said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the proposal even temporarily. "Rex would want some one to take care of him, you know--some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of us, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more." Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the question while he spoke to Rex. "You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for you, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than you can guide yourself?" Rex was obliged to say, "Yes, sir." "And perhaps you will admit--though I don't wish to press that point--that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?" "I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir." Rex in his secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies, but to go to Oxford again--which was the point in question. "But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which my experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you a dislike to society? Is that what you believe?" "Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do to live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I shall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you, father, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of life, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places." "But suppose I am convinced on good evidence--as I am--that this state of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now? Have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on my assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet--in my opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have received here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me." "I'm very sorry; but what can I do? I can't study--that's certain," said Rex. "Not just now, perhaps. You will have to miss a term. I have made arrangements for you--how you are to spend the next two months. But I confess I am disappointed in you, Rex. I thought you had more sense than to take up such ideas--to suppose that because you have fallen into a very common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you are loosened from all bonds of duty--just as if your brain had softened and you were no longer a responsible being." What could Rex say? Inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had no arguments to meet his father's; and while he was feeling, in spite of any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to "the colonies" to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he ought to feel--if he had been a better fellow he would have felt--more about his old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul sicknesses. Rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end. "You assent to my arrangement, then?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with that distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise. There was a little pause before Rex answered, "I'll try what I can do, sir. I can't promise." His thought was, that trying would be of no use. Her father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow Rex. "Oh, papa," she said, the tears coming with her words when the door had closed; "it is very hard for him. Doesn't he look ill?" "Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna, be as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he is gone." "No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing--to have people fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful." Anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go to the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she often afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself, "I should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and having to talk when I am taken to dinner--and all that!" I like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives with the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the period when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an agitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and vehicles. But Anna Gascoigne's figure would only allow the size of skirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen. CHAPTER IX. I'll tell thee, Berthold, what men's hopes are like: A silly child that, quivering with joy, Would cast its little mimic fishing-line Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys In the salt ocean. Eight months after the arrival of the family at Offendene, that is to say in the end of the following June, a rumor was spread in the neighborhood which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. It had no reference to the results of the American war, but it was one which touched all classes within a certain circuit round Wanchester: the corn-factors, the brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all held it a laudable thing, and one which was to be rejoiced in on abstract grounds, as showing the value of an aristocracy in a free country like England; the blacksmith in the hamlet of Diplow felt that a good time had come round; the wives of laboring men hoped their nimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into employ by the gentlemen in livery; and the farmers about Diplow admitted, with a tincture of bitterness and reserve, that a man might now again perhaps have an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a wagon-load of straw. If such were the hopes of low persons not in society, it may be easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for satisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than its business. Marriage, however, must be considered as coming under both heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream of knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal nightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate vision of marriage in several well-bred imaginations. The news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger's place, which had for a couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully wall-eyed manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and grassy acres specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and was for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be inhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. But not by Sir Hugo himself: by his nephew, Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was presumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced nothing but girls. Nor was this the only contingency with which fortune flattered young Grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the chance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a baronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons slightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron and peer of this realm. It is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the tuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who would have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share the title--which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a reason why that wife, being at present unchosen, should be thought of by more than one person with a sympathetic interest as a woman sure to be well provided for. Some readers of this history will doubtless regard it as incredible that people should construct matrimonial prospects on the mere report that a bachelor of good fortune and possibilities was coming within reach, and will reject the statement as a mere outflow of gall: they will aver that neither they nor their first cousins have minds so unbridled; and that in fact this is not human nature, which would know that such speculations might turn out to be fallacious, and would therefore not entertain them. But, let it be observed, nothing is here narrated of human nature generally: the history in its present stage concerns only a few people in a corner of Wessex--whose reputation, however, was unimpeached, and who, I am in the proud position of being able to state, were all on visiting terms with persons of rank. There were the Arrowpoints, for example, in their beautiful place at Quetcham: no one could attribute sordid views in relation to their daughter's marriage to parents who could leave her at least half a million; but having affectionate anxieties about their Catherine's position (she having resolutely refused Lord Slogan, an unexceptionable Irish peer, whose estate wanted nothing but drainage and population), they wondered, perhaps from something more than a charitable impulse, whether Mr. Grandcourt was good-looking, of sound constitution, virtuous, or at least reformed, and if liberal-conservative, not too liberal-conservative; and without wishing anybody to die, thought his succession to the title an event to be desired. If the Arrowpoints had such ruminations, it is the less surprising that they were stimulated in Mr. Gascoigne, who for being a clergyman was not the less subject to the anxieties of a parent and guardian; and we have seen how both he and Mrs. Gascoigne might by this time have come to feel that he was overcharged with the management of young creatures who were hardly to be held in with bit or bridle, or any sort of metaphor that would stand for judicious advice. Naturally, people did not tell each other all they felt and thought about young Grandcourt's advent: on no subject is this openness found prudently practicable--not even on the generation of acids, or the destination of the fixed stars: for either your contemporary with a mind turned toward the same subjects may find your ideas ingenious and forestall you in applying them, or he may have other views on acids and fixed stars, and think ill of you in consequence. Mr. Gascoigne did not ask Mr. Arrowpoint if he had any trustworthy source of information about Grandcourt considered as a husband for a charming girl; nor did Mrs. Arrowpoint observe to Mrs. Davilow that if the possible peer sought a wife in the neighborhood of Diplow, the only reasonable expectation was that he would offer his hand to Catherine, who, however, would not accept him unless he were in all respects fitted to secure her happiness. Indeed, even to his wife the rector was silent as to the contemplation of any matrimonial result, from the probability that Mr. Grandcourt would see Gwendolen at the next Archery Meeting; though Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was very likely still more active in the same direction. She had said interjectionally to her sister, "It would be a mercy, Fanny, if that girl were well married!" to which Mrs. Davilow discerning some criticism of her darling in the fervor of that wish, had not chosen to make any audible reply, though she had said inwardly, "You will not get her to marry for your pleasure"; the mild mother becoming rather saucy when she identified herself with her daughter. To her husband Mrs. Gascoigne said, "I hear Mr. Grandcourt has got two places of his own, but he comes to Diplow for the hunting. It is to be hoped he will set a good example in the neighborhood. Have you heard what sort of a young man he is, Henry?" Mr. Gascoigne had not heard; at least, if his male acquaintances had gossiped in his hearing, he was not disposed to repeat their gossip, or to give it any emphasis in his own mind. He held it futile, even if it had been becoming, to show any curiosity as to the past of a young man whose birth, wealth, and consequent leisure made many habits venial which under other circumstances would have been inexcusable. Whatever Grandcourt had done, he had not ruined himself; and it is well-known that in gambling, for example, whether of the business or holiday sort, a man who has the strength of mind to leave off when he has only ruined others, is a reformed character. This is an illustration merely: Mr. Gascoigne had not heard that Grandcourt had been a gambler; and we can hardly pronounce him singular in feeling that a landed proprietor with a mixture of noble blood in his veins was not to be an object of suspicious inquiry like a reformed character who offers himself as your butler or footman. Reformation, where a man can afford to do without it, can hardly be other than genuine. Moreover, it was not certain on any other showing hitherto, that Mr. Grandcourt had needed reformation more than other young men in the ripe youth of five-and-thirty; and, at any rate, the significance of what he had been must be determined by what he actually was. Mrs. Davilow, too, although she would not respond to her sister's pregnant remark, could not be inwardly indifferent to an advent that might promise a brilliant lot for Gwendolen. A little speculation on "what may be" comes naturally, without encouragement--comes inevitably in the form of images, when unknown persons are mentioned; and Mr. Grandcourt's name raised in Mrs. Davilow's mind first of all the picture of a handsome, accomplished, excellent young man whom she would be satisfied with as a husband for her daughter; but then came the further speculation--would Gwendolen be satisfied with him? There was no knowing what would meet that girl's taste or touch her affections--it might be something else than excellence; and thus the image of the perfect suitor gave way before a fluctuating combination of qualities that might be imagined to win Gwendolen's heart. In the difficulty of arriving at the particular combination which would insure that result, the mother even said to herself, "It would not signify about her being in love, if she would only accept the right person." For whatever marriage had been for herself, how could she the less desire it for her daughter? The difference her own misfortunes made was, that she never dared to dwell much to Gwendolen on the desirableness of marriage, dreading an answer something like that of the future Madame Roland, when her gentle mother urging the acceptance of a suitor, said, "Tu seras heureuse, ma chère." "Oui, maman, comme toi." In relation to the problematic Mr. Grandcourt least of all would Mrs. Davilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building which she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was likely enough to give an adverse poise to Gwendolen's own thought, and make her detest the desirable husband beforehand. Since that scene after poor Rex's farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of peril in touching the mystery of her child's feeling, and in rashly determining what was her welfare: only she could think of welfare in no other shape than marriage. The discussion of the dress that Gwendolen was to wear at the Archery Meeting was a relevant topic, however; and when it had been decided that as a touch of color on her white cashmere, nothing, for her complexion, was comparable to pale green--a feather which she was trying in her hat before the looking-glass having settled the question--Mrs. Davilow felt her ears tingle when Gwendolen, suddenly throwing herself into the attitude of drawing her bow, said with a look of comic enjoyment, "How I pity all the other girls at the Archery Meeting--all thinking of Mr. Grandcourt! And they have not a shadow of a chance." Mrs. Davilow had not the presence of mind to answer immediately, and Gwendolen turned round quickly toward her, saying, wickedly, "Now you know they have not, mamma. You and my uncle and aunt--you all intend him to fall in love with me." Mrs. Davilow, piqued into a little stratagem, said, "Oh, my, dear, that is not so certain. Miss Arrowpoint has charms which you have not." "I know, but they demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he has time for thought. He will declare himself my slave--I shall send him round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy woman--in the meantime all the men who are between him and the title will die of different diseases--he will come back Lord Grandcourt--but without the ring--and fall at my feet. I shall laugh at him--he will rise in resentment--I shall laugh more--he will call for his steed and ride to Quetcham, where he will find Miss Arrowpoint just married to a needy musician, Mrs. Arrowpoint tearing her cap off, and Mr. Arrowpoint standing by. Exit Lord Grandcourt, who returns to Diplow, and, like M. Jabot, _change de linge_." Was ever any young witch like this? You thought of hiding things from her--sat upon your secret and looked innocent, and all the while she knew by the corner of your eye that it was exactly five pounds ten you were sitting on! As well turn the key to keep out the damp! It was probable that by dint of divination she already knew more than any one else did of Mr. Grandcourt. That idea in Mrs. Davilow's mind prompted the sort of question which often comes without any other apparent reason than the faculty of speech and the not knowing what to do with it. "Why, what kind of a man do you imagine him to be, Gwendolen?" "Let me see!" said the witch, putting her forefinger to her lips, with a little frown, and then stretching out the finger with decision. "Short--just above my shoulder--trying to make himself tall by turning up his mustache and keeping his beard long--a glass in his right eye to give him an air of distinction--a strong opinion about his waistcoat, but uncertain and trimming about the weather, on which he will try to draw me out. He will stare at me all the while, and the glass in his eye will cause him to make horrible faces, especially when he smiles in a flattering way. I shall cast down my eyes in consequence, and he will perceive that I am not indifferent to his attentions. I shall dream that night that I am looking at the extraordinary face of a magnified insect--and the next morning he will make an offer of his hand; the sequel as before." "That is a portrait of some one you have seen already, Gwen. Mr. Grandcourt may be a delightful young man for what you know." "Oh, yes," said Gwendolen, with a high note of careless admission, taking off her best hat and turning it round on her hand contemplatively. "I wonder what sort of behavior a delightful young man would have? I know he would have hunters and racers, and a London house and two country-houses--one with battlements and another with a veranda. And I feel sure that with a little murdering he might get a title." The irony of this speech was of the doubtful sort that has some genuine belief mixed up with it. Poor Mrs. Davilow felt uncomfortable under it. Her own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and she said with a distressed brow: "Don't talk in that way, child, for heaven's sake! you do read such books--they give you such ideas of everything. I declare when your aunt and I were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. I think it was better so." "Why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?" said Gwendolen. But immediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had given a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother's feet crying, "Mamma, mamma! I was only speaking in fun. I meant nothing." "How could I, Gwendolen?" said poor Mrs. Davilow, unable to hear the retraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak. "Your will was always too strong for me--if everything else had been different." This disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. "Dear mamma, I don't find fault with you--I love you," said Gwendolen, really compunctious. "How can you help what I am? Besides, I am very charming. Come, now." Here Gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her mother's tears. "Really--I am contented with myself. I like myself better than I should have liked my aunt and you. How dreadfully dull you must have been!" Such tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done before after like collisions. Not that the collisions had often been repeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an association of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned them: Gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her mother, which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and self-distrust that she had known; and Mrs. Davilow's timid maternal conscience dreaded whatever had brought on the slightest hint of reproach. Hence, after this little scene, the two concurred in excluding Mr. Grandcourt from their conversation. When Mr. Gascoigne once or twice referred to him, Mrs. Davilow feared least Gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness about what was probably in her uncle's mind; but the fear was not justified. Gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with which she was concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the very reason that she was determined to evade her uncle's control, she was determined not to clash with him. The good understanding between them was much fostered by their enjoyment of archery together: Mr. Gascoigne, as one of the best bowmen in Wessex, was gratified to find the elements of like skill in his niece; and Gwendolen was the more careful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because since the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable to hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her. Toward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful affectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex's name, and Anna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was ill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. She tried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed feeling; but who in pain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of pleasure. This unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on Gwendolen, and threw her into a more defiant temper. Her uncle too might be offended if she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day when that idea was in her mind she said, "Mamma, I see now why girls are glad to be married--to escape being expected to please everybody but themselves." Happily, Mr. Middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and notwithstanding the admiration for the handsome Miss Harleth, extending perhaps over thirty square miles in a part of Wessex well studded with families whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad to seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on in conversation,--notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that Gwendolen was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the cautious curate, the fact was not so. Care has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars down, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be enamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not necessarily declare himself. There are various refined shapes in which the price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might, if inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person, accomplishments, and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many offers; and nature's order is certainly benignant in not obliging us one and all to be desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we have ever seen. Gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy in the minds of all observers. Besides, it was but a poor eight months since she had come to Offendene, and some inclinations become manifest slowly, like the sunward creeping of plants. In face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in the neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone? Perhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great deal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of a wish. Mr. and Mrs. Arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that Miss Harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different likelihood in their minds. CHAPTER X. _1st Gent._ What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste Of marriageable men. This planet's store In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals-- All matter rendered to our plastic skill, Is wrought in shapes responsive to demand; The market's pulse makes index high or low, By rule sublime. Our daughters must be wives, And to the wives must be what men will choose; Men's taste is woman's test. You mark the phrase? 'Tis good, I think?--the sense well-winged and poised With t's and s's. _2nd Gent._ Nay, but turn it round; Give us the test of taste. A fine _menu_-- Is it to-day what Roman epicures Insisted that a gentleman must eat To earn the dignity of dining well? Brackenshaw Park, where the archery meeting was held, looked out from its gentle heights far over the neighboring valley to the outlying eastern downs and the broad, slow rise of cultivated country, hanging like a vast curtain toward the west. The castle which stood on the highest platform of the clustered hills, was built of rough-hewn limestone, full of lights and shadows made by the dark dust of lichens and the washings of the rain. Masses of beech and fir sheltered it on the north, and spread down here and there along the green slopes like flocks seeking the water which gleamed below. The archery-ground was a carefully-kept enclosure on a bit of table-land at the farthest end of the park, protected toward the southwest by tall elms and a thick screen of hollies, which kept the gravel walk and the bit of newly-mown turf where the targets were placed in agreeable afternoon shade. The Archery Hall with an arcade in front showed like a white temple against the greenery on the north side. What could make a better background for the flower-groups of ladies, moving and bowing and turning their necks as it would become the leisurely lilies to do if they took to locomotion. The sounds too were very pleasant to hear, even when the military band from Wanchester ceased to play: musical laughs in all the registers and a harmony of happy, friendly speeches, now rising toward mild excitement, now sinking to an agreeable murmur. No open-air amusement could be much freer from those noisy, crowding conditions which spoil most modern pleasures; no Archery Meeting could be more select, the number of friends accompanying the members being restricted by an award of tickets, so as to keep the maximum within the limits of convenience for the dinner and ball to be held in the castle. Within the enclosure no plebeian spectators were admitted except Lord Brackenshaw's tenants and their families, and of these it was chiefly the feminine members who used the privilege, bringing their little boys and girls or younger brothers and sisters. The males among them relieved the insipidity of the entertainment by imaginative betting, in which the stake was "anything you like," on their favorite archers; but the young maidens, having a different principle of discrimination, were considering which of those sweetly-dressed ladies they would choose to be, if the choice were allowed them. Probably the form these rural souls would most have striven for as a tabernacle, was some other than Gwendolen's--one with more pink in her cheeks and hair of the most fashionable yellow; but among the male judges in the ranks immediately surrounding her there was unusual unanimity in pronouncing her the finest girl present. No wonder she enjoyed her existence on that July day. Pre-eminence is sweet to those who love it, even under mediocre circumstances. Perhaps it was not quite mythical that a slave has been proud to be bought first; and probably a barn-door fowl on sale, though he may not have understood himself to be called the best of a bad lot, may have a self-informed consciousness of his relative importance, and strut consoled. But for complete enjoyment the outward and the inward must concur. And that concurrence was happening to Gwendolen. Who can deny that bows and arrows are among the prettiest weapons in the world for feminine forms to play with? They prompt attitudes full of grace and power, where that fine concentration of energy seen in all markmanship, is freed from associations of bloodshed. The time-honored British resource of "killing something" is no longer carried on with bow and quiver; bands defending their passes against an invading nation fight under another sort of shade than a cloud of arrows; and poisoned darts are harmless survivals either in rhetoric or in regions comfortably remote. Archery has no ugly smell of brimstone; breaks nobody's shins, breeds no athletic monsters; its only danger is that of failing, which for generous blood is enough to mould skilful action. And among the Brackenshaw archers the prizes were all of the nobler symbolic kind; not properly to be carried off in a parcel, degrading honor into gain; but the gold arrow and the silver, the gold star and the silver, to be worn for a long time in sign of achievement and then transferred to the next who did excellently. These signs of pre-eminence had the virtue of wreaths without their inconveniences, which might have produced a melancholy effect in the heat of the ball-room. Altogether the Brackenshaw Archery Club was an institution framed with good taste, so as not to have by necessity any ridiculous incidents. And to-day all incalculable elements were in its favor. There was mild warmth, and no wind to disturb either hair or drapery or the course of the arrow; all skillful preparation had fair play, and when there was a general march to extract the arrows, the promenade of joyous young creatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common toward a common object, was a show worth looking at. Here Gwendolen seemed a Calypso among her nymphs. It was in her attitudes and movements that every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm. "That girl is like a high-mettled racer," said Lord Brackenshaw to young Clintock, one of the invited spectators. "First chop! tremendously pretty too," said the elegant Grecian, who had been paying her assiduous attention; "I never saw her look better." Perhaps she had never looked so well. Her face was beaming with young pleasure in which there was no malign rays of discontent; for being satisfied with her own chances, she felt kindly toward everybody and was satisfied with the universe. Not to have the highest distinction in rank, not to be marked out as an heiress, like Miss Arrowpoint, gave an added triumph in eclipsing those advantages. For personal recommendation she would not have cared to change the family group accompanying her for any other: her mamma's appearance would have suited an amiable duchess; her uncle and aunt Gascoigne with Anna made equally gratifying figures in their way; and Gwendolen was too full of joyous belief in herself to feel in the least jealous though Miss Arrowpoint was one of the best archeresses. Even the reappearance of the formidable Herr Klesmer, which caused some surprise in the rest of the company, seemed only to fall in with Gwendolen's inclination to be amused. Short of Apollo himself, what great musical _maestro_ could make a good figure at an archery meeting? There was a very satirical light in Gwendolen's eyes as she looked toward the Arrowpoint party on their first entrance, when the contrast between Klesmer and the average group of English country people seemed at its utmost intensity in the close neighborhood of his hosts--or patrons, as Mrs. Arrowpoint would have liked to hear them called, that she might deny the possibility of any longer patronizing genius, its royalty being universally acknowledged. The contrast might have amused a graver personage than Gwendolen. We English are a miscellaneous people, and any chance fifty of us will present many varieties of animal architecture or facial ornament; but it must be admitted that our prevailing expression is not that of a lively, impassioned race, preoccupied with the ideal and carrying the real as a mere make-weight. The strong point of the English gentleman pure is the easy style of his figure and clothing; he objects to marked ins and outs in his costume, and he also objects to looking inspired. Fancy an assemblage where the men had all that ordinary stamp of the well-bred Englishman, watching the entrance of Herr Klesmer--his mane of hair floating backward in massive inconsistency with the chimney-pot hat, which had the look of having been put on for a joke above his pronounced but well-modeled features and powerful clear-shaven mouth and chin; his tall, thin figure clad in a way which, not being strictly English, was all the worse for its apparent emphasis of intention. Draped in a loose garment with a Florentine _berretta_ on his head, he would have been fit to stand by the side of Leonardo de Vinci; but how when he presented himself in trousers which were not what English feeling demanded about the knees?--and when the fire that showed itself in his glances and the movements of his head, as he looked round him with curiosity, was turned into comedy by a hat which ruled that mankind should have well-cropped hair and a staid demeanor, such, for example, as Mr. Arrowsmith's, whose nullity of face and perfect tailoring might pass everywhere without ridicule? One feels why it is often better for greatness to be dead, and to have got rid of the outward man. Many present knew Klesmer, or knew of him; but they had only seen him on candle-light occasions when he appeared simply as a musician, and he had not yet that supreme, world-wide celebrity which makes an artist great to the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great expensiveness. It was literally a new light for them to see him in--presented unexpectedly on this July afternoon in an exclusive society: some were inclined to laugh, others felt a little disgust at the want of judgment shown by the Arrowpoints in this use of an introductory card. "What extreme guys those artistic fellows usually are!" said young Clintock to Gwendolen. "Do look at the figure he cuts, bowing with his hand on his heart to Lady Brackenshaw--and Mrs. Arrowpoint's feather just reaching his shoulder." "You are one of the profane," said Gwendolen. "You are blind to the majesty of genius. Herr Klesmer smites me with awe; I feel crushed in his presence; my courage all oozes from me." "Ah, you understand all about his music." "No, indeed," said Gwendolen, with a light laugh; "it is he who understands all about mine and thinks it pitiable." Klesmer's verdict on her singing had been an easier joke to her since he had been struck by her _plastik_. "It is not addressed to the ears of the future, I suppose. I'm glad of that: it suits mine." "Oh, you are very kind. But how remarkably well Miss Arrowpoint looks to-day! She would make quite a fine picture in that gold-colored dress." "Too splendid, don't you think?" "Well, perhaps a little too symbolical--too much like the figure of Wealth in an allegory." This speech of Gwendolen's had rather a malicious sound, but it was not really more than a bubble of fun. She did not wish Miss Arrowpoint or any one else to be out of the way, believing in her own good fortune even more than in her skill. The belief in both naturally grew stronger as the shooting went on, for she promised to achieve one of the best scores--a success which astonished every one in a new member; and to Gwendolen's temperament one success determined another. She trod on air, and all things pleasant seemed possible. The hour was enough for her, and she was not obliged to think what she should do next to keep her life at the due pitch. "How does the scoring stand, I wonder?" said Lady Brackenshaw, a gracious personage who, adorned with two little girls and a boy of stout make, sat as lady paramount. Her lord had come up to her in one of the intervals of shooting. "It seems to me that Miss Harleth is likely to win the gold arrow." "Gad, I think she will, if she carries it on! she is running Juliet Fenn hard. It is wonderful for one in her first year. Catherine is not up to her usual mark," continued his lordship, turning to the heiress's mother who sat near. "But she got the gold arrow last time. And there's a luck even in these games of skill. That's better. It gives the hinder ones a chance." "Catherine will be very glad for others to win," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, "she is so magnanimous. It was entirely her considerateness that made us bring Herr Klesmer instead of Canon Stopley, who had expressed a wish to come. For her own pleasure, I am sure she would rather have brought the Canon; but she is always thinking of others. I told her it was not quite _en règle_ to bring one so far out of our own set; but she said, 'Genius itself is not _en règle_; it comes into the world to make new rules.' And one must admit that." "Ay, to be sure," said Lord Brackenshaw, in a tone of careless dismissal, adding quickly, "For my part, I am not magnanimous; I should like to win. But, confound it! I never have the chance now. I'm getting old and idle. The young ones beat me. As old Nestor says--the gods don't give us everything at one time: I was a young fellow once, and now I am getting an old and wise one. Old, at any rate; which is a gift that comes to everybody if they live long enough, so it raises no jealousy." The Earl smiled comfortably at his wife. "Oh, my lord, people who have been neighbors twenty years must not talk to each other about age," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "Years, as the Tuscans say, are made for the letting of houses. But where is our new neighbor? I thought Mr. Grandcourt was to be here to-day." "Ah, by the way, so he was. The time's getting on too," said his lordship, looking at his watch. "But he only got to Diplow the other day. He came to us on Tuesday and said he had been a little bothered. He may have been pulled in another direction. Why, Gascoigne!"--the rector was just then crossing at a little distance with Gwendolen on his arm, and turned in compliance with the call--"this is a little too bad; you not only beat us yourself, but you bring up your niece to beat all the archeresses." "It _is_ rather scandalous in her to get the better of elder members," said Mr. Gascoigne, with much inward satisfaction curling his short upper lip. "But it is not my doing, my lord. I only meant her to make a tolerable figure, without surpassing any one." "It is not my fault, either," said Gwendolen, with pretty archness. "If I am to aim, I can't help hitting." "Ay, ay, that may be a fatal business for some people," said Lord Brackenshaw, good-humoredly; then taking out his watch and looking at Mrs. Arrowpoint again--"The time's getting on, as you say. But Grandcourt is always late. I notice in town he's always late, and he's no bowman--understands nothing about it. But I told him he must come; he would see the flower of the neighborhood here. He asked about you--had seen Arrowpoint's card. I think you had not made his acquaintance in town. He has been a good deal abroad. People don't know him much." "No; we are strangers," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "But that is not what might have been expected. For his uncle Sir Hugo Mallinger and I are great friends when we meet." "I don't know; uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together as uncles and nieces," said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. "But just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to speak a word about the clout-shooting." Gwendolen chose to go too and be deposited in the same group with her mamma and aunt until she had to shoot again. That Mr. Grandcourt might after all not appear on the archery-ground, had begun to enter into Gwendolen's thought as a possible deduction from the completeness of her pleasure. Under all her saucy satire, provoked chiefly by her divination that her friends thought of him as a desirable match for her, she felt something very far from indifference as to the impression she would make on him. True, he was not to have the slightest power over her (for Gwendolen had not considered that the desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection); she had made up her mind that he was to be one of those complimentary and assiduously admiring men of whom even her narrow experience had shown her several with various-colored beards and various styles of bearing; and the sense that her friends would want her to think him delightful, gave her a resistant inclination to presuppose him ridiculous. But that was no reason why she could spare his presence: and even a passing prevision of trouble in case she despised and refused him, raised not the shadow of a wish that he should save her that trouble by showing no disposition to make her an offer. Mr. Grandcourt taking hardly any notice of her, and becoming shortly engaged to Miss Arrowpoint, was not a picture which flattered her imagination. Hence Gwendolen had been all ear to Lord Brackenshaw's mode of accounting for Grandcourt's non-appearance; and when he did arrive, no consciousness--not even Mrs. Arrowpoint's or Mr. Gascoigne's--was more awake to the fact than hers, although she steadily avoided looking toward any point where he was likely to be. There should be no slightest shifting of angles to betray that it was of any consequence to her whether the much-talked-of Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt presented himself or not. She became again absorbed in the shooting, and so resolutely abstained from looking round observantly that, even supposing him to have taken a conspicuous place among the spectators, it might be clear she was not aware of him. And all the while the certainty that he was there made a distinct thread in her consciousness. Perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate, it gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of clapping and applause by three hits running in the gold--a feat which among the Brackenshaw archers had not the vulgar reward of a shilling poll-tax, but that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast. That moment was not only a happy one to herself--it was just what her mamma and her uncle would have chosen for her. There was a general falling into ranks to give her space that she might advance conspicuously to receive the gold star from the hands of Lady Brackenshaw; and the perfect movement of her fine form was certainly a pleasant thing to behold in the clear afternoon light when the shadows were long and still. She was the central object of that pretty picture, and every one present must gaze at her. That was enough: she herself was determined to see nobody in particular, or to turn her eyes any way except toward Lady Brackenshaw, but her thoughts undeniably turned in other ways. It entered a little into her pleasure that Herr Klesmer must be observing her at a moment when music was out of the question, and his superiority very far in the back-ground; for vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return; and the unconquered Klesmer threw a trace of his malign power even across her pleasant consciousness that Mr. Grandcourt was seeing her to the utmost advantage, and was probably giving her an admiration unmixed with criticism. She did not expect to admire _him_, but that was not necessary to her peace of mind. Gwendolen met Lady Brackenshaw's gracious smile without blushing (which only came to her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming gladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star fixed near her shoulder. That little ceremony had been over long enough for her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations as she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in the results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside examining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord Brackenshaw came up to her and said, "Miss Harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any longer for an introduction. He has been getting Mrs. Davilow to send me with him. Will you allow me to introduce Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt?" BOOK II.--MEETING STREAMS. CHAPTER XI. The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline for our ignorance. Mr. Grandcourt's wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen; but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured stranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the real man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and vexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. The shock came from the reversal of her expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been more unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome, with only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight whisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing but indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the alphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the point that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the first minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in the words, "He is not ridiculous." But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was gone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant element in it being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently with a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while she only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a little softened by coquetry. Also, after her answers there was a longer or shorter pause before he spoke again. "I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest. "Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen. (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.) "Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally sees people missing and simpering." "I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle." (Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of Grandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite hearer.) "I have left off shooting." "Oh, then, you are a formidable person. People who have done things once and left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using cast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I practice a great many." (Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own speech.) "What do you call follies?" "Well, in general, I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But you have not left off hunting, I hear." (Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about Grandcourt's position, and decided that he was the most aristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.) "One must do something." "And do you care about the turf?--or is that among the things you have left off?" (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.) "I run a horse now and then; but I don't go in for the thing as some men do. Are you fond of horses?" "Yes, indeed; I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback, having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong and happy." (Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what she said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.) "Do you like danger?" "I don't know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It seems to me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at anything that came in my way." (Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season with two chosen hunters to ride at will.) "You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after that." "_You_ are fond of danger, then?" (Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.) "One must have something or other. But one gets used to it." "I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me: it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left off shooting." (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the other hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not observed husbands to be companions--and that after all she was not going to accept Grandcourt.) "Why are you dull?" "This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it. That is why I practiced my archery." (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of anything must necessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.) "You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first prize." "I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well Miss Arrowpoint shot?" (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) "Miss Arrowpoint. No--that is, yes." "Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to the other end now--shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking toward me. He perhaps wants me." Gwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation: not that the _tete-à-tete_ was quite disagreeable to her; but while it lasted she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her cheeks and the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of herself than usual. And this Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own importance more than he did hers--a sort of unreasonableness few of us can tolerate--must not take for granted that he was of great moment to her, or that because others speculated on him as a desirable match she held herself altogether at his beck. How Grandcourt had filled up the pauses will be more evident hereafter. "You have just missed the gold arrow, Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne. "Miss Juliet Fenn scores eight above you." "I am very glad to hear it. I should have felt that I was making myself too disagreeable--taking the best of everything," said Gwendolen, quite easily. It was impossible to be jealous of Juliet Fenn, a girl as middling as mid-day market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which last she was noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding brow resembling that of the more intelligent fishes. (Surely, considering the importance which is given to such an accident in female offspring, marriageable men, or what the new English calls "intending bridegrooms," should look at themselves dispassionately in the glass, since their natural selection of a mate prettier than themselves is not certain to bar the effect of their own ugliness.) There was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried the talk along with it. Every one spoke to every one else by turns, and Gwendolen, who chose to see what was going on around her now, observed that Grandcourt was having Klesmer presented to him by some one unknown to her--a middle-aged man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who seemed to be on the easiest terms with both, and presently led the way in joining the Arrowpoints, whose acquaintance had already been made by both him and Grandcourt. Who this stranger was she did not care much to know; but she wished to observe what was Grandcourt's manner toward others than herself. Precisely the same: except that he did not look much at Miss Arrowpoint, but rather at Klesmer, who was speaking with animation--now stretching out his long fingers horizontally, now pointing downward with his fore-finger, now folding his arms and tossing his mane, while he addressed himself first to one and then to the other, including Grandcourt, who listened with an impassive face and narrow eyes, his left fore-finger in his waistcoat-pocket, and his right slightly touching his thin whisker. "I wonder which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most," was a thought that glanced through Gwendolen's mind, while her eyes and lips gathered rather a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of amusement by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her animation to those immediately around her, determined not to care whether Mr. Grandcourt came near her again or not. He did come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to conduct Mrs. Davilow to her carriage, "Shall we meet again in the ball-room?" she said as he raised his hat at parting. The "yes" in reply had the usual slight drawl and perfect gravity. "You were wrong for once, Gwendolen," said Mrs. Davilow, during their few minutes' drive to the castle. "In what, mamma?" "About Mr. Grandcourt's appearance and manners. You can't find anything ridiculous in him." "I suppose I could if I tried, but I don't want to do it," said Gwendolen, rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more. It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine apart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and rest for both. Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about the epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a revolting masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat--a proof of the frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women, but for severe social restraint, and every year the amiable Lord Brackenshaw, who was something of a _gourmet_, mentioned Byron's opinion that a woman should never be seen eating,--introducing it with a confidential--"The fact is" as if he were for the first time admitting his concurrence in that sentiment of the refined poet. In the ladies' dining-room it was evident that Gwendolen was not a general favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy between her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed what she said than spoke to her in free exchange. Perhaps it was that she was not much interested in them, and when left alone in their company had a sense of empty benches. Mrs. Vulcany once remarked that Miss Harleth was too fond of the gentlemen; but we know that she was not in the least fond of them--she was only fond of their homage--and women did not give her homage. The exception to this willing aloofness from her was Miss Arrowpoint, who often managed unostentatiously to be by her side, and talked to her with quiet friendliness. "She knows, as I do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a husband for us," thought Gwendolen, "and she is determined not to enter into the quarrel." "I think Miss Arrowpoint has the best manners I ever saw," said Mrs. Davilow, when she and Gwendolen were in a dressing-room with Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk apart. "I wish I were like her," said Gwendolen. "Why? Are you getting discontented with yourself, Gwen?" "No; but I am discontented with things. She seems contented." "I am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. You must have enjoyed the shooting. I saw you did." "Oh, that is over now, and I don't know what will come next," said Gwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her arms. They were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery dress, throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white cashmere with its border of pale green set off her form to the utmost. A thin line of gold round her neck, and the gold star on her breast, were her only ornaments. Her smooth soft hair piled up into a grand crown made a clear line about her brow. Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change--only to give stability to one beautiful moment. "The dancing will come next," said Mrs. Davilow "You are sure to enjoy that." "I shall only dance in the quadrille. I told Mr. Clintock so. I shall not waltz or polk with any one." "Why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?" "I can't bear having ugly people so near me." "Whom do you mean by ugly people?" "Oh, plenty." "Mr. Clintock, for example, is not ugly." Mrs. Davilow dared not mention Grandcourt. "Well, I hate woolen cloth touching me." "Fancy!" said Mrs. Davilow to her sister who now came up from the other end of the room. "Gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk." "She is rather given to whims, I think," said Mrs. Gascoigne, gravely. "It would be more becoming in her to behave as other young ladies do on such an occasion as this; especially when she has had the advantage of first-rate dancing lessons." "Why should I dance if I don't like it, aunt? It is not in the catechism." "My _dear_!" said Mrs. Gascoigne, in a tone of severe check, and Anna looked frightened at Gwendolen's daring. But they all passed on without saying any more. Apparently something had changed Gwendolen's mood since the hour of exulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. But she did not look the worse under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor of the scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but be soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of being preeminently sought for. Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to have her for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of melancholy remonstrance that she would not waltz or polk. "Are you under a vow, Miss Harleth?"--"Why are you so cruel to us all?"--"You waltzed with me in February."--"And you who waltz so perfectly!" were exclamations not without piquancy for her. The ladies who waltzed naturally thought that Miss Harleth only wanted to make herself particular; but her uncle when he overheard her refusal, supported her by saying, "Gwendolen has usually good reasons." He thought she was certainly more distinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished. The archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that suited all dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for youthful high spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the fashionable dances were too much of a romp. Among the remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not numbered. After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it seemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed him frequently with the Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity of approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne was sometimes speaking to him; but Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere. It was in her mind now that she would probably after all not have the least trouble about him: perhaps he had looked at her without any particular admiration, and was too much used to everything in the world to think of her as more than one of the girls who were invited in that part of the country. Of course! It was ridiculous of elders to entertain notions about what a man would do, without having seen him even through a telescope. Probably he meant to marry Miss Arrowpoint. Whatever might come, she, Gwendolen, was not going to be disappointed: the affair was a joke whichever way it turned, for she had never committed herself even by a silent confidence in anything Mr. Grandcourt would do. Still, she noticed that he did sometimes quietly and gradually change his position according to hers, so that he could see her whenever she was dancing, and if he did not admire her--so much the worse for him. This movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct than usual rather late in the evening, when Gwendolen had accepted Klesmer as a partner; and that wide-glancing personage, who saw everything and nothing by turns, said to her when they were walking, "Mr. Grandcourt is a man of taste. He likes to see you dancing." "Perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste," said Gwendolen, with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with Klesmer now. "He may be so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety." "Those words are not suitable to your lips," said Klesmer, quickly, with one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish the discordant sounds. "Are you as critical of words as of music?" "Certainly I am. I should require your words to be what your face and form are--always among the meanings of a noble music." "That is a compliment as well as a correction. I am obliged for both. But do you know I am bold enough to wish to correct _you_, and require you to understand a joke?" "One may understand jokes without liking them," said the terrible Klesmer. "I have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just because I understood them that I did not like them. The comic people are ready to challenge a man because he looks grave. 'You don't see the witticism, sir?' 'No, sir, but I see what you meant.' Then I am what we call ticketed as a fellow without _esprit_. But, in fact," said Klesmer, suddenly dropping from his quick narrative to a reflective tone, with an impressive frown, "I am very sensible to wit and humor." "I am glad you tell me that," said Gwendolen, not without some wickedness of intention. But Klesmer's thoughts had flown off on the wings of his own statement, as their habit was, and she had the wickedness all to herself. "Pray, who is that standing near the card-room door?" she went on, seeing there the same stranger with whom Klesmer had been in animated talk on the archery ground. "He is a friend of yours, I think." "No, no; an amateur I have seen in town; Lush, a Mr. Lush--too fond of Meyerbeer and Scribe--too fond of the mechanical-dramatic." "Thanks. I wanted to know whether you thought his face and form required that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?" Klesmer was conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made them quite friendly until she begged to be deposited by the side of her mamma. Three minutes afterward her preparations for Grandcourt's indifference were all canceled. Turning her head after some remark to her mother, she found that he had made his way up to her. "May I ask if you are tired of dancing, Miss Harleth?" he began, looking down with his former unperturbed expression. "Not in the least." "Will you do me the honor--the next--or another quadrille?" "I should have been very happy," said Gwendolen looking at her card, "but I am engaged for the next to Mr. Clintock--and indeed I perceive that I am doomed for every quadrille; I have not one to dispose of." She was not sorry to punish Mr. Grandcourt's tardiness, yet at the same time she would have liked to dance with him. She gave him a charming smile as she looked up to deliver her answer, and he stood still looking down at her with no smile at all. "I am unfortunate in being too late," he said, after a moment's pause. "It seemed to me that you did not care for dancing," said Gwendolen. "I thought it might be one of the things you had left off." "Yes, but I have not begun to dance with you," said Grandcourt. Always there was the same pause before he took up his cue. "You make dancing a new thing, as you make archery." "Is novelty always agreeable?" "No, no--not always." "Then I don't know whether to feel flattered or not. When you had once danced with me there would be no more novelty in it." "On the contrary, there would probably be much more." "That is deep. I don't understand." "It is difficult to make Miss Harleth understand her power?" Here Grandcourt had turned to Mrs. Davilow, who, smiling gently at her daughter, said, "I think she does not generally strike people as slow to understand." "Mamma," said Gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, "I am adorably stupid, and want everything explained to me--when the meaning is pleasant." "If you are stupid, I admit that stupidity is adorable," returned Grandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. But clearly he knew what to say. "I begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me," Gwendolen observed after a little while. "I see the quadrille is being formed." "He deserves to be renounced," said Grandcourt. "I think he is very pardonable," said Gwendolen. "There must have been some misunderstanding," said Mrs. Davilow. "Mr. Clintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten it." But now Lady Brackenshaw came up and said, "Miss Harleth, Mr. Clintock has charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to leave without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. An express came from his father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to go. He was _au désespoir_." "Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the circumstances," said Gwendolen. "I am sorry he was called away." It was easy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion. "Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock's misfortune?" said Grandcourt. "May I hope that you will let me take his place?" "I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you." The appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as Gwendolen stood up for the quadrille with Grandcourt, there was a revival in her of the exultation--the sense of carrying everything before her, which she had felt earlier in the day. No man could have walked through the quadrille with more irreproachable ease than Grandcourt; and the absence of all eagerness in his attention to her suited his partner's taste. She was now convinced that he meant to distinguish her, to mark his admiration of her in a noticeable way; and it began to appear probable that she would have it in her power to reject him, whence there was a pleasure in reckoning up the advantages which would make her rejection splendid, and in giving Mr. Grandcourt his utmost value. It was also agreeable to divine that this exclusive selection of her to dance with, from among all the unmarried ladies present, would attract observation; though she studiously avoided seeing this, and at the end of the quadrille walked away on Grandcourt's arm as if she had been one of the shortest sighted instead of the longest and widest sighted of mortals. They encountered Miss Arrowpoint, who was standing with Lady Brackenshaw and a group of gentlemen. The heiress looked at Gwendolen invitingly and said, "I hope you will vote with us, Miss Harleth, and Mr. Grandcourt too, though he is not an archer." Gwendolen and Grandcourt paused to join the group, and found that the voting turned on the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in Cardell Chase, where the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a ball under chandeliers--a feast of sunset lights along the glades and through the branches and over the solemn tree-tops. Gwendolen thought the scheme delightful--equal to playing Robin Hood and Maid Marian: and Mr. Grandcourt, when appealed to a second time, said it was a thing to be done; whereupon Mr. Lush, who stood behind Lady Brackenshaw's elbow, drew Gwendolen's notice by saying with a familiar look and tone to Grandcourt, "Diplow would be a good place for the meeting, and more convenient: there's a fine bit between the oaks toward the north gate." Impossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than Grandcourt; but Gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that he must be on terms of intimacy with the tenant of Diplow, and, secondly, that she would never, if she could help it, let him come within a yard of her. She was subject to physical antipathies, and Mr. Lush's prominent eyes, fat though not clumsy figure, and strong black gray-besprinkled hair of frizzy thickness, which, with the rest of his prosperous person, was enviable to many, created one of the strongest of her antipathies. To be safe from his looking at her, she murmured to Grandcourt, "I should like to continue walking." He obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience, he spoke no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused, half-serious inclination for experiment, would not speak first. They turned into the large conservatory, beautifully lit up with Chinese lamps. The other couples there were at a distance which would not have interfered with any dialogue, but still they walked in silence until they had reached the farther end where there was a flush of pink light, and the second wide opening into the ball-room. Grandcourt, when they had half turned round, paused and said languidly, "Do you like this kind of thing?" If the situation had been described to Gwendolen half an hour before, she would have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined herself returning a playful, satirical answer. But for some mysterious reason--it was a mystery of which she had a faint wondering consciousness--she dared not be satirical: she had begun to feel a wand over her that made her afraid of offending Grandcourt. "Yes," she said, quietly, without considering what "kind of thing" was meant--whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in general, or this episode of walking with Mr. Grandcourt in particular. And they returned along the conservatory without farther interpretation. She then proposed to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among scattered couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where Mrs. Davilow had been seated all the evening. As they approached it her seat was vacant, but she was coming toward it again, and, to Gwendolen's shuddering annoyance, with Mr. Lush at her elbow. There was no avoiding the confrontation: her mamma came close to her before they had reached the seats, and, after a quiet greeting smile, said innocently, "Gwendolen, dear, let me present Mr. Lush to you." Having just made the acquaintance of this personage, as an intimate and constant companion of Mr. Grandcourt's, Mrs. Davilow imagined it altogether desirable that her daughter also should make the acquaintance. It was hardly a bow that Gwendolen gave--rather, it was the slightest forward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined itself toward her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying, "I want to put on my burnous." No sooner had she reached it, than Mr. Lush was there, and had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this supercilious young lady, he would incur the offense of forestalling Grandcourt; and, holding up the garment close to Gwendolen, he said, "Pray, permit me?" But she, wheeling away from him as if he had been a muddy hound, glided on to the ottoman, saying, "No, thank you." A man who forgave this would have much Christian feeling, supposing he had intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized the burnous Mr. Lush had ceased to have that intention. Grandcourt quietly took the drapery from him, and Mr. Lush, with a slight bow, moved away. "You had perhaps better put it on," said Mr. Grandcourt, looking down on her without change of expression. "Thanks; perhaps it would be wise," said Gwendolen, rising, and submitting very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders. After that, Mr. Grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with Mrs. Davilow, and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at Offendene the next day. He was evidently not offended by the insult directed toward his friend. Certainly Gwendolen's refusal of the burnous from Mr. Lush was open to the interpretation that she wished to receive it from Mr. Grandcourt. But she, poor child, had no design in this action, and was simply following her antipathy and inclination, confiding in them as she did in the more reflective judgments into which they entered as sap into leafage. Gwendolen had no sense that these men were dark enigmas to her, or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions about them--Mr. Grandcourt at least. The chief question was, how far his character and ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were satisfied about that, she had said to herself that she would not accept his offer. Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely; when women on the other side of the world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who died bravely in a common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of the world heard of that willing loss and were patient: a time when the soul of man was walking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of terror or of joy. What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections. CHAPTER XII. "O gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial's point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour." --SHAKESPEARE: _Henry IV_. On the second day after the archery meeting, Mr. Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt was at his breakfast-table with Mr. Lush. Everything around them was agreeable: the summer air through the open windows, at which the dogs could walk in from the old green turf on the lawn; the soft, purplish coloring of the park beyond, stretching toward a mass of bordering wood; the still life in the room, which seemed the stiller for its sober antiquated elegance, as if it kept a conscious, well-bred silence, unlike the restlessness of vulgar furniture. Whether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident. Mr. Grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and with his left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table, was smoking a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. The dogs--half-a-dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out, taking attitudes of brief attention--gave a vacillating preference first to one gentleman, then to the other; being dogs in such good circumstances that they could play at hunger, and liked to be served with delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward, watching Grandcourt with unshaken constancy. He held in his lap a tiny Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave her no word or look; at last it seemed that she could bear this neglect no longer, and she gently put her large silky paw on her master's leg. Grandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for half a minute, and then took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he lifted the unimpassioned Fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing pats, all the while gravely watching Fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered interruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at last rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous beseeching. So, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted Fetch, and Grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at any rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an interpretation. But when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling bark, Grandcourt pushed Fetch down without speaking, and, depositing Fluff carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a salt-cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some annoyance against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar required relighting. Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of her sex, that it was not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was a louder one, and the third was like unto it. "Turn out that brute, will you?" said Grandcourt to Lush, without raising his voice or looking at him--as if he counted on attention to the smallest sign. And Lush immediately rose, lifted Fetch, though she was rather heavy, and he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her in some way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. He then lit a cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see Grandcourt's face without turning, and presently said, "Shall you ride or drive to Quetcham to-day?" "I am not going to Quetcham." "You did not go yesterday." Grandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said, "I suppose you sent my card and inquiries." "I went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly. They would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the intention. Especially if you go to-day." Silence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, "What men are invited here with their wives?" Lush drew out a note-book. "The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next week. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the Gogoffs." "Rather a ragged lot," remarked Grandcourt, after a while. "Why did you ask the Gogoffs? When you write invitations in my name, be good enough to give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my knowledge. She spoils the look of the room." "You invited the Gogoffs yourself when you met them in Paris." "What has my meeting them in Paris to do with it? I told you to give me a list." Grandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices. Hitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl suggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. But this last brief speech was uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which Lush had long been used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will. "Are there any other couples you would like to invite?" "Yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. And one of your damned musicians. But not a comic fellow." "I wonder if Klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves Quetcham. Nothing but first-class music will go down with Miss Arrowpoint." Lush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and fixing an observant look on Grandcourt, who now for the first time, turned his eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking until he had given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a lower tone than ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt, "What in the name of nonsense have I to do with Miss Arrowpoint and her music?" "Well, something," said Lush, jocosely. "You need not give yourself much trouble, perhaps. But some forms must be gone through before a man can marry a million." "Very likely. But I am not going to marry a million." "That's a pity--to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock down your own plans." "_Your_ plans, I suppose you mean." "You have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently, after all. The heirship is not _absolutely_ certain." Grandcourt did not answer, and Lush went on. "It really is a fine opportunity. The father and mother ask for nothing better, I can see, and the daughter's looks and manners require no allowances, any more than if she hadn't a sixpence. She is not beautiful; but equal to carrying any rank. And she is not likely to refuse such prospects as you can offer her." "Perhaps not." "The father and mother would let you do anything you like with them." "But I should not like to do anything with them." Here it was Lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and then he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, "Good God, Grandcourt! after your experience, will you let a whim interfere with your comfortable settlement in life?" "Spare your oratory. I know what I am going to do." "What?" Lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side pockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep his temper. "I am going to marry the other girl." "Have you fallen in love?" This question carried a strong sneer. "I am going to marry her." "You have made her an offer already, then?" "No." "She is a young lady with a will of her own, I fancy. Extremely well fitted to make a rumpus. She would know what she liked." "She doesn't like you," said Grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile. "Perfectly true," said Lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone. "However, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be enough." Grandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose, and strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him. Lush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but smoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers, till he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some conclusion, and said in a subdued voice, "Check, old boy!" Lush, being a man of some ability, had not known Grandcourt for fifteen years without learning what sort of measures were useless with him, though what sort might be useful remained often dubious. In the beginning of his career he held a fellowship, and was near taking orders for the sake of a college living, but, not being fond of that prospect, accepted instead the office of traveling companion to a marquess, and afterward to young Grandcourt, who had lost his father early, and who found Lush so convenient that he had allowed him to become prime minister in all his more personal affairs. The habit of fifteen years had made Grandcourt more and more in need of Lush's handiness, and Lush more and more in need of the lazy luxury to which his transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no interruption worth reckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit had intensified Grandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that want had been absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense that he might kick Lush if he chose--only he never did choose to kick any animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a gentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which might have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man of independent spirit. But what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife and daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to Oxford, can keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high discrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most luxuriant honey-blossomed clover--and all without working? Mr. Lush had passed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than the odor of departed learning. He was not unconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate among the peculiarities of Grandcourt's character, which made one of his incalculable moods or judgments as good as another. Since in his own opinion he had never done a bad action, it did not seem necessary to consider whether he should be likely to commit one if his love of ease required it. Lush's love of ease was well-satisfied at present, and if his puddings were rolled toward him in the dust, he took the inside bits and found them relishing. This morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance than usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour on the violoncello. CHAPTER XIII. "Philistia, be thou glad of me!" Grandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a power of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was hardly a day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, or prove by emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His cousin, Mrs. Torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow in which there were many witnesses how the host distinguished the dowerless beauty, and showed no solicitude about the heiress. The world--I mean Mr. Gascoigne and all the families worth speaking of within visiting distance of Pennicote--felt an assurance on the subject which in the rector's mind converted itself into a resolution to do his duty by his niece and see that the settlements were adequate. Indeed the wonder to him and Mrs. Davilow was that the offer for which so many suitable occasions presented themselves had not been already made; and in this wonder Grandcourt himself was not without a share. When he had told his resolution to Lush he had thought that the affair would be concluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would to-day give Gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. He had never admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but--heaven help us all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like a spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally sure that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we decline to handle it. He had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for Gwendolen to ride. Mrs. Davilow was to accompany her in the carriage, and they were to go to Diplow to lunch, Grandcourt conducting them. It was a fine mid-harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five miles to be delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the fields, there was enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit among the ears of uncut corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across the soft gray downs; here the sheaves were standing, there the horses were straining their muscles under the last load from a wide space of stubble, but everywhere the green pasture made a broader setting for the corn-fields, and the cattle took their rest under wide branches. The road lay through a bit of country where the dairy-farms looked much as they did in the days of our forefathers--where peace and permanence seemed to find a home away from the busy change that sent the railway train flying in the distance. But the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor Mrs. Davilow's mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding. Gwendolen and Grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening their pace to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them again, made a gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the conflict of hopes and fears about her daughter's lot. Here was an irresistible opportunity for a lover to speak and put an end to all uncertainties, and Mrs. Davilow could only hope with trembling that Gwendolen's decision would be favorable. Certainly if Rex's love had been repugnant to her, Mr. Grandcourt had the advantage of being in complete contrast with Rex; and that he had produced some quite novel impression on her seemed evident in her marked abstinence from satirical observations, nay, her total silence about his characteristics, a silence which Mrs. Davilow did not dare to break. "Is he a man she would be happy with?"--was a question that inevitably arose in the mother's mind. "Well, perhaps as happy as she would be with any one else--or as most other women are"--was the answer with which she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine Gwendolen under the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in what we traditionally call "mean circumstances." Grandcourt's own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted to have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having spoken. As to any further uncertainty--well, it was something without any reasonable basis, some quality in the air which acted as an irritant to his wishes. Gwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in girlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with Rex. She spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a far-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the air--not, she was sure, any subjugation of her will by Mr. Grandcourt, and the splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for Gwendolen desired every one, that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand that she was going to do just as she liked, and that they had better not calculate on her pleasing them. If she chose to take this husband, she would have him know that she was not going to renounce her freedom, or according to her favorite formula, "not going to do as other women did." Grandcourt's speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief sort which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker is held important in his circle. Stopping so soon, they give signs of a suppressed and formidable ability so say more, and have also the meritorious quality of allowing lengthiness to others. "How do you like Criterion's paces?" he said, after they had entered the park and were slacking from a canter to a walk. "He is delightful to ride. I should like to have a leap with him, if it would not frighten mamma. There was a good wide channel we passed five minutes ago. I should like to have a gallop back and take it." "Pray do. We can take it together." "No, thanks. Mamma is so timid--if she saw me it might make her ill." "Let me go and explain. Criterion would take it without fail." "No--indeed--you are very kind--but it would alarm her too much. I dare take any leap when she is not by; but I do it and don't tell her about it." "We can let the carriage pass and then set off." "No, no, pray don't think of it any more: I spoke quite randomly," said Gwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own proposition. "But Mrs. Davilow knows I shall take care of you." "Yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken neck." There was a considerable pause before Grandcourt said, looking toward her, "I should like to have the right always to take care of you." Gwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while that she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to Grandcourt's rate of judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone and a careless movement of the head, "Oh, I am not sure that I want to be taken care of: if I chose to risk breaking my neck, I should like to be at liberty to do it." She checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking toward the advancing carriage. Her eyes swept across Grandcourt as she made this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the carelessness of her reply. At that very moment she was aware that she was risking something--not her neck, but the possibility of finally checking Grandcourt's advances, and she did not feel contented with the possibility. "Damn her!" thought Grandcourt, as he too checked his horse. He was not a wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions which eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences full of an irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a determination that this girl should not make a fool of him. Did she want him to throw himself at her feet and declare that he was dying for her? It was not by that gate that she could enter on the privileges he could give her. Or did she expect him to write his proposals? Equally a delusion. He would not make his offer in any way that could place him definitely in the position of being rejected. But as to her accepting him, she had done it already in accepting his marked attentions: and anything which happened to break them off would be understood to her disadvantage. She was merely coquetting, then? However, the carriage came up, and no further _tete-à-tete_ could well occur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant company, to whom Gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid aside, clad also in the repute of being chosen by Mr. Grandcourt, was naturally a centre of observation; and since the objectionable Mr. Lush was not there to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention heightened her spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy consciousness of divided impulses which threatened her with repentance of her own acts. Whether Grandcourt had been offended or not there was no judging: his manners were unchanged, but Gwendolen's acuteness had not gone deeper than to discern that his manners were no clue for her, and because these were unchanged she was not the less afraid of him. She had not been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain points of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady Flora Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had dispersed, and the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the remaining party should make a little exploration. Here came frequent opportunities when Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and have spoken to her unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but what he said was nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in their first interview. He looked at her not less than usual; and some of her defiant spirit having come back, she looked full at him in return, not caring--rather preferring--that his eyes had no expression in them. But at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. After they had nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the pool to be amused with Fetch's accomplishment of bringing a water lily to the bank like Cowper's spaniel Beau, and having been disappointed in his first attempt insisted on his trying again. Here Grandcourt, who stood with Gwendolen outside the group, turned deliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with American shrubs, and having a winding path up it, said languidly, "This is a bore. Shall we go up there?" "Oh, certainly--since we are exploring," said Gwendolen. She was rather pleased, and yet afraid. The path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in silence. When they were on the bit of platform at the summit, Grandcourt said, "There is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing." How was it that Gwendolen did not laugh? She was perfectly silent, holding up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder grasp to the handle of her whip, which she had snatched up automatically with her hat when they had first set off. "What sort of a place do you prefer?" said Grandcourt. "Different places are agreeable in their way. On the whole, I think, I prefer places that are open and cheerful. I am not fond of anything sombre." "Your place of Offendene is too sombre....". "It is, rather." "You will not remain there long, I hope." "Oh, yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister." Silence for a short space. "It is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though Mrs. Davilow may." "I don't know. We women can't go in search of adventures--to find out the North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the plants; they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them have got poisonous. What do you think?" Gwendolen had run on rather nervously, lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her. "I quite agree. Most things are bores," said Grandcourt, his mind having been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. But, after a moment's pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl, "But a woman can be married." "Some women can." "You, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel." "I am not sure that I am not both cruel and obstinate." Here Gwendolen suddenly turned her head and looked full at Grandcourt, whose eyes she had felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. She was wondering what the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather than on him. He stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it flashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater's stupor had begun in him and was taking possession of her. Then he said, "Are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?" "I am quite uncertain about myself; I don't know how uncertain others may be." "And you wish them to understand that you don't care?" said Grandcourt, with a touch of new hardness in his tone. "I did not say that," Gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her eyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. She wished she were on horseback that she might set off on a canter. It was impossible to set off running down the knoll. "You do care, then," said Grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a softened drawl. "Ha! my whip!" said Gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. She had let it go--what could be more natural in a slight agitation?--and--but this seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left altogether to itself--it had gone with some force over the immediate shrubs, and had lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way down the knoll. She could run down now, laughing prettily, and Grandcourt was obliged to follow; but she was beforehand with him in rescuing the whip, and continued on her way to the level ground, when she paused and looked at Grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in her glance and a heightened color, as if she had carried a triumph, and these indications were still noticeable to Mrs. Davilow when Gwendolen and Grandcourt joined the rest of the party. "It is all coquetting," thought Grandcourt; "the next time I beckon she will come down." It seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very next day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in Cardell Chase, according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball. Even in Gwendolen's mind that result was one of two likelihoods that presented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she was being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line, and she did not know on which she should fall. This subjection to a possible self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her some astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life--doing as she liked--seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given moment she might like to do. The prospect of marrying Grandcourt really seemed more attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any marriage could be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a great deal of what she liked to do, which had now come close to her, and within her choice to secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as if it had been the strong odor of what she had only imagined and longed for before. And Grandcourt himself? He seemed as little of a flaw in his fortunes as a lover and husband could possibly be. Gwendolen wished to mount the chariot and drive the plunging horses herself, with a spouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities--he would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make. But what else was he? He had been everywhere, and seen everything. _That_ was desirable, and especially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme preference for Gwendolen Harleth. He did not appear to enjoy anything much. That was not necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or desires, the more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers. Gwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able to manage him thoroughly. How was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?--that she was less daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other admirer she had known? That absence of demonstrativeness which she was glad of, acted as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly benumbing. Grandcourt after all was formidable--a handsome lizard of a hitherto unknown species, not of the lively, darting kind. But Gwendolen knew hardly anything about lizards, and ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities. This splendid specimen was probably gentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may not a lizard be, if you know nothing to the contrary? Her acquaintance with Grandcourt was such that no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him would have surprised her. And he was so little suggestive of drama, that it hardly occurred to her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-six years had been passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and dignified, not likely ever to have committed himself. He had hunted the tiger--had he ever been in love or made love? The one experience and the other seemed alike remote in Gwendolen's fancy from the Mr. Grandcourt who had come to Diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her destiny--perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she had resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. And on the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her prevailing, deliberate intention was, to accept him. But was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? She began to be afraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she liked. Already her assertion of independence in evading his advances had been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with some anxiety what she might do on the next occasion. Seated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their drive homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma, who took the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her eyes, her unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable signs that something unprecedented had occurred between her and Grandcourt. Mrs. Davilow's uneasiness determined her to risk some speech on the subject: the Gascoignes were to dine at Offendene, and in what had occurred this morning there might be some reason for consulting the rector; not that she expected him anymore than herself to influence Gwendolen, but that her anxious mind wanted to be disburdened. "Something has happened, dear?" she began, in a tender tone of question. Gwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness of her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the soft breeze might blow on her head. They were in a retired bit of the road, where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell across it and no observers were within sight. Her eyes continued to meet her mother's, but she did not speak. "Mr. Grandcourt has been saying something?--Tell me, dear." The last words were uttered beseechingly. "What am I to tell you, mamma?" was the perverse answer. "I am sure something has agitated you. You ought to confide in me, Gwen. You ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety." Mrs. Davilow's eyes filled with tears. "Mamma, dear, please don't be miserable," said Gwendolen, with pettish remonstrance. "It only makes me more so. I am in doubt myself." "About Mr. Grandcourt's intentions?" said Mrs. Davilow, gathering determination from her alarms. "No; not at all," said Gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty little toss of the head as she put on her hat again. "About whether you will accept him, then?" "Precisely." "Have you given him a doubtful answer?" "I have given him no answer at all." "He _has_ spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?" "As far as I would let him speak." "You expect him to persevere?" Mrs. Davilow put this question rather anxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: "You don't consider that you have discouraged him?" "I dare say not." "I thought you liked him, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, timidly. "So I do, mamma, as liking goes. There is less to dislike about him than about most men. He is quiet and _distingué_." Gwendolen so far spoke with a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some of her mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she added--"Indeed he has all the qualities that would make a husband tolerable--battlement, veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in his eye." "Do be serious with me for a moment, dear. Am I to understand that you mean to accept him?" "Oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself," said Gwendolen, with a pettish distress in her voice. And Mrs. Davilow said no more. When they got home Gwendolen declared that she would not dine. She was tired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some rest. The probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not trouble her. She was convinced that whatever he might say would be on the side of her accepting Grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if she could. At this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on her own caprice. Mr. Gascoigne did hear--not Gwendolen's answers repeated verbatim, but a softened generalized account of them. The mother conveyed as vaguely as the keen rector's questions would let her the impression that Gwendolen was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on the whole to acceptance. The result was that the uncle felt himself called on to interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. Mrs. Davilow ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say nothing--Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). But the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he adjusted himself. This match with Grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public affair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the establishment. To the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected it, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer, aristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its possessor from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, Grandcourt, the almost certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with public personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general grounds national and ecclesiastical. Such public personages, it is true, are often in the nature of giants which an ancient community may have felt pride and safety in possessing, though, regarded privately, these born eminences must often have been inconvenient and even noisome. But of the future husband personally Mr. Gascoigne was disposed to think the best. Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. But if Grandcourt had really made any deeper or more unfortunate experiments in folly than were common in young men of high prospects, he was of an age to have finished them. All accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has not ruined himself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against future error. This was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to higher views, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. There was every reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be happy with Grandcourt. It was no surprise to Gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that her uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. He threw aside the paper as she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. As his wife had remarked, he always "made much" of Gwendolen, and her importance had risen of late. "My dear," he said, in a fatherly way, moving a chair for her as he held her hand, "I want to speak to you on a subject which is more momentous than any other with regard to your welfare. You will guess what I mean. But I shall speak to you with perfect directness: in such matters I consider myself bound to act as your father. You have no objection, I hope?" "Oh dear, no, uncle. You have always been very kind to me," said Gwendolen, frankly. This evening she was willing, if it were possible, to be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her resistant temper was in abeyance. The rector's mode of speech always conveyed a thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to take for granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and that every one was going to be rationally obedient. "It is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage for you--advantageous in the highest degree--has presented itself so early. I do not know exactly what has passed between you and Mr. Grandcourt, but I presume there can be little doubt, from the way in which he has distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife." Gwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with more emphasis, "Have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?" "I suppose that is what he has been thinking of. But he may have changed his mind to-morrow," said Gwendolen. "Why to-morrow? Has he made advances which you have discouraged?" "I think he meant--he began to make advances--but I did not encourage them. I turned the conversation." "Will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?" "I am not sure that I had any reasons, uncle." Gwendolen laughed rather artificially. "You are quite capable of reflecting, Gwendolen. You are aware that this is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for life under circumstances which may not occur again. You have a duty here both to yourself and your family. I wish to understand whether you have any ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of Mr. Grandcourt." "I suppose I hesitate without grounds." Gwendolen spoke rather poutingly, and her uncle grew suspicious. "Is he disagreeable to you personally?" "No." "Have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?" The rector thought it impossible that Gwendolen could have heard the gossip he had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things in the right light for her. "I have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match," said Gwendolen, with some sauciness; "and that affects me very agreeably." "Then, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you hold your fortune in your own hands--a fortune such as rarely happens to a girl in your circumstances--a fortune in fact which almost takes the question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your acceptance of it a duty. If Providence offers you power and position--especially when unclogged by any conditions that are repugnant to you--your course is one of responsibility, into which caprice must not enter. A man does not like to have his attachment trifled with: he may not be at once repelled--these things are matters of individual disposition. But the trifling may be carried too far. And I must point out to you that in case Mr. Grandcourt were repelled without your having refused him--without your having intended ultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a humiliating and painful one. I, for my part, should regard you with severe disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry and folly." Gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The ideas it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage would not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against her own resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which she already felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that lay within herself. She was silent, and the rector observed that he had produced some strong effect. "I mean this in kindness, my dear." His tone had softened. "I am aware of that, uncle," said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her head back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. "I am not foolish. I know that I must be married some time--before it is too late. And I don't see how I could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt. I mean to accept him, if possible." She felt as if she were reinforcing herself by speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle. But the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own meaning from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice should be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such as are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not consider them always appropriate to be put forward. He wished his niece parks, carriages, a title--everything that would make this world a pleasant abode; but he wished her not to be cynical--to be, on the contrary, religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections. "My dear Gwendolen," he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant gravity, "I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty and affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a woman, and if your marriage with Mr. Grandcourt should be happily decided upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of rank and wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These considerations are something higher than romance! You are fitted by natural gifts for a position which, considering your birth and early prospects, could hardly be looked forward to as in the ordinary course of things; and I trust that you will grace it, not only by those personal gifts, but by a good and consistent life." "I hope mamma will be the happier," said Gwendolen, in a more cheerful way, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door. She wanted to waive those higher considerations. Mr. Gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding with his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by furthering her engagement to Grandcourt. Meanwhile there was another person to whom the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for some activity, and who believed that he, too, on this particular day had done something toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_ sense--which happened to be the reverse of the rector's. Mr. Lush's absence from Diplow during Gwendolen's visit had been due, not to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or of being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which he expected important consequences. He was gone, in fact, to the Wanchester station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two children, whom he put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel of the Golden Keys, in that town. An impressive woman, whom many would turn to look at again in passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently tall, her face rather emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was the more pronounced, her crisp hair perfectly black, and her large, anxious eyes what we call black. Her dress was soberly correct, her age, perhaps, physically more advanced than the number of years would imply, but hardly less than seven-and-thirty. An uneasy-looking woman: her glance seemed to presuppose that the people and things were going to be unfavorable to her, while she was, nevertheless, ready to meet them with resolution. The children were lovely--a dark-haired girl of six or more, a fairer boy of five. When Lush incautiously expressed some surprise at her having brought the children, she said, with a sharp-toned intonation, "Did you suppose I should come wandering about here by myself? Why should I not bring all four if I liked?" "Oh, certainly," said Lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_. He stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to Diplow in a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to the execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based. Grandcourt's marriage to Gwendolen Harleth would not, he believed, be much of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with disagreeables to himself. But now he felt confident enough to say inwardly, "I will take, nay, I will lay odds that the marriage will never happen." CHAPTER XIV. I will not clothe myself in wreck--wear gems Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned; Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast With orphans' heritage. Let your dead love Marry its dead. Gwendolen looked lovely and vigorous as a tall, newly-opened lily the next morning: there was a reaction of young energy in her, and yesterday's self-distrust seemed no more than the transient shiver on the surface of a full stream. The roving archery match in Cardell Chase was a delightful prospect for the sport's sake: she felt herself beforehand moving about like a wood-nymph under the beeches (in appreciative company), and the imagined scene lent a charm to further advances on the part of Grandcourt--not an impassioned lyrical Daphnis for the wood-nymph, certainly: but so much the better. To-day Gwendolen foresaw him making slow conversational approaches to a declaration, and foresaw herself awaiting and encouraging it according to the rational conclusion which she had expressed to her uncle. When she came down to breakfast (after every one had left the table except Mrs. Davilow) there were letters on her plate. One of them she read with a gathering smile, and then handed it to her mamma, who, on returning it, smiled also, finding new cheerfulness in the good spirits her daughter had shown ever since waking, and said, "You don't feel inclined to go a thousand miles away?" "Not exactly so far." "It was a sad omission not to have written again before this. Can't you write now--before we set out this morning?" "It is not so pressing. To-morrow will do. You see they leave town to-day. I must write to Dover. They will be there till Monday." "Shall I write for you, dear--if it teases you?" Gwendolen did not speak immediately, but after sipping her coffee, answered brusquely, "Oh no, let it be; I will write to-morrow." Then, feeling a touch of compunction, she looked up and said with playful tenderness, "Dear, old, beautiful mamma!" "Old, child, truly." "Please don't, mamma! I meant old for darling. You are hardly twenty-five years older than I am. When you talk in that way my life shrivels up before me." "One can have a great deal of happiness in twenty-five years, my dear." "I must lose no time in beginning," said Gwendolen, merrily. "The sooner I get my palaces and coaches the better." "And a good husband who adores you, Gwen," said Mrs. Davilow, encouragingly. Gwendolen put out her lips saucily and said nothing. It was a slight drawback on her pleasure in starting that the rector was detained by magistrate's business, and would probably not be able to get to Cardell Chase at all that day. She cared little that Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna chose not to go without him, but her uncle's presence would have seemed to make it a matter of course that the decision taken would be acted on. For decision in itself began to be formidable. Having come close to accepting Grandcourt, Gwendolen felt this lot of unhoped-for fullness rounding itself too definitely. When we take to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion. Still there was the reassuring thought that marriage would be the gate into a larger freedom. The place of meeting was a grassy spot called Green Arbor, where a bit of hanging wood made a sheltering amphitheatre. It was here that the coachful of servants with provisions had to prepare the picnic meal; and the warden of the Chase was to guide the roving archers so as to keep them within the due distance from this centre, and hinder them from wandering beyond the limit which had been fixed on--a curve that might be drawn through certain well-known points, such as the double Oak, the Whispering Stones, and the High Cross. The plan was to take only a preliminary stroll before luncheon, keeping the main roving expedition for the more exquisite lights of the afternoon. The muster was rapid enough to save every one from dull moments of waiting, and when the groups began to scatter themselves through the light and shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on. This roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice, and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, as well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and wishing not to betray her preoccupation, Gwendolen did not greatly distinguish herself in these first experiments, unless it were by the lively grace with which she took her comparative failure. She was in white and green as on the day of the former meeting, when it made an epoch for her that she was introduced to Grandcourt; he was continually by her side now, yet it would have been hard to tell from mere looks and manners that their relation to each other had at all changed since their first conversation. Still there were other grounds that made most persons conclude them to be, if not engaged already, on the eve of being so. And she believed this herself. As they were all returning toward Green Arbor in divergent groups, not thinking at all of taking aim but merely chattering, words passed which seemed really the beginning of that end--the beginning of her acceptance. Grandcourt said, "Do you know how long it is since I first saw you in this dress?" "The archery meeting was on the 25th, and this is the 13th," said Gwendolen, laughingly. "I am not good at calculating, but I will venture to say that it must be nearly three weeks." A little pause, and then he said, "That is a great loss of time." "That your knowing me has caused you? Pray don't be uncomplimentary; I don't like it." Pause again. "It is because of the gain that I feel the loss." Here Gwendolen herself left a pause. She was thinking, "He is really very ingenious. He never speaks stupidly." Her silence was so unusual that it seemed the strongest of favorable answers, and he continued: "The gain of knowing you makes me feel the time I lose in uncertainty. Do _you_ like uncertainty?" "I think I do, rather," said Gwendolen, suddenly beaming on him with a playful smile. "There is more in it." Grandcourt met her laughing eyes with a slow, steady look right into them, which seemed like vision in the abstract, and then said, "Do you mean more torment for me?" There was something so strange to Gwendolen in this moment that she was quite shaken out of her usual self-consciousness. Blushing and turning away her eyes, she said, "No, that would make me sorry." Grandcourt would have followed up this answer, which the change in her manner made apparently decisive of her favorable intention; but he was not in any way overcome so as to be unaware that they were now, within sight of everybody, descending the space into Green Arbor, and descending it at an ill-chosen point where it began to be inconveniently steep. This was a reason for offering his hand in the literal sense to help her; she took it, and they came down in silence, much observed by those already on the level--among others by Mrs. Arrowpoint, who happened to be standing with Mrs. Davilow. That lady had now made up her mind that Grandcourt's merits were not such as would have induced Catherine to accept him, Catherine having so high a standard as to have refused Lord Slogan. Hence she looked at the tenant of Diplow with dispassionate eyes. "Mr. Grandcourt is not equal as a man to his uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger--too languid. To be sure, Mr. Grandcourt is a much younger man, but I shouldn't wonder if Sir Hugo were to outlive him, notwithstanding the difference of years. It is ill calculating on successions," concluded Mrs. Arrowpoint, rather too loudly. "It is indeed," said Mrs. Davilow, able to assent with quiet cheerfulness, for she was so well satisfied with the actual situation of affairs that her habitual melancholy in their general unsatisfactoriness was altogether in abeyance. I am not concerned to tell of the food that was eaten in that green refectory, or even to dwell on the stories of the forest scenery that spread themselves out beyond the level front of the hollow; being just now bound to tell a story of life at a stage when the blissful beauty of earth and sky entered only by narrow and oblique inlets into the consciousness, which was busy with a small social drama almost as little penetrated by a feeling of wider relations as if it had been a puppet-show. It will be understood that the food and champagne were of the best--the talk and laughter too, in the sense of belonging to the best society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them. Some of the gentlemen strolled a little and indulged in a cigar, there being a sufficient interval before four o'clock--the time for beginning to rove again. Among these, strange to say, was Grandcourt; but not Mr. Lush, who seemed to be taking his pleasure quite generously to-day by making himself particularly serviceable, ordering everything for everybody, and by this activity becoming more than ever a blot on the scene to Gwendolen, though he kept himself amiably aloof from her, and never even looked at her obviously. When there was a general move to prepare for starting, it appeared that the bows had all been put under the charge of Lord Brackenshaw's valet, and Mr. Lush was concerned to save ladies the trouble of fetching theirs from the carriage where they were propped. He did not intend to bring Gwendolen's, but she, fearful lest he should do so, hurried to fetch it herself. The valet, seeing her approach, met her with it, and in giving it into her hand gave also a letter addressed to her. She asked no question about it, perceived at a glance that the address was in a lady's handwriting (of the delicate kind which used to be esteemed feminine before the present uncial period), and moving away with her bow in her hand, saw Mr. Lush coming to fetch other bows. To avoid meeting him she turned aside and walked with her back toward the stand of carriages, opening the letter. It contained these words, If Miss Harleth is in doubt whether she should accept Mr. Grandcourt, let her break from her party after they have passed the Whispering Stones and return to that spot. She will then hear something to decide her; but she can only hear it by keeping this letter a strict secret from every one. If she does not act according to this letter, she will repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. The secrecy Miss Harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard. Gwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, "It is come in time." It lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the idea of the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary suspicion of contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter. Her mind gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would manage to go unobserved to the Whispering Stones; and thrusting the letter into her pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that sense of having something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing quality and helped her to be mistress of herself. It was a surprise to every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. "We shall alight on him by-and-by," said Lord Brackenshaw; "he can't be gone far." At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent forgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed in thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which would bring him into her actual presence. And the good-natured Earl gave Gwendolen a distant jocose hint to that effect, which she took with suitable quietude. But the thought in her mind was "Can he too be starting away from a decision?" It was not exactly a pleasant thought to her; but it was near the truth. "Starting away," however, was not the right expression for the languor of intention that came over Grandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within easy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the contrary, became another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of definite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a vague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who might be insulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request for his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his cigar, to say in an undertone, "You'll be kind enough to go to the devil, will you?" But he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible depression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous ladies, including Mrs. Davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from obligation to keep up with others. The enjoyment of the day was soon at its highest pitch, the archery getting more spirited and the changing scenes of the forest from roofed grove to open glade growing lovelier with the lengthening shadows, and the deeply-felt but undefinable gradations of the mellowing afternoon. It was agreed that they were playing an extemporized _As you like it_; and when a pretty compliment had been turned to Gwendolen about her having the part of Rosalind, she felt the more compelled to be surpassing in loveliness. This was not very difficult to her, for the effect of what had happened to-day was an excitement which needed a vent--a sense of adventure rather than alarm, and a straining toward the management of her retreat, so as not to be impeded. The roving had been lasting nearly an hour before the arrival at the Whispering Stones, two tall conical blocks that leaned toward each other like gigantic gray-mantled figures. They were soon surveyed and passed by with the remark that they would be good ghosts on a starlit night. But a soft sunlight was on them now, and Gwendolen felt daring. The stones were near a fine grove of beeches, where the archers found plenty of marks. "How far are we from Green Arbor now?" said Gwendolen, having got in front by the side of the warden. "Oh, not more than half a mile, taking along the avenue we're going to cross up there: but I shall take round a couple of miles, by the High Cross." She was falling back among the rest, when suddenly they seemed all to be hurrying obliquely forward under the guidance of Mr. Lush, and lingering a little where she was, she perceived her opportunity of slipping away. Soon she was out of sight, and without running she seemed to herself to fly along the ground and count the moments nothing till she found herself back again at the Whispering Stones. They turned their blank gray sides to her: what was there on the other side? If there were nothing after all? That was her only dread now--to have to turn back again in mystification; and walking round the right-hand stone without pause, she found herself in front of some one whose large dark eyes met hers at a foot's distance. In spite of expectation, she was startled and shrank bank, but in doing so she could take in the whole figure of this stranger and perceive that she was unmistakably a lady, and one who must have been exceedingly handsome. She perceived, also, that a few yards from her were two children seated on the grass. "Miss Harleth?" said the lady. "Yes." All Gwendolen's consciousness was wonder. "Have you accepted Mr. Grandcourt?" "No." "I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my secret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any one else, that you have seen me?" "I promise." "My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one but me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two children are his, and we have two others--girls--who are older. My husband is dead now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to make that boy his heir." She looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen's eyes followed hers. The handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow a tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string, and his brown curls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub. The two women's eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, "I will not interfere with your wishes." She looked as if she were shivering, and her lips were pale. "You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I too was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It is not fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust out of sight for another." These words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined abstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching Mrs. Glasher's face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as if some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, "I am a woman's life." "Have you anything more to say to me?" she asked in a low tone, but still proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to soften her. Everyone seemed hateful. "Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me if you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher." "Then I will go," said Gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious inclination, which was returned with equal grace. In a few minutes Gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party had gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for all was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the warden. She determined to take this way back to Green Arbor, which she reached quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of suspending the thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due calm. She had already made up her mind what step she would take. Mrs. Davilow was of course astonished to see Gwendolen returning alone, and was not without some uneasiness which the presence of other ladies hindered her from showing. In answer to her words of surprise Gwendolen said, "Oh, I have been rather silly. I lingered behind to look at the Whispering Stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so I lost sight of them. I thought it best to come home by the short way--the avenue that the warden had told me of. I'm not sorry after all. I had had enough walking." "Your party did not meet Mr. Grandcourt, I presume," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, not without intention. "No," said Gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light laugh. "And we didn't see any carvings on the trees, either. Where can he be? I should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic fit." With all Gwendolen's resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt sure that something unpropitious had happened. Mrs. Arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much piqued, and that Mr. Grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change his mind. "If you have no objection, mamma, I will order the carriage," said Gwendolen. "I am tired. And every one will be going soon." Mrs. Davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as ready--the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden's premises--the roving party reappeared, and with them Mr. Grandcourt. "Ah, there you are!" said Lord Brackenshaw, going up to Gwendolen, who was arranging her mamma's shawl for the drive. "We thought at first you had alighted on Grandcourt and he had taken you home. Lush said so. But after that we met Grandcourt. However, we didn't suppose you could be in any danger. The warden said he had told you a near way back." "You are going?" said Grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if he did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. Lord Brackenshaw gave place to him and moved away. "Yes, we are going," said Gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which she was arranging across her shoulders Scotch fashion. "May I call at Offendene to-morrow?" "Oh yes, if you like," said Gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance with her eyelashes. Her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of frost. Mrs. Davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while that was happening, Gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in advance of them, and had sprung into the carriage. "I got in, mamma, because I wished to be on this side," she said, apologetically. But she had avoided Grandcourt's touch: he only lifted his hat and walked away--with the not unsatisfactory impression that she meant to show herself offended by his neglect. The mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. Then Gwendolen said, "I intend to join the Langens at Dover, mamma. I shall pack up immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. I shall be at Dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by telegraph." "Good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?" "My reason for saying it, mamma, is that I mean to do it." "But why do you mean to do it?" "I wish to go away." "Is it because you are offended with Mr. Grandcourt's odd behavior in walking off to-day?" "It is useless to enter into such questions. I am not going in any case to marry Mr. Grandcourt. Don't interest yourself further about it." "What can I say to your uncle, Gwendolen? Consider the position you place me in. You led him to believe only last night that you had made up your mind in favor of Mr. Grandcourt." "I am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but I can't help it," said Gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone. "Whatever you or my uncle may think or do, I shall not alter my resolve, and I shall not tell my reason. I don't care what comes of it. I don't care if I never marry any one. There is nothing worth caring for. I believe all men are bad, and I hate them." "But need you set off in this way, Gwendolen?" said Mrs. Davilow, miserable and helpless. "Now mamma, don't interfere with me. If you have ever had any trouble in your own life, remember it and don't interfere with me. If I am to be miserable, let it be by my own choice." The mother was reduced to trembling silence. She began to see that the difficulty would be lessened if Gwendolen went away. And she did go. The packing was all carefully done that evening, and not long after dawn the next day Mrs. Davilow accompanied her daughter to the railway station. The sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses looking over the hedges without any particular reason, the early travelers on foot with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and purposeless to them both. The dingy torpor of the railway station, before the ticket could be taken, was still worse. Gwendolen had certainly hardened in the last twenty-four hours: her mother's trouble evidently counted for little in her present state of mind, which did not essentially differ from the mood that makes men take to worse conduct when their belief in persons or things is upset. Gwendolen's uncontrolled reading, though consisting chiefly in what are called pictures of life, had somehow not prepared her for this encounter with reality. Is that surprising? It is to be believed that attendance at the _opéra bouffe_ in the present day would not leave men's minds entirely without shock, if the manners observed there with some applause were suddenly to start up in their own families. Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience. Mrs. Davilow felt Gwendolen's new phase of indifference keenly, and as she drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than before. Mr. Grandcourt called that day at Offendene, but nobody was at home. CHAPTER XV. "_Festina lente_--celerity should be contempered with cunctation."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement of gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having brought from her late experience a vague impression that in this confused world it signified nothing what any one did, so that they amused themselves. We have seen, too, that certain persons, mysteriously symbolized as Grapnell & Co., having also thought of reigning in the realm of luck, and being also bent on amusing themselves, no matter how, had brought about a painful change in her family circumstances; whence she had returned home--carrying with her, against her inclination, a necklace which she had pawned and some one else had redeemed. While she was going back to England, Grandcourt was coming to find her; coming, that is, after his own manner--not in haste by express straight from Diplow to Leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so entirely without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some Russian acquaintances to linger at Baden-Baden and make various appointments with them, which, however, his desire to be at Leubronn ultimately caused him to break. Grandcourt's passions were of the intermittent, flickering kind: never flaming out strongly. But a great deal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are carefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the health of august personages without the zest arising from a strong desire. And a man may make a good appearance in high social positions--may be supposed to know the classics, to have his reserves on science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and all the sentiments of the English gentleman, at a small expense of vital energy. Also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate, and may even show sudden impulses which have a false air of daemonic strength because they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret lies merely in the want of regulated channels for the soul to move in--good and sufficient ducts of habit without which our nature easily turns to mere ooze and mud, and at any pressure yields nothing but a spurt or a puddle. Grandcourt had not been altogether displeased by Gwendolen's running away from the splendid chance he was holding out to her. The act had some piquancy for him. He liked to think that it was due to resentment of his careless behavior in Cardell Chase, which, when he came to consider it, did appear rather cool. To have brought her so near a tender admission, and then to have walked headlong away from further opportunities of winning the consent which he had made her understand him to be asking for, was enough to provoke a girl of spirit; and to be worth his mastering it was proper that she should have some spirit. Doubtless she meant him to follow her, and it was what he meant too. But for a whole week he took no measures toward starting, and did not even inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still, to have put off a decision was to have made room for the waste of Grandcourt's energy. The guests at Diplow felt more curiosity than their host. How was it that nothing more was heard of Miss Harleth? Was it credible that she had refused Mr. Grandcourt? Lady Flora Hollis, a lively middle-aged woman, well endowed with curiosity, felt a sudden interest in making a round of calls with Mrs. Torrington, including the rectory, Offendene, and Quetcham, and thus not only got twice over, but also discussed with the Arrowpoints, the information that Miss Harleth was gone to Leubronn, with some old friends, the Baron and Baroness von Langen; for the immediate agitation and disappointment of Mrs. Davilow and the Gascoignes had resolved itself into a wish that Gwendolen's disappearance should not be interpreted as anything eccentric or needful to be kept secret. The rector's mind, indeed, entertained the possibility that the marriage was only a little deferred, for Mrs. Davilow had not dared to tell him of the bitter determination with which Gwendolen had spoken. And in spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. Amaryllis fleeing desired that her hiding-place should be known; and that love will find out the way "over the mountain and over the wave" may be said without hyperbole in this age of steam. Gwendolen, he conceived, was an Amaryllis of excellent sense but coquettish daring; the question was whether she had dared too much. Lady Flora, coming back charged with news about Miss Harleth, saw no good reason why she should not try whether she could electrify Mr. Grandcourt by mentioning it to him at the table; and in doing so shot a few hints of a notion having got abroad that he was a disappointed adorer. Grandcourt heard with quietude, but with attention; and the next day he ordered Lush to bring about a decent reason for breaking up the party at Diplow by the end of another week, as he meant to go yachting to the Baltic or somewhere--it being impossible to stay at Diplow as if he were a prisoner on parole, with a set of people whom he had never wanted. Lush needed no clearer announcement that Grandcourt was going to Leubronn; but he might go after the manner of a creeping billiard-ball and stick on the way. What Mr. Lush intended was to make himself indispensable so that he might go too, and he succeeded; Gwendolen's repulsion for him being a fact that only amused his patron, and made him none the less willing to have Lush always at hand. This was how it happened that Grandcourt arrived at the _Czarina_ on the fifth day after Gwendolen had left Leubronn, and found there his uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, with his family, including Deronda. It is not necessarily a pleasure either to the reigning power or the heir presumptive when their separate affairs--a touch of gout, say, in the one, and a touch of willfulness in the other--happen to bring them to the same spot. Sir Hugo was an easy-tempered man, tolerant both of differences and defects; but a point of view different from his own concerning the settlement of the family estates fretted him rather more than if it had concerned Church discipline or the ballot, and faults were the less venial for belonging to a person whose existence was inconvenient to him. In no case could Grandcourt have been a nephew after his own heart; but as the presumptive heir to the Mallinger estates he was the sign and embodiment of a chief grievance in the baronet's life--the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion of which had he himself more than a life-interest. For in the ill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis, had chosen to make by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been left under the same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two Toppings--Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a season in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to have been able to retire after his death. This grievance had naturally gathered emphasis as the years advanced, and Lady Mallinger, after having had three daughters in quick succession, had remained for eight years till now that she was over forty without producing so much as another girl; while Sir Hugo, almost twenty years older, was at a time of life when, notwithstanding the fashionable retardation of most things from dinners to marriages, a man's hopefulness is apt to show signs of wear, until restored by second childhood. In fact, he had begun to despair of a son, and this confirmation of Grandcourt's interest in the estates certainly tended to make his image and presence the more unwelcome; but, on the other hand, it carried circumstances which disposed Sir Hugo to take care that the relation between them should be kept as friendly as possible. It led him to dwell on a plan which had grown up side by side with his disappointment of an heir; namely, to try and secure Diplow as a future residence for Lady Mallinger and her daughters, and keep this pretty bit of the family inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that disappointment. Such knowledge as he had of his nephew's disposition and affairs encouraged the belief that Grandcourt might consent to a transaction by which he would get a good sum of ready money, as an equivalent for his prospective interest in the domain of Diplow and the moderate amount of land attached to it. If, after all, the unhoped-for son should be born, the money would have been thrown away, and Grandcourt would have been paid for giving up interests that had turned out good for nothing; but Sir Hugo set down this risk as _nil_, and of late years he had husbanded his fortune so well by the working of mines and the sale of leases that he was prepared for an outlay. Here was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with Grandcourt. Some years before, when he was making improvements at the Abbey, and needed Grandcourt's concurrence in his felling an obstructive mass of timber on the demesne, he had congratulated himself on finding that there was no active spite against him in his nephew's peculiar mind; and nothing had since occurred to make them hate each other more than was compatible with perfect politeness, or with any accommodation that could be strictly mutual. Grandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore, and felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever Sir Hugo came to be expunged. But he had been made aware through Lush, always a useful medium, of the baronet's inclinations concerning Diplow, and he was gratified to have the alternative of the money in his mind: even if he had not thought it in the least likely that he would choose to accept it, his sense of power would have been flattered by his being able to refuse what Sir Hugo desired. The hinted transaction had told for something among the motives which had made him ask for a year's tenancy of Diplow, which it had rather annoyed Sir Hugo to grant, because the excellent hunting in the neighborhood might decide Grandcourt not to part with his chance of future possession;--a man who has two places, in one of which the hunting is less good, naturally desiring a third where it is better. Also, Lush had thrown out to Sir Hugo the probability that Grandcourt would woo and win Miss Arrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of a temptation to him. Hence, on this unexpected meeting at Leubronn, the baronet felt much curiosity to know how things had been going on at Diplow, was bent on being as civil as possible to his nephew, and looked forward to some private chat with Lush. Between Deronda and Grandcourt there was a more faintly-marked but peculiar relation, depending on circumstances which have yet to be made known. But on no side was there any sign of suppressed chagrin on the first meeting at the _table d'hôte_, an hour after Grandcourt's arrival; and when the quartette of gentlemen afterward met on the terrace, without Lady Mallinger, they moved off together to saunter through the rooms, Sir Hugo saying as they entered the large _saal_, "Did you play much at Baden, Grandcourt?" "No; I looked on and betted a little with some Russians there." "Had you luck?" "What did I win, Lush?" "You brought away about two hundred," said Lush. "You are not here for the sake of the play, then?" said Sir Hugo. "No; I don't care about play now. It's a confounded strain," said Grandcourt, whose diamond ring and demeanor, as he moved along playing slightly with his whisker, were being a good deal stared at by rouged foreigners interested in a new milord. "The fact is, somebody should invent a mill to do amusements for you, my dear fellow," said Sir Hugo, "as the Tartars get their praying done. But I agree with you; I never cared for play. It's monotonous--knits the brain up into meshes. And it knocks me up to watch it now. I suppose one gets poisoned with the bad air. I never stay here more than ten minutes. But where's your gambling beauty, Deronda? Have you seen her lately?" "She's gone," said Deronda, curtly. "An uncommonly fine girl, a perfect Diana," said Sir Hugo, turning to Grandcourt again. "Really worth a little straining to look at her. I saw her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all beforehand. The same day Deronda happened to see her losing like wildfire, and she bore it with immense pluck. I suppose she was cleaned out, or was wise enough to stop in time. How do you know she's gone?" "Oh, by the Visitor-list,..." said Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible shrug. "Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the Baron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was no longer there." This held no further information for Lush than that Gwendolen had been gambling. He had already looked at the list, and ascertained that Gwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge on Grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it enough to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or other. But now Grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word about Miss Harleth had been missed by him. After a moment's pause he said to Deronda, "Do you know those people--the Langens?" "I have talked with them a little since Miss Harleth went away. I knew nothing of them before." "Where is she gone--do you know?" "She is gone home," said Deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no more. But then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at Grandcourt, and added, "But it is possible you know her. Her home is not far from Diplow: Offendene, near Winchester." Deronda, turning to look straight at Grandcourt, who was on his left hand, might have been a subject for those old painters who liked contrasts of temperament. There was a calm intensity of life and richness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather startling, and often made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and officials asked him automatically, "What did you say, sir?" when he had been quite silent. Grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did not show except by a slight movement of the eyelids, at Deronda's turning round on him when he was not asked to do more than speak. But he answered, with his usual drawl, "Yes, I know her," and paused with his shoulder toward Deronda, to look at the gambling. "What of her, eh?" asked Sir Hugo of Lush, as the three moved on a little way. "She must be a new-comer at Offendene. Old Blenny lived there after the dowager died." "A little too much of her," said Lush, in a low, significant tone; not sorry to let Sir Hugo know the state of affairs. "Why? how?" said the baronet. They all moved out of the _salon_ into an airy promenade. "He has been on the brink of marrying her," Lush went on. "But I hope it's off now. She's a niece of the clergyman--Gascoigne--at Pennicote. Her mother is a widow with a brood of daughters. This girl will have nothing, and is as dangerous as gunpowder. It would be a foolish marriage. But she has taken a freak against him, for she ran off here without notice, when he had agreed to call the next day. The fact is, he's here after her; but he was in no great hurry, and between his caprice and hers they are likely enough not to get together again. But of course he has lost his chance with the heiress." Grandcourt joining them said, "What a beastly den this is!--a worse hole than Baden. I shall go back to the hotel." When Sir Hugo and Deronda were alone, the baronet began, "Rather a pretty story. That girl has something in her. She must be worth running after--has _de l'imprévu_. I think her appearance on the scene has bettered my chance of getting Diplow, whether the marriage comes off or not." "I should hope a marriage like that would not come off," said Deronda, in a tone of disgust. "What! are you a little touched with the sublime lash?" said Sir Hugo, putting up his glasses to help his short sight in looking at his companion. "Are you inclined to run after her?" "On the contrary," said Deronda, "I should rather be inclined to run away from her." "Why, you would easily cut out Grandcourt. A girl with her spirit would think you the finer match of the two," said Sir Hugo, who often tried Deronda's patience by finding a joke in impossible advice. (A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.) "I suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match," said Deronda, coldly. "The best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. You remember Napoleon's _mot--Je suis un ancêtre_" said Sir Hugo, who habitually undervalued birth, as men after dining well often agree that the good of life is distributed with wonderful equality. "I am not sure that I want to be an ancestor," said Deronda. "It doesn't seem to me the rarest sort of origination." "You won't run after the pretty gambler, then?" said Sir Hugo, putting down his glasses. "Decidedly not." This answer was perfectly truthful; nevertheless it had passed through Deronda's mind that under other circumstances he should have given way to the interest this girl had raised in him, and tried to know more of her. But his history had given him a stronger bias in another direction. He felt himself in no sense free. CHAPTER XVI. Men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so for every visible arc in the wanderer's orbit; and the narrator of human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense suffering which take the quality of action--like the cry of Prometheus, whose chained anguish seems a greater energy than the sea and sky he invokes and the deity he defies. Deronda's circumstances, indeed, had been exceptional. One moment had been burned into his life as its chief epoch--a moment full of July sunshine and large pink roses shedding their last petals on a grassy court enclosed on three sides by a gothic cloister. Imagine him in such a scene: a boy of thirteen, stretched prone on the grass where it was in shadow, his curly head propped on his arms over a book, while his tutor, also reading, sat on a camp-stool under shelter. Deronda's book was Sismondi's _History of the Italian Republics_; the lad had a passion for history, eager to know how time had been filled up since the flood, and how things were carried on in the dull periods. Suddenly he let down his left arm and looked at his tutor, saying in purest boyish tones, "Mr. Fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many nephews?" The tutor, an able young Scotchman, who acted as Sir Hugo Mallinger's secretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy, answered with the clear-cut emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly telling in Scotch utterance, "Their own children were called nephews." "Why?" said Deronda. "It was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very well, priests don't marry, and the children were illegitimate." Mr. Fraser, thrusting out his lower lip and making his chant of the last word the more emphatic for a little impatience at being interrupted, had already turned his eyes on his book again, while Deronda, as if something had stung him, started up in a sitting attitude with his back to the tutor. He had always called Sir Hugo Mallinger his uncle, and when it once occurred to him to ask about his father and mother, the baronet had answered, "You lost your father and mother when you were quite a little one; that is why I take care of you." Daniel then straining to discern something in that early twilight, had a dim sense of having been kissed very much, and surrounded by thin, cloudy, scented drapery, till his fingers caught in something hard, which hurt him, and he began to cry. Every other memory he had was of the little world in which he still lived. And at that time he did not mind about learning more, for he was too fond of Sir Hugo to be sorry for the loss of unknown parents. Life was very delightful to the lad, with an uncle who was always indulgent and cheerful--a fine man in the bright noon of life, whom Daniel thought absolutely perfect, and whose place was one of the finest in England, at once historical, romantic, and home-like: a picturesque architectural outgrowth from an abbey, which had still remnants of the old monastic trunk. Diplow lay in another county, and was a comparatively landless place which had come into the family from a rich lawyer on the female side who wore the perruque of the restoration; whereas the Mallingers had the grant of Monk's Topping under Henry the Eighth, and ages before had held the neighboring lands of King's Topping, tracing indeed their origin to a certain Hugues le Malingre, who came in with the Conqueror--and also apparently with a sickly complexion which had been happily corrected in his descendants. Two rows of these descendants, direct and collateral, females of the male line, and males of the female, looked down in the gallery over the cloisters on the nephew Daniel as he walked there: men in armor with pointed beards and arched eyebrows, pinched ladies in hoops and ruffs with no face to speak of; grave-looking men in black velvet and stuffed hips, and fair, frightened women holding little boys by the hand; smiling politicians in magnificent perruques, and ladies of the prize-animal kind, with rosebud mouths and full eyelids, according to Lely; then a generation whose faces were revised and embellished in the taste of Kneller; and so on through refined editions of the family types in the time of Reynolds and Romney, till the line ended with Sir Hugo and his younger brother Henleigh. This last had married Miss Grandcourt, and taken her name along with her estates, thus making a junction between two equally old families, impaling the three Saracens' heads proper and three bezants of the one with the tower and falcons _argent_ of the other, and, as it happened, uniting their highest advantages in the prospects of that Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt who is at present more of an acquaintance to us than either Sir Hugo or his nephew Daniel Deronda. In Sir Hugo's youthful portrait with rolled collar and high cravat, Sir Thomas Lawrence had done justice to the agreeable alacrity of expression and sanguine temperament still to be seen in the original, but had done something more than justice in slightly lengthening the nose, which was in reality shorter than might have been expected in a Mallinger. Happily the appropriate nose of the family reappeared in his younger brother, and was to be seen in all its refined regularity in his nephew Mallinger Grandcourt. But in the nephew Daniel Deronda the family faces of various types, seen on the walls of the gallery, found no reflex. Still he was handsomer than any of them, and when he was thirteen might have served as model for any painter who wanted to image the most memorable of boys: you could hardly have seen his face thoroughly meeting yours without believing that human creatures had done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. The finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, lest they should enter here and defile. But at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, Daniel Deronda was making a first acquaintance with those griefs. A new idea had entered his mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his habitual feelings as happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky suddenly threatened and the thought of danger arises. He sat perfectly still with his back to the tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward transition. The deep blush, which had come when he first started up, gradually subsided; but his features kept that indescribable look of subdued activity which often accompanies a new mental survey of familiar facts. He had not lived with other boys, and his mind showed the same blending of child's ignorance with surprising knowledge which is oftener seen in bright girls. Having read Shakespeare as well as a great deal of history, he could have talked with the wisdom of a bookish child about men who were born out of wedlock and were held unfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which required them to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to an equal standing with their legally born brothers. But he had never brought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had been too easy for him ever to think about it--until this moment when there had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the possibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man whom he called uncle was really his father. Some children, even younger than Daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous irremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their parents, whom they had imagined able to buy everything, were poor and in hard money troubles. Daniel felt the presence of a new guest who seemed to come with an enigmatic veiled face, and to carry dimly-conjectured, dreaded revelations. The ardor which he had given to the imaginary world in his books suddenly rushed toward his own history and spent its pictorial energy there, explaining what he knew, representing the unknown. The uncle whom he loved very dearly took the aspect of a father who held secrets about him--who had done him a wrong--yes, a wrong: and what had become of his mother, for whom he must have been taken away?--Secrets about which he, Daniel, could never inquire; for to speak or to be spoken to about these new thoughts seemed like falling flakes of fire to his imagination. Those who have known an impassioned childhood will understand this dread of utterance about any shame connected with their parents. The impetuous advent of new images took possession of him with the force of fact for the first time told, and left him no immediate power for the reflection that he might be trembling at a fiction of his own. The terrible sense of collision between a strong rush of feeling and the dread of its betrayal, found relief at length in big slow tears, which fell without restraint until the voice of Mr. Fraser was heard saying: "Daniel, do you see that you are sitting on the bent pages of your book?" Daniel immediately moved the book without turning round, and after holding it before him for an instant, rose with it and walked away into the open grounds, where he could dry his tears unobserved. The first shock of suggestion past, he could remember that he had no certainty how things really had been, and that he had been making conjectures about his own history, as he had often made stories about Pericles or Columbus, just to fill up the blanks before they became famous. Only there came back certain facts which had an obstinate reality, almost like the fragments of a bridge, telling you unmistakably how the arches lay. And again there came a mood in which his conjectures seemed like a doubt of religion, to be banished as an offense, and a mean prying after what he was not meant to know; for there was hardly a delicacy of feeling this lad was not capable of. But the summing-up of all his fluctuating experience at this epoch was, that a secret impression had come to him which had given him something like a new sense in relation to all the elements of his life. And the idea that others probably knew things concerning which they did not choose to mention, set up in him a premature reserve which helped to intensify his inward experience. His ears open now to words which before that July day would have passed by him unnoted; and round every trivial incident which imagination could connect with his suspicions, a newly-roused set of feelings were ready to cluster themselves. One such incident a month later wrought itself deeply into his life. Daniel had not only one of those thrilling boy voices which seem to bring an idyllic heaven and earth before our eyes, but a fine musical instinct, and had early made out accompaniments for himself on the piano, while he sang from memory. Since then he had had some teaching, and Sir Hugo, who delighted in the boy, used to ask for his music in the presence of guests. One morning after he had been singing "Sweet Echo" before a small party of gentlemen whom the rain had kept in the house, the baronet, passing from a smiling remark to his next neighbor said: "Come here, Dan!" The boy came forward with unusual reluctance. He wore an embroidered holland blouse which set off the rich coloring of his head and throat, and the resistant gravity about his mouth and eyes as he was being smiled upon, made their beauty the more impressive. Every one was admiring him. "What do you say to being a great singer? Should you like to be adored by the world and take the house by storm, like Mario and Tamberlik?" Daniel reddened instantaneously, but there was a just perceptible interval before he answered with angry decision, "No; I should hate it!" "Well, well, well!" said Sir Hugo, with surprised kindliness intended to be soothing. But Daniel turned away quickly, left the room, and going to his own chamber threw himself on the broad window-sill, which was a favorite retreat of his when he had nothing particular to do. Here he could see the rain gradually subsiding with gleams through the parting clouds which lit up a great reach of the park, where the old oaks stood apart from each other, and the bordering wood was pierced with a green glade which met the eastern sky. This was a scene which had always been part of his home--part of the dignified ease which had been a matter of course in his life. And his ardent clinging nature had appropriated it all with affection. He knew a great deal of what it was to be a gentleman by inheritance, and without thinking much about himself--for he was a boy of active perceptions and easily forgot his own existence in that of Robert Bruce--he had never supposed that he could be shut out from such a lot, or have a very different part in the world from that of the uncle who petted him. It is possible (though not greatly believed in at present) to be fond of poverty and take it for a bride, to prefer scoured deal, red quarries and whitewash for one's private surroundings, to delight in no splendor but what has open doors for the whole nation, and to glory in having no privileges except such as nature insists on; and noblemen have been known to run away from elaborate ease and the option of idleness, that they might bind themselves for small pay to hard-handed labor. But Daniel's tastes were altogether in keeping with his nurture: his disposition was one in which everyday scenes and habits beget not _ennui_ or rebellion, but delight, affection, aptitudes; and now the lad had been stung to the quick by the idea that his uncle--perhaps his father--thought of a career for him which was totally unlike his own, and which he knew very well was not thought of among possible destinations for the sons of English gentlemen. He had often stayed in London with Sir Hugo, who to indulge the boy's ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great tenors, so that the image of a singer taking the house by storm was very vivid to him; but now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself bitterly against the notion of being dressed up to sing before all those fine people, who would not care about him except as a wonderful toy. That Sir Hugo should have thought of him in that position for a moment, seemed to Daniel an unmistakable proof that there was something about his birth which threw him out from the class of gentlemen to which the baronet belonged. Would it ever be mentioned to him? Would the time come when his uncle would tell him everything? He shrank from the prospect: in his imagination he preferred ignorance. If his father had been wicked--Daniel inwardly used strong words, for he was feeling the injury done him as a maimed boy feels the crushed limb which for others is merely reckoned in an average of accidents--if his father had done any wrong, he wished it might never be spoken of to him: it was already a cutting thought that such knowledge might be in other minds. Was it in Mr. Fraser's? probably not, else he would not have spoken in that way about the pope's nephews. Daniel fancied, as older people do, that every one else's consciousness was as active as his own on a matter which was vital to him. Did Turvey the valet know?--and old Mrs. French the housekeeper?--and Banks the bailiff, with whom he had ridden about the farms on his pony?--And now there came back the recollection of a day some years before when he was drinking Mrs. Banks's whey, and Banks said to his wife with a wink and a cunning laugh, "He features the mother, eh?" At that time little Daniel had merely thought that Banks made a silly face, as the common farming men often did, laughing at what was not laughable; and he rather resented being winked at and talked of as if he did not understand everything. But now that small incident became information: it was to be reasoned on. How could he be like his mother and not like his father? His mother must have been a Mallinger, if Sir Hugo were his uncle. But no! His father might have been Sir Hugo's brother and have changed his name, as Mr. Henleigh Mallinger did when he married Miss Grandcourt. But then, why had he never heard Sir Hugo speak of his brother Deronda, as he spoke of his brother Grandcourt? Daniel had never before cared about the family tree--only about that ancestor who had killed three Saracens in one encounter. But now his mind turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the library, where he had once seen an illuminated parchment hanging out, that Sir Hugo said was the family tree. The phrase was new and odd to him--he was a little fellow then--hardly more than half his present age--and he gave it no precise meaning. He knew more now and wished that he could examine that parchment. He imagined that the cabinet was always locked, and longed to try it. But here he checked himself. He might be seen: and he would never bring himself near even a silent admission of the sore that had opened in him. It is in such experiences of a boy or girlhood, while elders are debating whether most education lies in science or literature, that the main lines of character are often laid down. If Daniel had been of a less ardently affectionate nature, the reserve about himself and the supposition that others had something to his disadvantage in their minds, might have turned into a hard, proud antagonism. But inborn lovingness was strong enough to keep itself level with resentment. There was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not fond of; teasing them occasionally, of course--all except his uncle, or "Nunc," as Sir Hugo had taught him to say; for the baronet was the reverse of a strait-laced man, and left his dignity to take care of itself. Him Daniel loved in that deep-rooted filial way which makes children always the happier for being in the same room with father or mother, though their occupations may be quite apart. Sir Hugo's watch-chain and seals, his handwriting, his mode of smoking and of talking to his dogs and horses, had all a rightness and charm about them to the boy which went along with the happiness of morning and breakfast time. That Sir Hugo had always been a Whig, made Tories and Radicals equally opponents of the truest and best; and the books he had written were all seen under the same consecration of loving belief which differenced what was his from what was not his, in spite of general resemblance. Those writings were various, from volumes of travel in the brilliant style, to articles on things in general, and pamphlets on political crises; but to Daniel they were alike in having an unquestionable rightness by which other people's information could be tested. Who cannot imagine the bitterness of a first suspicion that something in this object of complete love was _not_ quite right? Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life. But some time after this renewal of Daniel's agitation it appeared that Sir Hugo must have been making a merely playful experiment in his question about the singing. He sent for Daniel into the library, and looking up from his writing as the boy entered threw himself sideways in his armchair. "Ah, Dan!" he said kindly, drawing one of the old embroidered stools close to him. "Come and sit down here." Daniel obeyed, and Sir Hugo put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking at him affectionately. "What is it, my boy? Have you heard anything that has put you out of spirits lately?" Daniel was determined not to let the tears come, but he could not speak. "All changes are painful when people have been happy, you know," said Sir Hugo, lifting his hand from the boy's shoulder to his dark curls and rubbing them gently. "You can't be educated exactly as I wish you to be without our parting. And I think you will find a great deal to like at school." This was not what Daniel expected, and was so far a relief, which gave him spirit to answer, "Am I to go to school?" "Yes, I mean you to go to Eton. I wish you to have the education of an English gentleman; and for that it is necessary that you should go to a public school in preparation for the university: Cambridge I mean you to go to; it was my own university." Daniel's color came and went. "What do you say, Sirrah?" said Sir Hugo, smiling. "I should like to be a gentleman," said Daniel, with firm distinctness, "and go to school, if that is what a gentleman's son must do." Sir Hugo watched him silently for a few moments, thinking he understood now why the lad had seemed angry at the notion of becoming a singer. Then he said tenderly, "And so you won't mind about leaving your old Nunc?" "Yes, I shall," said Daniel, clasping Sir Hugo's caressing arm with both his hands. "But sha'n't I come home and be with you in the holidays?" "Oh yes, generally," said Sir Hugo. "But now I mean you to go at once to a new tutor, to break the change for you before you go to Eton." After this interview Daniel's spirit rose again. He was meant to be a gentleman, and in some unaccountable way it might be that his conjectures were all wrong. The very keenness of the lad taught him to find comfort in his ignorance. While he was busying his mind in the construction of possibilities, it became plain to him that there must be possibilities of which he knew nothing. He left off brooding, young joy and the spirit of adventure not being easily quenched within him, and in the interval before his going away he sang about the house, danced among the old servants, making them parting gifts, and insisted many times to the groom on the care that was to be taken of the black pony. "Do you think I shall know much less than the other boys, Mr. Fraser?" said Daniel. It was his bent to think that every stranger would be surprised at his ignorance. "There are dunces to be found everywhere," said the judicious Fraser. "You'll not be the biggest; but you've not the makings of a Porson in you, or a Leibnitz either." "I don't want to be a Porson or a Leibnitz," said Daniel. "I would rather be a greater leader, like Pericles or Washington." "Ay, ay; you've a notion they did with little parsing, and less algebra," said Fraser. But in reality he thought his pupil a remarkable lad, to whom one thing was as easy as another, if he had only a mind to it. Things went on very well with Daniel in his new world, except that a boy with whom he was at once inclined to strike up a close friendship talked to him a great deal about his home and parents, and seemed to expect a like expansiveness in return. Daniel immediately shrank into reserve, and this experience remained a check on his naturally strong bent toward the formation of intimate friendship. Every one, his tutor included, set him down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored and unassuming, as well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody called his reserve disagreeable. Certainly his face had a great deal to do with that favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty of the closed lips told no falsehood. A surprise that came to him before his first vacation strengthened the silent consciousness of a grief within, which might be compared in some ways with Byron's susceptibility about his deformed foot. Sir Hugo wrote word that he was married to Miss Raymond, a sweet lady, whom Daniel must remember having seen. The event would make no difference about his spending the vacation at the Abbey; he would find Lady Mallinger a new friend whom he would be sure to love--and much more to the usual effect when a man, having done something agreeable to himself, is disposed to congratulate others on his own good fortune, and the deducible satisfactoriness of events in general. Let Sir Hugo be partly excused until the grounds of his action can be more fully known. The mistakes in his behavior to Deronda were due to that dullness toward what may be going on in other minds, especially the minds of children, which is among the commonest deficiencies, even in good-natured men like him, when life has been generally easy to themselves, and their energies have been quietly spent in feeling gratified. No one was better aware than he that Daniel was generally suspected to be his own son. But he was pleased with that suspicion; and his imagination had never once been troubled with the way in which the boy himself might be affected, either then or in the future, by the enigmatic aspect of his circumstances. He was as fond of him as could be, and meant the best by him. And, considering the lightness with which the preparation of young lives seem to lie on respectable consciences, Sir Hugo Mallinger can hardly be held open to exceptional reproach. He had been a bachelor till he was five-and-forty, had always been regarded as a fascinating man of elegant tastes; what could be more natural, even according to the index of language, than that he should have a beautiful boy like the little Deronda to take care of? The mother might even, perhaps, be in the great world--met with in Sir Hugo's residence abroad. The only person to feel any objection was the boy himself, who could not have been consulted. And the boy's objections had never been dreamed of by anybody but himself. By the time Deronda was ready to go to Cambridge, Lady Mallinger had already three daughters--charming babies, all three, but whose sex was announced as a melancholy alternative, the offspring desired being a son; if Sir Hugo had no son the succession must go to his nephew, Mallinger Grandcourt. Daniel no longer held a wavering opinion about his own birth. His fuller knowledge had tended to convince him that Sir Hugo was his father, and he conceived that the baronet, since he never approached a communication on the subject, wished him to have a tacit understanding of the fact, and to accept in silence what would be generally considered more than the due love and nurture. Sir Hugo's marriage might certainly have been felt as a new ground of resentment by some youths in Deronda's position, and the timid Lady Mallinger with her fast-coming little ones might have been images to scowl at, as likely to divert much that was disposable in the feelings and possessions of the baronet from one who felt his own claim to be prior. But hatred of innocent human obstacles was a form of moral stupidity not in Deronda's grain; even the indignation which had long mingled itself with his affection for Sir Hugo took the quality of pain rather than of temper; and as his mind ripened to the idea of tolerance toward error, he habitually liked the idea with his own silent grievances. The sense of an entailed disadvantage--the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender. Deronda's early-weakened susceptibility, charged at first with ready indignation and resistant pride, had raised in him a premature reflection on certain questions of life; it had given a bias to his conscience, a sympathy with certain ills, and a tension of resolve in certain directions, who marked him off from other youths much more than any talents he possessed. One day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a tour in the Rhineland with his Eton tutor, and was come for a farewell stay at the Abbey before going to Cambridge, he said to Sir Hugo, "What do you intend me to be, sir?" They were in the library, and it was the fresh morning. Sir Hugo had called him in to read a letter from a Cambridge Don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet wore an air at once business-like and leisurely, the moment seemed propitious for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been thoroughly discussed. "Whatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. I thought it right to give you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and I was glad. I don't expect you to choose just yet--by-and-by, when you have looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older men. The university has a good wide opening into the forum. There are prizes to be won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a man's taste. From what I see and hear, I should think you can take up anything you like. You are in the deeper water with your classics than I ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge is the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport yourself on the dry sand as much as you like. I floundered along like a carp." "I suppose money will make some difference, sir," said Daniel blushing. "I shall have to keep myself by-and-by." "Not exactly. I recommend you not to be extravagant--yes, yes, I know--you are not inclined to that--but you need not take up anything against the grain. You will have a bachelor's income--enough for you to look about with. Perhaps I had better tell you that you may consider yourself secure of seven hundred a year. You might make yourself a barrister--be a writer--take up politics. I confess that is what would please me best. I should like to have you at my elbow and pulling with me." Deronda looked embarrassed. He felt that he ought to make some sign of gratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. A moment was passing by in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and yet it seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find vent--more impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from Sir Hugo's lips. The liberal way in which he was dealt with was the more striking because the baronet had of late cared particularly for money, and for making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by way of providing for his daughters; and as all this flashed through Daniel's mind it was momentarily within his imagination that the provision for him might come in some way from his mother. But such vaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came. Sir Hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in Daniel's manner, and presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness. "I am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and have got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can get the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it's hardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself and be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse you'll give him as a cue. That's all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it's a nicety of conversation which I would have you attend to--much quotation of any sort, even in English is bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves. But talking of Dons, I have seen Dons make a capital figure in society; and occasionally he can shoot you down a cart-load of learning in the right place, which will tell in politics. Such men are wanted; and if you have any turn for being a Don, I say nothing against it." "I think there's not much chance of that. Quicksett and Puller are both stronger than I am. I hope you will not be much disappointed if I don't come out with high honors." "No, no. I should like you to do yourself credit, but for God's sake don't come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young Brecon, who got a Double First, and has been learning to knit braces ever since. What I wish you to get is a passport in life. I don't go against our university system: we want a little disinterested culture to make head against cotton and capital, especially in the House. My Greek has all evaporated; if I had to construe a verse on a sudden, I should get an apoplectic fit. But it formed my taste. I dare say my English is the better for it." On this point Daniel kept a respectful silence. The enthusiastic belief in Sir Hugo's writings as a standard, and in the Whigs as the chosen race among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic boy's face. He had not been the hardest of workers at Eton. Though some kinds of study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not of the material that usually makes the first-rate Eton scholar. There had sprung up in him a meditative yearning after wide knowledge which is likely always to abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in narrow tracks. Happily he was modest, and took any second-rateness in himself simply as a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted for by a superiority. Still, Mr. Fraser's high opinion of the lad had not been altogether belied by the youth: Daniel had the stamp of rarity in a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf of others which did not show itself effusively, but was continually seen in acts of considerateness that struck his companions as moral eccentricity. "Deronda would have been first-rate if he had had more ambition," was a frequent remark about him. But how could a fellow push his way properly when he objected to swop for his own advantage, knocked under by choice when he was within an inch of victory, and, unlike the great Clive, would rather be the calf than the butcher? It was a mistake, however, to suppose that Deronda had not his share of ambition. We know he had suffered keenly from the belief that there was a tinge of dishonor in his lot; but there are some cases, and his was one of them, in which the sense of injury breeds--not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but, a hatred of all injury. He had his flashes of fierceness and could hit out upon occasion, but the occasions were not always what might have been expected. For in what related to himself his resentful impulses had been early checked by a mastering affectionateness. Love has a habit of saying "Never mind" to angry self, who, sitting down for the nonce in the lower place, by-and-by gets used to it. So it was that as Deronda approached manhood his feeling for Sir Hugo, while it was getting more and more mixed with criticism, was gaining in that sort of allowance which reconciles criticism with tenderness. The dear old beautiful home and everything within it, Lady Mallinger and her little ones included, were consecrated for the youth as they had been for the boy--only with a certain difference of light on the objects. The altarpiece was no longer miraculously perfect, painted under infallible guidance, but the human hand discerned in the work was appealing to a reverent tenderness safer from the gusts of discovery. Certainly Deronda's ambition, even in his spring-time, lay exceptionally aloof from conspicuous, vulgar triumph, and from other ugly forms of boyish energy; perhaps because he was early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on those heights. One may spend a good deal of energy in disliking and resisting what others pursue, and a boy who is fond of somebody else's pencil-case may not be more energetic than another who is fond of giving his own pencil-case away. Still it was not Deronda's disposition to escape from ugly scenes; he was more inclined to sit through them and take care of the fellow least able to take care of himself. It had helped to make him popular that he was sometimes a little compromised by this apparent comradeship. For a meditative interest in learning how human miseries are wrought--as precocious in him as another sort of genius in the poet who writes a Queen Mab at nineteen--was so infused with kindliness that it easily passed for comradeship. Enough. In many of our neighbors' lives there is much not only of error and lapse, but of a certain exquisite goodness which can never be written or even spoken--only divined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of our own privacy. The impression he made at Cambridge corresponded to his position at Eton. Every one interested in him agreed that he might have taken a high place if his motives had been of a more pushing sort, and if he had not, instead of regarding studies as instruments of success, hampered himself with the notion that they were to feed motive and opinion--a notion which set him criticising methods and arguing against his freight and harness when he should have been using all his might to pull. In the beginning his work at the university had a new zest for him: indifferent to the continuation of Eton classical drill, he applied himself vigorously to mathematics, for which he had shown an early aptitude under Mr. Fraser, and he had the delight of feeling his strength in a comparatively fresh exercise of thought. That delight, and the favorable opinion of his tutor, determined him to try for a mathematical scholarship in the Easter of his second year: he wished to gratify Sir Hugo by some achievement, and the study of the higher mathematics, having the growing fascination inherent in all thinking which demands intensity, was making him a more exclusive worker than he had been before. But here came the old check which had been growing with his growth. He found the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging more and more from the track marked out by the standards of examination: he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility and enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity without any insight into the principles which form the vital connections of knowledge. (Deronda's undergraduateship occurred fifteen years ago, when the perfection of our university methods was not yet indisputable.) In hours when his dissatisfaction was strong upon him he reproached himself for having been attracted by the conventional advantage of belonging to an English university, and was tempted toward the project of asking Sir Hugo to let him quit Cambridge and pursue a more independent line of study abroad. The germs of this inclination had been already stirring in his boyish love of universal history, which made him want to be at home in foreign countries, and follow in imagination the traveling students of the middle ages. He longed now to have the sort of apprenticeship to life which would not shape him too definitely, and rob him of the choice that might come from a free growth. One sees that Deronda's demerits were likely to be on the side of reflective hesitation, and this tendency was encouraged by his position; there was no need for him to get an immediate income, or to fit himself in haste for a profession; and his sensibility to the half-known facts of his parentage made him an excuse for lingering longer than others in a state of social neutrality. Other men, he inwardly said, had a more definite place and duties. But the project which flattered his inclination might not have gone beyond the stage of ineffective brooding, if certain circumstances had not quickened it into action. The circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which extended into his after-life. Of the same year with himself, and occupying small rooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an exhibitioner from Christ's Hospital, and had eccentricities enough for a Charles Lamb. Only to look at his pinched features and blonde hair hanging over his collar reminded one of pale quaint heads by early German painters; and when this faint coloring was lit up by a joke, there came sudden creases about the mouth and eyes which might have been moulded by the soul of an aged humorist. His father, an engraver of some distinction, had been dead eleven years, and his mother had three girls to educate and maintain on a meagre annuity. Hans Meyrick--he had been daringly christened after Holbein--felt himself the pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk, round which these feeble climbing plants must cling. There was no want of ability or of honest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy: the ease and quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizes at Cambridge, as he had done among the Blue Coats, in spite of irregularities. The only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies in him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be frustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious, scattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet at longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and did things that would have made the worst habits. Hans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in Deronda he had happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with the more constancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that might bring a long repentance. Hans, indeed, shared Deronda's rooms nearly as much as he used his own: to Deronda he poured himself out on his studies, his affairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his love for the creatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and his determination to fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of a plum that he might divide with his mother and the girls. He wanted no confidence in return, but seemed to take Deronda as an Olympian who needed nothing--an egotism in friendship which is common enough with mercurial, expansive natures. Deronda was content, and gave Meyrick all the interest he claimed, getting at last a brotherly anxiety about him, looking after him in his erratic moments, and contriving by adroitly delicate devices not only to make up for his friend's lack of pence, but to save him from threatening chances. Such friendship easily becomes tender: the one spreads strong sheltering wings that delight in spreading, the other gets the warm protection which is also a delight. Meyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, and his success, in various ways momentous, was the more probable from the steadying influence of Deronda's friendship. But an imprudence of Meyrick's, committed at the beginning of the autumn term, threatened to disappoint his hopes. With his usual alternation between unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had given too much money for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to make up for it, had come from London in a third-class carriage with his eyes exposed to a bitter wind and any irritating particles the wind might drive before it. The consequence was a severe inflammation of the eyes, which for some time hung over him the threat of a lasting injury. This crushing trouble called out all Deronda's readiness to devote himself, and he made every other occupation secondary to that of being companion and eyes to Hans, working with him and for him at his classics, that if possible his chance of the classical scholarship might be saved. Hans, to keep the knowledge of his suffering from his mother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason for passing the Christmas at Cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him. Meanwhile Deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and Hans, reflecting on this, at length said: "Old fellow, while you are hoisting me you are risking yourself. With your mathematical cram one may be like Moses or Mohammed or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and forgot in one day what it had taken him forty to learn." Deronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had really been beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was very anxious that Hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and he felt a revival of interest in the old studies. Still, when Hans, rather late in the day, got able to use his own eyes, Deronda had tenacity enough to try hard and recover his lost ground. He failed, however; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Meyrick win. Success, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might have reconciled Deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of all things, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when we fail in them. The loss of the personal triumph had no severity for him, but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of working which had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any renewal of the process, which turned his imagined project of quitting Cambridge into a serious intention. In speaking of his intention to Meyrick he made it appear that he was glad of the turn events had taken--glad to have the balance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his hesitations; but he observed that he must of course submit to any strong objection on the part of Sir Hugo. Meyrick's joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. He believed in Deronda's alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in serving him Daniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in Sir Hugo's opinion, and he said mournfully, "If you had got the scholarship, Sir Hugo would have thought that you asked to leave us with a better grace. You have spoiled your luck for my sake, and I can do nothing to amend it." "Yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. I call that a first-rate investment of my luck." "Oh, confound it! You save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect him to cut a fine figure. The poets have made tragedies enough about signing one's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something plummy; I shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to be good, and was uncomfortable ever after." But Hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to Sir Hugo, making it plain that but for Deronda's generous devotion he could hardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for. The two friends went up to town together: Meyrick to rejoice with his mother and the girls in their little home at Chelsea; Deronda to carry out the less easy task of opening his mind to Sir Hugo. He relied a little on the baronet's general tolerance of eccentricities, but he expected more opposition than he met with. He was received with even warmer kindness than usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and when he detailed his reasons for wishing to quit the university and go to study abroad, Sir Hugo sat for some time in a silence which was rather meditative than surprised. At last he said, looking at Daniel with examination, "So you don't want to be an Englishman to the backbone after all?" "I want to be an Englishman, but I want to understand other points of view. And I want to get rid of a merely English attitude in studies." "I see; you don't want to be turned out in the same mould as every other youngster. And I have nothing to say against your doffing some of our national prejudices. I feel the better myself for having spent a good deal of my time abroad. But, for God's sake, keep an English cut, and don't become indifferent to bad tobacco! And, my dear boy, it is good to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself. However, I shall put no veto on your going. Wait until I can get off Committee, and I'll run over with you." So Deronda went according to his will. But not before he had spent some hours with Hans Meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters in the Chelsea home. The shy girls watched and registered every look of their brother's friend, declared by Hans to have been the salvation of him, a fellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. They so thoroughly accepted Deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the youngest set to work, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to paint him as Prince Camaralzaman. CHAPTER XVII. "This is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." --TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_. On a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on the Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to England, with the understanding that his education was finished, and that he was somehow to take his place in English society; but though, in deference to Sir Hugo's wish, and to fence off idleness, he had begun to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result than to deepen the roots of indecision. His old love of boating had revived with the more force now that he was in town with the Mallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion which the river gave him. He had a boat of his own at Putney, and whenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row till past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that he was in a sentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day--that of questioning whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like himself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions; especially as Deronda set himself against authorship--a vocation which is understood to turn foolish thinking into funds. Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised traces of the seraphic boy "trailing clouds of glory." Still, even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which Gwendolen chose to call "dreadful," though it had really a very mild sort of scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at his lithe, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between the faces belonging to the hands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer: thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations. Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman, for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to answer our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the impressions that happen just now to be of importance in relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames in a very ordinary equipment for a young Englishman at leisure, and passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not allowed him to escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this, intended to be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from mingled experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the glass had during many years associated for him with thoughts of some one whom he must be like--one about whose character and lot he continually wondered, and never dared to ask. In the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the river was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path, and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast to get over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. He was all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river--the gondolier's song in the _Otello_, where Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of Dante, "Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria": [Footnote: Dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines at the head of the chapter.] and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail "nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman in the boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal sounds came with more significance than if they had been an insect-murmur amidst the sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the barge, now turning his head to the river-side, and saw at a few yards' distant from him a figure which might have been an impersonation of the misery he was unconsciously giving voice to: a girl hardly more than eighteen, of low slim figure, with most delicate little face, her dark curls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woolen cloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging down clasped before her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of immovable, statue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention made him cease singing: apparently his voice had entered her inner world without her taking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased she changed her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened glance, met Deronda's face. It was but a couple of moments, but that seemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her look was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it turns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity which yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In fact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her surroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of bewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her; but the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring bench under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her: poorly-dressed, melancholy women are common sights; it was only the delicate beauty, picturesque lines and color of the image that was exceptional, and these conditions made it more markedly impossible that he should obtrude his interest upon her. He began to row away and was soon far up the river; but no other thoughts were busy enough quite to expel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to speculating on the probable romance that lay behind that loneliness and look of desolation; then to smile at his own share in the prejudice that interesting faces must have interesting adventures; then to justify himself for feeling that sorrow was the more tragic when it befell delicate, childlike beauty. "I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly and vulgar," he said to himself. But there was no denying that the attractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to him as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with small, small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over the girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as if they were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless drag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the red moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary excursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own course; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont to have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that the new image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed to him the strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting into that routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its wrong-doing, and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he should not draw strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled scheme of things. He used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken back by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn passivity which easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow light, when thinking and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what in other hours may have seemed argument takes the quality of passionate vision. By the time he had come back again with the tide past Richmond Bridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favorite hour--with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree and building between the double glow of the sky and the river--disposed him to linger as if they had been an unfinished strain of music. He looked out for a perfectly solitary spot where he could lodge his boat against the bank, and, throwing himself on his back with his head propped on the cushions, could watch out the light of sunset and the opening of that bead-roll which some oriental poet describes as God's call to the little stars, who each answer, "Here am I." He chose a spot in the bend of the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where he had a great breadth of water before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was in shadow. He lay with his hands behind his head, propped on a level with the boat's edge, so that he could see all round him, but could not be seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and for a long while he never turned his eyes from the view right in front of him. He was forgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary identification of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking how far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when the sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was bordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance thitherward. In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about the moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the strange dying sunlight upon it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement, and watched her with motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed only to gather security from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among the willows, and immediately took off her woolen cloak. Presently she seated herself and deliberately dipped the cloak in the water, holding it there a little while, then taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint hope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was accidentally coming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her, steadying his boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently, "Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can do to help you." She raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the light, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments which were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she said in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested foreignness and yet was not foreign, "I saw you before," and then added dreamily, after a like pause, "nella miseria." Deronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed that her mind was weakened by distress and hunger. "It was you, singing?" she went on, hesitatingly--"Nessun maggior dolore." The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones seemed to give the melody to Deronda's ear. "Ah, yes," he said, understanding now, "I am often singing them. But I fear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my boat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it." He would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he should scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and clutched the cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him with a question in them as she said, "You look good. Perhaps it is God's command." "Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm come to you." She rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak and then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired arms. Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands together one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward while she leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face, was unspeakably touching. "Great God!" the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--"perhaps my mother was like this one." The old thought had come now with a new impetus of mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both East and West have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of inexorable calamity. The low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the hearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and Deronda put out his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had already put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some new thought struck her, and drawing back she said, "I have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land." "I will take you to a lady who has daughters," said Deronda, immediately. He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than ever, "Do you belong to the theatre?" "No; I have nothing to do with the theatre," said Deronda, in a decided tone. Then beseechingly, "I will put you in perfect safety at once; with a lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no time: you will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you. There are good people--there are good women who will take care of you." She drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used to such action, and sat down on the cushions. "You had a covering for your head," said Deronda. "My hat?" (She lifted up her hands to her head.) "It is quite hidden in the bush." "I will find it," said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as she attempted to rise. "The boat is fixed." He jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak, wringing it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat. "We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed you from thinking you have been drowned," he said, cheerfully, as he got in again and presented the old hat to her. "I wish I had any other garment than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over your shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing to do, when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps." He held out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint melancholy smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly. "I have some biscuits--should you like them?" said Deronda. "No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread." He began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along swiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but was watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if she were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the prospect of life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red flush was all gone and the little stars were giving their answer one after another. The moon was rising, but was still entangled among the trees and buildings. The light was not such that he could distinctly discern the expression of her features or her glance, but they were distinctly before him nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed to have given a fuller meaning for him to the human face. Among his anxieties one was dominant: his first impression about her, that her mind might be disordered, had not been quite dissipated: the project of suicide was unmistakable, and given a deeper color to every other suspicious sign. He longed to begin a conversation, but abstained, wishing to encourage the confidence that might induce her to speak first. At last she did speak. "I like to listen to the oar." "So do I." "If you had not come, I should have been dead now." "I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry that I came." "I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the _miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_." She paused and then went on dreamily,--"_Dolore--miseria_--I think those words are alive." Deronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he shrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to treat her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went on musingly, "I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am commanded to live. I cannot see how I shall live." "You will find friends. I will find them for you." She shook her head and said mournfully, "Not my mother and brother. I cannot find them." "You are English? You must be--speaking English so perfectly." She did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining to see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the oar. It seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of her impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had benumbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward and inward was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of wondering timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have lifted to the angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in anger or in pity. "You want to know if I am English?" she said at last, while Deronda was reddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw. "I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me," he said, still uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. "Perhaps it is not good for you to talk." "Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess." Deronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to himself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish girls might simply have guessed her to be Spanish. "Do you despise me for it?" she said presently in low tones, which had a sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear. "Why should I?" said Deronda. "I am not so foolish." "I know many Jews are bad." "So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to despise me because of that." "My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am come a long way--from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you--I cannot speak of it. I thought I might find my mother again--God would guide me. But then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I felt as if one word kept sounding within me--Never! never! But now--I begin--to think--" her words were broken by rising sobs--"I am commanded to live--perhaps we are going to her." With an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped that this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he was inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present himself with her in Park Lane--the course which he had at first unreflectingly determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady Mallinger; but it was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he had a shuddering sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful image of womanhood--of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps chilling suspicious manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that might scare the mind already in a state of dangerous susceptibility. But to take her to any other shelter than a home already known to him was not to be contemplated: he was full of fears about the issue of the adventure which had brought on him a responsibility all the heavier for the strong and agitating impression this childlike creature had made on him. But another resource came to mind: he could venture to take her to Mrs. Meyrick's--to the small house at Chelsea--where he had been often enough since his return from abroad to feel sure that he could appeal there to generous hearts, which had a romantic readiness to believe in innocent need and to help it. Hans Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and Deronda felt the comfort of presenting himself with his charge at a house where he would be met by a motherly figure of quakerish neatness, and three girls who hardly knew of any evil closer to them than what lay in history-books, and dramas, and would at once associate a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_, besides thinking that everything they did at Deronda's request would be done for their idol, Hans. The vision of the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer hesitated. The rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed long. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and submitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down her hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not let it rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first on one side, then on the other. "They are too good to have any fear about taking her in," thought Deronda. Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one strong appeal to belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history which had brought her to this desolation? He was going on a strange errand--to ask shelter for this waif. Then there occurred to him the beautiful story Plutarch somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when the Maenads, outworn with their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep in the market-place, the matrons came and stood silently round them to keep guard over their slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to them tenderly and saw them safely to their own borders. He could trust the women he was going to for having hearts as good. Deronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new phase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue; but how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation as the moment of finding an idea. CHAPTER XVIII. Life is a various mother: now she dons Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells Grim-clad, up darksome alleys, breathes hot gin, And screams in pauper riot. But to these She came a frugal matron, neat and deft, With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device To find the much in little. Mrs. Meyrick's house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The candles were on a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations for a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and Mab, who were embroidering satin cushions for "the great world." Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space in our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered everything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain effort after possession. The Meyricks' was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this particular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects always in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her marriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and uncriticised a part of their world as the stars of the Great Bear seen from the back windows. Mrs. Meyrick had borne much stint of other matters that she might be able to keep some engravings specially cherished by her husband; and the narrow spaces of wall held a world history in scenes and heads which the children had early learned by heart. The chairs and tables were also old friends preferred to new. But in these two little parlors with no furniture that a broker would have cared to cheapen except the prints and piano, there was space and apparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select life, opened to the highest things in music, painting and poetry. I am not sure that in the times of greatest scarcity, before Kate could get paid-work, these ladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep their rooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not believe that the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full of coarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented to be in what are called literary photographs. The Meyricks had their little oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother's blood as well as the father's, their minds being like mediæval houses with unexpected recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps and sudden outlooks. But mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond--family love; admiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry. Hans' desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more luxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had been thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning for art over the attractions of secured income--a triumph that would by-and-by oblige him to give up his fellowship. They could all afford to laugh at his Gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in following a natural bent which their unselfishness and independence had left without obstacle. It was enough for them to go on in their old way, only having a grand treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when Hans came home on a visit. Seeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to change their way of life. They were all alike small, and so in due proportion to their miniature rooms. Mrs. Meyrick was reading aloud from a French book; she was a lively little woman, half French, half Scotch, with a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make daylight in her hearer's understanding. Though she was not yet fifty, her rippling hair, covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray, but her eyebrows were brown as the bright eyes below them; her black dress, almost like a priest's cassock with its rows of buttons, suited a neat figure hardly five feet high. The daughters were to match the mother, except that Mab had Hans' light hair and complexion, with a bossy, irregular brow, and other quaintnesses that reminded one of him. Everything about them was compact, from the firm coils of their hair, fastened back _à la Chinoise_, to their gray skirts in Puritan nonconformity with the fashion, which at that time would have demanded that four feminine circumferences should fill all the free space in the front parlor. All four, if they had been wax-work, might have been packed easily in a fashionable lady's traveling trunk. Their faces seemed full of speech, as if their minds had been shelled, after the manner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible. The only large thing of its kind in the room was Hafiz, the Persian cat, comfortably poised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his large eyes now and then to see that the lower animals were not in any mischief. The book Mrs. Meyrick had before her was Erckmann-Chatrian's _Historie d'un Conscrit_. She had just finished reading it aloud, and Mab, who had let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head forward and fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed, "I think that is the finest story in the world." "Of course, Mab!" said Amy, "it is the last you have heard. Everything that pleases you is the best in its turn." "It is hardly to be called a story," said Kate. "It is a bit of history brought near us with a strong telescope. We can see the soldiers' faces: no, it is more than that--we can hear everything--we can almost hear their hearts beat." "I don't care what you call it," said Mab, flirting away her thimble. "Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something good, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me like Schiller--I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must kiss you instead, little mother!" She threw her arms round her mother's neck. "Whenever you are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work," said Amy. "It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without soiling it." "Oh--oh--oh!" groaned Mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and thimble. "I wish I had three wounded conscripts to take care of." "You would spill their beef tea while you were talking," said Amy. "Poor Mab! don't be hard on her," said the mother. "Give me the embroidery now, child. You go on with your enthusiasm, and I will go on with the pink and white poppy." "Well, ma, I think you are more caustic than Amy," said Kate, while she drew her head back to look at her drawing. "Oh--oh--oh!" cried Mab again, rising and stretching her arms. "I wish something wonderful would happen. I feel like the deluge. The waters of the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. I must sit down and play the scales." Mab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this climax, when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a quick rap of the knocker. "Dear me!" said Mrs. Meyrick, starting up, "it is after ten, and Phoebe is gone to bed." She hastened out, leaving the parlor door open. "Mr. Deronda!" The girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma. Mab clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, "There now! something _is_ going to happen." Kate and Amy gave up their work in amazement. But Deronda's tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his words, and Mrs. Meyrick immediately closed the parlor door. "I know I am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way," Deronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; "but you can imagine how helpless I feel with a young creature like this on my hands. I could not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state I should dread taking her into a house full of servants. I have trusted to your mercy. I hope you will not think my act unwarrantable." "On the contrary. You have honored me by trusting me. I see your difficulty. Pray bring her in. I will go and prepare the girls." While Deronda went back to the cab, Mrs. Meyrick turned into the parlor again and said: "Here is somebody to take care of instead of your wounded conscripts, Mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in despair. Mr. Deronda found her only just in time to save her. He brought her along in his boat, and did not know what else it would be safe to do with her, so he has trusted us and brought her here. It seems she is a Jewess, but quite refined, he says--knowing Italian and music." The three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near each other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under this appeal to their compassion. Mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if this answer to her wish were something preternatural. Meanwhile Deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was now gazing out with roused observation, said, "I have brought you to some of the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you. It is a happy home. Will you let me take you to them?" She stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her hat; and when Deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where the four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would have stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. At first she was a little dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her glance he had put her hand into the mother's. He was inwardly rejoicing that the Meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest among them. The poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces so near hers: and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the mother said, "You must be weary, poor child." "We will take care of you--we will comfort you--we will love you," cried Mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small right hand caressingly between both her own. This gentle welcoming warmth was penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to see better the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being reflected in hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change which tells us that anxiety is passing in contentment. For an instant she looked up at Deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to him, and then again turning to Mrs. Meyrick, said with more collectedness in her sweet tones than he had heard before, "I am a stranger. I am a Jewess. You might have thought I was wicked." "No, we are sure you are good," burst out Mab. "We think no evil of you, poor child. You shall be safe with us," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Come now and sit down. You must have some food, and then you must go to rest." The stranger looked up again at Deronda, who said, "You will have no more fears with these friends? You will rest to-night?" "Oh, I should not fear. I should rest. I think these are the ministering angels." Mrs. Meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently, the poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received without a further account of herself. "My name is Mirah Lapidoth. I am come a long way, all the way from Prague by myself. I made my escape. I ran away from dreadful things. I came to find my mother and brother in London. I had been taken from my mother when I was little, but I thought I could find her again. I had trouble--the houses were all gone--I could not find her. It has been a long while, and I had not much money. That is why I am in distress." "Our mother will be good to you," cried Mab. "See what a nice little mother she is!" "Do sit down now," said Kate, moving a chair forward, while Amy ran to get some tea. Mirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace, crossing her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her lap, and looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon Hafiz, who had been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect and rubbed himself against her ankles. Deronda felt it time to go. "Will you allow me to come again and inquire--perhaps at five to-morrow?" he said to Mrs. Meyrick. "Yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then." "Good-bye," said Deronda, looking down at Mirah, and putting out his hand. She rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both strongly the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched hand. She lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, "The God of our fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have delivered me. I did not believe there was any man so good. None before have thought me worthy of the best. You found me poor and miserable, yet you have given me the best." Deronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the Meyricks, hurried away. BOOK III.--MAIDENS CHOOSING. CHAPTER XIX. "I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, 'Tis all barren': and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers."--STERNE: _Sentimental Journey_. To say that Deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but under his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor which made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of every-day life. And perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world except for those phlegmatic natures who I suspect would in any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They exist very easily in the same room with the microscope and even in railway carriages: what banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and lady passengers. How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from the farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished us, make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to the near? To Deronda this event of finding Mirah was as heart-stirring as anything that befell Orestes or Rinaldo. He sat up half the night, living again through the moments since he had first discerned Mirah on the river-brink, with the fresh and fresh vividness which belongs to emotive memory. When he took up a book to try and dull this urgency of inward vision, the printed words were no more than a network through which he saw and heard everything as clearly as before--saw not only the actual events of two hours, but possibilities of what had been and what might be which those events were enough to feed with the warm blood of passionate hope and fear. Something in his own experience caused Mirah's search after her mother to lay hold with peculiar force on his imagination. The first prompting of sympathy was to aid her in her search: if given persons were extant in London there were ways of finding them, as subtle as scientific experiment, the right machinery being set at work. But here the mixed feelings which belonged to Deronda's kindred experience naturally transfused themselves into his anxiety on behalf of Mirah. The desire to know his own mother, or to know about her, was constantly haunted with dread; and in imagining what might befall Mirah it quickly occurred to him that finding the mother and brother from whom she had been parted when she was a little one might turn out to be a calamity. When she was in the boat she said that her mother and brother were good; but the goodness might have been chiefly in her own ignorant innocence and yearning memory, and the ten or twelve years since the parting had been time enough for much worsening. Spite of his strong tendency to side with the objects of prejudice, and in general with those who got the worst of it, his interest had never been practically drawn toward existing Jews, and the facts he knew about them, whether they walked conspicuous in fine apparel or lurked in by-streets, were chiefly of a sort most repugnant to him. Of learned and accomplished Jews he took it for granted that they had dropped their religion, and wished to be merged in the people of their native lands. Scorn flung at a Jew as such would have roused all his sympathy in griefs of inheritance; but the indiscriminate scorn of a race will often strike a specimen who has well earned it on his own account, and might fairly be gibbeted as a rascally son of Adam. It appears that the Caribs, who know little of theology, regard thieving as a practice peculiarly connected with Christian tenets, and probably they could allege experimental grounds for this opinion. Deronda could not escape (who can?) knowing ugly stories of Jewish characteristics and occupations; and though one of his favorite protests was against the severance of past and present history, he was like others who shared his protest, in never having cared to reach any more special conclusions about actual Jews than that they retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed race. But now that Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might be to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but--he must wait to know more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding hints from Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks--all the sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an association with what was hateful or contaminating. But these fine words with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the language in which we think. Deronda's thinking went on in rapid images of what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a dingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed woman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening a hungry girl's last bit of finery; or in some quarter only the more hideous for being smarter, he found himself under the breath of a young Jew talkative and familiar, willing to show his acquaintance with gentlemen's tastes, and not fastidious in any transactions with which they would favor him--and so on through the brief chapter of his experience in this kind. Excuse him: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into insulting ideas, or to practice a form of wit which identifies Moses with the advertisement sheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if Mirah's parents had been Christian, the chief difference would have been that his forebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. It was the habit of his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this case as well as his own there was enough to make the connection reasonable. But what was to be done with Mirah? She needed shelter and protection in the fullest sense, and all his chivalrous sentiment roused itself to insist that the sooner and the more fully he could engage for her the interest of others besides himself, the better he should fulfill her claims on him. He had no right to provide for her entirely, though he might be able to do so; the very depth of the impression she had produced made him desire that she should understand herself to be entirely independent of him; and vague visions of the future which he tried to dispel as fantastic left their influence in an anxiety stronger than any motive he could give for it, that those who saw his actions closely should be acquainted from the first with the history of his relation to Mirah. He had learned to hate secrecy about the grand ties and obligations of his life--to hate it the more because a strong spell of interwoven sensibilities hindered him from breaking such secrecy. Deronda had made a vow to himself that--since the truths which disgrace mortals are not all of their own making--the truth should never be made a disgrace to another by his act. He was not without terror lest he should break this vow, and fall into the apologetic philosophy which explains the world into containing nothing better than one's own conduct. At one moment he resolved to tell the whole of his adventure to Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger the next morning at breakfast, but the possibility that something quite new might reveal itself on his next visit to Mrs. Meyrick's checked this impulse, and he finally went to sleep on the conclusion that he would wait until that visit had been made. CHAPTER XX. "It will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world, we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather than the result of continued examination."--ALEXANDER KNOX: quoted in Southey's Life of Wesley. Mirah said that she had slept well that night; and when she came down in Mab's black dress, her dark hair curling in fresh fibrils as it gradually dried from its plenteous bath, she looked like one who was beginning to take comfort after the long sorrow and watching which had paled her cheek and made blue semicircles under her eyes. It was Mab who carried her breakfast and ushered her down--with some pride in the effect produced by a pair of tiny felt slippers which she had rushed out to buy because there were no shoes in the house small enough for Mirah, whose borrowed dress ceased about her ankles and displayed the cheap clothing that, moulding itself on her feet, seemed an adornment as choice as the sheaths of buds. The farthing buckles were bijoux. "Oh, if you please, mamma?" cried Mab, clasping her hands and stooping toward Mirah's feet, as she entered the parlor; "look at the slippers, how beautiful they fit! I declare she is like the Queen Budoor--'two delicate feet, the work of the protecting and all-recompensing Creator, support her; and I wonder how they can sustain what is above them.'" Mirah looked down at her own feet in a childlike way and then smiled at Mrs. Meyrick, who was saying inwardly, "One could hardly imagine this creature having an evil thought. But wise people would tell me to be cautious." She returned Mirah's smile and said, "I fear the feet have had to sustain their burden a little too often lately. But to-day she will rest and be my companion." "And she will tell you so many things and I shall not hear them," grumbled Mab, who felt herself in the first volume of a delightful romance and obliged to miss some chapters because she had to go to pupils. Kate was already gone to make sketches along the river, and Amy was away on business errands. It was what the mother wished, to be alone with this stranger, whose story must be a sorrowful one, yet was needful to be told. The small front parlor was as good as a temple that morning. The sunlight was on the river and soft air came in through the open window; the walls showed a glorious silent cloud of witnesses--the Virgin soaring amid her cherubic escort; grand Melancholia with her solemn universe; the Prophets and Sibyls; the School of Athens; the Last Supper; mystic groups where far-off ages made one moment; grave Holbein and Rembrandt heads; the Tragic Muse; last-century children at their musings or their play; Italian poets--all were there through the medium of a little black and white. The neat mother who had weathered her troubles, and come out of them with a face still cheerful, was sorting colored wools for her embroidery. Hafiz purred on the window-ledge, the clock on the mantle-piece ticked without hurry, and the occasional sound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more massive central quiet. Mrs. Meyrick thought that this quiet might be the best invitation to speech on the part of her companion, and chose not to disturb it by remark. Mirah sat opposite in her former attitude, her hands clasped on her lap, her ankles crossed, her eyes at first traveling slowly over the objects around her, but finally resting with a sort of placid reverence on Mrs. Meyrick. At length she began to speak softly. "I remember my mother's face better than anything; yet I was not seven when I was taken away, and I am nineteen now." "I can understand that," said Mrs. Meyrick. "There are some earliest things that last the longest." "Oh, yes, it was the earliest. I think my life began with waking up and loving my mother's face: it was so near to me, and her arms were round me, and she sang to me. One hymn she sang so often, so often: and then she taught me to sing it with her: it was the first I ever sang. They were always Hebrew hymns she sang; and because I never knew the meaning of the words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness. When I lay in my little bed and it was all white above me, she used to bend over me, between me and the white, and sing in a sweet, low voice. I can dream myself back into that time when I am awake, and it often comes back to me in my sleep--my hand is very little, I put it up to her face and she kisses it. Sometimes in my dreams I begin to tremble and think that we are both dead; but then I wake up and my hand lies like this, and for a moment I hardly know myself. But if I could see my mother again I should know her." "You must expect some change after twelve years," said Mrs. Meyrick, gently. "See my grey hair: ten years ago it was bright brown. The days and months pace over us like restless little birds, and leave the marks of their feet backward and forward; especially when they are like birds with heavy hearts--then they tread heavily." "Ah, I am sure her heart has been heavy for want of me. But to feel her joy if we could meet again, and I could make her know I love her and give her deep comfort after all her mourning! If that could be, I should mind nothing; I should be glad that I have lived through my trouble. I did despair. The world seemed miserable and wicked; none helped me so that I could bear their looks and words; I felt that my mother was dead, and death was the only way to her. But then in the last moment--yesterday, when I longed for the water to close over me--and I thought that death was the best image of mercy--then goodness came to me living, and I felt trust in the living. And--it is strange--but I began to hope that she was living too. And now I with you--here--this morning, peace and hope have come into me like a flood. I want nothing; I can wait; because I hope and believe and am grateful--oh, so grateful! You have not thought evil of me--you have not despised me." Mirah spoke with low-toned fervor, and sat as still as a picture all the while. "Many others would have felt as we do, my dear," said Mrs. Meyrick, feeling a mist come over her eyes as she looked at her work. "But I did not meet them--they did not come to me." "How was it that you were taken from your mother?" "Ah, I am a long while coming to that. It is dreadful to speak of, yet I must tell you--I must tell you everything. My father--it was he that took me away. I thought we were only going on a little journey; and I was pleased. There was a box with all my little things in. But we went on board a ship, and got farther and farther away from the land. Then I was ill; and I thought it would never end--it was the first misery, and it seemed endless. But at last we landed. I knew nothing then, and believed what my father said. He comforted me, and told me I should go back to my mother. But it was America we had reached, and it was long years before we came back to Europe. At first I often asked my father when we were going back; and I tried to learn writing fast, because I wanted to write to my mother; but one day when he found me trying to write a letter, he took me on his knee and told me that my mother and brother were dead; that was why we did not go back. I remember my brother a little; he carried me once; but he was not always at home. I believed my father when he said that they were dead. I saw them under the earth when he said they were there, with their eyes forever closed. I never thought of its not being true; and I used to cry every night in my bed for a long while. Then when she came so often to me, in my sleep, I thought she must be living about me though I could not always see her, and that comforted me. I was never afraid in the dark, because of that; and very often in the day I used to shut my eyes and bury my face and try to see her and to hear her singing. I came to do that at last without shutting my eyes." Mirah paused with a sweet content in her face, as if she were having her happy vision, while she looked out toward the river. "Still your father was not unkind to you, I hope," said Mrs. Meyrick, after a minute, anxious to recall her. "No; he petted me, and took pains to teach me. He was an actor; and I found out, after, that the 'Coburg' I used to hear of his going to at home was a theatre. But he had more to do with the theatre than acting. He had not always been an actor; he had been a teacher, and knew many languages. His acting was not very good; I think, but he managed the stage, and wrote and translated plays. An Italian lady, a singer, lived with us a long time. They both taught me, and I had a master besides, who made me learn by heart and recite. I worked quite hard, though I was so little; and I was not nine when I first went on the stage. I could easily learn things, and I was not afraid. But then and ever since I hated our way of life. My father had money, and we had finery about us in a disorderly way; always there were men and women coming and going; there was loud laughing and disputing, strutting, snapping of fingers, jeering, faces I did not like to look at--though many petted and caressed me. But then I remembered my mother. Even at first when I understood nothing, I shrank away from all those things outside me into companionship with thoughts that were not like them; and I gathered thoughts very fast, because I read many things--plays and poetry, Shakespeare and Schiller, and learned evil and good. My father began to believe that I might be a great singer: my voice was considered wonderful for a child; and he had the best teaching for me. But it was painful that he boasted of me, and set me to sing for show at any minute, as if I had been a musical box. Once when I was nine years old, I played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and did not know it, and sat singing to herself while she played with flowers. I did it without any trouble; but the clapping and all the sounds of the theatre were hateful to me; and I never liked the praise I had, because it all seemed very hard and unloving: I missed the love and trust I had been born into. I made a life in my own thoughts quite different from everything about me: I chose what seemed to me beautiful out of the plays and everything, and made my world out of it; and it was like a sharp knife always grazing me that we had two sorts of life which jarred so with each other--women looking good and gentle on the stage, and saying good things as if they felt them, and directly after I saw them with coarse, ugly manners. My father sometimes noticed my shrinking ways; and Signora said one day, when I had been rehearsing, 'She will never be an artist: she has no notion of being anybody but herself. That does very well now, but by-and-by you will see--she will have no more face and action than a singing-bird.' My father was angry, and they quarreled. I sat alone and cried, because what she had said was like a long unhappy future unrolled before me. I did not want to be an artist; but this was what my father expected of me. After a while Signora left us, and a governess used to come and give me lessons in different things, because my father began to be afraid of my singing too much; but I still acted from time to time. Rebellious feelings grew stronger in me, and I wished to get away from this life; but I could not tell where to go, and I dreaded the world. Besides, I felt it would be wrong to leave my father: I dreaded doing wrong, for I thought I might get wicked and hateful to myself, in the same way that many others seemed hateful to me. For so long, so long I had never felt my outside world happy; and if I got wicked I should lose my world of happy thoughts where my mother lived with me. That was my childish notion all through those years. Oh how long they were!" Mirah fell to musing again. "Had you no teaching about what was your duty?" said Mrs. Meyrick. She did not like to say "religion"--finding herself on inspection rather dim as to what the Hebrew religion might have turned into at this date. "No--only that I ought to do what my father wished. He did not follow our religion at New York, and I think he wanted me not to know much about it. But because my mother used to take me to the synagogue, and I remembered sitting on her knee and looking through the railing and hearing the chanting and singing, I longed to go. One day when I was quite small I slipped out and tried to find the synagogue, but I lost myself a long while till a peddler questioned me and took me home. My father, missing me, had been much in fear, and was very angry. I too had been so frightened at losing myself that it was long before I thought of venturing out again. But after Signora left us we went to rooms where our landlady was a Jewess and observed her religion. I asked her to take me with her to the synagogue; and I read in her prayer-books and Bible, and when I had money enough I asked her to buy me books of my own, for these books seemed a closer companionship with my mother: I knew that she must have looked at the very words and said them. In that way I have come to know a little of our religion, and the history of our people, besides piecing together what I read in plays and other books about Jews and Jewesses; because I was sure my mother obeyed her religion. I had left off asking my father about her. It is very dreadful to say it, but I began to disbelieve him. I had found that he did not always tell the truth, and made promises without meaning to keep them; and that raised my suspicion that my mother and brother were still alive though he had told me they were dead. For in going over the past again as I got older and knew more, I felt sure that my mother had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again after a very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and telling me that my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now but a bit of acting, to set my mind at rest. The cruelty of that falsehood sank into me, and I hated all untruth because of it. I wrote to my mother secretly: I knew the street, Colman Street, where we lived, and that it was not Blackfriars Bridge and the Coburg, and that our name was Cohen then, though my father called us Lapidoth, because, he said, it was a name of his forefathers in Poland. I sent my letter secretly; but no answer came, and I thought there was no hope for me. Our life in America did not last much longer. My father suddenly told me we were to pack up and go to Hamburg, and I was rather glad. I hoped we might get among a different sort of people, and I knew German quite well--some German plays almost all by heart. My father spoke it better than he spoke English. I was thirteen then, and I seemed to myself quite old--I knew so much, and yet so little. I think other children cannot feel as I did. I had often wished that I had been drowned when I was going away from my mother. But I set myself to obey and suffer: what else could I do? One day when we were on our voyage, a new thought came into my mind. I was not very ill that time, and I kept on deck a good deal. My father acted and sang and joked to amuse people on board, and I used often to hear remarks about him. One day, when I was looking at the sea and nobody took notice of me, I overheard a gentleman say, 'Oh, he is one of those clever Jews--a rascal, I shouldn't wonder. There's no race like them for cunning in the men and beauty in the women. I wonder what market he means that daughter for.' When I heard this it darted into my mind that the unhappiness in my life came from my being a Jewess, and that always to the end the world would think slightly of me and that I must bear it, for I should be judged by that name; and it comforted me to believe that my suffering was part of the affliction of my people, my part in the long song of mourning that has been going on through ages and ages. For if many of our race were wicked and made merry in their wickedness--what was that but part of the affliction borne by the just among them, who were despised for the sins of their brethren?--But you have not rejected me." Mirah had changed her tone in this last sentence, having suddenly reflected that at this moment she had reason not for complaint but for gratitude. "And we will try to save you from being judged unjustly by others, my poor child," said Mrs. Meyrick, who had now given up all attempt at going on with her work, and sat listening with folded hands and a face hardly less eager than Mab's would have been. "Go on, go on: tell me all." "After that we lived in different towns--Hamburg and Vienna, the longest. I began to study singing again: and my father always got money about the theatres. I think he brought a good deal of money from America, I never knew why we left. For some time he was in great spirits about my singing, and he made me rehearse parts and act continually. He looked forward to my coming out in the opera. But by-and-by it seemed that my voice would never be strong enough--it did not fulfill its promise. My master at Vienna said, 'Don't strain it further: it will never do for the public:--it is gold, but a thread of gold dust.' My father was bitterly disappointed: we were not so well off at that time. I think I have not quite told you what I felt about my father. I knew he was fond of me and meant to indulge me, and that made me afraid of hurting him; but he always mistook what would please me and give me happiness. It was his nature to take everything lightly; and I soon left off asking him any questions about things that I cared for much, because he always turned them off with a joke. He would even ridicule our own people; and once when he had been imitating their movements and their tones in praying, only to make others laugh, I could not restrain myself--for I always had an anger in my heart about my mother--and when we were alone, I said, 'Father, you ought not to mimic our own people before Christians who mock them: would it not be bad if I mimicked you, that they might mock you?' But he only shrugged his shoulders and laughed and pinched my chin, and said, 'You couldn't do it, my dear." It was this way of turning off everything, that made a great wall between me and my father, and whatever I felt most I took the most care to hide from him. For there were some things--when they were laughed at I could not bear it: the world seemed like a hell to me. Is this world and all the life upon it only like a farce or a vaudeville, where you find no great meanings? Why then are there tragedies and grand operas, where men do difficult things and choose to suffer? I think it is silly to speak of all things as a joke. And I saw that his wishing me to sing the greatest music, and parts in grand operas, was only wishing for what would fetch the greatest price. That hemmed in my gratitude for his affectionateness, and the tenderest feeling I had toward him was pity. Yes, I did sometimes pity him. He had aged and changed. Now he was no longer so lively. I thought he seemed worse--less good to others than to me. Every now and then in the latter years his gaiety went away suddenly, and he would sit at home silent and gloomy; or he would come in and fling himself down and sob, just as I have done myself when I have been in trouble. If I put my hand on his knee and say, 'What is the matter, father?' he would make no answer, but would draw my arm round his neck and put his arm round me and go on crying. There never came any confidence between us; but oh, I was sorry for him. At those moments I knew he must feel his life bitter, and I pressed my cheek against his head and prayed. Those moments were what most bound me to him; and I used to think how much my mother once loved him, else she would not have married him. "But soon there came the dreadful time. We had been at Pesth and we came back to Vienna. In spite of what my master Leo had said, my father got me an engagement, not at the opera, but to take singing parts at a suburb theatre in Vienna. He had nothing to do with the theatre then; I did not understand what he did, but I think he was continually at a gambling house, though he was careful always about taking me to the theatre. I was very miserable. The plays I acted in were detestable to me. Men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to look at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery furnace. Perhaps I make it worse than it was--you don't know that life: but the glare and the faces, and my having to go on and act and sing what I hated, and then see people who came to stare at me behind the scenes--it was all so much worse than when I was a little girl. I went through with it; I did it; I had set my mind to obey my father and work, for I saw nothing better that I could do. But I felt that my voice was getting weaker, and I knew that my acting was not good except when it was not really acting, but the part was one that I could be myself in, and some feeling within me carried me along. That was seldom. "Then, in the midst of all this, the news came to me one morning that my father had been taken to prison, and he had sent for me. He did not tell me the reason why he was there, but he ordered me to go to an address he gave me, to see a Count who would be able to get him released. The address was to some public rooms where I was to ask for the Count, and beg him to come to my father. I found him, and recognized him as a gentleman whom I had seen the other night for the first time behind the scenes. That agitated me, for I remembered his way of looking at me and kissing my hand--I thought it was in mockery. But I delivered my errand, and he promised to go immediately to my father, who came home again that very evening, bringing the Count with him. I now began to feel a horrible dread of this man, for he worried me with his attentions, his eyes were always on me: I felt sure that whatever else there might be in his mind toward me, below it all there was scorn for the Jewess and the actress. And when he came to me the next day in the theatre and would put my shawl around me, a terror took hold of me; I saw that my father wanted me to look pleased. The Count was neither very young nor very old; his hair and eyes were pale; he was tall and walked heavily, and his face was heavy and grave except when he looked at me. He smiled at me, and his smile went through me with horror: I could not tell why he was so much worse to me than other men. Some feelings are like our hearing: they come as sounds do, before we know their reason. My father talked to me about him when we were alone, and praised him--said what a good friend he had been. I said nothing, because I supposed he had got my father out of prison. When the Count came again, my father left the room. He asked me if I liked being on the stage. I said No, I only acted in obedience to my father. He always spoke French, and called me _petite ange_ and such things, which I felt insulting. I knew he meant to make love to me, and I had it firmly in my mind that a nobleman and one who was not a Jew could have no love for me that was not half contempt. But then he told me that I need not act any longer; he wished me to visit him at his beautiful place, where I might be queen of everything. It was difficult to me to speak, I felt so shaken with anger: I could only say, 'I would rather stay on the stage forever,' and I left him there. Hurrying out of the room I saw my father sauntering in the passage. My heart was crushed. I went past him and locked myself up. It had sunk into me that my father was in a conspiracy with that man against me. But the next day he persuaded me to come out: he said that I had mistaken everything, and he would explain: if I did not come out and act and fulfill my engagement, we should be ruined and he must starve. So I went on acting, and for a week or more the Count never came near me. My father changed our lodgings, and kept at home except when he went to the theatre with me. He began one day to speak discouragingly of my acting, and say, I could never go on singing in public--I should lose my voice--I ought to think of my future, and not put my nonsensical feelings between me and my fortune. He said, 'What will you do? You will be brought down to sing and beg at people's doors. You have had a splendid offer and ought to accept it.' I could not speak: a horror took possession of me when I thought of my mother and of him. I felt for the first time that I should not do wrong to leave him. But the next day he told me that he had put an end to my engagement at the theatre, and that we were to go to Prague. I was getting suspicious of everything, and my will was hardening to act against him. It took us two days to pack and get ready; and I had it in my mind that I might be obliged to run away from my father, and then I would come to London and try if it were possible to find my mother. I had a little money, and I sold some things to get more. I packed a few clothes in a little bag that I could carry with me, and I kept my mind on the watch. My father's silence--his letting drop that subject of the Count's offer--made me feel sure that there was a plan against me. I felt as if it had been a plan to take me to a madhouse. I once saw a picture of a madhouse, that I could never forget; it seemed to me very much like some of the life I had seen--the people strutting, quarreling, leering--the faces with cunning and malice in them. It was my will to keep myself from wickedness; and I prayed for help. I had seen what despised women were: and my heart turned against my father, for I saw always behind him that man who made me shudder. You will think I had not enough reason for my suspicions, and perhaps I had not, outside my own feeling; but it seemed to me that my mind had been lit up, and all that might be stood out clear and sharp. If I slept, it was only to see the same sort of things, and I could hardly sleep at all. Through our journey I was everywhere on the watch. I don't know why, but it came before me like a real event, that my father would suddenly leave me and I should find myself with the Count where I could not get away from him. I thought God was warning me: my mother's voice was in my soul. It was dark when we reached Prague, and though the strange bunches of lamps were lit it was difficult to distinguish faces as we drove along the street. My father chose to sit outside--he was always smoking now--and I watched everything in spite of the darkness. I do believe I could see better then than I ever did before: the strange clearness within seemed to have got outside me. It was not my habit to notice faces and figures much in the street; but this night I saw every one; and when we passed before a great hotel I caught sight only of a back that was passing in--the light of the great bunch of lamps a good way off fell on it. I knew it--before the face was turned, as it fell into shadow, I knew who it was. Help came to me. I feel sure help came. I did not sleep that night. I put on my plainest things--the cloak and hat I have worn ever since; and I sat watching for the light and the sound of the doors being unbarred. Some one rose early--at four o'clock, to go to the railway. That gave me courage. I slipped out, with my little bag under my cloak, and none noticed me. I had been a long while attending to the railway guide that I might learn the way to England; and before the sun had risen I was in the train for Dresden. Then I cried for joy. I did not know whether my money would last out, but I trusted. I could sell the things in my bag, and the little rings in my ears, and I could live on bread only. My only terror was lest my father should follow me. But I never paused. I came on, and on, and on, only eating bread now and then. When I got to Brussels I saw that I should not have enough money, and I sold all that I could sell; but here a strange thing happened. Putting my hand into the pocket of my cloak, I found a half-napoleon. Wondering and wondering how it came there, I remembered that on the way from Cologne there was a young workman sitting against me. I was frightened at every one, and did not like to be spoken to. At first he tried to talk, but when he saw that I did not like it, he left off. It was a long journey; I ate nothing but a bit of bread, and he once offered me some of the food he brought in, but I refused it. I do believe it was he who put that bit of gold in my pocket. Without it I could hardly have got to Dover, and I did walk a good deal of the way from Dover to London. I knew I should look like a miserable beggar-girl. I wanted not to look very miserable, because if I found my mother it would grieve her to see me so. But oh, how vain my hope was that she would be there to see me come! As soon as I set foot in London, I began to ask for Lambeth and Blackfriars Bridge, but they were a long way off, and I went wrong. At last I got to Blackfriars Bridge and asked for Colman Street. People shook their heads. None knew it. I saw it in my mind--our doorsteps, and the white tiles hung in the windows, and the large brick building opposite with wide doors. But there was nothing like it. At last when I asked a tradesman where the Coburg Theatre and Colman Street were, he said, 'Oh, my little woman, that's all done away with. The old streets have been pulled down; everything is new.' I turned away and felt as if death had laid a hand on me. He said: 'Stop, stop! young woman; what is it you're wanting with Colman Street, eh?' meaning well, perhaps. But his tone was what I could not bear; and how could I tell him what I wanted? I felt blinded and bewildered with a sudden shock. I suddenly felt that I was very weak and weary, and yet where could I go? for I looked so poor and dusty, and had nothing with me--I looked like a street-beggar. And I was afraid of all places where I could enter. I lost my trust. I thought I was forsaken. It seemed that I had been in a fever of hope--delirious--all the way from Prague: I thought that I was helped, and I did nothing but strain my mind forward and think of finding my mother; and now--there I stood in a strange world. All who saw me would think ill of me, and I must herd with beggars. I stood on the bridge and looked along the river. People were going on to a steamboat. Many of them seemed poor, and I felt as if it would be a refuge to get away from the streets; perhaps the boat would take me where I could soon get into a solitude. I had still some pence left, and I bought a loaf when I went on the boat. I wanted to have a little time and strength to think of life and death. How could I live? And now again it seemed that if ever I were to find my mother again, death was the way to her. I ate, that I might have strength to think. The boat set me down at a place along the river--I don't know where--and it was late in the evening. I found some large trees apart from the road, and I sat down under them that I might rest through the night. Sleep must have soon come to me, and when I awoke it was morning. The birds were singing, and the dew was white about me, I felt chill and oh, so lonely! I got up and walked and followed the river a long way and then turned back again. There was no reason why I should go anywhere. The world about me seemed like a vision that was hurrying by while I stood still with my pain. My thoughts were stronger than I was; they rushed in and forced me to see all my life from the beginning; ever since I was carried away from my mother I had felt myself a lost child taken up and used by strangers, who did not care what my life was to me, but only what I could do for them. It seemed all a weary wandering and heart-loneliness--as if I had been forced to go to merrymakings without the expectation of joy. And now it was worse. I was lost again, and I dreaded lest any stranger should notice me and speak to me. I had a terror of the world. None knew me; all would mistake me. I had seen so many in my life who made themselves glad with scorning, and laughed at another's shame. What could I do? This life seemed to be closing in upon me with a wall of fire--everywhere there was scorching that made me shrink. The high sunlight made me shrink. And I began to think that my despair was the voice of God telling me to die. But it would take me long to die of hunger. Then I thought of my people, how they had been driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of misery in their wandering--was I the first? And in the wars and troubles when Christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain their children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being false apostates. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to my life; for calamity had closed me in too, and I saw no pathway but to evil. But my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary things in it. I knew that some had held it wrong to hasten their own death, though they were in the midst of flames; and while I had some strength left it was a longing to bear if I ought to bear--else where was the good of all my life? It had not been happy since the first years: when the light came every morning I used to think, 'I will bear it.' But always before I had some hope; now it was gone. With these thoughts I wandered and wandered, inwardly crying to the Most High, from whom I should not flee in death more than in life--though I had no strong faith that He cared for me. The strength seemed departing from my soul; deep below all my cries was the feeling that I was alone and forsaken. The more I thought the wearier I got, till it seemed I was not thinking at all, but only the sky and the river and the Eternal God were in my soul. And what was it whether I died or lived? If I lay down to die in the river, was it more than lying down to sleep?--for there too I committed my soul--I gave myself up. I could not bear memories any more; I could only feel what was present in me--it was all one longing to cease from my weary life, which seemed only a pain outside the great peace that I might enter into. That was how it was. When the evening came and the sun was gone, it seemed as if that was all I had to wait for. And a new strength came into me to will what I would do. You know what I did. I was going to die. You know what happened--did he not tell you? Faith came to me again; I was not forsaken. He told you how he found me?" Mrs. Meyrick gave no audible answer, but pressed her lips against Mirah's forehead. * * * * * "She's just a pearl; the mud has only washed her," was the fervid little woman's closing commentary when, _tete-à-tete_ with Deronda in the back parlor that evening, she had conveyed Mirah's story to him with much vividness. "What is your feeling about a search for this mother?" said Deronda. "Have you no fears? I have, I confess." "Oh, I believe the mother's good," said Mrs. Meyrick, with rapid decisiveness; "or _was_ good. She may be dead--that's my fear. A good woman, you may depend: you may know it by the scoundrel the father is. Where did the child get her goodness from? Wheaten flour has to be accounted for." Deronda was rather disappointed at this answer; he had wanted a confirmation of his own judgment, and he began to put in demurrers. The argument about the mother would not apply to the brother; and Mrs. Meyrick admitted that the brother might be an ugly likeness of the father. Then, as to advertising, if the name was Cohen, you might as well advertise for two undescribed terriers; and here Mrs. Meyrick helped him, for the idea of an advertisement, already mentioned to Mirah, had roused the poor child's terror; she was convinced that her father would see it--he saw everything in the papers. Certainly there were safer means than advertising; men might be set to work whose business it was to find missing persons; but Deronda wished Mrs. Meyrick to feel with him that it would be wiser to wait, before seeking a dubious--perhaps a deplorable result; especially as he was engaged to go abroad the next week for a couple of months. If a search were made, he would like to be at hand, so that Mrs. Meyrick might not be unaided in meeting any consequences--supposing that she would generously continue to watch over Mirah. "We should be very jealous of any one who took the task from us," said Mrs. Meyrick. "She will stay under my roof; there is Hans's old room for her." "Will she be content to wait?" said Deronda, anxiously. "No trouble there. It is not her nature to run into planning and devising: only to submit. See how she submitted to that father! It was a wonder to herself how she found the will and contrivance to run away from him. About finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust; since you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that her mother will be found in the same unsought way. And when she is talking I catch her feeling like a child." Mrs. Meyrick hoped that the sum Deronda put into her hands as a provision for Mirah's wants was more than would be needed; after a little while Mirah would perhaps like to occupy herself as the other girls did, and make herself independent. Deronda pleaded that she must need a long rest. "Oh, yes; we will hurry nothing," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Rely upon it, she shall be taken tender care of. If you like to give me your address abroad, I will write to let you know how we get on. It is not fair that we should have all the pleasure of her salvation to ourselves. And besides, I want to make believe that I am doing something for you as well as for Mirah." "That is no make-believe. What should I have done without you last night? Everything would have gone wrong. I shall tell Hans that the best of having him for a friend is, knowing his mother." After that they joined the girls in the other room, where Mirah was seated placidly, while the others were telling her what they knew about Mr. Deronda--his goodness to Hans, and all the virtues that Hans had reported of him. "Kate burns a pastille before his portrait every day," said Mab. "And I carry his signature in a little black-silk bag round my neck to keep off the cramp. And Amy says the multiplication-table in his name. We must all do something extra in honor of him, now he has brought you to us." "I suppose he is too great a person to want anything," said Mirah, smiling at Mab, and appealing to the graver Amy. "He is perhaps very high in the world?" "He is very much above us in rank," said Amy. "He is related to grand people. I dare say he leans on some of the satin cushions we prick our fingers over." "I am glad he is of high rank," said Mirah, with her usual quietness. "Now, why are you glad of that?" said Amy, rather suspicious of this sentiment, and on the watch for Jewish peculiarities which had not appeared. "Because I have always disliked men of high rank before." "Oh, Mr. Deronda is not so very high," said Kate, "He need not hinder us from thinking ill of the whole peerage and baronetage if we like." When he entered, Mirah rose with the same look of grateful reverence that she had lifted to him the evening before: impossible to see a creature freer at once from embarrassment and boldness. Her theatrical training had left no recognizable trace; probably her manners had not much changed since she played the forsaken child at nine years of age; and she had grown up in her simplicity and truthfulness like a little flower-seed that absorbs the chance confusion of its surrounding into its own definite mould of beauty. Deronda felt that he was making acquaintance with something quite new to him in the form of womanhood. For Mirah was not childlike from ignorance: her experience of evil and trouble was deeper and stranger than his own. He felt inclined to watch her and listen to her as if she had come from a far off shore inhabited by a race different from our own. But for that very reason he made his visit brief with his usual activity of imagination as to how his conduct might affect others, he shrank from what might seem like curiosity or the assumption of a right to know as much as he pleased of one to whom he had done a service. For example, he would have liked to hear her sing, but he would have felt the expression of such a wish to be rudeness in him--since she could not refuse, and he would all the while have a sense that she was being treated like one whose accomplishments were to be ready on demand. And whatever reverence could be shown to woman, he was bent on showing to this girl. Why? He gave himself several good reasons; but whatever one does with a strong unhesitating outflow of will has a store of motive that it would be hard to put into words. Some deeds seem little more than interjections which give vent to the long passion of a life. So Deronda soon took his farewell for the two months during which he expected to be absent from London, and in a few days he was on his way with Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger to Leubronn. He had fulfilled his intention of telling them about Mirah. The baronet was decidedly of opinion that the search for the mother and brother had better be let alone. Lady Mallinger was much interested in the poor girl, observing that there was a society for the conversion of the Jews, and that it was to be hoped Mirah would embrace Christianity; but perceiving that Sir Hugo looked at her with amusement, she concluded that she had said something foolish. Lady Mallinger felt apologetically about herself as a woman who had produced nothing but daughters in a case where sons were required, and hence regarded the apparent contradictions of the world as probably due to the weakness of her own understanding. But when she was much puzzled, it was her habit to say to herself, "I will ask Daniel." Deronda was altogether a convenience in the family; and Sir Hugo too, after intending to do the best for him, had begun to feel that the pleasantest result would be to have this substitute for a son always ready at his elbow. This was the history of Deronda, so far as he knew it, up to the time of that visit to Leubronn in which he saw Gwendolen Harleth at the gaming-table. CHAPTER XXI. It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy "Let there not be," and the many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled--like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or a grasp--precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction? It was half-past ten in the morning when Gwendolen Harleth, after her gloomy journey from Leubronn, arrived at the station from which she must drive to Offendene. No carriage or friend was awaiting her, for in the telegram she had sent from Dover she had mentioned a later train, and in her impatience of lingering at a London station she had set off without picturing what it would be to arrive unannounced at half an hour's drive from home--at one of those stations which have been fixed on not as near anywhere, but as equidistant from everywhere. Deposited as a _femme sole_ with her large trunks, and having to wait while a vehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the Railway Inn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty decanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her to repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by her family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking toward the lane and fields. But here the very gleams of sunshine seemed melancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the wind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which had doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know what to do with themselves. The railway official also seemed without resources, and his innocent demeanor in observing Gwendolen and her trunks was rendered intolerable by the cast in his eye; especially since, being a new man, he did not know her, and must conclude that she was not very high in the world. The vehicle--a dirty old barouche--was within sight, and was being slowly prepared by an elderly laborer. Contemptible details these, to make part of a history; yet the turn of most lives is hardly to be accounted for without them. They are continually entering with cumulative force into a mood until it gets the mass and momentum of a theory or a motive. Even philosophy is not quite free from such determining influences; and to be dropped solitary at an ugly, irrelevant-looking spot, with a sense of no income on the mind, might well prompt a man to discouraging speculation on the origin of things and the reason of a world where a subtle thinker found himself so badly off. How much more might such trifles tell on a young lady equipped for society with a fastidious taste, an Indian shawl over her arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks by her side, and a mortal dislike to the new consciousness of poverty which was stimulating her imagination of disagreeables? At any rate they told heavily on poor Gwendolen, and helped to quell her resistant spirit. What was the good of living in the midst of hardships, ugliness, and humiliation? This was the beginning of being at home again, and it was a sample of what she had to expect. Here was the theme on which her discontent rung its sad changes during her slow drive in the uneasy barouche, with one great trunk squeezing the meek driver, and the other fastened with a rope on the seat in front of her. Her ruling vision all the way from Leubronn had been that the family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some little income left--her mamma did not mean that they would have literally nothing. To go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was the dismal future that threatened her: she had seen plenty of poor English people abroad and imagined herself plunged in the despised dullness of their ill-plenished lives, with Alice, Bertha, Fanny and Isabel all growing up in tediousness around her, while she advanced toward thirty and her mamma got more and more melancholy. But she did not mean to submit, and let misfortune do what it would with her: she had not yet quite believed in the misfortune; but weariness and disgust with this wretched arrival had begun to affect her like an uncomfortable waking, worse than the uneasy dreams which had gone before. The self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the glass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything whatever--charming, clever, resolute--what was the good of it all? Events might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. Yes, men were hateful. But in these last hours, a certain change had come over their meaning. It is one thing to hate stolen goods, and another thing to hate them the more because their being stolen hinders us from making use of them. Gwendolen had begun to be angry with Grandcourt for being what had hindered her from marrying him, angry with him as the cause of her present dreary lot. But the slow drive was nearly at an end, and the lumbering vehicle coming up the avenue was within sight of the windows. A figure appearing under the portico brought a rush of new and less selfish feeling in Gwendolen, and when springing from the carriage she saw the dear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness in it, she threw her arms round her mother's neck, and for the moment felt all sorrows only in relation to her mother's feeling about them. Behind, of course, were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls, each, poor thing--like those other many thousand sisters of us all--having her peculiar world which was of no importance to any one else, but all of them feeling Gwendolen's presence to be somehow a relenting of misfortune: where Gwendolen was, something interesting would happen; even her hurried submission to their kisses, and "Now go away, girls," carried the sort of comfort which all weakness finds in decision and authoritativeness. Good Miss Merry, whose air of meek depression, hitherto held unaccountable in a governess affectionately attached to the family, was now at the general level of circumstances, did not expect any greeting, but busied herself with the trunks and the coachman's pay; while Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen hastened up-stairs and shut themselves in the black and yellow bedroom. "Never mind, mamma dear," said Gwendolen, tenderly pressing her handkerchief against the tears that were rolling down Mrs. Davilow's cheeks. "Never mind. I don't mind. I will do something. I will be something. Things will come right. It seemed worse because I was away. Come now! you must be glad because I am here." Gwendolen felt every word of that speech. A rush of compassionate tenderness stirred all her capability of generous resolution; and the self-confident projects which had vaguely glanced before her during her journey sprang instantaneously into new definiteness. Suddenly she seemed to perceive how she could be "something." It was one of her best moments, and the fond mother, forgetting everything below that tide mark, looked at her with a sort of adoration. She said, "Bless you, my good, good darling! I can be happy, if you can!" But later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks, the old weedy places reappeared. Naturally, there was a shrinking of courage as misfortune ceased to be a mere announcement, and began to disclose itself as a grievous tyrannical inmate. At first--that ugly drive at an end--it was still Offendene that Gwendolen had come home to, and all surroundings of immediate consequence to her were still there to secure her personal ease; the roomy stillness of the large solid house while she rested; all the luxuries of her toilet cared for without trouble to her; and a little tray with her favorite food brought to her in private. For she had said, "Keep them all away from us to-day, mamma. Let you and me be alone together." When Gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped swan, and sat leaning against the cushions of the settee beside her mamma, their misfortune had not yet turned its face and breath upon her. She felt prepared to hear everything, and began in a tone of deliberate intention, "What have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?" "Oh, my dear, the next thing to be done is to move away from this house. Mr. Haynes most fortunately is as glad to have it now as he would have been when we took it. Lord Brackenshaw's agent is to arrange everything with him to the best advantage for us: Bazley, you know; not at all an ill-natured man." "I cannot help thinking that Lord Brackenshaw would let you stay here rent-free, mamma," said Gwendolen, whose talents had not been applied to business so much as to discernment of the admiration excited by her charms. "My dear child, Lord Brackenshaw is in Scotland, and knows nothing about us. Neither your uncle nor I would choose to apply to him. Besides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without money to warm it? The sooner we are out the better. We have nothing to carry but our clothes, you know?" "I suppose you mean to go abroad, then?" said Gwendolen. After all, this is what she had familiarized her mind with. "Oh, no, dear, no. How could we travel? You never did learn anything about income and expenses," said Mrs. Davilow, trying to smile, and putting her hand on Gwendolen's as she added, mournfully, "that makes it so much harder for you, my pet." "But where are we to go?" said Gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness in her tone. She felt a new current of fear passing through her. "It is all decided. A little furniture is to be got in from the rectory--all that can be spared." Mrs. Davilow hesitated. She dreaded the reality for herself less than the shock she must give to Gwendolen, who looked at her with tense expectancy, but was silent. "It is Sawyer's Cottage we are to go to." At first, Gwendolen remained silent, paling with anger--justifiable anger, in her opinion. Then she said with haughtiness, "That is impossible. Something else than that ought to have been thought of. My uncle ought not to allow that. I will not submit to it." "My sweet child, what else could have been thought of? Your uncle, I am sure, is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering himself; he has his family to bring up. And do you quite understand? You must remember--we have nothing. We shall have absolutely nothing except what he and my sister give us. They have been as wise and active as possible, and we must try to earn something. I and the girls are going to work a table-cloth border for the Ladies' Charity at Winchester, and a communion cloth that the parishioners are to present to Pennicote Church." Mrs. Davilow went into these details timidly: but how else was she to bring the fact of their position home to this poor child who, alas! must submit at present, whatever might be in the background for her? and she herself had a superstition that there must be something better in the background. "But surely somewhere else than Sawyer's Cottage might have been found," Gwendolen persisted--taken hold of (as if in a nightmare) by the image of this house where an exciseman had lived. "No, indeed, dear. You know houses are scarce, and we may be thankful to get anything so private. It is not so very bad. There are two little parlors and four bedrooms. You shall sit alone whenever you like." The ebb of sympathetic care for her mamma had gone so low just now, that Gwendolen took no notice of these deprecatory words. "I cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. How can you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to me." "The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your pleasure till it was quite necessary." "Oh, how vexatious!" said Gwendolen, coloring with fresh anger. "If I had known, I could have brought home the money I had won: and for want of knowing, I stayed and lost it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and it would have done for us to live on a little while, till I could carry out some plan." She paused an instant and then added more impetuously, "Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to blight me." Among the "people" she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few napoleons, and might have won back her losses. "We must resign ourselves to the will of Providence, my child," said poor Mrs. Davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not daring to say more. She felt sure that "people" meant Grandcourt, about whom her lips were sealed. And Gwendolen answered immediately, "But I don't resign myself. I shall do what I can against it. What is the good of calling the people's wickedness Providence? You said in your letter it was Mr. Lassman's fault we had lost our money. Has he run away with it all?" "No, dear, you don't understand. There were great speculations: he meant to gain. It was all about mines and things of that sort. He risked too much." "I don't call that Providence: it was his improvidence with our money, and he ought to be punished. Can't we go to law and recover our fortune? My uncle ought to take measures, and not sit down by such wrongs. We ought to go to law." "My dear child, law can never bring back money lost in that way. Your uncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. Besides, one must have a fortune to get any law: there is no law for people who are ruined. And our money has only gone along with other people's. We are not the only sufferers: others have to resign themselves besides us." "But I don't resign myself to live at Sawyer's Cottage and see you working for sixpences and shillings because of that. I shall not do it. I shall do what is more befitting our rank and education." "I am sure your uncle and all of us will approve of that, dear, and admire you the more for it," said Mrs. Davilow, glad of an unexpected opening for speaking on a difficult subject. "I didn't mean that you should resign yourself to worse when anything better offered itself. Both your uncle and aunt have felt that your abilities and education were a fortune for you, and they have already heard of something within your reach." "What is that, mamma?" some of Gwendolen's anger gave way to interest, and she was not without romantic conjectures. "There are two situations that offer themselves. One is in a bishop's family, where there are three daughters, and the other is in quite a high class of school; and in both, your French, and music, and dancing--and then your manners and habits as a lady, are exactly what is wanted. Each is a hundred a year--and--just for the present,"--Mrs. Davilow had become frightened and hesitating,--"to save you from the petty, common way of living that we must go to--you would perhaps accept one of the two." "What! be like Miss Graves at Madame Meunier's? No." "I think, myself, that Dr. Monpert's would be more suitable. There could be no hardship in a bishop's family." "Excuse me, mamma. There are hardships everywhere for a governess. And I don't see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a bishop's family than in any other. Besides, you know very well I hate teaching. Fancy me shut up with three awkward girls something like Alice! I would rather emigrate than be a governess." What it precisely was to emigrate, Gwendolen was not called on to explain. Mrs. Davilow was mute, seeing no outlet, and thinking with dread of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen had to meet her uncle and aunt. There was an air of reticence in Gwendolen's haughty, resistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in reserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not nullify the mother's belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will and daring which had held mastery over herself. "I have some ornaments, mamma, and I could sell them," said Gwendolen. "They would make a sum: I want a little sum--just to go on with. I dare say Marshall, at Wanchester, would take them: I know he showed me some bracelets once that he said he had bought from a lady. Jocosa might go and ask him. Jocosa is going to leave us, of course. But she might do that first." "She would do anything she could, poor, dear soul. I have not told you yet--she wanted me to take all her savings--her three hundred pounds. I tell her to set up a little school. It will be hard for her to go into a new family now she has been so long with us." "Oh, recommend her for the bishop's daughters," said Gwendolen, with a sudden gleam of laughter in her face. "I am sure she will do better than I should." "Do take care not to say such things to your uncle," said Mrs. Davilow. "He will be hurt at your despising what he has exerted himself about. But I dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not disapprove, if you consulted him." "There is some one else I want to consult first. Are the Arrowpoints at Quetcham still, and is Herr Klesmer there? But I daresay you know nothing about it, poor, dear mamma. Can Jeffries go on horseback with a note?" "Oh, my dear, Jeffries is not here, and the dealer has taken the horses. But some one could go for us from Leek's farm. The Arrowpoints are at Quetcham, I know. Miss Arrowpoint left her card the other day: I could not see her. But I don't know about Herr Klesmer. Do you want to send before to-morrow?" "Yes, as soon as possible. I will write a note," said Gwendolen, rising. "What can you be thinking of, Gwen?" said Mrs. Davilow, relieved in the midst of her wonderment by signs of alacrity and better humor. "Don't mind what, there's a dear, good mamma," said Gwendolen, reseating herself a moment to give atoning caresses. "I mean to do something. Never mind what until it is all settled. And then you shall be comforted. The dear face!--it is ten years older in these three weeks. Now, now, now! don't cry"--Gwendolen, holding her mamma's head with both hands, kissed the trembling eyelids. "But mind you don't contradict me or put hindrances in my way. I must decide for myself. I cannot be dictated to by my uncle or any one else. My life is my own affair. And I think"--here her tone took an edge of scorn--"I think I can do better for you than let you live in Sawyer's Cottage." In uttering this last sentence Gwendolen again rose, and went to a desk where she wrote the following note to Klesmer:, Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Herr Klesmer, and ventures to request of him the very great favor that he will call upon her, if possible, to-morrow. Her reason for presuming so far on his kindness is of a very serious nature. Unfortunate family circumstances have obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to the great knowledge and judgment of Herr Klesmer. "Pray get this sent to Quetcham at once, mamma," said Gwendolen, as she addressed the letter. "The man must be told to wait for an answer. Let no time be lost." For the moment, the absorbing purpose was to get the letter dispatched; but when she had been assured on this point, another anxiety arose and kept her in a state of uneasy excitement. If Klesmer happened not to be at Quetcham, what could she do next? Gwendolen's belief in her star, so to speak, had had some bruises. Things had gone against her. A splendid marriage which presented itself within reach had shown a hideous flaw. The chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and a man of whom she knew nothing had thrust himself between her and her intentions. The conduct of those uninteresting people who managed the business of the world had been culpable just in the points most injurious to her in particular. Gwendolen Harleth, with all her beauty and conscious force, felt the close threats of humiliation: for the first time the conditions of this world seemed to her like a hurrying roaring crowd in which she had got astray, no more cared for and protected than a myriad of other girls, in spite of its being a peculiar hardship to her. If Klesmer were not at Quetcham--that would be all of a piece with the rest: the unwelcome negative urged itself as a probability, and set her brain working at desperate alternatives which might deliver her from Sawyer's Cottage or the ultimate necessity of "taking a situation," a phrase that summed up for her the disagreeables most wounding to her pride, most irksome to her tastes; at least so far as her experience enabled her to imagine disagreeables. Still Klesmer might be there, and Gwendolen thought of the result in that case with a hopefulness which even cast a satisfactory light over her peculiar troubles, as what might well enter into the biography of celebrities and remarkable persons. And if she had heard her immediate acquaintances cross-examined as to whether they thought her remarkable, the first who said "No" would have surprised her. CHAPTER XXII. We please our fancy with ideal webs Of innovation, but our life meanwhile Is in the loom, where busy passion plies The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds The accustomed pattern. Gwendolen's note, coming "pat betwixt too early and too late," was put into Klesmer's hands just when he was leaving Quetcham, and in order to meet her appeal to his kindness he, with some inconvenience to himself spent the night at Wanchester. There were reasons why he would not remain at Quetcham. That magnificent mansion, fitted with regard to the greatest expense, had in fact became too hot for him, its owners having, like some great politicians, been astonished at an insurrection against the established order of things, which we plain people after the event can perceive to have been prepared under their very noses. There were as usual many guests in the house, and among them one in whom Miss Arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political man of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt on public grounds that he required a larger fortune to support the title properly. Heiresses vary, and persons interested in one of them beforehand are prepared to find that she is too yellow or too red, tall and toppling or short and square, violent and capricious or moony and insipid; but in every case it is taken for granted that she will consider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others think her fortunes ought to go. Nature, however, not only accommodates herself ill to our favorite practices by making "only children" daughters, but also now and then endows the misplaced daughter with a clear head and a strong will. The Arrowpoints had already felt some anxiety owing to these endowments of their Catherine. She would not accept the view of her social duty which required her to marry a needy nobleman or a commoner on the ladder toward nobility; and they were not without uneasiness concerning her persistence in declining suitable offers. As to the possibility of her being in love with Klesmer they were not at all uneasy--a very common sort of blindness. For in general mortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an effect toward which they have done everything, and at the absence of an effect toward which they had done nothing but desire it. Parents are astonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the most time-honored and expensive means of securing it; husbands and wives are mutually astonished at the loss of affection which they have taken no pains to keep; and all of us in our turn are apt to be astonished that our neighbors do not admire us. In this way it happens that the truth seems highly improbable. The truth is something different from the habitual lazy combinations begotten by our wishes. The Arrowpoints' hour of astonishment was come. When there is a passion between an heiress and a proud independent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an understanding; but the difficulties are likely to be overcome unless the proud man secures himself by a constant _alibi_. Brief meetings after studied absence are potent in disclosure: but more potent still is frequent companionship, with full sympathy in taste and admirable qualities on both sides; especially where the one is in the position of teacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability which also gives the teacher delight. The situation is famous in history, and has no less charm now than it had in the days of Abelard. But this kind of comparison had not occurred to the Arrowpoints when they first engaged Klesmer to come down to Quetcham. To have a first-rate musician in your house is a privilege of wealth; Catherine's musical talent demanded every advantage; and she particularly desired to use her quieter time in the country for more thorough study. Klesmer was not yet a Liszt, understood to be adored by ladies of all European countries with the exception of Lapland: and even with that understanding it did not follow that he would make proposals to an heiress. No musician of honor would do so. Still less was it conceivable that Catherine would give him the slightest pretext for such daring. The large check that Mr. Arrowpoint was to draw in Klesmer's name seemed to make him as safe an inmate as a footman. Where marriage is inconceivable, a girl's sentiments are safe. Klesmer was eminently a man of honor, but marriages rarely begin with formal proposals, and moreover, Catherine's limit of the conceivable did not exactly correspond with her mother's. Outsiders might have been more apt to think that Klesmer's position was dangerous for himself if Miss Arrowpoint had been an acknowledged beauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is that which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. There is a charm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that certifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every unostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no sweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which enters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on whom no intention will be lost. What dignity of meaning goes on gathering in frowns and laughs which are never observed in the wrong place; what suffused adorableness in a human frame where there is a mind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute finely! The more obvious beauty, also adorable sometimes--one may say it without blasphemy--begins by being an apology for folly, and ends like other apologies in becoming tiresome by iteration; and that Klesmer, though very susceptible to it, should have a passionate attachment to Miss Arrowpoint, was no more a paradox than any other triumph of a manifold sympathy over a monotonous attraction. We object less to be taxed with the enslaving excess of our passions than with our deficiency in wider passion; but if the truth were known, our reputed intensity is often the dullness of not knowing what else to do with ourselves. Tannhäuser, one suspects, was a knight of ill-furnished imagination, hardly of larger discourse than a heavy Guardsman; Merlin had certainly seen his best days, and was merely repeating himself, when he fell into that hopeless captivity; and we know that Ulysses felt so manifest an _ennui_ under similar circumstances that Calypso herself furthered his departure. There is indeed a report that he afterward left Penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in worsted work, and it was probably from her that Telemachus got his mean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and the daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this already dubious scandal as to the relation between companionship and constancy. Klesmer was as versatile and fascinating as a young Ulysses on a sufficient acquaintance--one whom nature seemed to have first made generously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all the abundant rest, and, as in Mendelssohn, finding expression for itself not only in the highest finish of execution, but in that fervor of creative work and theoretic belief which pierces the whole future of a life with the delight of congruous devoted purpose. His foibles of arrogance and vanity did not exceed such as may be found in the best English families; and Catherine Arrowpoint had no corresponding restlessness to clash with his: notwithstanding her native kindliness she was perhaps too coolly firm and self-sustained. But she was one of those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has the charm of discovery; whose integrity of faculty and expression begets a wish to know what they will say on all subjects or how they will perform whatever they undertake; so that they end by raising not only a continual expectation but a continual sense of fulfillment--the systole and diastole of blissful companionship. In such cases the outward presentment easily becomes what the image is to the worshipper. It was not long before the two became aware that each was interesting to the other; but the "how far" remained a matter of doubt. Klesmer did not conceive that Miss Arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a possible lover, and she was not accustomed to think of herself as likely to stir more than a friendly regard, or to fear the expression of more from any man who was not enamored of her fortune. Each was content to suffer some unshared sense of denial for the sake of loving the other's society a little too well; and under these conditions no need had been felt to restrict Klesmer's visits for the last year either in country or in town. He knew very well that if Miss Arrowpoint had been poor he would have made ardent love to her instead of sending a storm through the piano, or folding his arms and pouring out a hyperbolical tirade about something as impersonal as the north pole; and she was not less aware that if it had been possible for Klesmer to wish for her hand she would have found overmastering reasons for giving it to him. Here was the safety of full cups, which are as secure from overflow as the half-empty, always supposing no disturbance. Naturally, silent feeling had not remained at the same point any more than the stealthly dial-hand, and in the present visit to Quetcham, Klesmer had begun to think that he would not come again; while Catherine was more sensitive to his frequent _brusquerie_, which she rather resented as a needless effort to assert his footing of superior in every sense except the conventional. Meanwhile enters the expectant peer, Mr. Bult, an esteemed party man who, rather neutral in private life, had strong opinions concerning the districts of the Niger, was much at home also in Brazils, spoke with decision of affairs in the South Seas, was studious of his Parliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and suffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of life. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident, and had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be reckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a serious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind Miss Arrowpoint's addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in antique lace. He was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner outburst of Klesmer's on the lack of idealism in English politics, which left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply by the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this excuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of "Buy cheap, sell dear." On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way that would have told at a constituents' dinner--to be accounted for probably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged him to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the drawing-room he for the first time went up to Klesmer at the piano, Miss Arrowpoint being near, and said, "I had no idea before that you were a political man." Klesmer's only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and stare at Mr. Bult. "You must have been used to public speaking. You speak uncommonly well, though I don't agree with you. From what you said about sentiment, I fancy you are a Panslavist." "No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew," said Klesmer, flashing a smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like rush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery rather offensive and Polish, but--Miss Arrowpoint being there--did not like to move away. "Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas," said Miss Arrowpoint, trying to make the best of the situation. "He looks forward to a fusion of races." "With all my heart," said Mr. Bult, willing to be gracious. "I was sure he had too much talent to be a mere musician." "Ah, sir, you are under some mistake there," said Klesmer, firing up. "No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little. A creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is a mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box and look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. We help to rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men. We count ourselves on level benches with legislators. And a man who speaks effectively through music is compelled to something more difficult than parliamentary eloquence." With the last word Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away. Miss Arrowpoint colored, and Mr. Bult observed, with his usual phlegmatic stolidity, "Your pianist does not think small beer of himself." "Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist," said Miss Arrowpoint, apologetically. "He is a great musician in the fullest sense of the word. He will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn." "Ah, you ladies understand these things," said Mr. Bult, none the less convinced that these things were frivolous because Klesmer had shown himself a coxcomb. Catherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, found an opportunity the next day in the music-room to say, "Why were you so heated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm." "You wish me to be complaisant to him?" said Klesmer, rather fiercely. "I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil." "You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?--you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can't turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the English gentleman." "I did not say that." "You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me." "Now you are slightly nearer the truth," said Catherine, smiling. "Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off at once." "I don't see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience." "But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you." "That is true," said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "He is of a caste to which I look up--a caste above mine." Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said, "That is finely felt--I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same. I have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of itself. And your Mr. Bull's company fits me 'wie die Faust ins Auge.' I am neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg." There was no answer. "You agree with me that I had better go?" said Klesmer, with some irritation. "Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time in the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere else. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything else than a sacrifice." "Why should I make the sacrifice?" said Klesmer, going to seat himself at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine's "Ich hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch." "That is the mystery," said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything, but from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication imposed by a cruel fairy. "You can conceive no motive?" said Klesmer, folding his arms. "None that seems in the least probable." "Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world--the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and my armor." Catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on, "This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing. But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. Did you not say so?" "Very likely," was the answer, in a low murmur. "It was a bitter word. Well, at least one man who has seen women as plenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There is an argument in favor of some other man. But don't give yourself for a meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make my excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint." Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked quickly toward the door. "You must take this heap of manuscript," then said Catherine, suddenly making a desperate effort. She had risen to fetch the heap from another table. Klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets between them. "Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?" said Catherine. To her the effort was something like the leap of a woman from the deck into the lifeboat. "It would be too hard--impossible--you could not carry it through. I am not worth what you would have to encounter. I will not accept the sacrifice. It would be thought a _mésalliance_ for you and I should be liable to the worst accusations." "Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together." The decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and Catherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised to marry Klesmer. Mrs. Arrowpoint's state of mind was pitiable. Imagine Jean Jacques, after his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they offered him for breakfast with the primitive couvert of a flint knife; or Saint Just, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of pre-eminence, receiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech, which warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal length. Something of the same sort befell the authoress of "Tasso," when what she had safely demanded of the dead Leonora was enacted by her own Catherine. It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining. Besides, it has long been understood that the proprieties of literature are not those of practical life. Mrs. Arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of everything. She not only liked to feel herself at a higher level of literary sentiment than the ladies with whom she associated; she wished not to be behind them in any point of social consideration. While Klesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: but to see him by a sudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of what the world would say. And the poor lady had been used to represent her Catherine as a model of excellence. Under the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched at any phrase that would serve as a weapon. "If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall horsewhip him off the premises. Pray, speak, Mr. Arrowpoint." The father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by saying, "This will never do, Cath." "Do!" cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; "who in their senses ever thought it would do? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. It is a comedy you have got up, Catherine. Else you are mad." "I am quite sane and serious, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame. He never thought of my marrying him. I found out that he loved me, and loving him, I told him I would marry him." "Leave that unsaid, Catherine," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. "Every one else will say that for you. You will be a public fable. Every one will say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to come to the house--who is nobody knows what--a gypsy, a Jew, a mere bubble of the earth." "Never mind, mamma," said Catherine, indignant in her turn. "We all know he is a genius--as Tasso was." "Those times were not these, nor is Klesmer Tasso," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, getting more heated. "There is no sting in _that_ sarcasm, except the sting of undutifulness." "I am sorry to hurt you, mamma. But I will not give up the happiness of my life to ideas that I don't believe in and customs I have no respect for." "You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that you are our only child--that it lies with you to place a great property in the right hands?" "What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade." "Mr. Arrowpoint, _will_ you sit by and hear this without speaking?" "I am a gentleman, Cath. We expect you to marry a gentleman," said the father, exerting himself. "And a man connected with the institutions of this country," said the mother. "A woman in your position has serious duties. Where duty and inclination clash, she must follow duty." "I don't deny that," said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to her mother's heat. "But one may say very true things and apply them falsely. People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they desire any one else to do." "Your parent's desire makes no duty for you, then?" "Yes, within reason. But before I give up the happiness of my life--" "Catherine, Catherine, it will not be your happiness," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones. "Well, what seems to me my happiness--before I give it up, I must see some better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman, or a man who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. I feel at liberty to marry the man I love and think worthy, unless some higher duty forbids." "And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. It is a woman's duty not to lower herself. You are lowering yourself. Mr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?" "You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you," said Mr. Arrowpoint. "He won't do at the head of estates. He has a deuced foreign look--is an unpractical man." "I really can't see what that has to do with it, papa. The land of England has often passed into the hands of foreigners--Dutch soldiers, sons of foreign women of bad character:--if our land were sold to-morrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign merchant on 'Change. It is in everybody's mouth that successful swindlers may buy up half the land in the country. How can I stem that tide?" "It will never do to argue about marriage, Cath," said Mr. Arrowpoint. "It's no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. We must do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public good." "I can't see any public good concerned here, papa," said Catherine. "Why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the property gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? That seems to be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false ambition. I should call it a public evil. People had better make a new sort of public good by changing their ambitions." "That is mere sophistry, Catherine," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "Because you don't wish to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a mountebank or a charlatan." "I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma." "No, I dare say not," rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn. "You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each other." "It can't be done, Cath," said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a better-humored reasoning for his wife's impetuosity. "A man like Klesmer can't marry such a property as yours. It can't be done." "It certainly will not be done," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously. "Where is the man? Let him be fetched." "I cannot fetch him to be insulted," said Catherine. "Nothing will be achieved by that." "I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not marry your fortune," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it." "Then you had better fetch him." Catherine only went into the music-room and said, "Come." She felt no need to prepare Klesmer. "Herr Klesmer," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous stateliness, "it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us and our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution." "Your marrying is out of the question," said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment unrelieved by a cigar. "It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been called out for less." "You have taken a base advantage of our confidence," burst in Mrs. Arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of speech to her husband. Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony. "The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the house at once," continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without mentioning the money. "I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter's wish," said Klesmer. "My engagement is to her." "It is useless to discuss the question," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "We shall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should know that." "Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than I am worthy of." "It is no sacrifice to me," said Catherine, "except that I am sorry to hurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a wretched fatality of my life." "You mean to defy us, then?" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "I mean to marry Herr Klesmer," said Catherine, firmly. "He had better not count on our relenting," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned among the privileges of women. "Madam," said Klesmer, "certain reasons forbid me to retort. But understand that I consider it out of the power of either of you, or of your fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life but her companionship." "You will leave the house, however," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "I go at once," said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room. "Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma," said Catherine; "I consider myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him." The mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal. "It's all very fine," said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone; "but what the deuce are we to do with the property?" "There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name." "Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time," said Mr. Arrowpoint, relighting his cigar. And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, Klesmer had left Quetcham. CHAPTER XXIII. Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. To carry the map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold. And in fancy to cast his shoe over Eden is little warrant that a man shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there. The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous pulsing of their self-satisfaction--as it were a hidden seed of madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise notion of standing-place or lever. "Pray go to church, mamma," said Gwendolen the next morning. "I prefer seeing Herr Klesmer alone." (He had written in reply to her note that he would be with her at eleven.) "That is hardly correct, I think," said Mrs. Davilow, anxiously. "Our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical rules," said Gwendolen, contemptuously. "They are insulting as well as ridiculous." "You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a corner." "No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too irritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone. Take them all to church." Gwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting at the dining-room windows. It was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the superannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting Saint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty knickknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had achieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory was just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck with admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said, whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person's opinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful gift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward soliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt clever enough for anything. To fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try again the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble. Seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought "I _am_ beautiful"--not exultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful was after all the condition on which she most needed external testimony. If any one objected to the turn of her nose or the form of her neck and chin, she had not the sense that she could presently show her power of attainment in these branches of feminine perfection. There was not much time to fill up in this way before the sound of wheels, the loud ring, and the opening doors assured her that she was not by any accident to be disappointed. This slightly increased her inward flutter. In spite of her self-confidence, she dreaded Klesmer as part of that unmanageable world which was independent of her wishes--something vitriolic that would not cease to burn because you smiled or frowned at it. Poor thing! she was at a higher crisis of her woman's fate than in her last experience with Grandcourt. The questioning then, was whether she should take a particular man as a husband. The inmost fold of her questioning now was whether she need take a husband at all--whether she could not achieve substantially for herself and know gratified ambition without bondage. Klesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the antechamber--showing also the deference of the finest gray kerseymere trousers and perfect gloves (the 'masters of those who know' are happily altogether human). Gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and holding out her hand said, "It is most kind of you to come, Herr Klesmer. I hope you have not thought me presumptuous." "I took your wish as a command that did me honor," said Klesmer, with answering gravity. He was really putting by his own affairs in order to give his utmost attention to what Gwendolen might have to say; but his temperament was still in a state of excitation from the events of yesterday, likely enough to give his expressions a more than usually biting edge. Gwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feeling to remember formalities. She continued standing near the piano, and Klesmer took his stand near the other end of it with his back to the light and his terribly omniscient eyes upon her. No affectation was of use, and she began without delay. "I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We have lost all our fortune; we have nothing. I must get my own bread, and I desire to provide for my mamma, so as to save her from any hardship. The only way I can think of--and I should like it better than anything--is to be an actress--to go on the stage. But, of course, I should like to take a high position, and I thought--if you thought I could"--here Gwendolen became a little more nervous--"it would be better for me to be a singer--to study singing also." Klesmer put down his hat upon the piano, and folded his arms as if to concentrate himself. "I know," Gwendolen resumed, turning from pale to pink and back again--"I know that my method of singing is very defective; but I have been ill taught. I could be better taught; I could study. And you will understand my wish:--to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher position. Naturally, I should wish to take as high rank as I can. And I can rely on your judgment. I am sure you will tell me the truth." Gwendolen somehow had the conviction that now she made this serious appeal the truth would be favorable. Still Klesmer did not speak. He drew off his gloves quickly, tossed them into his hat, rested his hands on his hips, and walked to the other end of the room. He was filled with compassion for this girl: he wanted to put a guard on his speech. When he turned again, he looked at her with a mild frown of inquiry, and said with gentle though quick utterance, "You have never seen anything, I think, of artists and their lives?--I mean of musicians, actors, artists of that kind?" "Oh, no," said Gwendolen, not perturbed by a reference to this obvious fact in the history of a young lady hitherto well provided for. "You are--pardon me," said Klesmer, again pausing near the piano--"in coming to a conclusion on such a matter as this, everything must be taken into consideration--you are perhaps twenty?" "I am twenty-one," said Gwendolen, a slight fear rising in her. "Do you think I am too old?" Klesmer pouted his under lip and shook his long fingers upward in a manner totally enigmatic. "Many persons begin later than others," said Gwendolen, betrayed by her habitual consciousness of having valuable information to bestow. Klesmer took no notice, but said with more studied gentleness than ever, "You have probably not thought of an artistic career until now: you did not entertain the notion, the longing--what shall I say?--you did not wish yourself an actress, or anything of that sort, till the present trouble?" "Not exactly: but I was fond of acting. I have acted; you saw me, if you remember--you saw me here in charades, and as Hermione," said Gwendolen, really fearing that Klesmer had forgotten. "Yes, yes," he answered quickly, "I remember--I remember perfectly," and again walked to the other end of the room. It was difficult for him to refrain from this kind of movement when he was in any argument either audible or silent. Gwendolen felt that she was being weighed. The delay was unpleasant. But she did not yet conceive that the scale could dip on the wrong side, and it seemed to her only graceful to say, "I shall be very much obliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your advice, whatever it maybe." "Miss Harleth," said Klesmer, turning toward her and speaking with a slight increase of accent, "I will veil nothing from you in this matter. I should reckon myself guilty if I put a false visage on things--made them too black or too white. The gods have a curse for him who willingly tells another the wrong road. And if I misled one who is so young, so beautiful--who, I trust, will find her happiness along the right road, I should regard myself as a--_Bösewicht_." In the last word Klesmer's voice had dropped to a loud whisper. Gwendolen felt a sinking of heart under this unexpected solemnity, and kept a sort of fascinated gaze on Klesmer's face, as he went on. "You are a beautiful young lady--you have been brought up in ease--you have done what you would--you have not said to yourself, 'I must know this exactly,' 'I must understand this exactly,' 'I must do this exactly,'"--in uttering these three terrible _musts_, Klesmer lifted up three long fingers in succession. "In sum, you have not been called upon to be anything but a charming young lady, whom it is an impoliteness to find fault with." He paused an instant; then resting his fingers on his hips again, and thrusting out his powerful chin, he said, "Well, then, with that preparation, you wish to try the life of an artist; you wish to try a life of arduous, unceasing work, and--uncertain praise. Your praise would have to be earned, like your bread; and both would come slowly, scantily--what do I say?--they may hardly come at all." This tone of discouragement, which Klesmer had hoped might suffice without anything more unpleasant, roused some resistance in Gwendolen. With a slight turn of her head away from him, and an air of pique, she said, "I thought that you, being an artist, would consider the life one of the most honorable and delightful. And if I can do nothing better?--I suppose I can put up with the same risks as other people do." "Do nothing better?" said Klesmer, a little fired. "No, my dear Miss Harleth, you could do nothing better--neither man nor woman could do anything better--if you could do what was best or good of its kind. I am not decrying the life of the true artist. I am exalting it. I say, it is out of the reach of any but choice organizations--natures framed to love perfection and to labor for it; ready, like all true lovers, to endure, to wait, to say, I am not yet worthy, but she--Art, my mistress--is worthy, and I will live to merit her. An honorable life? Yes. But the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won achievement: there is no honor in donning the life as a livery." Some excitement of yesterday had revived in Klesmer and hurried him into speech a little aloof from his immediate friendly purpose. He had wished as delicately as possible to rouse in Gwendolen a sense of her unfitness for a perilous, difficult course; but it was his wont to be angry with the pretensions of incompetence, and he was in danger of getting chafed. Conscious of this, he paused suddenly. But Gwendolen's chief impression was that he had not yet denied her the power of doing what would be good of its kind. Klesmer's fervor seemed to be a sort of glamor such as he was prone to throw over things in general; and what she desired to assure him of was that she was not afraid of some preliminary hardships. The belief that to present herself in public on the stage must produce an effect such as she had been used to feel certain of in private life, was like a bit of her flesh--it was not to be peeled off readily, but must come with blood and pain. She said, in a tone of some insistence; "I am quite prepared to bear hardships at first. Of course no one can become celebrated all at once. And it is not necessary that every one should be first-rate--either actresses or singers. If you would be so kind as to tell me what steps I should take, I shall have the courage to take them. I don't mind going up hill. It will be easier than the dead level of being a governess. I will take any steps you recommend." Klesmer was convinced now that he must speak plainly. "I will tell you the steps, not that I recommend, but that will be forced upon you. It is all one, so far, what your goal will be--excellence, celebrity, second, third rateness--it is all one. You must go to town under the protection of your mother. You must put yourself under training--musical, dramatic, theatrical:--whatever you desire to do you have to learn"--here Gwendolen looked as if she were going to speak, but Klesmer lifted up his hand and said, decisively, "I know. You have exercised your talents--you recite--you sing--from the drawing-room _Standpunkt_. My dear Fräulein, you must unlearn all that. You have not yet conceived what excellence is: you must unlearn your mistaken admirations. You must know what you have to strive for, and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your mind, I say. For you must not be thinking of celebrity: put that candle out of your eyes, and look only at excellence. You would of course earn nothing--you could get no engagement for a long while. You would need money for yourself and your family. But that," here Klesmer frowned and shook his fingers as if to dismiss a triviality, "that could perhaps be found." Gwendolen turned pink and pale during this speech. Her pride had felt a terrible knife-edge, and the last sentence only made the smart keener. She was conscious of appearing moved, and tried to escape from her weakness by suddenly walking to a seat and pointing out a chair to Klesmer. He did not take it, but turned a little in order to face her and leaned against the piano. At that moment she wished that she had not sent for him: this first experience of being taken on some other ground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter to her. Klesmer, preoccupied with a serious purpose, went on without change of tone. "Now, what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this self-denial? You would ask that. It is right that your eyes should be open to it. I will tell you truthfully. This issue would be uncertain, and, most probably, would not be worth much." At these relentless words Klesmer put out his lip and looked through his spectacles with the air of a monster impenetrable by beauty. Gwendolen's eyes began to burn, but the dread of showing weakness urged her to added self-control. She compelled herself to say, in a hard tone, "You think I want talent, or am too old to begin." Klesmer made a sort of hum, and then descended on an emphatic "Yes! The desire and the training should have begun seven years ago--or a good deal earlier. A mountebank's child who helps her father to earn shillings when she is six years old--a child that inherits a singing throat from a long line of choristers and learns to sing as it learns to talk, has a likelier beginning. Any great achievement in acting or in music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to say, 'I came, I saw, I conquered,' it has been at the end of patient practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muscles--your whole frame--must go like a watch, true, true to a hair. That is the work of spring-time, before habits have been determined." "I did not pretend to genius," said Gwendolen, still feeling that she might somehow do what Klesmer wanted to represent as impossible. "I only suppose that I might have a little talent--enough to improve." "I don't deny that," said Klesmer. "If you had been put in the right track some years ago and had worked well you might now have made a public singer, though I don't think your voice would have counted for much in public. For the stage your personal charms and intelligence might then have told without the present drawback of inexperience--lack of discipline--lack of instruction." Certainly Klesmer seemed cruel, but his feeling was the reverse of cruel. Our speech, even when we are most single-minded, can never take its line absolutely from one impulse; but Klesmer's was, as far as possible, directed by compassion for poor Gwendolen's ignorant eagerness to enter on a course of which he saw all the miserable details with a definiteness which he could not if he would have conveyed to her mind. Gwendolen, however, was not convinced. Her self-opinion rallied, and since the counselor whom she had called in gave a decision of such severe peremptoriness, she was tempted to think that his judgment was not only fallible but biased. It occurred to her that a simpler and wiser step for her to have taken would have been to send a letter through the post to the manager of a London theatre, asking him to make an appointment. She would make no further reference to her singing; Klesmer, she saw, had set himself against her singing. But she felt equal to arguing with him about her going on the stage, and she answered in a resistant tone, "I understood, of course, that no one can be a finished actress at once. It may be impossible to tell beforehand whether I should succeed; but that seems to me a reason why I should try. I should have thought that I might have taken an engagement at a theatre meanwhile, so as to earn money and study at the same time." "Can't be done, my dear Miss Harleth--I speak plainly--it can't be done. I must clear your mind of these notions which have no more resemblance to reality than a pantomime. Ladies and gentlemen think that when they have made their toilet and drawn on their gloves they are as presentable on the stage as in a drawing-room. No manager thinks that. With all your grace and charm, if you were to present yourself as an aspirant to the stage, a manager would either require you to pay as an amateur for being allowed to perform or he would tell you to go and be taught--trained to bear yourself on the stage, as a horse, however beautiful, must be trained for the circus; to say nothing of that study which would enable you to personate a character consistently, and animate it with the natural language of face, gesture, and tone. For you to get an engagement fit for you straight away is out of the question." "I really cannot understand that," said Gwendolen, rather haughtily--then, checking herself, she added in another tone--"I shall be obliged to you if you will explain how it is that such poor actresses get engaged. I have been to the theatre several times, and I am sure there were actresses who seemed to me to act not at all well and who were quite plain." "Ah, my dear Miss Harleth, that is the easy criticism of the buyer. We who buy slippers toss away this pair and the other as clumsy; but there went an apprenticeship to the making of them. Excuse me; you could not at present teach one of those actresses; but there is certainly much that she could teach you. For example, she can pitch her voice so as to be heard: ten to one you could not do it till after many trials. Merely to stand and move on the stage is an art--requires practice. It is understood that we are not now talking of a _comparse_ in a petty theatre who earns the wages of a needle-woman. That is out of the question for you." "Of course I must earn more than that," said Gwendolen, with a sense of wincing rather than of being refuted, "but I think I could soon learn to do tolerably well all those little things you have mentioned. I am not so very stupid. And even in Paris, I am sure, I saw two actresses playing important ladies' parts who were not at all ladies and quite ugly. I suppose I have no particular talent, but I _must_ think it is an advantage, even on the stage, to be a lady and not a perfect fright." "Ah, let us understand each other," said Klesmer, with a flash of new meaning. "I was speaking of what you would have to go through if you aimed at becoming a real artist--if you took music and the drama as a higher vocation in which you would strive after excellence. On that head, what I have said stands fast. You would find--after your education in doing things slackly for one-and-twenty years--great difficulties in study; you would find mortifications in the treatment you would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. You would be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see your blunders. You would at first only be accepted on trial. You would have to bear what I may call a glaring insignificance: any success must be won by the utmost patience. You would have to keep your place in a crowd, and after all it is likely you would lose it and get out of sight. If you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will have the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen unfortunately. You will have some merit, though you may win no prize. You have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. I don't pretend to speak absolutely; but measuring probabilities, my judgment is:--you will hardly achieve more than mediocrity." Klesmer had delivered himself with emphatic rapidity, and now paused a moment. Gwendolen was motionless, looking at her hands, which lay over each other on her lap, till the deep-toned, long-drawn "_But_," with which he resumed, had a startling effect, and made her look at him again. "But--there are certainly other ideas, other dispositions with which a young lady may take up an art that will bring her before the public. She may rely on the unquestioned power of her beauty as a passport. She may desire to exhibit herself to an admiration which dispenses with skill. This goes a certain way on the stage: not in music: but on the stage, beauty is taken when there is nothing more commanding to be had. Not without some drilling, however: as I have said before, technicalities have in any case to be mastered. But these excepted, we have here nothing to do with art. The woman who takes up this career is not an artist: she is usually one who thinks of entering on a luxurious life by a short and easy road--perhaps by marriage--that is her most brilliant chance, and the rarest. Still, her career will not be luxurious to begin with: she can hardly earn her own poor bread independently at once, and the indignities she will be liable to are such as I will not speak of." "I desire to be independent," said Gwendolen, deeply stung and confusedly apprehending some scorn for herself in Klesmer's words. "That was my reason for asking whether I could not get an immediate engagement. Of course I cannot know how things go on about theatres. But I thought that I could have made myself independent. I have no money, and I will not accept help from any one." Her wounded pride could not rest without making this disclaimer. It was intolerable to her that Klesmer should imagine her to have expected other help from him than advice. "That is a hard saying for your friends," said Klesmer, recovering the gentleness of tone with which he had begun the conversation. "I have given you pain. That was inevitable. I was bound to put the truth, the unvarnished truth, before you. I have not said--I will not say--you will do wrong to choose the hard, climbing path of an endeavoring artist. You have to compare its difficulties with those of any less hazardous--any more private course which opens itself to you. If you take that more courageous resolve I will ask leave to shake hands with you on the strength of our freemasonry, where we are all vowed to the service of art, and to serve her by helping every fellow-servant." Gwendolen was silent, again looking at her hands. She felt herself very far away from taking the resolve that would enforce acceptance; and after waiting an instant or two, Klesmer went on with deepened seriousness. "Where there is the duty of service there must be the duty of accepting it. The question is not one of personal obligation. And in relation to practical matters immediately affecting your future--excuse my permitting myself to mention in confidence an affair of my own. I am expecting an event which would make it easy for me to exert myself on your behalf in furthering your opportunities of instruction and residence in London--under the care, that is, of your family--without need for anxiety on your part. If you resolve to take art as a bread-study, you need only undertake the study at first; the bread will be found without trouble. The event I mean is my marriage--in fact--you will receive this as a matter of confidence--my marriage with Miss Arrowpoint, which will more than double such right as I have to be trusted by you as a friend. Your friendship will have greatly risen in value for _her_ by your having adopted that generous labor." Gwendolen's face had begun to burn. That Klesmer was about to marry Miss Arrowpoint caused her no surprise, and at another moment she would have amused herself in quickly imagining the scenes that must have occurred at Quetcham. But what engrossed her feeling, what filled her imagination now, was the panorama of her own immediate future that Klesmer's words seemed to have unfolded. The suggestion of Miss Arrowpoint as a patroness was only another detail added to its repulsiveness: Klesmer's proposal to help her seemed an additional irritation after the humiliating judgment he had passed on her capabilities. His words had really bitten into her self-confidence and turned it into the pain of a bleeding wound; and the idea of presenting herself before other judges was now poisoned with the dread that they also might be harsh; they also would not recognize the talent she was conscious of. But she controlled herself, and rose from her seat before she made any answer. It seemed natural that she should pause. She went to the piano and looked absently at leaves of music, pinching up the corners. At last she turned toward Klesmer and said, with almost her usual air of proud equality, which in this interview had not been hitherto perceptible. "I congratulate you sincerely, Herr Klesmer. I think I never saw any one so admirable as Miss Arrowpoint. And I have to thank you for every sort of kindness this morning. But I can't decide now. If I make the resolve you have spoken of, I will use your permission--I will let you know. But I fear the obstacles are too great. In any case, I am deeply obliged to you. It was very bold of me to ask you to take this trouble." Klesmer's inward remark was, "She will never let me know." But with the most thorough respect in his manner, he said, "Command me at any time. There is an address on this card which will always find me with little delay." When he had taken up his hat and was going to make his bow, Gwendolen's better self, conscious of an ingratitude which the clear-seeing Klesmer must have penetrated, made a desperate effort to find its way above the stifling layers of egoistic disappointment and irritation. Looking at him with a glance of the old gayety, she put out her hand, and said with a smile, "If I take the wrong road, it will not be because of your flattery." "God forbid that you should take any road but one where you will find and give happiness!" said Klesmer, fervently. Then, in foreign fashion, he touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and in another minute she heard the sound of his departing wheels getting more distant on the gravel. Gwendolen had never in her life felt so miserable. No sob came, no passion of tears, to relieve her. Her eyes were burning; and the noonday only brought into more dreary clearness the absence of interest from her life. All memories, all objects, the pieces of music displayed, the open piano--the very reflection of herself in the glass--seemed no better than the packed-up shows of a departing fair. For the first time since her consciousness began, she was having a vision of herself on the common level, and had lost the innate sense that there were reasons why she should not be slighted, elbowed, jostled--treated like a passenger with a third-class ticket, in spite of private objections on her own part. She did not move about; the prospects begotten by disappointment were too oppressively preoccupying; she threw herself into the shadiest corner of a settee, and pressed her fingers over her burning eyelids. Every word that Klesmer had said seemed to have been branded into her memory, as most words are which bring with them a new set of impressions and make an epoch for us. Only a few hours before, the dawning smile of self-contentment rested on her lips as she vaguely imagined a future suited to her wishes: it seemed but the affair of a year or so for her to become the most approved Juliet of the time: or, if Klesmer encouraged her idea of being a singer, to proceed by more gradual steps to her place in the opera, while she won money and applause by occasional performances. Why not? At home, at school, among acquaintances, she had been used to have her conscious superiority admitted; and she had moved in a society where everything, from low arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind, politely supposed to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies are not obliged to do more than they like--otherwise they would probably give forth abler writings, and show themselves more commanding artists than any the world is at present obliged to put up with. The self-confident visions that had beguiled her were not of a highly exceptional kind; and she had at least shown some rationality in consulting the person who knew the most and had flattered her the least. In asking Klesmer's advice, however, she had rather been borne up by a belief in his latent admiration than bent on knowing anything more unfavorable that might have lain behind his slight objections to her singing; and the truth she had asked for, with an expectation that it would be agreeable, had come like a lacerating thong. "Too old--should have begun seven years ago--you will not, at best, achieve more than mediocrity--hard, incessant work, uncertain praise--bread coming slowly, scantily, perhaps not at all--mortifications, people no longer feigning not to see your blunders--glaring insignificance"--all these phrases rankled in her; and even more galling was the hint that she could only be accepted on the stage as a beauty who hoped to get a husband. The "indignities" that she might be visited with had no very definite form for her, but the mere association of anything called "indignity" with herself, roused a resentful alarm. And along with the vaguer images which were raised by those biting words, came the precise conception of disagreeables which her experience enabled her to imagine. How could she take her mamma and the four sisters to London? if it were not possible for her to earn money at once? And as for submitting to be a _protégé_, and asking her mamma to submit with her to the humiliation of being supported by Miss Arrowpoint--that was as bad as being a governess; nay, worse; for suppose the end of all her study to be as worthless as Klesmer clearly expected it to be, the sense of favors received and never repaid, would embitter the miseries of disappointment. Klesmer doubtless had magnificent ideas about helping artists; but how could he know the feelings of ladies in such matters? It was all over: she had entertained a mistaken hope; and there was an end of it. "An end of it!" said Gwendolen, aloud, starting from her seat as she heard the steps and voices of her mamma and sisters coming in from church. She hurried to the piano and began gathering together her pieces of music with assumed diligence, while the expression on her pale face and in her burning eyes was what would have suited a woman enduring a wrong which she might not resent, but would probably revenge. "Well, my darling," said gentle Mrs. Davilow, entering, "I see by the wheel-marks that Klesmer has been here. Have you been satisfied with the interview?" She had some guesses as to its object, but felt timid about implying them. "Satisfied, mamma? oh, yes," said Gwendolen, in a high, hard tone, for which she must be excused, because she dreaded a scene of emotion. If she did not set herself resolutely to feign proud indifference, she felt that she must fall into a passionate outburst of despair, which would cut her mamma more deeply than all the rest of their calamities. "Your uncle and aunt were disappointed at not seeing you," said Mrs. Davilow, coming near the piano, and watching Gwendolen's movements. "I only said that you wanted rest." "Quite right, mamma," said Gwendolen, in the same tone, turning to put away some music. "Am I not to know anything now, Gwendolen? Am I always to be in the dark?" said Mrs. Davilow, too keenly sensitive to her daughter's manner and expression not to fear that something painful had occurred. "There is really nothing to tell now, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a still higher voice. "I had a mistaken idea about something I could do. Herr Klesmer has undeceived me. That is all." "Don't look and speak in that way, my dear child: I cannot bear it," said Mrs. Davilow, breaking down. She felt an undefinable terror. Gwendolen looked at her a moment in silence, biting her inner lip; then she went up to her, and putting her hands on her mamma's shoulders, said, with a drop in her voice to the lowest undertone, "Mamma, don't speak to me now. It is useless to cry and waste our strength over what can't be altered. You will live at Sawyer's Cottage, and I am going to the bishop's daughters. There is no more to be said. Things cannot be altered, and who cares? It makes no difference to any one else what we do. We must try not to care ourselves. We must not give way. I dread giving way. Help me to be quiet." Mrs. Davilow was like a frightened child under her daughter's face and voice; her tears were arrested and she went away in silence. CHAPTER XXIV. "I question things but do not find One that will answer to my mind: And all the world appears unkind." --WORDSWORTH. Gwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer before meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that there were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain a dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed. The meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the rectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer's Cottage by the way, and had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a mid-day light, unsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by gleanings from the rectory had not yet begun. "How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?" said Gwendolen, as they walked away. She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the bare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks, and the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. "You and the four girls all in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing on your eyes? And without me?" "It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear." "If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there than go to be a governess." "Don't set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the palace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you have always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up and down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle through the house, and the dear girls talking." "It is like a bad dream," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "I cannot believe that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have taken some other steps." "Don't be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?" "That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary world if people in our position must sink in this way all at once," said Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being constructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future agreeably. It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly--a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was. And, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable of some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more affectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not but be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of the necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of the boys. Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by worldly opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the demands of fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under this sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set himself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn suits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without periodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all the boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the sparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its pleasures; and the rector's spirit had spread through the household. Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did not miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity felt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs. Davilow and her children. Anna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in her sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope that trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without thinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the salutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and curtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate feeling they left these matters in the back-ground, and talked at first of Gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her at home again. In fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for extending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around her, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call to drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a voice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making to get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as possible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the possibility of further advances from that quarter was something too vague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties of that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could for his niece under actual conditions. "I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in a good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had at a moment's notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find one where you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert's. I am known to both him and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to you. Our correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be surprised that Mrs. Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute engagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester when she is on her way to town. I dare say you will feel the interview rather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to prepare your mind." "Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?" said Gwendolen, whose mind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs. Mompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons all of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for inspection. The rector smiled. "Don't be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a more precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is naturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told her you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision over her daughters' education, and that makes her less anxious as to age. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects to having a French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think your manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and over the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the bishop himself, will preside." Gwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike to the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and neck, subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put her little hand into her cousin's, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man not to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be for a girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he went on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed objections, "I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to try and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs. Mompert's wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. The bishop's views are of a more decidedly Low Church color than my own--he is a close friend of Lord Grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little dislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. He has always remained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an incumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible Society." The rector's words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to himself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his niece. "Continuance of education"--"bishop's views"--"privately strict"--"Bible Society,"--it was as if he had introduced a few snakes at large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike furnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to convenience. To Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to her, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass--not at all as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the good uncle. She began, desperately, to seek an alternative. "There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?" she said, with determined self-mastery. '"Yes," said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; "but that is in a school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that. It would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any other respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it." "Oh dear no," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "it would be much harder for you, my dear--it would be much less appropriate. You might not have a bedroom to yourself." And Gwendolen's memories of school suggested other particulars which forced her to admit to herself that this alternative would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again and said, apparently in acceptance of his ideas, "When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?" "That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any other proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling into your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But I must be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well." The rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the satisfactory conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to circumstances like a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately, he naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being accustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to "speak to" refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was morally coercive. "What a stay Henry is to us all!" said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband had left the room. "He is indeed," said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. "I think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself. I wish I had it." "And Rex is just like him," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "I must tell you the comfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little bit," she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked rather frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule with her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen. The proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to read aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem to be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she looked up, folding the letter, and saying, "However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a reason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take pupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most remarkable. The letter is full of fun--just like him. He says, 'Tell mother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working son, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the place.' The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved by anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss." This letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna to show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very amiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to say, "Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?" She had no gratuitously ill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She only had an intense objection to their making her miserable. But when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance, to be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful bruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was liable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept the bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would accept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on: there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that of the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony as Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her food and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any such warning as Klesmer's she could not have thought it an attractive freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the world--to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for something quite different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one hour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have expected in her lot and what it was actually to be. The family troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her--even for poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying. As to hoping that if she went to the Momperts' and was patient a little while, things might get better--it would be stupid to entertain hopes for herself after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared, would never be recognized as anything remarkable, and there was not a single direction in which probability seemed to flatter her wishes. Some beautiful girls who, like her, had read romances where even plain governesses are centres of attraction and are sought in marriage, might have solaced themselves a little by transporting such pictures into their own future; but even if Gwendolen's experience had led her to dwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too much oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the future, for her to project her anticipations very far off. She had a world-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she should wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her troubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people's disagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant to be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else she had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive enough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. As to the sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere baseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the teacher's vocation;--these, even if they had been eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the fact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a lady to become a governess--to "take a situation"--was to descend in life and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. And poor Gwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence and _éclat_. That where these threatened to forsake her, she should take life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the rest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our compassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in general being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves and some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more important. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of life before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that she was treading carelessly. In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an ignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone: what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing. Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "I suppose I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?" Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined that Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable. One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging Gwendolen's articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the casket which contained the ornaments. "Mamma," she began, glancing over the upper layer, "I had forgotten these things. Why didn't you remind me of them? Do see about getting them sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all to me long ago." She lifted the upper tray and looked below. "If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you," said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual relation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who tried to cheer the daughter. "Why, how came you to put that pocket handkerchief in here?" It was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had thrust in with the turquoise necklace. "It happened to be with the necklace--I was in a hurry," said Gwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket. "Don't sell the necklace, mamma," she added, a new feeling having come over her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive. "No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father's chain. And I should prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any great value. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago." Mrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts about Gwendolen's step-father as that he had carried off his wife's jewelry and disposed of it. After a moment's pause she went on, "And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry them with you." "That would be quite useless, mamma," said Gwendolen, coldly. "Governesses don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze livery and a straw poke, such as my aunt's charity children wear." "No, dear, no; don't take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts will like you the better for being graceful and elegant." "I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is enough that I am expected to be what they like," said Gwendolen bitterly. "If there is anything you would object to less--anything that could be done--instead of your going to the bishop's, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell me what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish," said the mother, beseechingly. "Don't keep things away from me. Let us bear them together." "Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can't do anything better. I must think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some money for you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not spend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don't know how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your poor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears have left in your dear eyes." Gwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used to do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the turquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers. "Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, with tears in her eyes. "Don't despair because there are clouds now. You are so young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet." "I don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma," said Gwendolen, in a hard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often thought before--"What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?" "I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma," said Gwendolen, laying it apart and then closing the casket. "But do get the other things sold, even if they will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall certainly not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if all the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do." "Don't exaggerate evils, dear." "How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own feeling? I did not say what any one else felt." She took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped it deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action with some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from asking any question. The "feeling" Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be explained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she was possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply that she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste spread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw nothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she were free. Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than some of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a profession too narrow for their powers, and had an _à priori_ conviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent abilities. Because her education had been less expensive than theirs, it did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener intellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman they were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the Promethean tone. But the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it up in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _nécessaire_, where she had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more peculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. It came from that streak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her confidence and her terror--a superstition which lingers in an intense personality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for self being stronger than all reasons for or against it. Why she should suddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer to her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find herself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about Deronda--was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and exceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms. CHAPTER XXV. How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled, and have dwindled from motives into a vacillating expectation of motives: a mind made up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? 'Tis a condition apt to befall a life too much at large, unmoulded by the pressure of obligation. _Nam deteriores omnes sumus licentiae_, or, as a more familiar tongue might deliver it, _"As you like" is a bad finger-post._ Potentates make known their intentions and affect the funds at a small expense of words. So when Grandcourt, after learning that Gwendolen had left Leubronn, incidentally pronounced that resort of fashion a beastly hole, worse than Baden, the remark was conclusive to Mr. Lush that his patron intended straightway to return to Diplow. The execution was sure to be slower than the intention, and, in fact, Grandcourt did loiter through the next day without giving any distinct orders about departure--perhaps because he discerned that Lush was expecting them: he lingered over his toilet, and certainly came down with a faded aspect of perfect distinction which made fresh complexions and hands with the blood in them, seem signs of raw vulgarity; he lingered on the terrace, in the gambling-rooms, in the reading-room, occupying himself in being indifferent to everybody and everything around him. When he met Lady Mallinger, however, he took some trouble--raised his hat, paused, and proved that he listened to her recommendation of the waters by replying, "Yes; I heard somebody say how providential it was that there always happened to be springs at gambling places." "Oh, that was a joke," said innocent Lady Mallinger, misled by Grandcourt's languid seriousness, "in imitation of the old one about the towns and the rivers, you know." "Ah, perhaps," said Grandcourt, without change of expression. Lady Mallinger thought this worth telling to Sir Hugo, who said, "Oh, my dear, he is not a fool. You must not suppose that he can't see a joke. He can play his cards as well as most of us." "He has never seemed to me a very sensible man," said Lady Mallinger, in excuse of herself. She had a secret objection to meeting Grandcourt, who was little else to her than a large living sign of what she felt to be her failure as a wife--the not having presented Sir Hugo with a son. Her constant reflection was that her husband might fairly regret his choice, and if he had not been very good might have treated her with some roughness in consequence, gentlemen naturally disliking to be disappointed. Deronda, too, had a recognition from Grandcourt, for which he was not grateful, though he took care to return it with perfect civility. No reasoning as to the foundations of custom could do away with the early-rooted feeling that his birth had been attended with injury for which his father was to blame; and seeing that but for this injury Grandcourt's prospects might have been his, he was proudly resolute not to behave in any way that might be interpreted into irritation on that score. He saw a very easy descent into mean unreasoning rancor and triumph in others' frustration; and being determined not to go down that ugly pit, he turned his back on it, clinging to the kindlier affections within him as a possession. Pride certainly helped him well--the pride of not recognizing a disadvantage for one's self which vulgar minds are disposed to exaggerate, such as the shabby equipage of poverty: he would not have a man like Grandcourt suppose himself envied by him. But there is no guarding against interpretation. Grandcourt did believe that Deronda, poor devil, who he had no doubt was his cousin by the father's side, inwardly winced under their mutual position; wherefore the presence of that less lucky person was more agreeable to him than it would otherwise have been. An imaginary envy, the idea that others feel their comparative deficiency, is the ordinary _cortège_ of egoism; and his pet dogs were not the only beings that Grandcourt liked to feel his power over in making them jealous. Hence he was civil enough to exchange several words with Deronda on the terrace about the hunting round Diplow, and even said, "You had better come over for a run or two when the season begins." Lush, not displeased with delay, amused himself very well, partly in gossiping with Sir Hugo and in answering his questions about Grandcourt's affairs so far as they might affect his willingness to part with his interest in Diplow. Also about Grandcourt's personal entanglements, the baronet knew enough already for Lush to feel released from silence on a sunny autumn day, when there was nothing more agreeable to do in lounging promenades than to speak freely of a tyrannous patron behind his back. Sir Hugo willingly inclined his ear to a little good-humored scandal, which he was fond of calling _traits de moeurs_; but he was strict in keeping such communications from hearers who might take them too seriously. Whatever knowledge he had of his nephew's secrets, he had never spoken of it to Deronda, who considered Grandcourt a pale-blooded mortal, but was far from wishing to hear how the red corpuscles had been washed out of him. It was Lush's policy and inclination to gratify everybody when he had no reason to the contrary; and the baronet always treated him well, as one of those easy-handled personages who, frequenting the society of gentlemen, without being exactly gentlemen themselves, can be the more serviceable, like the second-best articles of our wardrobe, which we use with a comfortable freedom from anxiety. "Well, you will let me know the turn of events," said Sir Hugo, "if this marriage seems likely to come off after all, or if anything else happens to make the want of money pressing. My plan would be much better for him than burdening Ryelands." "That's true," said Lush, "only it must not be urged on him--just placed in his way that the scent may tickle him. Grandcourt is not a man to be always led by what makes for his own interest; especially if you let him see that it makes for your interest too. I'm attached to him, of course. I've given up everything else for the sake of keeping by him, and it has lasted a good fifteen years now. He would not easily get any one else to fill my place. He's a peculiar character, is Henleigh Grandcourt, and it has been growing on him of late years. However, I'm of a constant disposition, and I've been a sort of guardian to him since he was twenty; an uncommonly fascinating fellow he was then, to be sure--and could be now, if he liked. I'm attached to him; and it would be a good deal worse for him if he missed me at his elbow." Sir Hugo did not think it needful to express his sympathy or even assent, and perhaps Lush himself did not expect this sketch of his motives to be taken as exact. But how can a man avoid himself as a subject in conversation? And he must make some sort of decent toilet in words, as in cloth and linen. Lush's listener was not severe: a member of Parliament could allow for the necessities of verbal toilet; and the dialogue went on without any change of mutual estimate. However, Lush's easy prospect of indefinite procrastination was cut off the next morning by Grandcourt's saluting him with the question, "Are you making all the arrangements for our starting by the Paris train?" "I didn't know you meant to start," said Lush, not exactly taken by surprise. "You might have known," said Grandcourt, looking at the burned length of his cigar, and speaking in that lowered tone which was usual with him when he meant to express disgust and be peremptory. "Just see to everything, will you? and mind no brute gets into the same carriage with us. And leave my P. P. C. at the Mallingers'." In consequence they were at Paris the next day; but here Lush was gratified by the proposal or command that he should go straight on to Diplow and see that everything was right, while Grandcourt and the valet remained behind; and it was not until several days later that Lush received the telegram ordering the carriage to the Wanchester station. He had used the interim actively, not only in carrying out Grandcourt's orders about the stud and household, but in learning all he could of Gwendolen, and how things were going on at Offendene. What was the probable effect that the news of the family misfortunes would have on Grandcourt's fitful obstinacy he felt to be quite incalculable. So far as the girl's poverty might be an argument that she would accept an offer from him now in spite of any previous coyness, it might remove that bitter objection to risk a repulse which Lush divined to be one of Grandcourt's deterring motives; on the other hand, the certainty of acceptance was just "the sort of thing" to make him lapse hither and thither with no more apparent will than a moth. Lush had had his patron under close observation for many years, and knew him perhaps better than he knew any other subject; but to know Grandcourt was to doubt what he would do in any particular case. It might happen that he would behave with an apparent magnanimity, like the hero of a modern French drama, whose sudden start into moral splendor after much lying and meanness, leaves you little confidence as to any part of his career that may follow the fall of the curtain. Indeed, what attitude would have been more honorable for a final scene than that of declining to seek an heiress for her money, and determining to marry the attractive girl who had none? But Lush had some general certainties about Grandcourt, and one was that of all inward movements those of generosity were least likely to occur in him. Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths? Thus Lush was much at fault as to the probable issue between Grandcourt and Gwendolen, when what he desired was a perfect confidence that they would never be married. He would have consented willingly that Grandcourt should marry an heiress, or that he should marry Mrs. Glasher: in the one match there would have been the immediate abundance that prospective heirship could not supply, in the other there would have been the security of the wife's gratitude, for Lush had always been Mrs. Glasher's friend; and that the future Mrs. Grandcourt should not be socially received could not affect his private comfort. He would not have minded, either, that there should be no marriage in question at all; but he felt himself justified in doing his utmost to hinder a marriage with a girl who was likely to bring nothing but trouble to her husband--not to speak of annoyance if not ultimate injury to her husband's old companion, whose future Mr. Lush earnestly wished to make as easy as possible, considering that he had well deserved such compensation for leading a dog's life, though that of a dog who enjoyed many tastes undisturbed, and who profited by a large establishment. He wished for himself what he felt to be good, and was not conscious of wishing harm to any one else; unless perhaps it were just now a little harm to the inconvenient and impertinent Gwendolen. But the easiest-humored of luxury and music, the toad-eater the least liable to nausea, must be expected to have his susceptibilities. And Mr. Lush was accustomed to be treated by the world in general as an apt, agreeable fellow: he had not made up his mind to be insulted by more than one person. With this imperfect preparation of a war policy, Lush was awaiting Grandcourt's arrival, doing little more than wondering how the campaign would begin. The first day Grandcourt was much occupied with the stables, and amongst other things he ordered a groom to put a side-saddle on Criterion and let him review the horse's paces. This marked indication of purpose set Lush on considering over again whether he should incur the ticklish consequences of speaking first, while he was still sure that no compromising step had been taken; and he rose the next morning almost resolved that if Grandcourt seemed in as good a humor as yesterday and entered at all into talk, he would let drop the interesting facts about Gwendolen and her family, just to see how they would work, and to get some guidance. But Grandcourt did not enter into talk, and in answer to a question even about his own convenience, no fish could have maintained a more unwinking silence. After he had read his letters he gave various orders to be executed or transmitted by Lush, and then thrust his shoulder toward that useful person, who accordingly rose to leave the room. But before he was out of the door Grandcourt turned his head slightly and gave a broken, languid "Oh." "What is it?" said Lush, who, it must have been observed, did not take his dusty puddings with a respectful air. "Shut the door, will you? I can't speak into the corridor." Lush closed the door, came forward, and chose to sit down. After a little pause Grandcourt said, "Is Miss Harleth at Offendene?" He was quite certain that Lush had made it his business to inquire about her, and he had some pleasure in thinking that Lush did not want _him_ to inquire. "Well, I hardly know," said Lush, carelessly. "The family's utterly done up. They and the Gascoignes too have lost all their money. It's owing to some rascally banking business. The poor mother hasn't a _sou_, it seems. She and the girls have to huddle themselves into a little cottage like a laborer's." "Don't lie to me, if you please," said Grandcourt, in his lowest audible tone. "It's not amusing, and it answers no other purpose." "What do you mean?" said Lush, more nettled than was common with him--the prospect before him being more than commonly disturbing. "Just tell me the truth, will you?" "It's no invention of mine. I have heard the story from several--Bazley, Brackenshaw's man, for one. He is getting a new tenant for Offendene." "I don't mean that. Is Miss Harleth there, or is she not?" said Grandcourt, in his former tone. "Upon my soul, I can't tell," said Lush, rather sulkily. "She may have left yesterday. I heard she had taken a situation as governess; she may be gone to it for what I know. But if you wanted to see her no doubt the mother would send for her back." This sneer slipped off his tongue without strict intention. "Send Hutchins to inquire whether she will be there tomorrow." Lush did not move. Like many persons who have thought over beforehand what they shall say in given cases, he was impelled by an unexpected irritation to say some of those prearranged things before the cases were given. Grandcourt, in fact, was likely to get into a scrape so tremendous that it was impossible to let him take the first step toward it without remonstrance. Lush retained enough caution to use a tone of rational friendliness, still he felt his own value to his patron, and was prepared to be daring. "It would be as well for you to remember, Grandcourt, that you are coming under closer fire now. There can be none of the ordinary flirting done, which may mean everything or nothing. You must make up your mind whether you wish to be accepted; and more than that, how you would like being refused. Either one or the other. You can't be philandering after her again for six weeks." Grandcourt said nothing, but pressed the newspaper down on his knees and began to light another cigar. Lush took this as a sign that he was willing to listen, and was the more bent on using the opportunity; he wanted, if possible, to find out which would be the more potent cause of hesitation--probable acceptance or probable refusal. "Everything has a more serious look now than it had before. There is her family to be provided for. You could not let your wife's mother live in beggary. It will be a confoundedly hampering affair. Marriage will pin you down in a way you haven't been used to; and in point of money you have not too much elbow-room. And after all, what will you get by it? You are master over your estates, present or future, as far as choosing your heir goes; it's a pity to go on encumbering them for a mere whim, which you may repent of in a twelvemonth. I should be sorry to see you making a mess of your life in that way. If there were anything solid to be gained by the marriage, that would be a different affair." Lush's tone had gradually become more and more unctuous in its friendliness of remonstrance, and he was almost in danger of forgetting that he was merely gambling in argument. When he left off, Grandcourt took his cigar out of his mouth, and looking steadily at the moist end while he adjusted the leaf with his delicate finger-tips, said, "I knew before that you had an objection to my marrying Miss Harleth." Here he made a little pause before he continued. "But I never considered that a reason against it." "I never supposed you did," answered Lush, not unctuously but dryly. "It was not _that_ I urged as a reason. I should have thought it might have been a reason against it, after all your experience, that you would be acting like the hero of a ballad, and making yourself absurd--and all for what? You know you couldn't make up your mind before. It's impossible you can care much about her. And as for the tricks she is likely to play, you may judge of that from what you heard at Leubronn. However, what I wished to point out to you was, that there can be no shilly-shally now." "Perfectly," said Grandcourt, looking round at Lush and fixing him with narrow eyes; "I don't intend that there should be. I dare say it's disagreeable to you. But if you suppose I care a damn for that you are most stupendously mistaken." "Oh, well," said Lush, rising with his hands in his pockets, and feeling some latent venom still within him, "if you have made up your mind!--only there's another aspect of the affair. I have been speaking on the supposition that it was absolutely certain she would accept you, and that destitution would have no choice. But I am not so sure that the young lady is to be counted on. She is kittle cattle to shoe, I think. And she had her reasons for running away before." Lush had moved a step or two till he stood nearly in front of Grandcourt, though at some distance from him. He did not feel himself much restrained by consequences, being aware that the only strong hold he had on his present position was his serviceableness; and even after a quarrel the want of him was likely sooner or later to recur. He foresaw that Gwendolen would cause him to be ousted for a time, and his temper at this moment urged him to risk a quarrel. "She had her reasons," he repeated more significantly. "I had come to that conclusion before," said Grandcourt, with contemptuous irony. "Yes, but I hardly think you know what her reasons were." "You do, apparently," said Grandcourt, not betraying by so much as an eyelash that he cared for the reasons. "Yes, and you had better know too, that you may judge of the influence you have over her if she swallows her reasons and accepts you. For my own part I would take odds against it. She saw Lydia in Cardell Chase and heard the whole story." Grandcourt made no immediate answer, and only went on smoking. He was so long before he spoke that Lush moved about and looked out of the windows, unwilling to go away without seeing some effect of his daring move. He had expected that Grandcourt would tax him with having contrived the affair, since Mrs. Glasher was then living at Gadsmere, a hundred miles off, and he was prepared to admit the fact: what he cared about was that Grandcourt should be staggered by the sense that his intended advances must be made to a girl who had that knowledge in her mind and had been scared by it. At length Grandcourt, seeing Lush turn toward him, looked at him again and said, contemptuously, "What follows?" Here certainly was a "mate" in answer to Lush's "check"; and though his exasperation with Grandcourt was perhaps stronger than it had ever been before, it would have been idiocy to act as if any further move could be useful. He gave a slight shrug with one shoulder, and was going to walk away, when Grandcourt, turning on his seat toward the table, said, as quietly as if nothing had occurred, "Oblige me by pushing that pen and paper here, will you?" No thunderous, bullying superior could have exercised the imperious spell that Grandcourt did. Why, instead of being obeyed, he had never been told to go to a warmer place, was perhaps a mystery to those who found themselves obeying him. The pen and paper were pushed to him, and as he took them he said, "Just wait for this letter." He scrawled with ease, and the brief note was quickly addressed. "Let Hutchins go with it at once, will you?" said Grandcourt, pushing the letter away from him. As Lush had expected, it was addressed to Miss Harleth, Offendene. When his irritation had cooled down he was glad there had been no explosive quarrel; but he felt sure that there was a notch made against him, and that somehow or other he was intended to pay. It was also clear to him that the immediate effect of his revelation had been to harden Grandcourt's previous determination. But as to the particular movements that made this process in his baffling mind, Lush could only toss up his chin in despair of a theory. CHAPTER XXVI. He brings white asses laden with the freight Of Tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm, To bribe my will: I'll bid them chase him forth, Nor let him breathe the taint of his surmise On my secure resolve. Ay, 'tis secure: And therefore let him come to spread his freight. For firmness hath its appetite and craves The stronger lure, more strongly to resist; Would know the touch of gold to fling it off; Scent wine to feel its lip the soberer; Behold soft byssus, ivory, and plumes To say, "They're fair, but I will none of them," And flout Enticement in the very face. Mr. Gascoigne one day came to Offendene with what he felt to be the satisfactory news that Mrs. Mompert had fixed Tuesday in the following week for her interview with Gwendolen at Wanchester. He said nothing of his having incidentally heard that Mr. Grandcourt had returned to Diplow; knowing no more than she did that Leubronn had been the goal of her admirer's journeying, and feeling that it would be unkind uselessly to revive the memory of a brilliant prospect under the present reverses. In his secret soul he thought of his niece's unintelligible caprice with regret, but he vindicated her to himself by considering that Grandcourt had been the first to behave oddly, in suddenly walking away when there had the best opportunity for crowning his marked attentions. The rector's practical judgment told him that his chief duty to his niece now was to encourage her resolutely to face the change in her lot, since there was no manifest promise of any event that would avert it. "You will find an interest in varied experience, my dear, and I have no doubt you will be a more valuable woman for having sustained such a part as you are called to." "I cannot pretend to believe that I shall like it," said Gwendolen, for the first time showing her uncle some petulance. "But I am quite aware that I am obliged to bear it." She remembered having submitted to his admonition on a different occasion when she was expected to like a very different prospect. "And your good sense will teach you to behave suitably under it," said Mr. Gascoigne, with a shade more gravity. "I feel sure that Mrs. Mompert will be pleased with you. You will know how to conduct yourself to a woman who holds in all senses the relation of a superior to you. This trouble has come on you young, but that makes it in some respects easier, and there is a benefit in all chastisement if we adjust our minds to it." This was precisely what Gwendolen was unable to do; and after her uncle was gone, the bitter tears, which had rarely come during the late trouble, rose and fell slowly as she sat alone. Her heart denied that the trouble was easier because she was young. When was she to have any happiness, if it did not come while she was young? Not that her visions of possible happiness for herself were as unmixed with necessary evil as they used to be--not that she could still imagine herself plucking the fruits of life without suspicion of their core. But this general disenchantment with the world--nay, with herself, since it appeared that she was not made for easy pre-eminence--only intensified her sense of forlornness; it was a visibly sterile distance enclosing the dreary path at her feet, in which she had no courage to tread. She was in that first crisis of passionate youthful rebellion against what is not fitly called pain, but rather the absence of joy--that first rage of disappointment in life's morning, which we whom the years have subdued are apt to remember but dimly as part of our own experience, and so to be intolerant of its self-enclosed unreasonableness and impiety. What passion seems more absurd, when we have got outside it and looked at calamity as a collective risk, than this amazed anguish that I and not Thou, He or She, should be just the smitten one? Yet perhaps some who have afterward made themselves a willing fence before the breast of another, and have carried their own heart-wound in heroic silence--some who have made their deeds great, nevertheless began with this angry amazement at their own smart, and on the mere denial of their fantastic desires raged as if under the sting of wasps which reduced the universe for them to an unjust infliction of pain. This was nearly poor Gwendolen's condition. What though such a reverse as hers had often happened to other girls? The one point she had been all her life learning to care for was that it had happened to _her_: it was what _she_ felt under Klesmer's demonstration that she was not remarkable enough to command fortune by force of will and merit; it was what _she_ would feel under the rigors of Mrs. Mompert's constant expectation, under the dull demand that she should be cheerful with three Miss Momperts, under the necessity of showing herself entirely submissive, and keeping her thoughts to herself. To be a queen disthroned is not so hard as some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to believe in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself unable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore his own confidence. Something akin to this illusion and this helplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips and eyes and the majestic figure--which seemed now to have no magic in them. She rose from the low ottoman where she had been sitting purposeless, and walked up and down the drawing-room, resting her elbow on one palm while she leaned down her cheek on the other, and a slow tear fell. She thought, "I have always, ever since I was little, felt that mamma was not a happy woman; and now I dare say I shall be more unhappy than she has been." Her mind dwelt for a few moments on the picture of herself losing her youth and ceasing to enjoy--not minding whether she did this or that: but such picturing inevitably brought back the image of her mother. "Poor mamma! it will be still worse for her now. I can get a little money for her--that is all I shall care about now." And then with an entirely new movement of her imagination, she saw her mother getting quite old and white, and herself no longer young but faded, and their two faces meeting still with memory and love, and she knowing what was in her mother's mind--"Poor Gwen too is sad and faded now"--and then, for the first time, she sobbed, not in anger, but with a sort of tender misery. Her face was toward the door, and she saw her mother enter. She barely saw that; for her eyes were large with tears, and she pressed her handkerchief against them hurriedly. Before she took it away she felt her mother's arms round her, and this sensation, which seemed a prolongation of her inward vision, overcame her will to be reticent; she sobbed anew in spite of herself, as they pressed their cheeks together. Mrs. Davilow had brought something in her hand which had already caused her an agitating anxiety, and she dared not speak until her darling had become calmer. But Gwendolen, with whom weeping had always been a painful manifestation to be resisted, if possible, again pressed her handkerchief against her eyes, and, with a deep breath, drew her head backward and looked at her mother, who was pale and tremulous. "It was nothing, mamma," said Gwendolen, thinking that her mother had been moved in this way simply by finding her in distress. "It is all over now." But Mrs. Davilow had withdrawn her arms, and Gwendolen perceived a letter in her hand. "What is that letter?--worse news still?" she asked, with a touch of bitterness. "I don't know what you will think it, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, keeping the letter in her hand. "You will hardly guess where it comes from." "Don't ask me to guess anything," said Gwendolen, rather impatiently, as if a bruise were being pressed. "It is addressed to you, dear." Gwendolen gave the slightest perceptible toss of the head. "It comes from Diplow," said Mrs. Davilow, giving her the letter. She knew Grandcourt's indistinct handwriting, and her mother was not surprised to see her blush deeply; but watching her as she read, and wondering much what was the purport of the letter, she saw the color die out. Gwendolen's lips even were pale as she turned the open note toward her mother. The words were few and formal: Mr. Grandcourt presents his compliments to Miss Harleth, and begs to know whether he may be permitted to call at Offendene tomorrow after two and to see her alone. Mr. Grandcourt has just returned from Leubronn, where he had hoped to find Miss Harleth. Mrs. Davilow read, and then looked at her daughter inquiringly, leaving the note in her hand. Gwendolen let it fall to the floor, and turned away. "It must be answered, darling," said Mrs. Davilow, timidly. "The man waits." Gwendolen sank on the settee, clasped her hands, and looked straight before her, not at her mother. She had the expression of one who had been startled by a sound and was listening to know what would come of it. The sudden change of the situation was bewildering. A few minutes before she was looking along an inescapable path of repulsive monotony, with hopeless inward rebellion against the imperious lot which left her no choice: and lo, now, a moment of choice was come. Yet--was it triumph she felt most or terror? Impossible for Gwendolen not to feel some triumph in a tribute to her power at a time when she was first tasting the bitterness of insignificance: again she seemed to be getting a sort of empire over her own life. But how to use it? Here came the terror. Quick, quick, like pictures in a book beaten open with a sense of hurry, came back vividly, yet in fragments, all that she had gone through in relation to Grandcourt--the allurements, the vacillations, the resolve to accede, the final repulsion; the incisive face of that dark-eyed lady with the lovely boy: her own pledge (was it a pledge not to marry him?)--the new disbelief in the worth of men and things for which that scene of disclosure had become a symbol. That unalterable experience made a vision at which in the first agitated moment, before tempering reflections could suggest themselves, her native terror shrank. Where was the good of choice coming again? What did she wish? Anything different? No! And yet in the dark seed-growths of consciousness a new wish was forming itself--"I wish I had never known it!" Something, anything she wished for that would have saved her from the dread to let Grandcourt come. It was no long while--yet it seemed long to Mrs. Davilow, before she thought it well to say, gently, "It will be necessary for you to write, dear. Or shall I write an answer for you--which you will dictate?" "No, mamma," said Gwendolen, drawing a deep breath. "But please lay me out the pen and paper." That was gaining time. Was she to decline Grandcourt's visit--close the shutters--not even look out on what would happen?--though with the assurance that she should remain just where she was? The young activity within her made a warm current through her terror and stirred toward something that would be an event--toward an opportunity in which she could look and speak with the former effectiveness. The interest of the morrow was no longer at a deadlock. "There is really no reason on earth why you should be so alarmed at the man's waiting a few minutes, mamma," said Gwendolen, remonstrantly, as Mrs. Davilow, having prepared the writing materials, looked toward her expectantly. "Servants expect nothing else than to wait. It is not to be supposed that I must write on the instant." "No, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, in the tone of one corrected, turning to sit down and take up a bit of work that lay at hand; "he can wait another quarter of an hour, if you like." It was very simple speech and action on her part, but it was what might have been subtly calculated. Gwendolen felt a contradictory desire to be hastened: hurry would save her from deliberate choice. "I did not mean him to wait long enough for that needlework to be finished," she said, lifting her hands to stroke the backward curves of her hair, while she rose from her seat and stood still. "But if you don't feel able to decide?" said Mrs. Davilow, sympathizingly. "I _must_ decide," said Gwendolen, walking to the writing-table and seating herself. All the while there was a busy undercurrent in her, like the thought of a man who keeps up a dialogue while he is considering how he can slip away. Why should she not let him come? It bound her to nothing. He had been to Leubronn after her: of course he meant a direct unmistakable renewal of the suit which before had been only implied. What then? She could reject him. Why was she to deny herself the freedom of doing this--which she would like to do? "If Mr. Grandcourt has only just returned from Leubronn," said Mrs. Davilow, observing that Gwendolen leaned back in her chair after taking the pen in her hand--"I wonder whether he has heard of our misfortunes?" "That could make no difference to a man in his position," said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously, "It would to some men," said Mrs. Davilow. "They would not like to take a wife from a family in a state of beggary almost, as we are. Here we are at Offendene with a great shell over us, as usual. But just imagine his finding us at Sawyer's Cottage. Most men are afraid of being bored or taxed by a wife's family. If Mr. Grandcourt did know, I think it a strong proof of his attachment to you." Mrs. Davilow spoke with unusual emphasis: it was the first time she had ventured to say anything about Grandcourt which would necessarily seem intended as an argument in favor of him, her habitual impression being that such arguments would certainly be useless and might be worse. The effect of her words now was stronger than she could imagine: they raised a new set of possibilities in Gwendolen's mind--a vision of what Grandcourt might do for her mother if she, Gwendolen, did--what she was not going to do. She was so moved by a new rush of ideas that, like one conscious of being urgently called away, she felt that the immediate task must be hastened: the letter must be written, else it might be endlessly deferred. After all, she acted in a hurry, as she had wished to do. To act in a hurry was to have a reason for keeping away from an absolute decision, and to leave open as many issues as possible. She wrote: "Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Mr. Grandcourt. She will be at home after two o'clock to-morrow." Before addressing the note she said, "Pray ring the bell, mamma, if there is any one to answer it." She really did not know who did the work of the house. It was not till after the letter had been taken away and Gwendolen had risen again, stretching out one arm and then resting it on her head, with a low moan which had a sound of relief in it, that Mrs. Davilow ventured to ask, "What did you say, Gwen?" "I said that I should be at home," answered Gwendolen, rather loftily. Then after a pause, "You must not expect, because Mr. Grandcourt is coming, that anything is going to happen, mamma." "I don't allow myself to expect anything, dear. I desire you to follow your own feeling. You have never told me what that was." "What is the use of telling?" said Gwendolen, hearing a reproach in that true statement. "When I have anything pleasant to tell, you may be sure I will tell you." "But Mr. Grandcourt will consider that you have already accepted him, in allowing him to come. His note tells you plainly enough that he is coming to make you an offer." "Very well; and I wish to have the pleasure of refusing him." Mrs. Davilow looked up in wonderment, but Gwendolen implied her wish not to be questioned further by saying, "Put down that detestable needle-work, and let us walk in the avenue. I am stifled." CHAPTER XXVII. Desire has trimmed the sails, and Circumstance Brings but the breeze to fill them. While Grandcourt on his beautiful black Yarico, the groom behind him on Criterion, was taking the pleasant ride from Diplow to Offendene, Gwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother gathered up the lengthy mass of light-brown hair which she had been carefully brushing. "Only gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma," said Gwendolen. "Let me bring you some ear-rings, Gwen," said Mrs. Davilow, when the hair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the glass. It was impossible for them not to notice that the eyes looked brighter than they had done of late, that there seemed to be a shadow lifted from the face, leaving all the lines once more in their placid youthfulness. The mother drew some inference that made her voice rather cheerful. "You do want your earrings?" "No, mamma; I shall not wear any ornaments, and I shall put on my black silk. Black is the only wear when one is going to refuse an offer," said Gwendolen, with one of her old smiles at her mother, while she rose to throw off her dressing-gown. "Suppose the offer is not made after all," said Mrs. Davilow, not without a sly intention. "Then that will be because I refuse it beforehand," said Gwendolen. "It comes to the same thing." There was a proud little toss of the head as she said this; and when she walked down-stairs in her long black robes, there was just that firm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been missing, as in a parched plant. Her mother thought, "She is quite herself again. It must be pleasure in his coming. Can her mind be really made up against him?" Gwendolen would have been rather angry if that thought had been uttered; perhaps all the more because through the last twenty hours, with a brief interruption of sleep, she had been so occupied with perpetually alternating images and arguments for and against the possibility of her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she had determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on her consciousness: the alternate dip of counterbalancing thoughts begotten of counterbalancing desires had brought her into a state in which no conclusion could look fixed to her. She would have expressed her resolve as before; but it was a form out of which the blood had been sucked--no more a part of quivering life than the "God's will be done" of one who is eagerly watching chances. She did not mean to accept Grandcourt; from the first moment of receiving his letter she had meant to refuse him; still, that could not but prompt her to look the unwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of them, could not hinder her imagination from filling out her knowledge in various ways, some of which seemed to change the aspect of what she knew. By dint of looking at a dubious object with a constructive imagination, one can give it twenty different shapes. Her indistinct grounds of hesitation before the interview at the Whispering Stones, at present counted for nothing; they were all merged in the final repulsion. If it had not been for that day in Cardell Chase, she said to herself now, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying Grandcourt. On that day and after it, she had not reasoned and balanced; she had acted with a force of impulse against which all questioning was no more than a voice against a torrent. The impulse had come--not only from her maidenly pride and jealousy, not only from the shock of another woman's calamity thrust close on her vision, but--from her dread of wrong-doing, which was vague, it was true, and aloof from the daily details of her life, but not the less strong. Whatever was accepted as consistent with being a lady she had no scruple about; but from the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she shrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her feeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in the region of guilt. But now--did she know exactly what was the state of the case with regard to Mrs. Glasher and her children? She had given a sort of promise--had said, "I will not interfere with your wishes." But would another woman who married Grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle to her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? Might it not be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert herself? Here all was constructive imagination. Gwendolen had about as accurate a conception of marriage--that is to say, of the mutual influences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of matrimony--as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms. "Mamma managed badly," was her way of summing up what she had seen of her mother's experience: she herself would manage quite differently. And the trials of matrimony were the last theme into which Mrs. Davilow could choose to enter fully with this daughter. "I wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about Mrs. Glasher!" thought Gwendolen in her inward debating; not that she could imagine herself telling them, even if she had not felt bound to silence. "I wonder what anybody would say; or what they would say to Mr. Grandcourt's marrying some one else and having other children!" To consider what "anybody" would say, was to be released from the difficulty of judging where everything was obscure to her when feeling had ceased to be decisive. She had only to collect her memories, which proved to her that "anybody" regarded the illegitimate children as more rightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than illegitimate fathers. The verdict of "anybody" seemed to be that she had no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of Mrs. Glasher and her children. But there was another way in which they had caused her concern. What others might think could not do away with a feeling which in the first instance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly felt than any association with _her_. True, the question of love on her own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past, which she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her. His advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective disgust for them. Perhaps other men's lives were of the same kind--full of secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they wanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves. These feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep; and though other troublous experience in the last weeks had dulled them from passion into remembrance, it was chiefly their reverberating activity which kept her firm to the understanding with herself, that she was not going to accept Grandcourt. She had never meant to form a new determination; she had only been considering what might be thought or said. If anything could have induced her to change, it would have been the prospect of making all things easy for "poor mamma:" that, she admitted, was a temptation. But no! she was going to refuse him. Meanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was inspiriting: she had the white reins in her hands again; there was a new current in her frame, reviving her from the beaten-down consciousness in which she had been left by the interview with Klesmer. She was not now going to crave an opinion of her capabilities; she was going to exercise her power. Was this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the horse's footsteps on the gravel?--when Miss Merry, who opened the door to Grandcourt, came to tell her that he was in the drawing-room? The hours of preparation and the triumph of the situation were apparently of no use: she might as well have seen Grandcourt coming suddenly on her in the midst of her despondency. While walking into the drawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in that self-control, which made her appear gravely gracious--as she gave her hand to him, and answered his hope that she was quite well in a voice as low and languid as his own. A moment afterward, when they were both of them seated on two of the wreath-painted chairs--Gwendolen upright with downcast eyelids, Grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one arm over the back of his chair and looking at her, while he held his hat in his left hand--any one seeing them as a picture would have concluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. And certainly the love-making had begun: she already felt herself being wooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with the subtlest atmosphere of attar of roses and an attention bent wholly on her. And he also considered himself to be wooing: he was not a man to suppose that his presence carried no consequences; and he was exactly the man to feel the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found quite calculable. "I was disappointed not to find you at Leubronn," he began, his usual broken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. "The place was intolerable without you. A mere kennel of a place. Don't you think so?" "I can't judge what it would be without myself," said Gwendolen, turning her eyes on him, with some recovered sense of mischief. "_With_ myself I like it well enough to have stayed longer, if I could. But I was obliged to come home on account of family troubles." "It was very cruel of you to go to Leubronn," said Grandcourt, taking no notice of the troubles, on which Gwendolen--she hardly knew why--wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. "You must have known that it would spoil everything: you knew you were the heart and soul of everything that went on. Are you quite reckless about me?" It would be impossible to say "yes" in a tone that would be taken seriously; equally impossible to say "no;" but what else could she say? In her difficulty, she turned down her eyelids again and blushed over face and neck. Grandcourt saw her in a new phase, and believed that she was showing her inclination. But he was determined that she should show it more decidedly. "Perhaps there is some deeper interest? Some attraction--some engagement--which it would have been only fair to make me aware of? Is there any man who stands between us?" Inwardly the answer framed itself. "No; but there is a woman." Yet how could she utter this? Even if she had not promised that woman to be silent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject with Grandcourt. But how could she arrest his wooing by beginning to make a formal speech--"I perceive your intention--it is most flattering, etc."? A fish honestly invited to come and be eaten has a clear course in declining, but how if it finds itself swimming against a net? And apart from the network, would she have dared at once to say anything decisive? Gwendolen had not time to be clear on that point. As it was, she felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, Grandcourt said, "Am I to understand that some one else is preferred?" Gwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush at the difficulty and free herself. She raised her eyes again and said with something of her former clearness and defiance, "No"--wishing him to understand, "What then? I may not be ready to take _you_." There was nothing that Grandcourt could not understand which he perceived likely to affect his _amour propre_. "The last thing I would do, is to importune you. I should not hope to win you by making myself a bore. If there were no hope for me, I would ask you to tell me so at once, that I might just ride away to--no matter where." Almost to her own astonishment, Gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the image of Grandcourt finally riding away. What would be left her then? Nothing but the former dreariness. She liked him to be there. She snatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer. "I fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. I have lately had to think so much of my mamma's troubles, that other subjects have been quite thrown into the background. She has lost all her fortune, and we are going to leave this place. I must ask you to excuse my seeming preoccupied." In eluding a direct appeal Gwendolen recovered some of her self-possession. She spoke with dignity and looked straight at Grandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and mysteriously arrested them: mysteriously; for the subtly-varied drama between man and woman is often such as can hardly be rendered in words put together like dominoes, according to obvious fixed marks. The word of all work, Love, will no more express the myriad modes of mutual attraction, than the word Thought can inform you what is passing through your neighbor's mind. It would be hard to tell on which side--Gwendolen's or Grandcourt's--the influence was more mixed. At that moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this creature--this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief: that she knew things which had made her start away from him, spurred him to triumph over that repugnance; and he was believing that he should triumph. And she--ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate!--she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert, overcome by the suffused sense that here in this man's homage to her lay the rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive lot. All the while they were looking at each other; and Grandcourt said, slowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance, other things having been settled, "You will tell me now, I hope, that Mrs. Davilow's loss of fortune will not trouble you further. You will trust me to prevent it from weighing upon her. You will give me the claim to provide against that." The little pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was uttered, gave time for Gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. As the words penetrated her, they had the effect of a draught of wine, which suddenly makes all things easier, desirable things not so wrong, and people in general less disagreeable. She had a momentary phantasmal love for this man who chose his words so well, and who was a mere incarnation of delicate homage. Repugnance, dread, scruples--these were dim as remembered pains, while she was already tasting relief under the immediate pain of hopelessness. She imagined herself already springing to her mother, and being playful again. Yet when Grandcourt had ceased to speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at the turning of the ways. "You are very generous," she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking with a gentle intonation. "You accept what will make such things a matter of course?" said Grandcourt, without any new eagerness. "You consent to become my wife?" This time Gwendolen remained quite pale. Something made her rise from her seat in spite of herself and walk to a little distance. Then she turned and with her hands folded before her stood in silence. Grandcourt immediately rose too, resting his hat on the chair, but still keeping hold of it. The evident hesitation of this destitute girl to take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such as he had not known for years. None the less because he attributed her hesitation entirely to her knowledge about Mrs. Glasher. In that attitude of preparation, he said, "Do you command me to go?" No familiar spirit could have suggested to him more effective words. "No," said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that negative was a clutch. She seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the tremendous decision--but drifting depends on something besides the currents when the sails have been set beforehand. "You accept my devotion?" said Grandcourt, holding his hat by his side and looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as long as she would, how could she contradict herself? What had she detained him for? He had shut out any explanation. "Yes," came as gravely from Gwendolen's lips as if she had been answering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely, and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there ever such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving "Yes"? Grandcourt liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from Gwendolen's bearing. But he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand, just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his behavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost ready to be mischievous. Her "Yes" entailed so little at this moment that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects; her vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her mother's release from Sawyer's Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips, she said, "Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her." "Let us wait a little," said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude, having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and looked at her--not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction at an evening party. "Have you anything else to say to me?" said Gwendolen, playfully. "Yes--I know having things said to you is a great bore," said Grandcourt, rather sympathetically. "Not when they are things I like to hear." "Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?" "I think it will, to-day," said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily. "Not to-day, then, but to-morrow. Think of it before I come to-morrow. In a fortnight--or three weeks--as soon as possible." "Ah, you think you will be tired of my company," said Gwendolen. "I notice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife as when they are engaged. But perhaps I shall like that better, too." She laughed charmingly. "You shall have whatever you like," said Grandcourt. "And nothing that I don't like?--please say that; because I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like," said Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise, where all her nonsense is adorable. Grandcourt paused; these were subtilties in which he had much experience of his own. "I don't know--this is such a brute of a world, things are always turning up that one doesn't like. I can't always hinder your being bored. If you like to ride Criterion, I can't hinder his coming down by some chance or other." "Ah, my friend Criterion, how is he?" "He is outside: I made the groom ride him, that you might see him. He had the side-saddle on for an hour or two yesterday. Come to the window and look at him." They could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and the beautiful creatures, in their fine grooming, sent a thrill of exultation through Gwendolen. They were the symbols of command and luxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and humiliation at which she had lately been looking close. "Will you ride Criterion to-morrow?" said Grandcourt. "If you will, everything shall be arranged." "I should like it of all things," said Gwendolen. "I want to lose myself in a gallop again. But now I must go and fetch mamma." "Take my arm to the door, then," said Grandcourt, and she accepted. Their faces were very near each other, being almost on a level, and he was looking at her. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable than any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the middle of the room and said half archly, half earnestly, "Oh, while I think of it--there is something I dislike that you can save me from. I do _not_ like Mr. Lush's company." "You shall not have it. I'll get rid of him." "You are not fond of him yourself?" "Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a poor devil," said Grandcourt, in an _adagio_ of utter indifference. "They got him to travel with me when I was a lad. He was always that coarse-haired kind of brute--sort of cross between a hog and a _dilettante_." Gwendolen laughed. All that seemed kind and natural enough: Grandcourt's fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. And when they reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of easy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least disagreeable of husbands. Mrs. Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bed-room when Gwendolen entered, stepped toward her quickly, and kissing her on both cheeks said in a low tone, "Come down, mamma, and see Mr. Grandcourt. I am engaged to him." "My darling child," said Mrs. Davilow, with a surprise that was rather solemn than glad. "Yes," said Gwendolen, in the same tone, and with a quickness which implied that it was needless to ask questions. "Everything is settled. You are not going to Sawyer's Cottage, I am not going to be inspected by Mrs. Mompert, and everything is to be as I like. So come down with me immediately." BOOK IV.--GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE. CHAPTER XXVIII. "Il est plus aisé de connoître l'homme en général que de connoître un homme en particulier."--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. An hour after Grandcourt had left, the important news of Gwendolen's engagement was known at the rectory, and Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, with Anna, spent the evening at Offendene. "My dear, let me congratulate you on having created a strong attachment," said the rector. "You look serious, and I don't wonder at it: a lifelong union is a solemn thing. But from the way Mr. Grandcourt has acted and spoken I think we may already see some good arising out of our adversity. It has given you an opportunity of observing your future husband's delicate liberality." Mr. Gascoigne referred to Grandcourt's mode of implying that he would provide for Mrs. Davilow--a part of the love-making which Gwendolen had remembered to cite to her mother with perfect accuracy. "But I have no doubt that Mr. Grandcourt would have behaved quite as handsomely if you had not gone away to Germany, Gwendolen, and had been engaged to him, as you no doubt might have been, more than a month ago," said Mrs. Gascoigne, feeling that she had to discharge a duty on this occasion. "But now there is no more room for caprice; indeed, I trust you have no inclination to any. A woman has a great debt of gratitude to a man who perseveres in making her such an offer. But no doubt you feel properly." "I am not at all sure that I do, aunt," said Gwendolen, with saucy gravity. "I don't know everything it is proper to feel on being engaged." The rector patted her shoulder and smiled as at a bit of innocent naughtiness, and his wife took his behavior as an indication that she was not to be displeased. As for Anna, she kissed Gwendolen and said, "I do hope you will be happy," but then sank into the background and tried to keep the tears back too. In the late days she had been imagining a little romance about Rex--how if he still longed for Gwendolen her heart might be softened by trouble into love, so that they could by-and-by be married. And the romance had turned to a prayer that she, Anna, might be able to rejoice like a good sister, and only think of being useful in working for Gwendolen, as long as Rex was not rich. But now she wanted grace to rejoice in something else. Miss Merry and the four girls, Alice with the high shoulders, Bertha and Fanny the whisperers, and Isabel the listener, were all present on this family occasion, when everything seemed appropriately turning to the honor and glory of Gwendolen, and real life was as interesting as "Sir Charles Grandison." The evening passed chiefly in decisive remarks from the rector, in answer to conjectures from the two elder ladies. According to him, the case was not one in which he could think it his duty to mention settlements: everything must, and doubtless would safely be left to Mr. Grandcourt. "I should like to know exactly what sort of places Ryelands and Gadsmere are," said Mrs. Davilow. "Gadsmere, I believe, is a secondary place," said Mr. Gascoigne; "But Ryelands I know to be one of our finest seats. The park is extensive and the woods of a very valuable order. The house was built by Inigo Jones, and the ceilings are painted in the Italian style. The estate is said to be worth twelve thousand a year, and there are two livings, one a rectory, in the gift of the Grandcourts. There may be some burdens on the land. Still, Mr. Grandcourt was an only child." "It would be most remarkable," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "if he were to become Lord Stannery in addition to everything else. Only think: there is the Grandcourt estate, the Mallinger estate, _and_ the baronetcy, _and_ the peerage,"--she was marking off the items on her fingers, and paused on the fourth while she added, "but they say there will be no land coming to him with the peerage." It seemed a pity there was nothing for the fifth finger. "The peerage," said the rector, judiciously, "must be regarded as a remote chance. There are two cousins between the present peer and Mr. Grandcourt. It is certainly a serious reflection how death and other causes do sometimes concentrate inheritances on one man. But an excess of that kind is to be deprecated. To be Sir Mallinger Grandcourt Mallinger--I suppose that will be his style--with corresponding properties, is a valuable talent enough for any man to have committed to him. Let us hope it will be well used." "And what a position for the wife, Gwendolen!" said Mrs. Gascoigne; "a great responsibility indeed. But you must lose no time in writing to Mrs. Mompert, Henry. It is a good thing that you have an engagement of marriage to offer as an excuse, else she might feel offended. She is rather a high woman." "I am rid of that horror," thought Gwendolen, to whom the name of Mompert had become a sort of Mumbo-jumbo. She was very silent through the evening, and that night could hardly sleep at all in her little white bed. It was a rarity in her strong youth to be wakeful: and perhaps a still greater rarity for her to be careful that her mother should not know of her restlessness. But her state of mind was altogether new: she who had been used to feel sure of herself, and ready to manage others, had just taken a decisive step which she had beforehand thought that she would not take--nay, perhaps, was bound not to take. She could not go backward now; she liked a great deal of what lay before her; and there was nothing for her to like if she went back. But her resolution was dogged by the shadow of that previous resolve which had at first come as the undoubting movement of her whole being. While she lay on her pillow with wide-open eyes, "looking on darkness which the blind do see," she was appalled by the idea that she was going to do what she had once started away from with repugnance. It was new to her that a question of right or wrong in her conduct should rouse her terror; she had known no compunction that atoning caresses and presents could not lay to rest. But here had come a moment when something like a new consciousness was awaked. She seemed on the edge of adopting deliberately, as a notion for all the rest of her life, what she had rashly said in her bitterness, when her discovery had driven her away to Leubronn:--that it did not signify what she did; she had only to amuse herself as best she could. That lawlessness, that casting away of all care for justification, suddenly frightened her: it came to her with the shadowy array of possible calamity behind it--calamity which had ceased to be a mere name for her; and all the infiltrated influences of disregarded religious teaching, as well as the deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping her, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague conception of avenging power. The brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined freedom she would create for herself in marriage, the deliverance from the dull insignificance of her girlhood--all immediately before her; and yet they had come to her hunger like food with the taint of sacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. In the darkness and loneliness of her little bed, her more resistant self could not act against the first onslaught of dread after her irrevocable decision. That unhappy-faced woman and her children--Grandcourt and his relations with her--kept repeating themselves in her imagination like the clinging memory of a disgrace, and gradually obliterated all other thought, leaving only the consciousness that she had taken those scenes into her life. Her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint, faint light penetrated beside the window-curtain; the chillness increased. She could bear it no longer, and cried "Mamma!" "Yes, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, immediately, in a wakeful voice. "Let me come to you." She soon went to sleep on her mother's shoulder, and slept on till late, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her mother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand. "I am sorry to wake you, darling, but I thought it better to give you this at once. The groom has brought Criterion; he has come on another horse, and says he is to stay here." Gwendolen sat up in bed and opened the packet. It was a delicate enameled casket, and inside was a splendid diamond ring with a letter which contained a folded bit of colored paper and these words: Pray wear this ring when I come at twelve in sign of our betrothal. I enclose a check drawn in the name of Mr. Gascoigne, for immediate expenses. Of course Mrs. Davilow will remain at Offendene, at least for some time. I hope, when I come, you will have granted me an early day, when you may begin to command me at a shorter distance. Yours devotedly, H. M. GRANDCOURT. The check was for five hundred pounds, and Gwendolen turned it toward her mother, with the letter. "How very kind and delicate!" said Mrs. Davilow, with much feeling. "But I really should like better not to be dependent on a son-in-law. I and the girls could get along very well." "Mamma, if you say that again, I will not marry him," said Gwendolen, angrily. "My dear child, I trust you are not going to marry only for my sake," said Mrs. Davilow, deprecatingly. Gwendolen tossed her head on the pillow away from her mother, and let the ring lie. She was irritated at this attempt to take away a motive. Perhaps the deeper cause of her irritation was the consciousness that she was not going to marry solely for her mamma's sake--that she was drawn toward the marriage in ways against which stronger reasons than her mother's renunciation were yet not strong enough to hinder her. She had waked up to the signs that she was irrevocably engaged, and all the ugly visions, the alarms, the arguments of the night, must be met by daylight, in which probably they would show themselves weak. "What I long for is your happiness, dear," continued Mrs. Davilow, pleadingly. "I will not say anything to vex you. Will you not put on the ring?" For a few moments Gwendolen did not answer, but her thoughts were active. At last she raised herself with a determination to do as she would do if she had started on horseback, and go on with spirit, whatever ideas might be running in her head. "I thought the lover always put on the betrothal ring himself," she said laughingly, slipping the ring on her finger, and looking at it with a charming movement of her head. "I know why he has sent it," she added, nodding at her mamma. "Why?" "He would rather make me put it on than ask me to let him do it. Aha! he is very proud. But so am I. We shall match each other. I should hate a man who went down on his knees, and came fawning on me. He really is not disgusting." "That is very moderate praise, Gwen." "No, it is not, for a man," said Gwendolen gaily. "But now I must get up and dress. Will you come and do my hair, mamma, dear," she went on, drawing down her mamma's face to caress it with her own cheeks, "and not be so naughty any more as to talk of living in poverty? You must bear to be made comfortable, even if you don't like it. And Mr. Grandcourt behaves perfectly, now, does he not?" "Certainly he does," said Mrs. Davilow, encouraged, and persuaded that after all Gwendolen was fond of her betrothed. She herself thought him a man whose attentions were likely to tell on a girl's feeling. Suitors must often be judged as words are, by the standing and the figure they make in polite society: it is difficult to know much else of them. And all the mother's anxiety turned not on Grandcourt's character, but on Gwendolen's mood in accepting him. The mood was necessarily passing through a new phase this morning. Even in the hour of making her toilet, she had drawn on all the knowledge she had for grounds to justify her marriage. And what she most dwelt on was the determination, that when she was Grandcourt's wife, she would urge him to the most liberal conduct toward Mrs. Glasher's children. "Of what use would it be to her that I should not marry him? He could have married her if he liked; but he did _not_ like. Perhaps she is to blame for that. There must be a great deal about her that I know nothing of. And he must have been good to her in many ways, else she would not have wanted to marry him." But that last argument at once began to appear doubtful. Mrs. Glasher naturally wished to exclude other children who would stand between Grandcourt and her own: and Gwendolen's comprehension of this feeling prompted another way of reconciling claims. "Perhaps we shall have no children. I hope we shall not. And he might leave the estate to the pretty little boy. My uncle said that Mr. Grandcourt could do as he liked with the estates. Only when Sir Hugo Mallinger dies there will be enough for two." This made Mrs. Glasher appear quite unreasonable in demanding that her boy should be sole heir; and the double property was a security that Grandcourt's marriage would do her no wrong, when the wife was Gwendolen Harleth with all her proud resolution not to be fairly accused. This maiden had been accustomed to think herself blameless; other persons only were faulty. It was striking, that in the hold which this argument of her doing no wrong to Mrs. Glasher had taken on her mind, her repugnance to the idea of Grandcourt's past had sunk into a subordinate feeling. The terror she had felt in the night-watches at overstepping the border of wickedness by doing what she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled any emotions about his conduct. She was thinking of him, whatever he might be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power; and her loving him having never been a question with her, any agreeableness he had was so much gain. Poor Gwendolen had no awe of unmanageable forces in the state of matrimony, but regarded it as altogether a matter of management, in which she would know how to act. In relation to Grandcourt's past she encouraged new doubts whether he were likely to have differed much from other men; and she devised little schemes for learning what was expected of men in general. But whatever else might be true in the world, her hair was dressed suitably for riding, and she went down in her riding-habit, to avoid delay before getting on horseback. She wanted to have her blood stirred once more with the intoxication of youth, and to recover the daring with which she had been used to think of her course in life. Already a load was lifted off her; for in daylight and activity it was less oppressive to have doubts about her choice, than to feel that she had no choice but to endure insignificance and servitude. "Go back and make yourself look like a duchess, mamma," she said, turning suddenly as she was going down-stairs. "Put your point-lace over your head. I must have you look like a duchess. You must not take things humbly." When Grandcourt raised her left hand gently and looked at the ring, she said gravely, "It was very good of you to think of everything and send me that packet." "You will tell me if there is anything I forget?" he said, keeping the hand softly within his own. "I will do anything you wish." "But I am very unreasonable in my wishes," said Gwendolen, smiling. "Yes, I expect that. Women always are." "Then I will not be unreasonable," said Gwendolen, taking away her hand and tossing her head saucily. "I will not be told that I am what women always are." "I did not say that," said Grandcourt, looking at her with his usual gravity. "You are what no other woman is." "And what is that, pray?" said Gwendolen, moving to a distance with a little air of menace. Grandcourt made his pause before he answered. "You are the woman I love." "Oh, what nice speeches!" said Gwendolen, laughing. The sense of that love which he must once have given to another woman under strange circumstances was getting familiar. "Give me a nice speech in return. Say when we are to be married." "Not yet. Not till we have had a gallop over the downs. I am so thirsty for that, I can think of nothing else. I wish the hunting had begun. Sunday the twentieth, twenty-seventh, Monday, Tuesday." Gwendolen was counting on her fingers with the prettiest nod while she looked at Grandcourt, and at last swept one palm over the other while she said triumphantly, "It will begin in ten days!" "Let us be married in ten days, then," said Grandcourt, "and we shall not be bored about the stables." "What do women always say in answer to that?" said Gwendolen, mischievously. "They agree to it," said the lover, rather off his guard. "Then I will not!" said Gwendolen, taking up her gauntlets and putting them on, while she kept her eyes on him with gathering fun in them. The scene was pleasant on both sides. A cruder lover would have lost the view of her pretty ways and attitudes, and spoiled all by stupid attempts at caresses, utterly destructive of drama. Grandcourt preferred the drama; and Gwendolen, left at ease, found her spirits rising continually as she played at reigning. Perhaps if Klesmer had seen more of her in this unconscious kind of acting, instead of when she was trying to be theatrical, he might have rated her chance higher. When they had had a glorious gallop, however, she was in a state of exhilaration that disposed her to think well of hastening the marriage which would make her life all of apiece with this splendid kind of enjoyment. She would not debate any more about an act to which she had committed herself; and she consented to fix the wedding on that day three weeks, notwithstanding the difficulty of fulfilling the customary laws of the _trousseau_. Lush, of course, was made aware of the engagement by abundant signs, without being formally told. But he expected some communication as a consequence of it, and after a few days he became rather impatient under Grandcourt's silence, feeling sure that the change would affect his personal prospects, and wishing to know exactly how. His tactics no longer included any opposition--which he did not love for its own sake. He might easily cause Grandcourt a great deal of annoyance, but it would be to his own injury, and to create annoyance was not a motive with him. Miss Gwendolen he would certainly not have been sorry to frustrate a little, but--after all there was no knowing what would come. It was nothing new that Grandcourt should show a perverse wilfulness; yet in his freak about this girl he struck Lush rather newly as something like a man who was _fey_--led on by an ominous fatality; and that one born to his fortune should make a worse business of his life than was necessary, seemed really pitiable. Having protested against the marriage, Lush had a second-sight for its evil consequences. Grandcourt had been taking the pains to write letters and give orders himself instead of employing Lush, and appeared to be ignoring his usefulness, even choosing, against the habit of years, to breakfast alone in his dressing-room. But a _tete-à-tete_ was not to be avoided in a house empty of guests; and Lush hastened to use an opportunity of saying--it was one day after dinner, for there were difficulties in Grandcourt's dining at Offendene, "And when is the marriage to take place?" Grandcourt, who drank little wine, had left the table and was lounging, while he smoked, in an easy chair near the hearth, where a fire of oak boughs was gaping to its glowing depths, and edging them with a delicate tint of ashes delightful to behold. The chair of red-brown velvet brocade was a becoming back-ground for his pale-tinted, well-cut features and exquisite long hands. Omitting the cigar, you might have imagined him a portrait by Moroni, who would have rendered wonderfully the impenetrable gaze and air of distinction; and a portrait by that great master would have been quite as lively a companion as Grandcourt was disposed to be. But he answered without unusual delay. "On the tenth." "I suppose you intend to remain here." "We shall go to Ryelands for a little while; but we shall return here for the sake of the hunting." After this word there was the languid inarticulate sound frequent with Grandcourt when he meant to continue speaking, and Lush waited for something more. Nothing came, and he was going to put another question, when the inarticulate sound began again and introduced the mildly uttered suggestion, "You had better make some new arrangement for yourself." "What! I am to cut and run?" said Lush, prepared to be good-tempered on the occasion. "Something of that kind." "The bride objects to me. I hope she will make up to you for the want of my services." "I can't help your being so damnably disagreeable to women," said Grandcourt, in soothing apology. "To one woman, if you please." "It makes no difference since she is the one in question." "I suppose I am not to be turned adrift after fifteen years without some provision." "You must have saved something out of me." "Deuced little. I have often saved something for you." "You can have three hundred a year. But you must live in town and be ready to look after things when I want you. I shall be rather hard up." "If you are not going to be at Ryelands this winter, I might run down there and let you know how Swinton goes on." "If you like. I don't care a toss where you are, so that you keep out of sight." "Much obliged," said Lush, able to take the affair more easily than he had expected. He was supported by the secret belief that he should by-and-by be wanted as much as ever. "Perhaps you will not object to packing up as soon as possible," said Grandcourt. "The Torringtons are coming, and Miss Harleth will be riding over here." "With all my heart. Can't I be of use in going to Gadsmere?" "No. I am going myself." "About your being rather hard up. Have you thought of that plan--" "Just leave me alone, will you?" said Grandcourt, in his lowest audible tone, tossing his cigar into the fire, and rising to walk away. He spent the evening in the solitude of the smaller drawing-room, where, with various new publications on the table of the kind a gentleman may like to have on hand without touching, he employed himself (as a philosopher might have done) in sitting meditatively on the sofa and abstaining from literature--political, comic, cynical, or romantic. In this way hours may pass surprisingly soon, without the arduous invisible chase of philosophy; not from love of thought, but from hatred of effort--from a state of the inward world, something like premature age, where the need for action lapses into a mere image of what has been, is, and may or might be; where impulse is born and dies in a phantasmal world, pausing in rejection of even a shadowy fulfillment. That is a condition which often comes with whitening hair; and sometimes, too, an intense obstinacy and tenacity of rule, like the main trunk of an exorbitant egoism, conspicuous in proportion as the varied susceptibilities of younger years are stripped away. But Grandcourt's hair, though he had not much of it, was of a fine, sunny blonde, and his moods were not entirely to be explained as ebbing energy. We mortals have a strange spiritual chemistry going on within us, so that a lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkiness may be preparing one knows not what biting or explosive material. The navvy waking from sleep and without malice heaving a stone to crush the life out of his still sleeping comrade, is understood to lack the trained motive which makes a character fairly calculable in its actions; but by a roundabout course even a gentleman may make of himself a chancy personage, raising an uncertainty as to what he may do next, that sadly spoils companionship. Grandcourt's thoughts this evening were like the circlets one sees in a dark pool, continually dying out and continually started again by some impulse from below the surface. The deeper central impulse came from the image of Gwendolen; but the thoughts it stirred would be imperfectly illustrated by a reference to the amatory poets of all ages. It was characteristic that he got none of his satisfaction from the belief that Gwendolen was in love with him; and that love had overcome the jealous resentment which had made her run away from him. On the contrary, he believed that this girl was rather exceptional in the fact that, in spite of his assiduous attention to her, she was not in love with him; and it seemed to him very likely that if it had not been for the sudden poverty which had come over her family, she would not have accepted him. From the very first there had been an exasperating fascination in the tricksiness with which she had--not met his advances, but--wheeled away from them. She had been brought to accept him in spite of everything--brought to kneel down like a horse under training for the arena, though she might have an objection to it all the while. On the whole, Grandcourt got more pleasure out of this notion than he could have done out of winning a girl of whom he was sure that she had a strong inclination for him personally. And yet this pleasure in mastering reluctance flourished along with the habitual persuasion that no woman whom he favored could be quite indifferent to his personal influence; and it seemed to him not unlikely that by-and-by Gwendolen might be more enamored of him than he of her. In any case, she would have to submit; and he enjoyed thinking of her as his future wife, whose pride and spirit were suited to command every one but himself. He had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness to him, full of petitioning solicitude and willing obedience. He meant to be master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who perhaps would have been capable of mastering another man. Lush, having failed in his attempted reminder to Grandcourt, thought it well to communicate with Sir Hugo, in whom, as a man having perhaps interest enough to command the bestowal of some place where the work was light, gentlemanly, and not ill-paid, he was anxious to cultivate a sense of friendly obligation, not feeling at all secure against the future need of such a place. He wrote the following letter, and addressed it to Park Lane, whither he knew the family had returned from Leubronn: MY DEAR SIR HUGO--Since we came home the marriage has been absolutely decided on, and is to take place in less than three weeks. It is so far the worse for him that her mother has lately lost all her fortune, and he will have to find supplies. Grandcourt, I know, is feeling the want of cash; and unless some other plan is resorted to, he will be raising money in a foolish way. I am going to leave Diplow immediately, and I shall not be able to start the topic. What I should advise is, that Mr. Deronda, who I know has your confidence, should propose to come and pay a short visit here, according to invitation (there are going to be other people in the house), and that you should put him fully in possession of your wishes and the possible extent of your offer. Then, that he should introduce the subject to Grandcourt so as not to imply that you suspect any particular want of money on his part, but only that there is a strong wish on yours. What I have formerly said to him has been in the way of a conjecture that you might be willing to give a good sum for his chance of Diplow; but if Mr. Deronda came armed with a definite offer, that would take another sort of hold. Ten to one he will not close for some time to come; but the proposal will have got a stronger lodgment in his mind; and though at present he has a great notion of the hunting here, I see a likelihood, under the circumstances, that he will get a distaste for the neighborhood, and there will be the notion of the money sticking by him without being urged. I would bet on your ultimate success. As I am not to be exiled to Siberia, but am to be within call, it is possible that, by and by, I may be of more service to you. But at present I can think of no medium so good as Mr. Deronda. Nothing puts Grandcourt in worse humor than having the lawyers thrust their paper under his nose uninvited. Trusting that your visit to Leubronn has put you in excellent condition for the winter, I remain, my dear Sir Hugo, Yours very faithfully, THOMAS CRANMER LUSH. Sir Hugo, having received this letter at breakfast, handed it to Deronda, who, though he had chambers in town, was somehow hardly ever in them, Sir Hugo not being contented without him. The chatty baronet would have liked a young companion even if there had been no peculiar reasons for attachment between them: one with a fine harmonious unspoiled face fitted to keep up a cheerful view of posterity and inheritance generally, notwithstanding particular disappointments; and his affection for Deronda was not diminished by the deep-lying though not obtrusive difference in their notions and tastes. Perhaps it was all the stronger; acting as the same sort of difference does between a man and a woman in giving a piquancy to the attachment which subsists in spite of it. Sir Hugo did not think unapprovingly of himself; but he looked at men and society from a liberal-menagerie point of view, and he had a certain pride in Deronda's differing from him, which, if it had found voice, might have said--"You see this fine young fellow--not such as you see every day, is he?--he belongs to me in a sort of way. I brought him up from a child; but you would not ticket him off easily, he has notions of his own, and he's as far as the poles asunder from what I was at his age." This state of feeling was kept up by the mental balance in Deronda, who was moved by an affectionateness such as we are apt to call feminine, disposing him to yield in ordinary details, while he had a certain inflexibility of judgment, and independence of opinion, held to be rightfully masculine. When he had read the letter, he returned it without speaking, inwardly wincing under Lush's mode of attributing a neutral usefulness to him in the family affairs. "What do you say, Dan? It would be pleasant enough for you. You have not seen the place for a good many years now, and you might have a famous run with the harriers if you went down next week," said Sir Hugo. "I should not go on that account," said Deronda, buttering his bread attentively. He had an objection to this transparent kind of persuasiveness, which all intelligent animals are seen to treat with indifference. If he went to Diplow he should be doing something disagreeable to oblige Sir Hugo. "I think Lush's notion is a good one. And it would be a pity to lose the occasion." "That is a different matter--if you think my going of importance to your object," said Deronda, still with that aloofness of manner which implied some suppression. He knew that the baronet had set his heart on the affair. "Why, you will see the fair gambler, the Leubronn Diana, I shouldn't wonder," said Sir Hugo, gaily. "We shall have to invite her to the Abbey, when they are married," he added, turning to Lady Mallinger, as if she too had read the letter. "I cannot conceive whom you mean," said Lady Mallinger, who in fact had not been listening, her mind having been taken up with her first sips of coffee, the objectionable cuff of her sleeve, and the necessity of carrying Theresa to the dentist--innocent and partly laudable preoccupations, as the gentle lady's usually were. Should her appearance be inquired after, let it be said that she had reddish blonde hair (the hair of the period), a small Roman nose, rather prominent blue eyes and delicate eyelids, with a figure which her thinner friends called fat, her hands showing curves and dimples like a magnified baby's. "I mean that Grandcourt is going to marry the girl you saw at Leubronn--don't you remember her--the Miss Harleth who used to play at roulette." "Dear me! Is that a good match for him?" "That depends on the sort of goodness he wants," said Sir Hugo, smiling. "However, she and her friends have nothing, and she will bring him expenses. It's a good match for my purposes, because if I am willing to fork out a sum of money, he may be willing to give up his chance of Diplow, so that we shall have it out and out, and when I die you will have the consolation of going to the place you would like to go to--wherever I may go." "I wish you would not talk of dying in that light way, dear." "It's rather a heavy way, Lou, for I shall have to pay a heavy sum--forty thousand, at least." "But why are we to invite them to the Abbey?" said Lady Mallinger. "I do _not_ like women who gamble, like Lady Cragstone." "Oh, you will not mind her for a week. Besides, she is not like Lady Cragstone because she gambled a little, any more than I am like a broker because I'm a Whig. I want to keep Grandcourt in good humor, and to let him see plenty of this place, that he may think the less of Diplow. I don't know yet whether I shall get him to meet me in this matter. And if Dan were to go over on a visit there, he might hold out the bait to him. It would be doing me a great service." This was meant for Deronda. "Daniel is not fond of Mr. Grandcourt, I think, is he?" said Lady Mallinger, looking at Deronda inquiringly. "There is no avoiding everybody one doesn't happen to be fond of," said Deronda. "I will go to Diplow--I don't know that I have anything better to do--since Sir Hugo wishes it." "That's a trump!" said Sir Hugo, well pleased. "And if you don't find it very pleasant, it's so much experience. Nothing used to come amiss to me when I was young. You must see men and manners." "Yes; but I have seen that man, and something of his manners too," said Deronda. "Not nice manners, I think," said Lady Mallinger. "Well, you see they succeed with your sex," said Sir Hugo, provokingly. "And he was an uncommonly good-looking fellow when he was two or three and twenty--like his father. He doesn't take after his father in marrying the heiress, though. If he had got Miss Arrowpoint and my land too, confound him, he would have had a fine principality." Deronda, in anticipating the projected visit, felt less disinclination than when consenting to it. The story of that girl's marriage did interest him: what he had heard through Lush of her having run away from the suit of the man she was now going to take as a husband, had thrown a new sort of light on her gambling; and it was probably the transition from that fevered worldliness into poverty which had urged her acceptance where she must in some way have felt repulsion. All this implied a nature liable to difficulty and struggle--elements of life which had a predominant attraction for his sympathy, due perhaps to his early pain in dwelling on the conjectured story of his own existence. Persons attracted him, as Hans Meyrick had done, in proportion to the possibility of his defending them, rescuing them, telling upon their lives with some sort of redeeming influence; and he had to resist an inclination, easily accounted for, to withdraw coldly from the fortunate. But in the movement which had led him to repurchase Gwendolen's necklace for her, and which was at work in him still, there was something beyond his habitual compassionate fervor--something due to the fascination of her womanhood. He was very open to that sort of charm, and mingled it with the consciously Utopian pictures of his own future; yet any one able to trace the folds of his character might have conceived that he would be more likely than many less passionate men to love a woman without telling her of it. Sprinkle food before a delicate-eared bird: there is nothing he would more willingly take, yet he keeps aloof, because of his sensibility to checks which to you are imperceptible. And one man differs from another, as we all differ from the Bosjesman, in a sensibility to checks, that come from variety of needs, spiritual or other. It seemed to foreshadow that capability of reticence in Deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two women, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should ever make love. Hans Meyrick had laughed at him for having something of the knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof if he had known what was just now going on in Deronda's mind about Mirah and Gwendolen. Deronda wrote without delay to announce his visit to Diplow, and received in reply a polite assurance that his coming would give great pleasure. That was not altogether untrue. Grandcourt thought it probable that the visit was prompted by Sir Hugo's desire to court him for a purpose which he did not make up his mind to resist; and it was not a disagreeable idea to him that this fine fellow, whom he believed to be his cousin under the rose, would witness, perhaps with some jealousy, Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt play the commanding part of betrothed lover to a splendid girl whom the cousin had already looked at with admiration. Grandcourt himself was not jealous of anything unless it threatened his mastery--which he did not think himself likely to lose. CHAPTER XXIX. "Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow. As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps anywhere around the globe." --WALT WHITMAN. "Now my cousins are at Diplow," said Grandcourt, "will you go there?--to-morrow? The carriage shall come for Mrs. Davilow. You can tell me what you would like done in the rooms. Things must be put in decent order while we are away at Ryelands. And to-morrow is the only day." He was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at Offendene, one hand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between his crossed knees--in the attitude of a man who is much interested in watching the person next to him. Gwendolen, who had always disliked needlework, had taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement, and now held a piece of white embroidery which, on examination, would have shown many false stitches. During the last eight or nine days their hours had been chiefly spent on horseback, but some margin had always been left for this more difficult sort of companionship, which, however, Gwendolen had not found disagreeable. She was very well satisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to her lively questions about what he had seen and done in his life, bore drawling very well. From the first she had noticed that he knew what to say; and she was constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the fool in his composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to her the impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what he did not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt's behavior as a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage which was inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its effects in a gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her cheek but her neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by surprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise too and say, "I beg your pardon--did I annoy you?" "Oh, it was nothing," said Gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, "only I cannot bear--to be kissed under my ear." She sat down again with a little playful laugh, but all the while she felt her heart beating with a vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him as she had flouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and he had been contented not to transgress again. To-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had come from London, and Mrs. Davilow had just left the room after bringing in for admiration the beautiful things (of Grandcourt's ordering) which lay scattered about on the tables. Gwendolen was just then enjoying the scenery of her life. She let her hands fall on her lap, and said with a pretty air of perversity, "Why is to-morrow the only day?" "Because the next day is the first with the hounds," said Grandcourt. "And after that?" "After that I must go away for a couple of days--it's a bore--but I shall go one day and come back the next." Grandcourt noticed a change in her face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on hers, and said, "You object to my going away?" "It's no use objecting," said Gwendolen, coldly. She was resisting to the utmost her temptation to tell him that she suspected to whom he was going--the temptation to make a clean breast, speaking without restraint. "Yes it is," said Grandcourt, enfolding her hand. "I will put off going. And I will travel at night, so as only to be away one day." He thought that he knew the reason of what he inwardly called this bit of temper, and she was particularly fascinating to him at this moment. "Then don't put off going, but travel at night," said Gwendolen, feeling that she could command him, and finding in this peremptoriness a small outlet for her irritation. "Then you will go to Diplow to-morrow?" "Oh, yes, if you wish it," said Gwendolen, in a high tone of careless assent. Her concentration in other feelings had really hindered her from taking notice that her hand was being held. "How you treat us poor devils of men!" said Grandcourt, lowering his tone. "We are always getting the worst of it." "_Are_ you?" said Gwendolen, in a tone of inquiry, looking at him more naïvely than usual. She longed to believe this commonplace _badinage_ as the serious truth about her lover: in that case, she too was justified. If she knew everything, Mrs. Glasher would appear more blamable than Grandcourt. "_Are_ you always getting the worst?" "Yes. Are you as kind to me as I am to you?" said Grandcourt, looking into her eyes with his narrow gaze. Gwendolen felt herself stricken. She was conscious of having received so much, that her sense of command was checked, and sank away in the perception that, look around her as she might, she could not turn back: it was as if she had consented to mount a chariot where another held the reins; and it was not in her nature to leap out in the eyes of the world. She had not consented in ignorance, and all she could say now would be a confession that she had not been ignorant. Her right to explanation was gone. All she had to do now was to adjust herself, so that the spikes of that unwilling penance which conscience imposed should not gall her. With a sort of mental shiver, she resolutely changed her mental attitude. There had been a little pause, during which she had not turned away her eyes; and with a sudden break into a smile, she said, "If I were as kind to you as you are to me, that would spoil your generosity: it would no longer be as great as it could be--and it is that now." "Then I am not to ask for one kiss," said Grandcourt, contented to pay a large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced marriage by the finest contrast. "Not one?" said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly. He lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it respectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this one. His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness. "Apropos," she said, taking up her work again, "is there any one besides Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?--or do you leave them _tete-à-tete_? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with her chignon." "She has a sister with her," said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a smile, "and there are two men besides--one of them you know, I believe." "Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him," said Gwendolen, shaking her head. "You saw him at Leubronn--young Deronda--a young fellow with the Mallingers." Gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work, got cold. "I never spoke to him," she said, dreading any discernible change in herself. "Is he not disagreeable?" "No, not particularly," said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. "He thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced to you." "No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away. That was all. What is he?" "A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger's. Nothing of any consequence." "Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!" said Gwendolen, speaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. "I wonder if it has left off raining!" she added, rising and going to look out of the window. Happily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on Criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her mother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in her riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked as well as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting which seems formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a superstitious dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised over her thought--lest the first interference of his in her life might foreshadow some future influence. It is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. And superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their foreboding. The time before luncheon was taken up for Gwendolen by going over the rooms with Mrs. Torrington and Mrs. Davilow; and she thought it likely that if she saw Deronda, there would hardly be need for more than a bow between them. She meant to notice him as little as possible. And after all she found herself under an inward compulsion too strong for her pride. From the first moment of their being in the room together, she seemed to herself to be doing nothing but notice him; everything else was automatic performance of an habitual part. When he took his place at lunch, Grandcourt had said, "Deronda, Miss Harleth tells me you were not introduced to her at Leubronn?" "Miss Harleth hardly remembers me, I imagine," said Deronda, looking at her quite simply, as they bowed. "She was intensely occupied when I saw her." Now, did he suppose that she had not suspected him of being the person who redeemed her necklace? "On the contrary. I remember you very well," said Gwendolen, feeling rather nervous, but governing herself and looking at him in return with new examination. "You did not approve of my playing at roulette." "How did you come to that conclusion?" said Deronda, gravely. "Oh, you cast an evil eye on my play," said Gwendolen, with a turn of her head and a smile. "I began to lose as soon as you came to look on. I had always been winning till then." "Roulette in such a kennel as Leubronn is a horrid bore," said Grandcourt. "_I_ found it a bore when I began to lose," said Gwendolen. Her face was turned toward Grandcourt as she smiled and spoke, but she gave a sidelong glance at Deronda, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a look so gravely penetrating that it had a keener edge for her than his ironical smile at her losses--a keener edge than Klesmer's judgment. She wheeled her neck round as if she wanted to listen to what was being said by the rest, while she was only thinking of Deronda. His face had that disturbing kind of form and expression which threatens to affect opinion--as if one's standard was somehow wrong. (Who has not seen men with faces of this corrective power till they frustrated it by speech or action?) His voice, heard now for the first time, was to Grandcourt's toneless drawl, which had been in her ears every day, as the deep notes of a violoncello to the broken discourse of poultry and other lazy gentry in the afternoon sunshine. Grandcourt, she inwardly conjectured, was perhaps right in saying that Deronda thought too much of himself:--a favorite way of explaining a superiority that humiliates. However the talk turned on the rinderpest and Jamaica, and no more was said about roulette. Grandcourt held that the Jamaica negro was a beastly sort of baptist Caliban; Deronda said he had always felt a little with Caliban, who naturally had his own point of view and could sing a good song; Mrs. Davilow observed that her father had an estate in Barbadoes, but that she herself had never been in the West Indies; Mrs. Torrington was sure she should never sleep in her bed if she lived among blacks; her husband corrected her by saying that the blacks would be manageable enough if it were not for the half-breeds; and Deronda remarked that the whites had to thank themselves for the half-breeds. While this polite pea-shooting was going on, Gwendolen trifled with her jelly, and looked at every speaker in turn that she might feel at ease in looking at Deronda. "I wonder what he thinks of me, really? He must have felt interested in me, else he would not have sent me my necklace. I wonder what he thinks of my marriage? What notions has he to make him so grave about things? Why is he come to Diplow?" These questions ran in her mind as the voice of an uneasy longing to be judged by Deronda with unmixed admiration--a longing which had had its seed in her first resentment at his critical glance. Why did she care so much about the opinion of this man who was "nothing of any consequence"? She had no time to find the reason--she was too much engaged in caring. In the drawing-room, when something had called Grandcourt away, she went quite unpremeditatedly up to Deronda, who was standing at a table apart, turning over some prints, and said to him, "Shall you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Deronda?" "Yes, I believe so." "You don't object to hunting, then?" "I find excuses for it. It is a sin I am inclined to--when I can't get boating or cricketing." "Do you object to my hunting?" said Gwendolen, with a saucy movement of the chin. "I have no right to object to anything you choose to do." "You thought you had a right to object to my gambling," persisted Gwendolen. "I was sorry for it. I am not aware that I told you of my objection," said Deronda, with his usual directness of gaze--a large-eyed gravity, innocent of any intention. His eyes had a peculiarity which has drawn many men into trouble; they were of a dark yet mild intensity which seemed to express a special interest in every one on whom he fixed them, and might easily help to bring on him those claims which ardently sympathetic people are often creating in the minds of those who need help. In mendicant fashion we make the goodness of others a reason for exorbitant demands on them. That sort of effect was penetrating Gwendolen. "You hindered me from gambling again," she answered. But she had no sooner spoken than she blushed over face and neck; and Deronda blushed, too, conscious that in the little affair of the necklace he had taken a questionable freedom. It was impossible to speak further; and she turned away to a window, feeling that she had stupidly said what she had not meant to say, and yet being rather happy that she had plunged into this mutual understanding. Deronda also did not dislike it. Gwendolen seemed more decidedly attractive than before; and certainly there had been changes going on within her since that time at Leubronn: the struggle of mind attending a conscious error had wakened something like a new soul, which had better, but also worse, possibilities than her former poise of crude self-confidence: among the forces she had come to dread was something within her that troubled satisfaction. That evening Mrs. Davilow said, "Was it really so, or only a joke of yours, about Mr. Deronda's spoiling your play, Gwen?" Her curiosity had been excited, and she could venture to ask a question that did not concern Mr. Grandcourt. "Oh, it merely happened that he was looking on when I began to lose," said Gwendolen, carelessly. "I noticed him." "I don't wonder at that: he is a striking young man. He puts me in mind of Italian paintings. One would guess, without being told, that there was foreign blood in his veins." "Is there?" said Gwendolen. "Mrs. Torrington says so. I asked particularly who he was, and she told me that his mother was some foreigner of high rank." "His mother?" said Gwendolen, rather sharply. "Then who was his father?" "Well--every one says he is the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger, who brought him up; though he passes for a ward. She says, if Sir Hugo Mallinger could have done as he liked with his estates, he would have left them to this Mr. Deronda, since he has no legitimate son." Gwendolen was silent; but her mother observed so marked an effect in her face that she was angry with herself for having repeated Mrs. Torrington's gossip. It seemed, on reflection, unsuited to the ear of her daughter, for whom Mrs. Davilow disliked what is called knowledge of the world; and indeed she wished that she herself had not had any of it thrust upon her. An image which had immediately arisen in Gwendolen's mind was that of the unknown mother--no doubt a dark-eyed woman--probably sad. Hardly any face could be less like Deronda's than that represented as Sir Hugo's in a crayon portrait at Diplow. A dark-eyed woman, no longer young, had become "stuff o' the conscience" to Gwendolen. That night when she had got into her little bed, and only a dim light was burning, she said, "Mamma, have men generally children before they are married?" "No, dear, no," said Mrs. Davilow. "Why do you ask such a question?" (But she began to think that she saw the why.) "If it were so, I ought to know," said Gwendolen, with some indignation. "You are thinking of what I said about Mr. Deronda and Sir Hugo Mallinger. That is a very unusual case, dear." "Does Lady Mallinger know?" "She knows enough to satisfy her. That is quite clear, because Mr. Deronda has lived with them." "And people think no worse of him?" "Well, of course he is under some disadvantage: it is not as if he were Lady Mallinger's son. He does not inherit the property, and he is not of any consequence in the world. But people are not obliged to know anything about his birth; you see, he is very well received." "I wonder whether he knows about it; and whether he is angry with his father?" "My dear child, why should you think of that?" "Why?" said Gwendolen, impetuously, sitting up in her bed. "Haven't children reason to be angry with their parents? How can they help their parents marrying or not marrying?" But a consciousness rushed upon her, which made her fall back again on her pillow. It was not only what she would have felt months before--that she might seem to be reproaching her mother for that second marriage of hers; what she chiefly felt now was that she had been led on to a condemnation which seemed to make her own marriage a forbidden thing. There was no further talk, and till sleep came over her Gwendolen lay struggling with the reasons against that marriage--reasons which pressed upon her newly now that they were unexpectedly mirrored in the story of a man whose slight relations with her had, by some hidden affinity, bitten themselves into the most permanent layers of feeling. It was characteristic that, with all her debating, she was never troubled by the question whether the indefensibleness of her marriage did not include the fact that she had accepted Grandcourt solely as a man whom it was convenient for her to marry, not in the least as one to whom she would be binding herself in duty. Gwendolen's ideas were pitiably crude; but many grand difficulties of life are apt to force themselves on us in our crudity. And to judge wisely, I suppose we must know how things appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance making the larger part of the world's history. In the morning there was a double excitement for her. She was going to hunt, from which scruples about propriety had threatened to hinder her, until it was found that Mrs. Torrington was horsewoman enough to accompany her--going to hunt for the first time since her escapade with Rex; and she was going again to see Deronda, in whom, since last night, her interest had so gathered that she expected, as people do about revealed celebrities, to see something in his appearance which she had missed before. What was he going to be? What sort of life had he before him--he being nothing of any consequence? And with only a little difference in events he might have been as important as Grandcourt, nay--her imagination inevitably went into that direction--might have held the very estates which Grandcourt was to have. But now, Deronda would probably some day see her mistress of the Abbey at Topping, see her bearing the title which would have been his own wife's. These obvious, futile thoughts of what might have been, made a new epoch for Gwendolen. She, whose unquestionable habit it had been to take the best that came to her for less than her own claim, had now to see the position which tempted her in a new light, as a hard, unfair exclusion of others. What she had now heard about Deronda seemed to her imagination to throw him into one group with Mrs. Glasher and her children; before whom she felt herself in an attitude of apology--she who had hitherto been surrounded by a group that in her opinion had need be apologetic to her. Perhaps Deronda himself was thinking of these things. Could he know of Mrs. Glasher? If he knew that she knew, he would despise her; but he could have no such knowledge. Would he, without that, despise her for marrying Grandcourt? His possible judgment of her actions was telling on her as importunately as Klesmer's judgment of her powers; but she found larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage, because it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves than to make our ability strike others. "How can I help it?" is not our favorite apology for incompetency. But Gwendolen felt some strength in saying, "How can I help what other people have done? Things would not come right if I were to turn round now and declare that I would not marry Mr. Grandcourt." And such turning round was out of the question. The horses in the chariot she had mounted were going at full speed. This mood of youthful, elated desperation had a tidal recurrence. She could dare anything that lay before her sooner than she could choose to go backward, into humiliation; and it was even soothing to think that there would now be as much ill-doing in the one as in the other. But the immediate delightful fact was the hunt, where she would see Deronda, and where he would see her; for always lurking ready to obtrude before other thoughts about him was the impression that he was very much interested in her. But to-day she was resolved not to repeat her folly of yesterday, as if she were anxious to say anything to him. Indeed, the hunt would be too absorbing. And so it was for a long while. Deronda was there, and within her sight very often; but this only added to the stimulus of a pleasure which Gwendolen had only once before tasted, and which seemed likely always to give a delight independent of any crosses, except such as took away the chance of riding. No accident happened to throw them together; the run took them within convenient reach of home, and the agreeable sombreness of the gray November afternoon, with a long stratum of yellow light in the west, Gwendolen was returning with the company from Diplow, who were attending her on the way to Offendene. Now the sense of glorious excitement was over and gone, she was getting irritably disappointed that she had had no opportunity of speaking to Deronda, whom she would not see again, since he was to go away in a couple of days. What was she going to say? That was not quite certain. She wanted to speak to him. Grandcourt was by her side; Mrs. Torrington, her husband, and another gentleman in advance; and Deronda's horse she could hear behind. The wish to speak to him and have him speaking to her was becoming imperious; and there was no chance of it unless she simply asserted her will and defied everything. Where the order of things could give way to Miss Gwendolen, it must be made to do so. They had lately emerged from a wood of pines and beeches, where the twilight stillness had a repressing effect, which increased her impatience. The horse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance were a growing irritation. She reined in her horse and looked behind her; Grandcourt after a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and nodding sideways with playful imperiousness, said, "Go on! I want to speak to Mr. Deronda." Grandcourt hesitated; but that he would have done after any proposition. It was an awkward situation for him. No gentleman, before marriage, could give the emphasis of refusal to a command delivered in this playful way. He rode on slowly, and she waited till Deronda came up. He looked at her with tacit inquiry, and she said at once, letting her horse go alongside of his, "Mr. Deronda, you must enlighten my ignorance. I want to know why you thought it wrong for me to gamble. Is it because I am a woman?" "Not altogether; but I regretted it the more because you were a woman," said Deronda, with an irrepressible smile. Apparently it must be understood between them now that it was he who sent the necklace. "I think it would be better for men not to gamble. It is a besotting kind of taste, likely to turn into a disease. And, besides, there is something revolting to me in raking a heap of money together, and internally chuckling over it, when others are feeling the loss of it. I should even call it base, if it were more than an exceptional lapse. There are enough inevitable turns of fortune which force us to see that our gain is another's loss:--that is one of the ugly aspects of life. One would like to reduce it as much as one could, not get amusement out of exaggerating it." Deronda's voice had gathered some indignation while he was speaking. "But you do admit that we can't help things," said Gwendolen, with a drop in her tone. The answer had not been anything like what she had expected. "I mean that things are so in spite of us; we can't always help it that our gain is another's loss." "Clearly. Because of that, we should help it where we can." Gwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing herself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said, "But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?" "Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are." "But suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are," said Gwendolen with a little air of "check!" "That is rather a difficulty," said Deronda, smiling. "I suppose I should have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other to be good." "You see, I needed you to be better than I was--and you thought so," said Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward and joined Grandcourt, who made no observation. "Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?" said Gwendolen, whose own pride required her to account for her conduct. "A--no," said Grandcourt, coldly. "Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken--that you don't wish to hear what I had to say," said Gwendolen, playing at a pout. "I wish to hear what you say to me--not to other men," said Grandcourt. "Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon." "Yes--but excuse me the sermon." If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt cared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that she was mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw he was piqued, but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of speaking again to Deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the rest toward Diplow, while her lover attended her to Offendene, where he was to bid farewell before a whole day's absence on the unspecified journey. Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he was going by train to Gadsmere. CHAPTER XXX. No penitence and no confessional, No priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit Amid deep ashes of their vanished years. Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone, and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow darkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an agreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the low-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with spreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some Scotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a rookery: on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the water-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast meadow which might be called a park, bordered by an old plantation and guarded by stone lodges which looked like little prisons. Outside the gate the country, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was chiefly peopled by men and brethren with candles stuck in their hats, and with a diabolic complexion which laid them peculiarly open to suspicion in the eyes of the children at Gadsmere--Mrs. Glasher's four beautiful children, who had dwelt there for about three years. Now, in November, when the flower-beds were empty, the trees leafless, and the pool blackly shivering, one might have said that the place was sombrely in keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put the district in mourning;--except when the children were playing on the gravel with the dogs for their companions. But Mrs. Glasher, under her present circumstances, liked Gadsmere as well as she would have liked any other abode. The complete seclusion of the place, which the unattractiveness of the country secured, was exactly to her taste. When she drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were no gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at church there were no eyes she cared to avoid, for the curate's wife and the curate himself were either ignorant of anything to her disadvantage, or ignored it: to them she was simply a widow lady, the tenant of Gadsmere; and the name of Grandcourt was of little interest in that district compared with the names of Fletcher and Gawcome, the lessees of the collieries. It was full ten years since the elopement of an Irish officer's beautiful wife with young Grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the bullets wounded the air only, had made some little noise. Most of those who remembered the affair now wondered what had become of that Mrs. Glasher, whose beauty and brilliancy had made her rather conspicuous to them in foreign places, where she was known to be living with young Grandcourt. That he should have disentangled himself from that connection seemed only natural and desirable. As to her, it was thought that a woman who was understood to have forsaken her child along with her husband had probably sunk lower. Grandcourt had of course got weary of her. He was much given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would by this time desire to make a suitable marriage with the fair young daughter of a noble house. No one talked of Mrs. Glasher now, any more than they talked of the victim in a trial for manslaughter ten years before: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out an expedition of search; but Grandcourt was seen in harbor with his colors flying, registered as seaworthy as ever. Yet, in fact, Grandcourt had never disentangled himself from Mrs. Glasher. His passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he had ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked flute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of her husband three years before, had prompted in him a vacillating notion of marrying her, in accordance with the understanding often expressed between them during the days of his first ardor. At that early time Grandcourt would willingly have paid for the freedom to be won by a divorce; but the husband would not oblige him, not wanting to be married again himself, and not wishing to have his domestic habits printed in evidence. The altered poise which the years had brought in Mrs. Glasher was just the reverse. At first she was comparatively careless about the possibility of marriage. It was enough that she had escaped from a disagreeable husband and found a sort of bliss with a lover who had completely fascinated her--young, handsome, amorous, and living in the best style, with equipage and conversation of the kind to be expected in young men of fortune who have seen everything. She was an impassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five years of marital rudeness; and the sense of release was so strong upon her that it stilled anxiety for more than she actually enjoyed. An equivocal position was of no importance to her then; she had no envy for the honors of a dull, disregarded wife: the one spot which spoiled her vision of her new pleasant world, was the sense that she left her three-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones saying "mamma" retained a difference from those of the children that came after. But now the years had brought many changes besides those in the contour of her cheek and throat; and that Grandcourt should marry her had become her dominant desire. The equivocal position which she had not minded about for herself was now telling upon her through her children, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion of atonement. She had no repentance except in this direction. If Grandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for what had passed: they would see their mother in a dignified position, and they would be at no disadvantage with the world: her son could be made his father's heir. It was the yearning for this result which gave the supreme importance to Grandcourt's feeling for her; her love for him had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should give her the unique, permanent claim of a wife, and she expected no other happiness in marriage than the satisfaction of her maternal love and pride--including her pride for herself in the presence of her children. For the sake of that result she was prepared even with a tragic firmness to endure anything quietly in marriage; and she had acuteness enough to cherish Grandcourt's flickering purpose negatively, by not molesting him with passionate appeals and with scene-making. In her, as in every one else who wanted anything of him, his incalculable turns, and his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created a reasonable dread:--a slow discovery, of which no presentiment had been given in the bearing of a youthful lover with a fine line of face and the softest manners. But reticence had necessarily cost something to this impassioned woman, and she was the bitterer for it. There is no quailing--even that forced on the helpless and injured--which has not an ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. She was absolutely dependent on Grandcourt; for though he had been always liberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his part; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for nothing less. He had said that he would never settle anything except by will; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often occurred to her that, even if she did not become Grandcourt's wife, he might never have a son who would have a legitimate claim on him, and the end might be that her son would be made heir to the best part of his estates. No son at that early age could promise to have more of his father's physique. But her becoming Grandcourt's wife was so far from being an extravagant notion of possibility, that even Lush had entertained it, and had said that he would as soon bet on it as on any other likelihood with regard to his familiar companion. Lush, indeed, on inferring that Grandcourt had a preconception of using his residence at Diplow in order to win Miss Arrowpoint, had thought it well to fan that project, taking it as a tacit renunciation of the marriage with Mrs. Glasher, which had long been a mark for the hovering and wheeling of Grandcourt's caprice. But both prospects had been negatived by Gwendolen's appearance on the scene; and it was natural enough for Mrs. Glasher to enter with eagerness into Lush's plan of hindering that new danger by setting up a barrier in the mind of the girl who was being sought as a bride. She entered into it with an eagerness which had passion in it as well as purpose, some of the stored-up venom delivering itself in that way. After that, she had heard from Lush of Gwendolen's departure, and the probability that all danger from her was got rid of; but there had been no letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a certainty. She had since then written to Grandcourt, as she did habitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. She was inferring that he might intend coming to Gadsmere at the time when he was actually on the way; and she was not without hope--what construction of another's mind is not strong wishing equal to?--that a certain sickening from that frustrated courtship might dispose him to slip the more easily into the old track of intention. Grandcourt had two grave purposes in coming to Gadsmere: to convey the news of his approaching marriage in person, in order to make this first difficulty final; and to get from Lydia his mother's diamonds, which long ago he had confided to her and wished her to wear. Her person suited diamonds, and made them look as if they were worth some of the money given for them. These particular diamonds were not mountains of light--they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair; but they were worth some thousands, and Grandcourt necessarily wished to have them for his wife. Formerly when he had asked Lydia to put them into his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer and ought to be deposited at the bank, she had quietly but absolutely refused, declaring that they were quite safe; and at last had said, "If you ever marry another woman I will give them up to her: are you going to marry another woman?" At that time Grandcourt had no motive which urged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that the disposition to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing others or exciting in them a rage which they dared not express--a disposition which was active in him as other propensities became languid--had always been in abeyance before Lydia. A severe interpreter might say that the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy position of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing banquet for his delight in dominating. But there was something else than this in his forbearance toward her: there was the surviving though metamorphosed effect of the power she had had over him; and it was this effect, the fitful dull lapse toward solicitations that once had the zest now missing from life, which had again and again inclined him to espouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of novelty. But now novelty had taken hold of him and urged him to make the most of it. Mrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually passed her mornings with her children round her. It had a square projecting window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward a little brook that entered the pool. The top of a low, black cabinet, the old oak table, the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the children's toys, books and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in pastel looked down from the walls with smiling indulgence. The children were all there. The three girls, seated round their mother near the widow, were miniature portraits of her--dark-eyed, delicate-featured brunettes with a rich bloom on their cheeks, their little nostrils and eyebrows singularly finished as if they were tiny women, the eldest being barely nine. The boy was seated on the carpet at some distance, bending his blonde head over the animals from a Noah's ark, admonishing them separately in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally licking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold. Josephine, the eldest, was having her French lesson; and the others, with their dolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the Madonna. Mrs. Glasher's toilet had been made very carefully--each day now she said to herself that Grandcourt might come in. Her head, which, spite of emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp curves of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above her bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which Grandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had any pleasure in her toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the glass was, "How changed!"--but such good in life as remained to her she would keep. If her chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself getting the comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. The little faces beside her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of the blooming curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor. But the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient. That love was now the one end of her life. Suddenly Mrs. Glasher turned away her head from Josephine's book and listened. "Hush, dear! I think some one is coming." Henleigh the boy jumped up and said, "Mamma, is it the miller with my donkey?" He got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his question in an insistent tone. But the door opened, and the servant announced Mr. Grandcourt. Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh frowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three little girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of them any particular liking for this friend of mamma's--in fact, when he had taken Mrs. Glasher's hand and then turned to put his other hand on Henleigh's head, that energetic scion began to beat the friend's arm away with his fists. The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted under the chin and kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send them into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting with the dogs on the gravel. "How far are you come?" said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his hat and overcoat. "From Diplow," he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and looking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted. "You are tired, then." "No, I rested at the Junction--a hideous hole. These railway journeys are always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked." Grandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning the handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless boot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman quivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to incline toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their interview and what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in rate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more conscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were dulling into a more neutral obstinacy. "I expected to see you--it was so long since I had heard from you. I suppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow," said Mrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to go with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its form. "Yes," drawled Grandcourt. "But you found the money paid into the bank." "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always before--at least she fancied so--Grandcourt had taken more notice of her and the children than he did to-day. "Yes," he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking at her, "the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me; generally it is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening, as you know"--here he turned his eyes upon her. "What do I know?" said she, sharply. He left a pause before he said, without change of manner, "That I was thinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?" "_She_ told you that?" The pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness in the eyes above them. "No. Lush told me," was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw and the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of the expectant victim. "Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her," she burst out, passionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped. "Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia," said he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the pain worse. "You didn't always see the necessity." "Perhaps not. I see it now." In those few under-toned words of Grandcourt's she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal--shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not weep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running forward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest chair. Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself, and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it; but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little annoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner of the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly, "All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are importunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss Harleth." "Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is of no use to harp on things that can't be altered. Of course, its deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I've taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to--you and the children will be provided for as usual--and there's an end of it." Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look had had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and struggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others wretched, besides herself. Presently he went on, "It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live where you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then. Whatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done beforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry." Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented; if it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change, and after a minute he said, "You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I don't care a curse about the money." "If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us," said Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible. "That's a devilishly unfair thing to say," Grandcourt replied, in a lower tone; "and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again." "Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" In spite of herself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other. "There is no question about leaving the children in beggary," said Grandcourt, still in his low voice. "I advise you not to say things that you will repent of." "I am used to repenting," said she, bitterly. "Perhaps you will repent. You have already repented of loving me." "All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again. What friend have you besides me?" "Quite true." The words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed through her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness than that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness which would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he was young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she that had to suffer. With this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay till evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable train earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still to speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a second surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had to go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this mechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of constraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind. To Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the children present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it would taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them--a secret darting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself with all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been moulded on an experience of boredom--nursed the little Antonia, who sat with her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck her as worthy of observation--and propitiated Henleigh by promising him a beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had known him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had overlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt's bearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the presence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they never spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt's mind all the while was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds, which obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He had an ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about property he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of indignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. But however he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher's past, he had made a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could impose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen. At last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to face with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in an apparently indifferent drawl, "There is one thing I had to mention, Lydia. My diamonds--you have them." "Yes, I have them," she answered promptly, rising and standing with her arms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still. She had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she meant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him. During the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which had only widened the breach between them. "They are in this house, I suppose?" "No; not in this house." "I thought you said you kept them by you." "When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley." "Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your delivering them to some one." "Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you intended them for. _I_ will make the arrangement." "What do you mean?" "What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your wife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet." "This is foolery," said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too irritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of mastery over him in spite of dependent condition. She did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the mantle-piece with his side-face toward her. "The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage," he began again. "What is your wedding-day?" "The tenth. There is no time to be lost." "And where do you go after the marriage?" He did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, "You must appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet me--or somebody else I will commission;--it's a great nuisance. Mention a day." "No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I shall keep my word." "Do you mean to say," said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face her, "that you will not do as I tell you?" "Yes, I mean that," was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes flashed close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that if her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be mischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long patience. But the word had been spoken. He was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her nor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring his mother's diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that would frighten her--if she believed it. And in general, there was nothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence even in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After looking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again, leaning as before, and said, "Infernal idiots that women are!" "Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I could be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way," said Lydia, not shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power. "Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman," said Grandcourt, with _sotto voce_ scorn. "It is not to be supposed that you will wait to think what good will come of it--or what you owe to me." He was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history of their relation to each other. It was undeniable that this woman, whose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a terrible power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his proceedings had left her opportunities open. His pride saw very ugly possibilities threatening it, and he stood for several minutes in silence reviewing the situation--considering how he could act upon her. Unlike himself she was of a direct nature, with certain simple strongly-colored tendencies, and there was one often-experienced effect which he thought he could count upon now. As Sir Hugo had said of him, Grandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion. He did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and ordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. Then he removed farther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and remained silent without turning his eyes upon her. She was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity. She saw beforehand Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her again--herself left behind in lonely uncertainty--hearing nothing from him--not knowing whether she had done her children harm--feeling that she had perhaps made him hate her;--all the wretchedness of a creature who had defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up a purpose which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. If she had not been a mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her revenge--to what she felt to be the justice of hindering another from getting happiness by willingly giving her over to misery. The two dominant passions were at struggle. She must satisfy them both. "Don't let us part in anger, Henleigh," she began, without changing her voice or attitude: "it is a very little thing I ask. If I were refusing to give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that would be a reason for treating me as if you hated me. But I ask such a little thing. If you will tell me where you are going on the wedding-day I will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to her without scandal. Without scandal," she repeated entreatingly. "Such preposterous whims make a woman odious," said Grandcourt, not giving way in look or movement. "What is the use of talking to mad people?" "Yes, I am foolish--loneliness has made me foolish--indulge me." Sobs rose as she spoke. "If you will indulge me in this one folly I will be very meek--I will never trouble you." She burst into hysterical crying, and said again almost with a scream--"I will be very meek after that." There was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She kept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small stolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was wrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence, was as unlike Lydia's bearing as it was incongruous with her person. Both had always had a stamp of dignity on them. Yet she seemed more manageable in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. He came close up to her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, "Be quiet, and hear what I tell you, I will never forgive you if you present yourself again and make a scene." She pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak firmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, "I will not--if you will let me have my way--I promise you not to thrust myself forward again. I have never broken my word to you--how many have you broken to me? When you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of having another wife. And I now give them up--I don't reproach you--I only ask you to let me give them up in my own way. Have I not borne it well? Everything is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a straw, a chip--you deny it me." She had spoken rapidly, but after a little pause she said more slowly, her voice freed from its muffled tone: "I will not bear to have it denied me." Grandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like madness; he could only govern by giving way. The servant came to say the fly was ready. When the door was shut again Grandcourt said sullenly, "We are going to Ryelands then." "They shall be delivered to her there," said Lydia, with decision. "Very well, I am going." He felt no inclination even to take her hand: she had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point, she was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him. "Forgive me; I will never vex you again," she said, with beseeching looks. Her inward voice said distinctly--"It is only I who have to forgive." Yet she was obliged to ask forgiveness. "You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill with your folly," said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement as the strongest possible use of language. "Poor thing!" cried Lydia, with a faint smile;--was he aware of the minor fact that he made her feel ill this morning? But with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax him if he would let her, that they might part in some degree reconciled. She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did not move away from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that he was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection. "Light a cigar," she said, soothingly, taking the case from his breast-pocket and opening it. Amidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that clung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery. CHAPTER XXXI. "A wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undreamed shores." --SHAKESPEARE. On the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs. Grandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low a slight frost crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing, and half Pennicote turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the church. An old friend of the rector's performed the marriage ceremony, the rector himself acting as father, to the great advantage of the procession. Only two faces, it was remarked, showed signs of sadness--Mrs. Davilow's and Anna's. The mother's delicate eyelids were pink, as if she had been crying half the night; and no one was surprised that, splendid as the match was, she should feel the parting from a daughter who was the flower of her children and of her own life. It was less understood why Anna should be troubled when she was being so well set off by the bridesmaid's dress. Every one else seemed to reflect the brilliancy of the occasion--the bride most of all. Of her it was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to be a "lady o' title": as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title required something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being fresh-colored--being indeed, as the miller's wife observed, very much of her own husband's complexion--the match was the more complete. Anyhow he must be very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he would never cast it up to her that she had been going out to service as a governess, and her mother to live at Sawyer's Cottage--vicissitudes which had been much spoken of in the village. The miller's daughter of fourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their wives, but her mother instructed her--"Oh, child, men's men: gentle or simple, they're much of a muchness. I've heard my mother say Squire Pelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his wife's room, and flog 'em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady's-maid there at the very time." "That's unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle," said the tailor. "A quarrel may end wi' the whip, but it begins wi' the tongue, and it's the women have got the most o' that." "The Lord gave it 'em to use, I suppose," said Mrs. Girdle. "_He_ never meant you to have it all your own way." "By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming at Offendene," said the tailor, "this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful little tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering." "Then he's the more whip, I doubt," said Mrs. Girdle. "_She's_ got tongue enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!" "What wonderful long corners she's got to her eyes!" said the tailor. "She makes you feel comical when she looks at you." Gwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more lustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong excitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain, however, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the same condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when Deronda was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an enjoyment in it: whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created was disregarded as an ailment might have been, amidst the gratification of that ambitious vanity and desire for luxury within her which it would take a great deal of slow poisoning to kill. This morning she could not have said truly that she repented her acceptance of Grandcourt, or that any fears in hazy perspective could hinder the glowing effect of the immediate scene in which she was the central object. That she was doing something wrong--that a punishment might be hanging over her--that the woman to whom she had given a promise and broken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and misery with a just reproach--that Deronda with his way of looking into things very likely despised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had despised her for gambling--above all, that the cord which united her with this lover and which she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being flung over her neck,--all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague but deep impressions, and with images half real, half fantastic, had been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was that agitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted and thrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to win much--or if to lose, still with _éclat_ and a sense of importance. But this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press upon her as a fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power of managing circumstances--with all the official strength of marriage, which some women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful egoism out of which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a new sense of culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed strength of the old fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal of the tearful, tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged much too forward and instructed in the world's ways!--with her erect head and elastic footstep she was walking among illusions; and yet, too, there was an under-consciousness of her that she was a little intoxicated. "Thank God you bear it so well, my darling!" said Mrs. Davilow, when she had helped Gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her traveling dress. All the trembling had been done by the poor mother, and her agitation urged Gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it were a triumph. "Why, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompert's, you dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!" said Gwendolen just putting her hands to her mother's cheeks with laughing tenderness--then retreating a little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: "Here am I--Mrs. Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to be? You know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that I would not be Mrs. Grandcourt." "Hush, hush, my child, for heaven's sake!" said Mrs. Davilow, almost in a whisper. "How can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I can bear anything gladly if you are happy." "Not gladly, mamma, no!" said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a bright smile. "Willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully. Sorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it." Then, clasping her mother's shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek and then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, "And you shall sorrow over my having everything at my beck---and enjoying everything glorious--splendid houses--and horses--and diamonds, I shall have diamonds--and going to court--and being Lady Certainly--and Lady Perhaps--and grand here--and tantivy there--and always loving you better than anybody else in the world." "My sweet child!--But I shall not be jealous if you love your husband better; and he will expect to be first." Gwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying, "Rather a ridiculous expectation. However, I don't mean to treat him ill, unless he deserves it." Then the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not hinder a rising sob when she said, "I wish you were going with me, mamma." But the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more charming when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage. The rector looked in on her to give a final "Good-bye; God bless you; we shall see you again before long," and then returned to Mrs. Davilow, saying half cheerfully, half solemnly, "Let us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her, and beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have been chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself a happy mother." * * * * * There was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband and wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself since the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they entered the park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the carriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand outlines and the nearer beauties of the scene--the long winding drive bordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of wide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at last came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a hanging wood for a back-ground, and the rising and sinking balustrade of a terrace in front. Gwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting incessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since yesterday; and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while she turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by both hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit quiet to be petted. She was really getting somewhat febrile in her excitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual susceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart palpitate newly. Was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible fulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being "somebody"--walking through her own furlong of corridor and under her own ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted Spring was shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-shortened Zephyrs were blowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in clothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and revered the propriety of her insolence to them:--being in short the heroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it alone the closeness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it some dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience, mixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? Hers was one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an infusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself. She fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and when her husband said, "Here we are at home!" and for the first time kissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the passive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was not all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her consciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful excitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality. But there was a brilliant light in the hall--warmth, matting, carpets, full-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many servants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those constantly in charge of the house; and Gwendolen's new maid, who had come with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen felt herself being led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor, into an ante-room where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow of light and color. "These are our dens," said Grandcourt. "You will like to be quiet here till dinner. We shall dine early." He pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he had ever expected to be. Gwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by the glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all her faint-green satin surroundings. The housekeeper had passed into this boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to linger, Gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of Ryelands, who, however, being impatient for solitude said to her, "Will you tell Hudson when she has put out my dress to leave everything? I shall not want her again, unless I ring." The housekeeper, coming forward, said, "Here is a packet, madam, which I was ordered to give into nobody's hands but yours, when you were alone. The person who brought it said it was a present particularly ordered by Mr. Grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till he saw you wear it. Excuse me, madam; I felt it right to obey orders." Gwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the doors close. It came into her mind that the packet might contain the diamonds which Grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere and to be given to her on her marriage. In this moment of confused feeling and creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this diversion--glad of such an event as having her own diamonds to try on. Within all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box there _was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the diamonds. But on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw them gleam she saw a letter lying above them. She knew the handwriting of the address. It was as if an adder had lain on them. Her heart gave a leap which seemed to have spent all her strength; and as she opened the bit of thin paper, it shook with the trembling of her hands. But it was legible as print, and thrust its words upon her. These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia Glasher, she passes on to you. You have broken your word to her, that you might possess what was hers. Perhaps you think of being happy, as she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married has a withered heart. His best young love was mine: you could not take that from me when you took the rest. It is dead: but I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul. Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us more--me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse. It seemed at first as if Gwendolen's eyes were spell-bound in reading the horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of penance; but suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and stretch out the paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at once should meet all eyes. It flew like a feather from her trembling fingers and was caught up in a great draught of flame. In her movement the casket fell on the floor and the diamonds rolled out. She took no notice, but fell back in her chair again helpless. She could not see the reflections of herself then; they were like so many women petrified white; but coming near herself you might have seen the tremor in her lips and hands. She sat so for a long while, knowing little more than that she was feeling ill, and that those written words kept repeating themselves to her. Truly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this poor young creature. After that long while, there was a tap at the door and Grandcourt entered, dressed for dinner. The sight of him brought a new nervous shock, and Gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence. He had expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down. He saw her pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels scattered around her on the floor. Was it a fit of madness? In some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold. CHAPTER XXXII. In all ages it hath been a favorite text that a potent love hath the nature of an isolated fatality, whereto the mind's opinions and wonted resolves are altogether alien; as, for example, Daphnis his frenzy, wherein it had little availed him to have been convinced of Heraclitus his doctrine; or the philtre-bred passion of Tristan, who, though he had been as deep as Duns Scotus, would have had his reasoning marred by that cup too much; or Romeo in his sudden taking for Juliet, wherein any objections he might have held against Ptolemy had made little difference to his discourse under the balcony. Yet all love is not such, even though potent; nay, this passion hath as large scope as any for allying itself with every operation of the soul: so that it shall acknowledge an effect from the imagined light of unproven firmaments, and have its scale set to the grander orbits of what hath been and shall be. Deronda, on his return to town, could assure Sir Hugo of his having lodged in Grandcourt's mind a distinct understanding that he could get fifty thousand pounds by giving up a prospect which was probably distant, and not absolutely certain; but he had no further sign of Grandcourt's disposition in the matter than that he was evidently inclined to keep up friendly communications. "And what did you think of the future bride on a nearer survey?" said Sir Hugo. "I thought better of her than I did in Leubronn. Roulette was not a good setting for her; it brought out something of the demon. At Diplow she seemed much more womanly and attractive--less hard and self-possessed. I thought her mouth and eyes had quite a different expression." "Don't flirt with her too much, Dan," said Sir Hugo, meaning to be agreeably playful. "If you make Grandcourt savage when they come to the Abbey at Christmas, it will interfere with my affairs." "I can stay in town, sir." "No, no. Lady Mallinger and the children can't do without you at Christmas. Only don't make mischief--unless you can get up a duel, and manage to shoot Grandcourt, which might be worth a little inconvenience." "I don't think you ever saw me flirt," said Deronda, not amused. "Oh, haven't I, though?" said Sir Hugo, provokingly. "You are always looking tenderly at the women, and talking to them in a Jesuitical way. You are a dangerous young fellow--a kind of Lovelace who will make the Clarissas run after you instead of you running after them." What was the use of being exasperated at a tasteless joke?--only the exasperation comes before the reflection on utility. Few friendly remarks are more annoying than the information that we are always seeming to do what we never mean to do. Sir Hugo's notion of flirting, it was to be hoped, was rather peculiar; for his own part, Deronda was sure that he had never flirted. But he was glad that the baronet had no knowledge about the repurchase of Gwendolen's necklace to feed his taste for this kind of rallying. He would be on his guard in future; for example, in his behavior at Mrs. Meyrick's, where he was about to pay his first visit since his arrival from Leubronn. For Mirah was certainly a creature in whom it was difficult not to show a tender kind of interest both by looks and speech. Mrs. Meyrick had not failed to send Deronda a report of Mirah's well-being in her family. "We are getting fonder of her every day," she had written. "At breakfast-time we all look toward the door with expectation to see her come in; and we watch her and listen to her as if she were a native from a new country. I have not heard a word from her lips that gives me a doubt about her. She is quite contented and full of gratitude. My daughters are learning from her, and they hope to get her other pupils; for she is anxious not to eat the bread of idleness, but to work, like my girls. Mab says our life has become like a fairy tale, and all she is afraid of is that Mirah will turn into a nightingale again and fly away from us. Her voice is just perfect: not loud and strong, but searching and melting, like the thoughts of what has been. That is the way old people like me feel a beautiful voice." But Mrs. Meyrick did not enter into particulars which would have required her to say that Amy and Mab, who had accompanied Mirah to the synagogue, found the Jewish faith less reconcilable with their wishes in her case than in that of Scott's Rebecca. They kept silence out of delicacy to Mirah, with whom her religion was too tender a subject to be touched lightly; but after a while Amy, who was much of a practical reformer, could not restrain a question. "Excuse me, Mirah, but _does_ it seem quite right to you that the women should sit behind rails in a gallery apart?" "Yes, I never thought of anything else," said Mirah, with mild surprise. "And you like better to see the men with their hats on?" said Mab, cautiously proposing the smallest item of difference. "Oh, yes. I like what I have always seen there, because it brings back to me the same feelings--the feelings I would not part with for anything else in the world." After this, any criticism, whether of doctrine or practice, would have seemed to these generous little people an inhospitable cruelty. Mirah's religion was of one fibre with her affections, and had never presented itself to her as a set of propositions. "She says herself she is a very bad Jewess, and does not half know her people's religion," said Amy, when Mirah was gone to bed. "Perhaps it would gradually melt away from her, and she would pass into Christianity like the rest of the world, if she got to love us very much, and never found her mother. It is so strange to be of the Jews' religion now." "Oh, oh, oh!" cried Mab. "I wish I were not such a hideous Christian. How can an ugly Christian, who is always dropping her work, convert a beautiful Jewess, who has not a fault?" "It may be wicked of me," said shrewd Kate, "but I cannot help wishing that her mother may not be found. There might be something unpleasant." "I don't think it, my dear," said Mrs. Meyrick. "I believe Mirah is cut out after the pattern of her mother. And what a joy it would be to her to have such a daughter brought back again! But a mother's feelings are not worth reckoning, I suppose" (she shot a mischievous glance at her own daughters), "and a dead mother is worth more than a living one?" "Well, and so she may be, little mother," said Kate; "but we would rather hold you cheaper, and have you alive." Not only the Meyricks, whose various knowledge had been acquired by the irregular foraging to which clever girls have usually been reduced, but Deronda himself, with all his masculine instruction, had been roused by this apparition of Mirah to the consciousness of knowing hardly anything about modern Judaism or the inner Jewish history. The Chosen People have been commonly treated as a people chosen for the sake of somebody else; and their thinking as something (no matter exactly what) that ought to have been entirely otherwise; and Deronda, like his neighbors, had regarded Judaism as a sort of eccentric fossilized form which an accomplished man might dispense with studying, and leave to specialists. But Mirah, with her terrified flight from one parent, and her yearning after the other, had flashed on him the hitherto neglected reality that Judaism was something still throbbing in human lives, still making for them the only conceivable vesture of the world; and in the idling excursion on which he immediately afterward set out with Sir Hugo he began to look for the outsides of synagogues, and the title of books about the Jews. This awakening of a new interest--this passing from the supposition that we hold the right opinions on a subject we are careless about, to a sudden care for it, and a sense that our opinions were ignorance--is an effectual remedy for _ennui_, which, unhappily, cannot be secured on a physician's prescription; but Deronda had carried it with him, and endured his weeks of lounging all the better. It was on this journey that he first entered a Jewish synagogue--at Frankfort--where his party rested on a Friday. In exploring the Juden-gasse, which he had seen long before, he remembered well enough its picturesque old houses; what his eyes chiefly dwelt on now were the human types there; and his thought, busily connecting them with the past phases of their race, stirred that fibre of historic sympathy which had helped to determine in him certain traits worth mentioning for those who are interested in his future. True, when a young man has a fine person, no eccentricity of manners, the education of a gentleman, and a present income, it is not customary to feel a prying curiosity about his way of thinking, or his peculiar tastes. He may very well be settled in life as an agreeable clever young fellow without passing a special examination on those heads. Later, when he is getting rather slovenly and portly, his peculiarities are more distinctly discerned, and it is taken as a mercy if they are not highly objectionable. But any one wishing to understand the effect of after-events on Deronda should know a little more of what he was at five-and-twenty than was evident in ordinary intercourse. It happened that the very vividness of his impressions had often made him the more enigmatic to his friends, and had contributed to an apparent indefiniteness in his sentiments. His early-wakened sensibility and reflectiveness had developed into a many-sided sympathy, which threatened to hinder any persistent course of action: as soon as he took up any antagonism, though only in thought, he seemed to himself like the Sabine warriors in the memorable story--with nothing to meet his spear but flesh of his flesh, and objects that he loved. His imagination had so wrought itself to the habit of seeing things as they probably appeared to others, that a strong partisanship, unless it were against an immediate oppression, had become an insincerity for him. His plenteous, flexible sympathy had ended by falling into one current with that reflective analysis which tends to neutralize sympathy. Few men were able to keep themselves clearer of vices than he; yet he hated vices mildly, being used to think of them less in the abstract than as a part of mixed human natures having an individual history, which it was the bent of his mind to trace with understanding and pity. With the same innate balance he was fervidly democratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet, through his affections and imagination, intensely conservative; voracious of speculations on government and religion, yet loth to part with long-sanctioned forms which, for him, were quick with memories and sentiments that no argument could lay dead. We fall on the leaning side; and Deronda suspected himself of loving too well the losing causes of the world. Martyrdom changes sides, and he was in danger of changing with it, having a strong repugnance to taking up that clue of success which the order of the world often forces upon us and makes it treason against the common weal to reject. And yet his fear of falling into an unreasoning narrow hatred made a check for him: he apologized for the heirs of privilege; he shrank with dislike from the loser's bitterness and the denunciatory tone of the unaccepted innovator. A too reflective and diffusive sympathy was in danger of paralyzing in him that indignation against wrong and that selectness of fellowship which are the conditions of moral force; and in the last few years of confirmed manhood he had become so keenly aware of this that what he most longed for was either some external event, or some inward light, that would urge him into a definite line of action, and compress his wandering energy. He was ceasing to care for knowledge--he had no ambition for practice--unless they could both be gathered up into one current with his emotions; and he dreaded, as if it were a dwelling-place of lost souls, that dead anatomy of culture which turns the universe into a mere ceaseless answer to queries, and knows, not everything, but everything else about everything--as if one should be ignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets except the scent itself for which one had no nostril. But how and whence was the needed event to come?--the influence that would justify partiality, and make him what he longed to be, yet was unable to make himself--an organic part of social life, instead of roaming in it like a yearning disembodied spirit, stirred with a vague social passion, but without fixed local habitation to render fellowship real? To make a little difference for the better was what he was not contented to live without; but how to make it? It is one thing to see your road, another to cut it. He found some of the fault in his birth and the way he had been brought up, which had laid no special demands on him and had given him no fixed relationship except one of a doubtful kind; but he did not attempt to hide from himself that he had fallen into a meditative numbness, and was gliding farther and farther from that life of practically energetic sentiment which he would have proclaimed (if he had been inclined to proclaim anything) to be the best of all life, and for himself the only way worth living. He wanted some way of keeping emotion and its progeny of sentiments--which make the savors of life--substantial and strong in the face of a reflectiveness that threatened to nullify all differences. To pound the objects of sentiment into small dust, yet keep sentiment alive and active, was something like the famous recipe for making cannon--to first take a round hole and then enclose it with iron; whatever you do keeping fast hold of your round hole. Yet how distinguish what our will may wisely save in its completeness, from the heaping of cat-mummies and the expensive cult of enshrined putrefactions? Something like this was the common under-current in Deronda's mind while he was reading law or imperfectly attending to polite conversation. Meanwhile he had not set about one function in particular with zeal and steadiness. Not an admirable experience, to be proposed as an ideal; but a form of struggle before break of day which some young men since the patriarch have had to pass through, with more or less of bruising if not laming. I have said that under his calm exterior he had a fervor which made him easily feel the presence of poetry in everyday events; and the forms of the Juden-gasse, rousing the sense of union with what is remote, set him musing on two elements of our historic life which that sense raises into the same region of poetry;--the faint beginnings of faiths and institutions, and their obscure lingering decay; the dust and withered remnants with which they are apt to be covered, only enhancing for the awakened perception the impressiveness either of a sublimely penetrating life, as in the twin green leaves that will become the sheltering tree, or of a pathetic inheritance in which all the grandeur and the glory have become a sorrowing memory. This imaginative stirring, as he turned out of the Juden-gasse, and continued to saunter in the warm evening air, meaning to find his way to the synagogue, neutralized the repellent effect of certain ugly little incidents on his way. Turning into an old book-shop to ask the exact time of service at the synagogue, he was affectionately directed by a precocious Jewish youth, who entered cordially into his wanting, not the fine new building of the Reformed but the old Rabbinical school of the orthodox; and then cheated him like a pure Teuton, only with more amenity, in his charge for a book quite out of request as one "nicht so leicht zu bekommen." Meanwhile at the opposite counter a deaf and grisly tradesman was casting a flinty look at certain cards, apparently combining advantages of business with religion, and shoutingly proposed to him in Jew-dialect by a dingy man in a tall coat hanging from neck to heel, a bag in hand, and a broad low hat surmounting his chosen nose--who had no sooner disappeared than another dingy man of the same pattern issued from the background glooms of the shop and also shouted in the same dialect. In fact, Deronda saw various queer-looking Israelites not altogether without guile, and just distinguishable from queer-looking Christians of the same mixed _morale_. In his anxiety about Mirah's relatives, he had lately been thinking of vulgar Jews with a sort of personal alarm. But a little comparison will often diminish our surprise and disgust at the aberrations of Jews and other dissidents whose lives do not offer a consistent or lovely pattern of their creed; and this evening Deronda, becoming more conscious that he was falling into unfairness and ridiculous exaggeration, began to use that corrective comparison: he paid his thaler too much, without prejudice to his interests in the Hebrew destiny, or his wish to find the _Rabbinische Schule_, which he arrived at by sunset, and entered with a good congregation of men. He happened to take his seat in a line with an elderly man from whom he was distant enough to glance at him more than once as rather a noticeable figure--his ample white beard and felt hat framing a profile of that fine contour which may as easily be Italian as Hebrew. He returned Deronda's notice till at last their eyes met; an undesirable chance with unknown persons, and a reason to Deronda for not looking again; but he immediately found an open prayer-book pushed toward him and had to bow his thanks. However, the congregation had mustered, the reader had mounted to the _almemor_ or platform, and the service began. Deronda, having looked enough at the German translation of the Hebrew in the book before him to know that he was chiefly hearing Psalms and Old Testament passages or phrases, gave himself up to that strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning--like the effect of an Allegri's _Miserere_ or a Palestrina's _Magnificat_. The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of Gladness, a _Gloria in excelsis_ that such Good exists; both the yearning and the exaltation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long generations of struggling fellow-men. The Hebrew liturgy, like others, has its transitions of litany, lyric, proclamation, dry statement and blessing; but this evening, all were one for Deronda: the chant of the _Chazaris_ or Reader's grand wide-ranging voice with its passage from monotony to sudden cries, the outburst of sweet boys' voices from the little choir, the devotional swaying of men's bodies backward and forward, the very commonness of the building and shabbiness of the scene where a national faith, which had penetrated the thinking of half the world, and moulded the splendid forms of that world's religion, was finding a remote, obscure echo--all were blent for him as one expression of a binding history, tragic and yet glorious. He wondered at the strength of his own feeling; it seemed beyond the occasion--what one might imagine to be a divine influx in the darkness, before there was any vision to interpret. The whole scene was a coherent strain, its burden a passionate regret, which, if he had known the liturgy for the Day of Reconciliation, he might have clad in its autithetic burden; "Happy the eye which saw all these things; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. Happy the eye that saw our temple and the joy of our congregation; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. Happy the eye that saw the fingers when tuning every kind of song; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul." But with the cessation of the devotional sounds and the movement of many indifferent faces and vulgar figures before him there darted into his mind the frigid idea that he had probably been alone in his feeling, and perhaps the only person in the congregation for whom the service was more than a dull routine. There was just time for this chilling thought before he had bowed to his civil neighbor and was moving away with the rest--when he felt a hand on his arm, and turning with the rather unpleasant sensation which this abrupt sort of claim is apt to bring, he saw close to him the white-bearded face of that neighbor, who said to him in German, "Excuse me, young gentleman--allow me--what is your parentage--your mother's family--her maiden name?" Deronda had a strongly resistant feeling: he was inclined to shake off hastily the touch on his arm; but he managed to slip it away and said coldly, "I am an Englishman." The questioner looked at him dubiously still for an instant, then just lifted his hat and turned away; whether under a sense of having made a mistake or of having been repulsed, Deronda was uncertain. In his walk back to the hotel he tried to still any uneasiness on the subject by reflecting that he could not have acted differently. How could he say that he did not know the name of his mother's family to that total stranger?--who indeed had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the abruptness of his question, dictated probably by some fancy of likeness such as often occurs without real significance. The incident, he said to himself, was trivial; but whatever import it might have, his inward shrinking on the occasion was too strong for him to be sorry that he had cut it short. It was a reason, however, for his not mentioning the synagogue to the Mallingers--in addition to his usual inclination to reticence on anything that the baronet would have been likely to call Quixotic enthusiasm. Hardly any man could be more good-natured than Sir Hugo; indeed in his kindliness especially to women, he did actions which others would have called romantic; but he never took a romantic view of them, and in general smiled at the introduction of motives on a grand scale, or of reasons that lay very far off. This was the point of strongest difference between him and Deronda, who rarely ate at breakfast without some silent discursive flight after grounds for filling up his day according to the practice of his contemporaries. This halt at Frankfort was taken on their way home, and its impressions were kept the more actively vibrating in him by the duty of caring for Mirah's welfare. That question about his parentage, which if he had not both inwardly and outwardly shaken it off as trivial, would have seemed a threat rather than a promise of revelation, and reinforced his anxiety as to the effect of finding Mirah's relatives and his resolve to proceed with caution. If he made any unpleasant discovery, was he bound to a disclosure that might cast a new net of trouble around her? He had written to Mrs. Meyrick to announce his visit at four o'clock, and he found Mirah seated at work with only Mrs. Meyrick and Mab, the open piano, and all the glorious company of engravings. The dainty neatness of her hair and dress, the glow of tranquil happiness in a face where a painter need have changed nothing if he had wanted to put it in front of the host singing "peace on earth and good will to men," made a contrast to his first vision of her that was delightful to Deronda's eyes. Mirah herself was thinking of it, and immediately on their greeting said, "See how different I am from the miserable creature by the river! all because you found me and brought me to the very best." "It was my good chance to find you," said Deronda. "Any other man would have been glad to do what I did." "That is not the right way to be thinking about it," said Mirah, shaking her head with decisive gravity, "I think of what really was. It was you, and not another, who found me and were good to me." "I agree with Mirah," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Saint Anybody is a bad saint to pray to." "Besides, Anybody could not have brought me to you," said Mirah, smiling at Mrs. Meyrick. "And I would rather be with you than with any one else in the world except my mother. I wonder if ever a poor little bird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm nest where was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything came naturally, as if it had been always there. I hardly thought before that the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me now." She looked meditative a moment, and then said, "sometimes I am a _little_ afraid." "What is it you are afraid of?" said Deronda with anxiety. "That when I am turning at the corner of a street I may meet my father. It seems dreadful that I should be afraid of meeting him. That is my only sorrow," said Mirah, plaintively. "It is surely not very probable," said Deronda, wishing that it were less so; then, not to let the opportunity escape--"Would it be a great grief to you now if you were never to meet your mother?" She did not answer immediately, but meditated again, with her eyes fixed on the opposite wall. Then she turned them on Deronda and said firmly, as if she had arrived at the exact truth, "I want her to know that I have always loved her, and if she is alive I want to comfort her. She may be dead. If she were I should long to know where she was buried; and to know whether my brother lives, to say Kaddish in memory of her. But I will try not to grieve. I have thought much for so many years of her being dead. And I shall have her with me in my mind, as I have always had. We can never be really parted. I think I have never sinned against her. I have always tried not to do what would hurt her. Only, she might be sorry that I was not a good Jewess." "In what way are you not a good Jewess?" said Deronda. "I am ignorant, and we never observed the laws, but lived among Christians just as they did. But I have heard my father laugh at the strictness of the Jews about their food and all customs, and their not liking Christians. I think my mother was strict; but she could never want me not to like those who are better to me than any of my own people I have ever known. I think I could obey in other things that she wished but not in that. It is so much easier to me to share in love than in hatred. I remember a play I read in German--since I have been here it has come into my mind--where the heroine says something like that." "_Antigone_," said Deronda. "Ah, you know it. But I do not believe that my mother would wish me not to love my best friends. She would be grateful to them." Here Mirah had turned to Mrs. Meyrick, and with a sudden lighting up of her whole countenance, she said, "Oh, if we ever do meet and know each other as we are now, so that I could tell what would comfort her--I should be so full of blessedness my soul would know no want but to love her!" "God bless you, child!" said Mrs. Meyrick, the words escaping involuntarily from her motherly heart. But to relieve the strain of feeling she looked at Deronda and said, "It is curious that Mirah, who remembers her mother so well it is as if she saw her, cannot recall her brother the least bit--except the feeling of having been carried by him when she was tired, and of his being near her when she was in her mother's lap. It must be that he was rarely at home. He was already grown up. It is a pity her brother should be quite a stranger to her." "He is good; I feel sure Ezra is good," said Mirah, eagerly. "He loved my mother--he would take care of her. I remember more of him than that. I remember my mother's voice once calling, 'Ezra!' and then his answering from a distance 'Mother!'"--Mirah had changed her voice a little in each of these words and had given them a loving intonation--"and then he came close to us. I feel sure he is good. I have always taken comfort from that." It was impossible to answer this either with agreement or doubt. Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda exchanged a quick glance: about this brother she felt as painfully dubious as he did. But Mirah went on, absorbed in her memories, "Is it not wonderful how I remember the voices better than anything else? I think they must go deeper into us than other things. I have often fancied heaven might be made of voices." "Like your singing--yes," said Mab, who had hitherto kept a modest silence, and now spoke bashfully, as was her wont in the presence of Prince Camaralzaman--"Ma, do ask Mirah to sing. Mr. Deronda has not heard her." "Would it be disagreeable to you to sing now?" said Deronda, with a more deferential gentleness than he had ever been conscious of before. "Oh, I shall like it," said Mirah. "My voice has come back a little with rest." Perhaps her ease of manner was due to something more than the simplicity of her nature. The circumstances of her life made her think of everything she did as work demanded from her, in which affectation had nothing to do; and she had begun her work before self-consciousness was born. She immediately rose and went to the piano--a somewhat worn instrument that seemed to get the better of its infirmities under the firm touch of her small fingers as she preluded. Deronda placed himself where he could see her while she sang; and she took everything as quietly as if she had been a child going to breakfast. Imagine her--it is always good to imagine a human creature in whom bodily loveliness seems as properly one with the entire being as the bodily loveliness of those wondrous transparent orbs of life that we find in the sea--imagine her with her dark hair brushed from her temples, but yet showing certain tiny rings there which had cunningly found their own way back, the mass of it hanging behind just to the nape of the little neck in curly fibres, such as renew themselves at their own will after being bathed into straightness like that of water-grasses. Then see the perfect cameo her profile makes, cut in a duskish shell, where by some happy fortune there pierced a gem-like darkness for the eye and eyebrow; the delicate nostrils defined enough to be ready for sensitive movements, the finished ear, the firm curves of the chin and neck, entering into the expression of a refinement which was not feebleness. She sang Beethoven's "Per pietà non dirmi addio" with a subdued but searching pathos which had that essential of perfect singing, the making one oblivious of art or manner, and only possessing one with the song. It was the sort of voice that gives the impression of being meant like a bird's wooing for an audience near and beloved. Deronda began by looking at her, but felt himself presently covering his eyes with his hand, wanting to seclude the melody in darkness; then he refrained from what might seem oddity, and was ready to meet the look of mute appeal which she turned toward him at the end. "I think I never enjoyed a song more than that," he said, gratefully. "You like my singing? I am so glad," she said, with a smile of delight. "It has been a great pain to me, because it failed in what it was wanted for. But now we think I can use it to get my bread. I have really been taught well. And now I have two pupils, that Miss Meyrick found for me. They pay me nearly two crowns for their two lessons." "I think I know some ladies who would find you many pupils after Christmas," said Deronda. "You would not mind singing before any one who wished to hear you?" "Oh no, I want to do something to get money. I could teach reading and speaking, Mrs. Meyrick thinks. But if no one would learn of me, that is difficult." Mirah smiled with a touch of merriment he had not seen in her before. "I dare say I should find her poor--I mean my mother. I should want to get money for her. And I can not always live on charity; though"--here she turned so as to take all three of her companions in one glance--"it is the sweetest charity in all the world." "I should think you can get rich," said Deronda, smiling. "Great ladies will perhaps like you to teach their daughters. We shall see. But now do sing again to us." She went on willingly, singing with ready memory various things by Gordigiani and Schubert; then, when she had left the piano, Mab said, entreatingly, "Oh, Mirah, if you would not mind singing the little hymn." "It is too childish," said Mirah. "It is like lisping." "What is the hymn?" said Deronda. "It is the Hebrew hymn she remembers her mother singing over her when she lay in her cot," said Mrs. Meyrick. "I should like very much to hear it," said Deronda, "if you think I am worthy to hear what is so sacred." "I will sing it if you like," said Mirah, "but I don't sing real words--only here and there a syllable like hers--the rest is lisping. Do you know Hebrew? because if you do, my singing will seem childish nonsense." Deronda shook his head. "It will be quite good Hebrew to me." Mirah crossed her little feet and hands in her easiest attitude, and then lifted up her head at an angle which seemed to be directed to some invisible face bent over her, while she sang a little hymn of quaint melancholy intervals, with syllables that really seemed childish lisping to her audience; the voice in which she gave it forth had gathered even a sweeter, more cooing tenderness than was heard in her other songs. "If I were ever to know the real words, I should still go on in my old way with them," said Mirah, when she had repeated the hymn several times. "Why not?" said Deronda. "The lisped syllables are very full of meaning." "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Meyrick. "A mother hears something of a lisp in her children's talk to the very last. Their words are not just what everybody else says, though they may be spelled the same. If I were to live till my Hans got old, I should still see the boy in him. A mother's love, I often say, is like a tree that has got all the wood in it, from the very first it made." "Is not that the way with friendship, too?" said Deronda, smiling. "We must not let the mothers be too arrogant." The little woman shook her head over her darning. "It is easier to find an old mother than an old friend. Friendships begin with liking or gratitude--roots that can be pulled up. Mother's love begins deeper down." "Like what you were saying about the influence of voices," said Deronda, looking at Mirah. "I don't think your hymn would have had more expression for me if I had known the words. I went to the synagogue at Frankfort before I came home, and the service impressed me just as much as if I had followed the words--perhaps more." "Oh, was it great to you? Did it go to your heart?" said Mirah, eagerly. "I thought none but our people would feel that. I thought it was all shut away like a river in a deep valley, where only heaven saw--I mean---" she hesitated, feeling that she could not disentangle her thought from its imagery. "I understand," said Deronda. "But there is not really such a separation--deeper down, as Mrs. Meyrick says. Our religion is chiefly a Hebrew religion; and since Jews are men, their religious feelings must have much in common with those of other men--just as their poetry, though in one sense peculiar, has a great deal in common with the poetry of other nations. Still it is to be expected that a Jew would feel the forms of his people's religion more than one of another race--and yet"--here Deronda hesitated in his turn--"that is perhaps not always so." "Ah no," said Mirah, sadly. "I have seen that. I have seen them mock. Is it not like mocking your parents?--like rejoicing in your parents' shame?" "Some minds naturally rebel against whatever they were brought up in, and like the opposite; they see the faults in what is nearest to them," said Deronda apologetically. "But you are not like that," said Mirah, looking at him with unconscious fixedness. "No, I think not," said Deronda; "but you know I was not brought up as a Jew." "Ah, I am always forgetting," said Mirah, with a look of disappointed recollection, and slightly blushing. Deronda also felt rather embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause, which he put an end to by saying playfully, "Whichever way we take it, we have to tolerate each other; for if we all went in opposition to our teaching, we must end in difference, just the same." "To be sure. We should go on forever in zig-zags," said Mrs. Meyrick. "I think it is very weak-minded to make your creed up by the rule of the contrary. Still one may honor one's parents, without following their notions exactly, any more than the exact cut of their clothing. My father was a Scotch Calvinist and my mother was a French Calvinist; I am neither quite Scotch, nor quite French, nor two Calvinists rolled into one, yet I honor my parents' memory." "But I could not make myself not a Jewess," said Mirah, insistently, "even if I changed my belief." "No, my dear. But if Jews and Jewesses went on changing their religion, and making no difference between themselves and Christians, there would come a time when there would be no Jews to be seen," said Mrs. Meyrick, taking that consummation very cheerfully. "Oh, please not to say that," said Mirah, the tears gathering. "It is the first unkind thing you ever said. I will not begin that. I will never separate myself from my mother's people. I was forced to fly from my father; but if he came back in age and weakness and want, and needed me, should I say, 'This is not my father'? If he had shame, I must share it. It was he who was given to me for my father, and not another. And so it is with my people. I will always be a Jewess. I will love Christians when they are good, like you. But I will always cling to my people. I will always worship with them." As Mirah had gone on speaking she had become possessed with a sorrowful passion--fervent, not violent. Holding her little hands tightly clasped and looking at Mrs. Meyrick with beseeching, she seemed to Deronda a personification of that spirit which impelled men after a long inheritance of professed Catholicism to leave wealth and high place and risk their lives in flight, that they might join their own people and say, "I am a Jew." "Mirah, Mirah, my dear child, you mistake me!" said Mrs. Meyrick, alarmed. "God forbid I should want you to do anything against your conscience. I was only saying what might be if the world went on. But I had better have left the world alone, and not wanted to be over-wise. Forgive me, come! we will not try to take you from anybody you feel has more right to you." "I would do anything else for you. I owe you my life," said Mirah, not yet quite calm. "Hush, hush, now," said Mrs. Meyrick. "I have been punished enough for wagging my tongue foolishly--making an almanac for the Millennium, as my husband used to say." "But everything in the world must come to an end some time. We must bear to think of that," said Mab, unable to hold her peace on this point. She had already suffered from a bondage of tongue which threatened to become severe if Mirah were to be too much indulged in this inconvenient susceptibility to innocent remarks. Deronda smiled at the irregular, blonde face, brought into strange contrast by the side of Mirah's--smiled, Mab thought, rather sarcastically as he said, "That prospect of everything coming to an end will not guide us far in practice. Mirah's feelings, she tells us, are concerned with what is." Mab was confused and wished she had not spoken, since Mr. Deronda seemed to think that she had found fault with Mirah; but to have spoken once is a tyrannous reason for speaking again, and she said, "I only meant that we must have courage to hear things, else there is hardly anything we can talk about." Mab felt herself unanswerable here, inclining to the opinion of Socrates: "What motive has a man to live, if not for the pleasure of discourse?" Deronda took his leave soon after, and when Mrs. Meyrick went outside with him to exchange a few words about Mirah, he said, "Hans is to share my chambers when he comes at Christmas." "You have written to Rome about that?" said Mrs. Meyrick, her face lighting up. "How very good and thoughtful of you! You mentioned Mirah, then?" "Yes, I referred to her. I concluded he knew everything from you." "I must confess my folly. I have not yet written a word about her. I have always been meaning to do it, and yet have ended my letter without saying a word. And I told the girls to leave it to me. However!--Thank you a thousand times." Deronda divined something of what was in the mother's mind, and his divination reinforced a certain anxiety already present in him. His inward colloquy was not soothing. He said to himself that no man could see this exquisite creature without feeling it possible to fall in love with her; but all the fervor of his nature was engaged on the side of precaution. There are personages who feel themselves tragic because they march into a palpable morass, dragging another with them, and then cry out against all the gods. Deronda's mind was strongly set against imitating them. "I have my hands on the reins now," he thought, "and I will not drop them. I shall go there as little as possible." He saw the reasons acting themselves out before him. How could he be Mirah's guardian and claim to unite with Mrs. Meyrick, to whose charge he had committed her, if he showed himself as a lover--whom she did not love--whom she would not marry? And if he encouraged any germ of lover's feeling in himself it would lead up to that issue. Mirah's was not a nature that would bear dividing against itself; and even if love won her consent to marry a man who was not of her race and religion, she would never be happy in acting against that strong native bias which would still reign in her conscience as remorse. Deronda saw these consequences as we see any danger of marring our own work well begun. It was a delight to have rescued this child acquainted with sorrow, and to think of having placed her little feet in protected paths. The creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet, bruised and lost by the wayside--how we watch and fence it, and dote on its signs of recovery! Our pride becomes loving, our self is a not-self for whose sake we become virtuous, when we set to some hidden work of reclaiming a life from misery and look for our triumph in the secret joy--"This one is the better for me." "I would as soon hold out my finger to be bitten off as set about spoiling her peace," said Deronda. "It was one of the rarest bits of fortune that I should have had friends like the Meyricks to place her with--generous, delicate friends without any loftiness in their ways, so that her dependence on them is not only safety but happiness. There could be no refuge to replace that, if it were broken up. But what is the use of my taking the vows and settling everything as it should be, if that marplot Hans comes and upsets it all?" Few things were more likely. Hans was made for mishaps: his very limbs seemed more breakable than other people's--his eyes more of a resort for uninvited flies and other irritating guests. But it was impossible to forbid Hans's coming to London. He was intending to get a studio there and make it his chief home; and to propose that he should defer coming on some ostensible ground, concealing the real motive of winning time for Mirah's position to become more confirmed and independent, was impracticable. Having no other resource Deronda tried to believe that both he and Mrs. Meyrick were foolishly troubling themselves about one of those endless things called probabilities, which never occur; but he did not quite succeed in his trying; on the contrary, he found himself going inwardly through a scene where on the first discovery of Hans's inclination he gave him a very energetic warning--suddenly checked, however, by the suspicion of personal feeling that his warmth might be creating in Hans. He could come to no result, but that the position was peculiar, and that he could make no further provision against dangers until they came nearer. To save an unhappy Jewess from drowning herself, would not have seemed a startling variation among police reports; but to discover in her so rare a creature as Mirah, was an exceptional event which might well bring exceptional consequences. Deronda would not let himself for a moment dwell on any supposition that the consequences might enter deeply into his own life. The image of Mirah had never yet had that penetrating radiation which would have been given to it by the idea of her loving him. When this sort of effluence is absent from the fancy (whether from the fact or not) a man may go far in devotedness without perturbation. As to the search for Mirah's mother and brother, Deronda took what she had said to-day as a warrant for deferring any immediate measures. His conscience was not quite easy in this desire for delay, any more than it was quite easy in his not attempting to learn the truth about his own mother: in both cases he felt that there might be an unfulfilled duty to a parent, but in both cases there was an overpowering repugnance to the possible truth, which threw a turning weight into the scale of argument. "At least, I will look about," was his final determination. "I may find some special Jewish machinery. I will wait till after Christmas." What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to. CHAPTER XXXIII. "No man," says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, "may turn the bones of his father and mother into spoons"--sure that his hearers felt the checks against that form of economy. The market for spoons has never expanded enough for any one to say, "Why not?" and to argue that human progress lies in such an application of material. The only check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not hold that sentiments are the better part of the world's wealth. Deronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than riding in Rotten Row. He went often rambling in those parts of London which are most inhabited by common Jews. He walked to the synagogues at times of service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:--a process not very promising of particular discovery. Why did he not address himself to an influential Rabbi or other member of a Jewish community, to consult on the chances of finding a mother named Cohen, with a son named Ezra, and a lost daughter named Mirah? He thought of doing so--after Christmas. The fact was, notwithstanding all his sense of poetry in common things, Deronda, where a keen personal interest was aroused, could not, more than the rest of us, continuously escape suffering from the pressure of that hard unaccommodating Actual, which has never consulted our taste and is entirely unselect. Enthusiasm, we know, dwells at ease among ideas, tolerates garlic breathed in the middle ages, and sees no shabbiness in the official trappings of classic processions: it gets squeamish when ideals press upon it as something warmly incarnate, and can hardly face them without fainting. Lying dreamily in a boat, imagining one's self in quest of a beautiful maiden's relatives in Cordova elbowed by Jews in the time of Ibn-Gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without shock. Or if the scenery of St. Mary Axe and Whitechapel were imaginatively transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death--what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of contemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy with which we contemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the enthusiasm that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no challenge--nothing but impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps half-repulsive, objects which are really the beloved ideas made flesh. Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures. To glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge covering the earth, is an easier exercise of believing imagination than to see its beginning in newspaper placards, staring at you from the bridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well happen to most of us dainty people that we were in the thick of the battle of Armageddon without being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a little explosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us. It lay in Deronda's nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with Mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care for, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison with her, and had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of the unknown mother and brother and the discovered fact--a presentiment all the keener in him because of a suppressed consciousness that a not unlike possibility of collision might lie hidden in his own lot. Not that he would have looked with more complacency of expectation at wealthy Jews, outdoing the lords of the Philistines in their sports; but since there was no likelihood of Mirah's friends being found among that class, their habits did not immediately affect him. In this mood he rambled, without expectation of a more pregnant result than a little preparation of his own mind, perhaps for future theorizing as well as practice--very much as if, Mirah being related to Welsh miners, he had gone to look more closely at the ways of those people, not without wishing at the same time to get a little light of detail on the history of Strikes. He really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his habit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content that it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that Ezra Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous; according to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if you have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more likely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a squint you would not get it. This desponding view of probability the hopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient security for all kinds of fulfilment. Who is absolutely neutral? Deronda happening one morning to turn into a little side street out of the noise and obstructions of Holborn, felt the scale dip on the desponding side. He was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab which he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old clasps in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. His first thought was that Lady Mallinger, who had a strictly Protestant taste for such Catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps turned into a bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents of the window, and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker's where the lead is given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects introduced as _bric-à-brac_. A placard in one corner announced--_Watches and Jewelry exchanged and repaired_. But his survey had been noticed from within, and a figure appeared at the door, looking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial encouragement, "Good day, sir." The instant was enough for Deronda to see the face, unmistakably Jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and wincing from the shopkeeper's persuasiveness that would probably follow, he had no sooner returned the "good day," than he passed to the other side of the street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. From that station he saw the name over the shop window--_Ezra Cohen_. There might be a hundred Ezra Cohens lettered above shop windows, but Deronda had not seen them. Probably the young man interested in a possible customer was Ezra himself; and he was about the age to be expected in Mirah's brother, who was grown up while she was still a little child. But Deronda's first endeavor as he drove homeward was to convince himself that there was not the slightest warrantable presumption of this Ezra being Mirah's brother; and next, that even if, in spite of good reasoning, he turned out to be that brother, while on inquiry the mother was found to be dead, it was not his--Deronda's--duty to make known the discovery to Mirah. In inconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his lately-acquired knowledge that Mirah would have a religious desire to know of her mother's death, and also to learn whether her brother were living. How far was he justified in determining another life by his own notions? Was it not his secret complaint against the way in which others had ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all its relations, so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of primary duties? The immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he had not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts more closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for any decision whatever. He intended to return to that shop as soon as he could conveniently, and buy the clasps for Lady Mallinger. But he was hindered for several days by Sir Hugo, who, about to make an after-dinner speech on a burning topic, wanted Deronda to forage for him on the legal part of the question, besides wasting time every day on argument which always ended in a drawn battle. As on many other questions, they held different sides, but Sir Hugo did not mind this, and when Deronda put his point well, said, with a mixture of satisfaction and regret, "Confound it, Dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these things in public? You're wrong, you know. You won't succeed. You've got the massive sentiment--the heavy artillery of the country against you. But it's all the better ground for a young man to display himself on. When I was your age, I should have taken it. And it would be quite as well for you to be in opposition to me here and there. It would throw you more into relief. If you would seize an occasion of this sort to make an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time. And you know that would gratify me." "I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir," said Deronda. "But I cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession." "Why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the country, there's no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts. The business of the country must be done--her Majesty's Government carried on, as the old Duke said. And it never could be, my boy, if everybody looked at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an inspired vocation. If you are to get into Parliament, it won't do to sit still and wait for a call either from heaven or constituents." "I don't want to make a living out of opinions," said Deronda; "especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other men. I dare say many better fellows than I don't mind getting on to a platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honor for a party." "I'll tell you what, Dan," said Sir Hugo, "a man who sets his face against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable fellow. There's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good style--one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas; and I agree with the Archbishop at Naples who had a St. Januarius procession against the plague. It's no use having an Order in Council against popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little acting." "One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity," said Deronda. "But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket foolscap and practice myself in grinning. I can't see any real public expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public man I might mistake my success for public expediency." It was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that Deronda set out on his meditated second visit to Ezra Cohen's. He entered the street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance, and an inward reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were transferring what he had just been saying about public expediency to the entirely private difficulty which brought him back again into this unattractive thoroughfare. It might soon become an immediate practical question with him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal the fact of close kindred. Such questions turning up constantly in life are often decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear an over-refinement in Deronda that he should make any great point of a matter confined to his own knowledge. But we have seen the reasons why he had come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity of concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided. The prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was naturally grating. He even paused here and there before the most plausible shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to decide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra, who was certainly not a leader among his people--a hesitation which proved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may weigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for Deronda's reasoning had decided that all likelihood was against this man's being Mirah's brother. One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was judicious was apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he wanted--namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for, expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that _nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even a Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you with an affectionate assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led to fear that a secondhand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by, yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their vocation. But instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background of books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling in its unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was difficult to guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh, something like an old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more remarkable than reading yesterday's _Times_; but when he let the paper rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought glanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might possibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New Hebrew poet of the mediæval time. It was a fine typical Jewish face, wrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager experience in which all the satisfaction had been indirect and far off, and perhaps by some bodily suffering also, which involved that absence of ease in the present. The features were clear-cut, not large; the brow not high but broad, and fully defined by the crisp black hair. It might never have been a particularly handsome face, but it must always have been forcible; and now with its dark, far-off gaze, and yellow pallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop, one might have imagined one's self coming upon it in some past prison of the Inquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed on an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have been turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery or of death. The figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to the inhabitants of this street; but to Deronda's mind it brought so strange a blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a perceptible interval of mutual observation before he asked his question; "What is the price of this book?" After taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the supposed bookseller said, "There is no mark, and Mr. Ram is not in now. I am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. What are you disposed to give for it?" He held the book close on his lap with his hand on it and looked examiningly at Deronda, over whom there came the disagreeable idea, that possibly this striking personage wanted to see how much could be got out of a customer's ignorance of prices. But without further reflection he said, "Don't you know how much it is worth?" "Not its market-price. May I ask have you read it?" "No. I have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it." "You are a man of learning--you are interested in Jewish history?" This was said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry. "I am certainly interested in Jewish history," said Deronda, quietly, curiosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as questioning he was under. But immediately the strange Jew rose from his sitting posture, and Deronda felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse, excited voice, not much above a loud whisper, said, "You are perhaps of our race?" Deronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a slight shake of the head, "No." The grasp was relaxed, the hand withdrawn, the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested melancholy, as if some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eyes and gestures had sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame; and moving further off as he held out the little book, the stranger said in a tone of distant civility, "I believe Mr. Ram will be satisfied with half-a-crown, sir." The effect of this change on Deronda--he afterward smiled when he recalled it--was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high dignitary had found him deficient and given him his _congé_. There was nothing further to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried off his _Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichte_ with a mere "good-morning." He felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the apparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was certainly something out of the common way--as different probably as a Jew could well be from Ezra Cohen, through whose door Deronda was presently entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to fatness was hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on the other side of the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and three teaspoons, which lay spread before him. Seeing Deronda enter, he called out "Mother! Mother!" and then with a familiar nod and smile, said, "Coming, sir--coming directly." Deronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some anxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond fifty enter and approach to serve him. Not that there was anything very repulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that look of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight, which is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having presumably slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and necklace. In fact, what caused a sinking of heart in Deronda was her not being so coarse and ugly as to exclude the idea of her being Mirah's mother. Any one who has looked at a face to try and discern signs of known kinship in it will understand his process of conjecture--how he tried to think away the fat which had gradually disguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what one may call the elementary expressions of the face. He was sorry to see no absolute negative to his fears. Just as it was conceivable that this Ezra, brought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in everything but his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that this mother might have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature and expression was like Mirah's. The eyebrows had a vexatious similarity of line; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the uncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession of youth and age? The good-humor of the glance remained and shone out in a motherly way at Deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone, "How can I serve you, sir?" "I should like to look at the silver clasps in the window," said Deronda; "the larger ones, please, in the corner there." They were not quite easy to get at from the mother's station, and the son seeing this called out, "I'll reach 'em, mother; I'll reach 'em," running forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to Deronda with the smiling remark, "Mother's too proud: she wants to do everything herself. That's why I called her to wait on you, sir. When there's a particular gentleman customer, sir, I daren't do any other than call her. But I can't let her do herself mischief with stretching." Here Mr. Cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little guttural, amiable laugh while she looked at Deronda, as much as to say, "This boy will be at his jokes, but you see he's the best son in the world," and evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also wished to convey an apology to his distinguished customer for not giving him the advantage of his own exclusive attention. Deronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe before he could come to a decision. "They are only three guineas, sir," said the mother, encouragingly. "First-rate workmanship, sir--worth twice the money; only I get 'em a bargain from Cologne," said the son, parenthetically, from a distance. Meanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, "Addy!" brought from the back of the shop a group that Deronda turned frankly to stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary. The group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a black-eyed little one, its head already covered with black curls, and deposited it on the counter, from which station it looked round with even more than the usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of six and a younger girl, both with black eyes and black-ringed hair--looking more Semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show the spots of far-off progenitors. The young woman answering to "Addy"--a sort of paroquet in a bright blue dress, with coral necklace and earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush--looked as complacently lively and unrefined as her husband; and by a certain difference from the mother deepened in Deronda the unwelcome impression that the latter was not so utterly common a Jewess as to exclude her being the mother of Mirah. While that thought was glancing through his mind, the boy had run forward into the shop with an energetic stamp, and setting himself about four feet from Deronda, with his hands in the pockets of his miniature knickerbockers, looked at him with a precocious air of survey. Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and ingratiate himself that Deronda patted the boy's head, saying, "What is your name, sirrah?" "Jacob Alexander Cohen," said the small man, with much ease and distinctness. "You are not named after your father, then?" "No, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors--my grandfather does," said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with that high connection. "He gave me this knife." Here a pocket-knife was drawn forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially dark, opened two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness. "Is not that a dangerous plaything?" said Deronda, turning to the grandmother. "_He_'ll never hurt himself, bless you!" said she, contemplating her grandson with placid rapture. "Have _you_ got a knife?" says Jacob, coming closer. His small voice was hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial soul, fatigued with bargaining through many generations. "Yes. Do you want to see it?" said Deronda, taking a small penknife from his waistcoat-pocket. Jacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two knives in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. By this time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had gathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob: the father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held staggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her brother's elbow to assist him in looking at the knives. "Mine's the best," said Jacob, at last, returning Deronda's knife as if he had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it. Father and mother laughed aloud with delight. "You won't find Jacob choosing the worst," said Mr. Cohen, winking, with much confidence in the customer's admiration. Deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had only an inward silent laugh, said, "Are these the only grandchildren you have?" "All. This is my only son," she answered in a communicative tone, Deronda's glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of sympathetic interest--which on this occasion answered his purpose well. It seemed to come naturally enough that he should say, "And you have no daughter?" There was an instantaneous change in the mother's face. Her lips closed more firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter, and finally turned her back on Deronda to examine some Indian handkerchiefs that hung in pawn behind her. Her son gave a significant glance, set up his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his lips,--then said quickly, "I think you're a first-rate gentleman in the city, sir, if I may be allowed to guess." "No," said Deronda, with a preoccupied air, "I have nothing to do with the city." "That's a bad job. I thought you might be the young principal of a first-rate firm," said Mr. Cohen, wishing to make amends for the check on his customer's natural desire to know more of him and his. "But you understand silver-work, I see." "A little," said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them down again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than anything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare possibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now overpowered the inclination to rest in uncertainty. "To tell you the truth," he went on, "my errand is not so much to buy as to borrow. I dare say you go into rather heavy transactions occasionally." "Well, sir, I've accommodated gentlemen of distinction--I'm proud to say it. I wouldn't exchange my business with any in the world. There's none more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all classes, from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the baker, to a gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for amusement. I like my business, I like my street, and I like my shop. I wouldn't have it a door further down. And I wouldn't be without a pawn-shop, sir, to be the Lord Mayor. It puts you in connection with the world at large. I say it's like the government revenue--it embraces the brass as well as the gold of the country. And a man who doesn't get money, sir, can't accommodate. Now, what can I do for _you_, sir?" If an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, Solomon in all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with Mr. Cohen--clearly one of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves, are willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. While he was delivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife and holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its small fists. Deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing this Ezra Cohen to be the most unpoetic Jew he had ever met with in books or life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of the Old Testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his vulgarity of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of the purest English lineage. It is naturally a Christian feeling that a Jew ought not to be conceited. However, this was no reason for not persevering in his project, and he answered at once in adventurous ignorance of technicalities, "I have a fine diamond ring to offer as security--not with me at this moment, unfortunately, for I am not in the habit of wearing it. But I will come again this evening and bring it with me. Fifty pounds at once would be a convenience to me." "Well, you know, this evening is the Sabbath, young gentleman," said Cohen, "and I go to the _Shool_. The shop will be closed. But accommodation is a work of charity; if you can't get here before, and are any ways pressed--why, I'll look at your diamond. You're perhaps from the West End--a longish drive?" "Yes; and your Sabbath begins early at this season. I could be here by five--will that do?" Deronda had not been without hope that by asking to come on a Friday evening he might get a better opportunity of observing points in the family character, and might even be able to put some decisive question. Cohen assented; but here the marvelous Jacob, whose _physique_ supported a precocity that would have shattered a Gentile of his years, showed that he had been listening with much comprehension by saying, "You are coming again. Have you got any more knives at home?" "I think I have one," said Deronda, smiling down at him. "Has it two blades and a hook--and a white handle like that?" said Jacob, pointing to the waistcoat-pocket. "I dare say it has." "Do you like a cork-screw?" said Jacob, exhibiting that article in his own knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry. "Yes," said Deronda, experimentally. "Bring your knife, then, and we'll shwop," said Jacob, returning the knife to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had concluded a good transaction. The grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole family watched Deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little girl, to whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on the counter, asked for her name also. She looked at him in silence, and put her fingers to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have noticed. "Adelaide Rebekah is her name," said her mother, proudly. "Speak to the gentleman, lovey." "Shlav'm Shabbes fyock on," said Adelaide Rebekah. "Her Sabbath frock, she means," said the father, in explanation. "She'll have her Sabbath frock on this evening." "And will you let me see you in it, Adelaide?" said Deronda, with that gentle intonation which came very easily to him. "Say yes, lovey--yes, if you please, sir," said her mother, enchanted with this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children. "And will you give me a kiss this evening?" said Deronda with a hand on each of her little brown shoulders. Adelaide Rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features corresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her lips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still more glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his circumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said cordially, "You see there's somebody will be disappointed if you don't come this evening, sir. You won't mind sitting down in our family place and waiting a bit for me, if I'm not in when you come, sir? I'll stretch a point to accommodate a gent of your sort. Bring the diamond, and I'll see what I can do for you." Deronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a preparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were really Mirah's relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid filial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such as could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. What did this vaunting brother need? And with the most favorable supposition about the hypothetic mother, Deronda shrank from the image of a first meeting between her and Mirah, and still more from the idea of Mirah's domestication with this family. He took refuge in disbelief. To find an Ezra Cohen when the name was running in your head was no more extraordinary than to find a Josiah Smith under like circumstances; and as to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to be a difference. If, however, further knowledge confirmed the more undesirable conclusion, what would be wise expediency?--to try and determine the best consequences by concealment, or to brave other consequences for the sake of that openness which is the sweet fresh air of our moral life. CHAPTER XXXIV. "Er ist geheissen Israel. Ihn hat verwandelt Hexenspruch in einen Hund. * * * * * Aber jeden Freitag Abend, In der Dämm'rungstunde, plötzlich Weicht der Zauber, und der Hund Wird aufs Neu' ein menschlich Wesen." --HEINE: _Prinzessin Sabbath_. When Deronda arrived at five o'clock, the shop was closed and the door was opened for him by the Christian servant. When she showed him into the room behind the shop he was surprised at the prettiness of the scene. The house was old, and rather extensive at the back: probably the large room he now entered was gloomy by daylight, but now it was agreeably lit by a fine old brass lamp with seven oil-lights hanging above the snow-white cloth spread on the central table. The ceiling and walls were smoky, and all the surroundings were dark enough to throw into relief the human figures, which had a Venetian glow of coloring. The grandmother was arrayed in yellowish brown with a large gold chain in lieu of the necklace, and by this light her yellow face with its darkly-marked eyebrows and framing roll of gray hair looked as handsome as was necessary for picturesque effect. Young Mrs. Cohen was clad in red and black, with a string of large artificial pearls wound round and round her neck: the baby lay asleep in the cradle under a scarlet counterpane; Adelaide Rebekah was in braided amber, and Jacob Alexander was in black velveteen with scarlet stockings. As the four pairs of black eyes all glistened a welcome at Deronda, he was almost ashamed of the supercilious dislike these happy-looking creatures had raised in him by daylight. Nothing could be more cordial than the greeting he received, and both mother and grandmother seemed to gather more dignity from being seen on the private hearth, showing hospitality. He looked round with some wonder at the old furniture: the oaken bureau and high side-table must surely be mere matters of chance and economy, and not due to the family taste. A large dish of blue and yellow ware was set up on the side-table, and flanking it were two old silver vessels; in front of them a large volume in darkened vellum with a deep-ribbed back. In the corner at the farther end was an open door into an inner room, where there was also a light. Deronda took in these details by parenthetic glances while he met Jacob's pressing solicitude about the knife. He had taken the pains to buy one with the requisites of the hook and white handle, and produced it on demand, saying, "Is that the sort of thing you want, Jacob?" It was subjected to a severe scrutiny, the hook and blades were opened, and the article of barter with the cork-screw was drawn forth for comparison. "Why do you like a hook better than a cork-screw?" said Deronda. "'Caush I can get hold of things with a hook. A corkscrew won't go into anything but corks. But it's better for you, you can draw corks." "You agree to change, then?" said Deronda, observing that the grandmother was listening with delight. "What else have you got in your pockets?" said Jacob, with deliberative seriousness. "Hush, hush, Jacob, love," said the grandmother. And Deronda, mindful of discipline, answered, "I think I must not tell you that. Our business was with the knives." Jacob looked up into his face scanningly for a moment or two, and apparently arriving at his conclusions, said gravely, "I'll shwop," handing the cork-screw knife to Deronda, who pocketed it with corresponding gravity. Immediately the small son of Shem ran off into the next room, whence his voice was heard in rapid chat; and then ran back again--when, seeing his father enter, he seized a little velveteen hat which lay on a chair and put it on to approach him. Cohen kept on his own hat, and took no notice of the visitor, but stood still while the two children went up to him and clasped his knees: then he laid his hands on each in turn and uttered his Hebrew benediction; whereupon the wife, who had lately taken baby from the cradle, brought it up to her husband and held it under his outstretched hands, to be blessed in its sleep. For the moment, Deronda thought that this pawnbroker, proud of his vocation, was not utterly prosaic. "Well, sir, you found your welcome in my family, I think," said Cohen, putting down his hat and becoming his former self. "And you've been punctual. Nothing like a little stress here," he added, tapping his side pocket as he sat down. "It's good for us all in our turn. I've felt it when I've had to make up payments. I began to fit every sort of box. It's bracing to the mind. Now then! let us see, let us see." "That is the ring I spoke of," said Deronda, taking it from his finger. "I believe it cost a hundred pounds. It will be a sufficient pledge to you for fifty, I think. I shall probably redeem it in a month or so." Cohen's glistening eyes seemed to get a little nearer together as he met the ingenuous look of this crude young gentleman, who apparently supposed that redemption was a satisfaction to pawnbrokers. He took the ring, examined and returned it, saying with indifference, "Good, good. We'll talk of it after our meal. Perhaps you'll join us, if you've no objection. Me and my wife'll feel honored, and so will mother; won't you, mother?" The invitation was doubly echoed, and Deronda gladly accepted it. All now turned and stood round the table. No dish was at present seen except one covered with a napkin; and Mrs. Cohen had placed a china bowl near her husband that he might wash his hands in it. But after putting on his hat again, he paused, and called in a loud voice, "Mordecai!" Can this be part of the religious ceremony? thought Deronda, not knowing what might be expected of the ancient hero. But he heard a "Yes" from the next room, which made him look toward the open door; and there, to his astonishment, he saw the figure of the enigmatic Jew whom he had this morning met with in the book-shop. Their eyes met, and Mordecai looked as much surprised as Deronda--neither in his surprise making any sign of recognition. But when Mordecai was seating himself at the end of the table, he just bent his head to the guest in a cold and distant manner, as if the disappointment of the morning remained a disagreeable association with this new acquaintance. Cohen now washed his hands, pronouncing Hebrew words the while: afterward, he took off the napkin covering the dish and disclosed the two long flat loaves besprinkled with seed--the memorial of the manna that fed the wandering forefathers--and breaking off small pieces gave one to each of the family, including Adelaide Rebekah, who stood on the chair with her whole length exhibited in her amber-colored garment, her little Jewish nose lengthened by compression of the lip in the effort to make a suitable appearance. Cohen then uttered another Hebrew blessing, and after that, the male heads were uncovered, all seated themselves, and the meal went on without any peculiarity that interested Deronda. He was not very conscious of what dishes he ate from; being preoccupied with a desire to turn the conversation in a way that would enable him to ask some leading question; and also thinking of Mordecai, between whom and himself there was an exchange of fascinated, half-furtive glances. Mordecai had no handsome Sabbath garment, but instead of the threadbare rusty black coat of the morning he wore one of light drab, which looked as if it had once been a handsome loose paletot now shrunk with washing; and this change of clothing gave a still stronger accentuation to his dark-haired, eager face which might have belonged to the prophet Ezekiel--also probably not modish in the eyes of contemporaries. It was noticeable that the thin tails of the fried fish were given to Mordecai; and in general the sort of share assigned to a poor relation--no doubt a "survival" of prehistoric practice, not yet generally admitted to be superstitious. Mr. Cohen kept up the conversation with much liveliness, introducing as subjects always in taste (the Jew is proud of his loyalty) the Queen and the Royal Family, the Emperor and Empress of the French--into which both grandmother and wife entered with zest. Mrs. Cohen the younger showed an accurate memory of distinguished birthdays; and the elder assisted her son in informing the guest of what occurred when the Emperor and Empress were in England and visited the city ten years before. "I dare say you know all about it better than we do, sir," said Cohen, repeatedly, by way of preface to full information; and the interesting statements were kept up in a trio. "Our baby is named _Eu_genie Esther," said young Mrs. Cohen, vivaciously. "It's wonderful how the Emperor's like a cousin of mine in the face," said the grandmother; "it struck me like lightning when I caught sight of him. I couldn't have thought it." "Mother and me went to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal Palace," said Mr. Cohen. "I had a fine piece of work to take care of, mother; she might have been squeezed flat--though she was pretty near as lusty then as she is now. I said if I had a hundred mothers I'd never take one of 'em to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal Palace again; and you may think a man can't afford it when he's got but one mother--not if he'd ever so big an insurance on her." He stroked his mother's shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own humor. "Your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps," said Deronda, seizing his opportunity. "That has made your care for her the more needful." "Ay, ay, it's a good many _yore-zeit_ since I had to manage for her and myself," said Cohen quickly. "I went early to it. It's that makes you a sharp knife." "What does--what makes a sharp knife, father?" said Jacob, his cheek very much swollen with sweet-cake. The father winked at his guest and said, "Having your nose put on the grindstone." Jacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand, and going close up to Mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto, said, "What does that mean--putting my nose to the grindstone?" "It means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise," said Mordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his. Jacob put the corner of the cake into Mordecai's mouth as an invitation to bite, saying meanwhile, "I shan't though," and keeping his eyes on the cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity. Mordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad, and the little incident made them both look more lovable. Deronda, however, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his question. "I fancy that is the right quarter for learning," said he, carrying on the subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to whom he turned and said, "You have been a great student, I imagine?" "I have studied," was the quiet answer. "And you?--You know German by the book you were buying." "Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in bookselling?" said Deronda. "No; I only go to Mr. Ram's shop every day to keep it while he goes to meals," said Mordecai, who was now looking at Deronda with what seemed a revival of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some attractive indication for him which now neutralized the former disappointment. After a slight pause, he said, "Perhaps you know Hebrew?" "I am sorry to say, not at all." Mordecai's countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his hands, which lay crossed before him, and said no more. Deronda had now noticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty in breathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption. "I've had something else to do than to get book-learning." said Mr. Cohen,--"I've had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know stones well,"--here he pointed to Deronda's ring. "I'm not afraid of taking that ring of yours at my own valuation. But now," he added, with a certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, "what do you want for it?" "Fifty or sixty pounds," Deronda answered, rather too carelessly. Cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on Deronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous guinea-pig, and said, "Couldn't do you that. Happy to oblige, but couldn't go that lengths. Forty pound--say forty--I'll let you have forty on it." Deronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words implying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he said, "Very well, I shall redeem it in a month or so." "Good. I'll make you out the ticket by-and-by," said Cohen, indifferently. Then he held up his finger as a sign that conversation must be deferred. He, Mordecai and Jacob put on their hats, and Cohen opened a thanksgiving, which was carried on by responses, till Mordecai delivered himself alone at some length, in a solemn chanting tone, with his chin slightly uplifted and his thin hands clasped easily before him. Not only in his accent and tone, but in his freedom from the self-consciousness which has reference to others' approbation, there could hardly have been a stronger contrast to the Jew at the other end of the table. It was an unaccountable conjunction--the presence among these common, prosperous, shopkeeping types, of a man who, in an emaciated threadbare condition, imposed a certain awe on Deronda, and an embarrassment at not meeting his expectations. No sooner had Mordecai finished his devotional strain, than rising, with a slight bend of his head to the stranger, he walked back into his room, and shut the door behind him. "That seems to be rather a remarkable man," said Deronda, turning to Cohen, who immediately set up his shoulders, put out his tongue slightly, and tapped his own brow. It was clearly to be understood that Mordecai did not come up to the standard of sanity which was set by Mr. Cohen's view of men and things. "Does he belong to your family?" said Deronda. This idea appeared to be rather ludicrous to the ladies as well as to Cohen, and the family interchanged looks of amusement. "No, no," said Cohen. "Charity! charity! he worked for me, and when he got weaker and weaker I took him in. He's an incumbrance; but he brings a blessing down, and he teaches the boy. Besides, he does the repairing at the watches and jewelry." Deronda hardly abstained from smiling at this mixture of kindliness and the desire to justify it in the light of a calculation; but his willingness to speak further of Mordecai, whose character was made the more enigmatically striking by these new details, was baffled. Mr. Cohen immediately dismissed the subject by reverting to the "accommodation," which was also an act of charity, and proceeded to make out the ticket, get the forty pounds, and present them both in exchange for the diamond ring. Deronda, feeling that it would be hardly delicate to protract his visit beyond the settlement of the business which was its pretext, had to take his leave, with no more decided result than the advance of forty pounds and the pawn-ticket in his breast-pocket, to make a reason for returning when he came up to town after Christmas. He was resolved that he would then endeavor to gain a little more insight into the character and history of Mordecai; from whom also he might gather something decisive about the Cohens--for example, the reason why it was forbidden to ask Mrs. Cohen the elder whether she had a daughter. BOOK V.--MORDECAI. CHAPTER XXXV. Were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human history had been different, and one should look to see the contrivers of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of the money-market in one troop of self-lacerating penitents with the meaner robber and cut-purse and the murderer that doth his butchery in small with his own hand. No doubt wickedness hath its rewards to distribute; but who so wins in this devil's game must needs be baser, more cruel, more brutal than the order of this planet will allow for the multitude born of woman, the most of these carrying a form of conscience--a fear which is the shadow of justice, a pity which is the shadow of love--that hindereth from the prize of serene wickedness, itself difficult of maintenance in our composite flesh. On the twenty-ninth of December Deronda knew that the Grandcourts had arrived at the Abbey, but he had had no glimpse of them before he went to dress for dinner. There had been a splendid fall of snow, allowing the party of children the rare pleasures of snow-balling and snow-building, and in the Christmas holidays the Mallinger girls were content with no amusement unless it were joined in and managed by "cousin," as they had always called Deronda. After that outdoor exertion he had been playing billiards, and thus the hours had passed without his dwelling at all on the prospect of meeting Gwendolen at dinner. Nevertheless that prospect was interesting to him; and when, a little tired and heated with working at amusement, he went to his room before the half-hour bell had rung, he began to think of it with some speculation on the sort of influence her marriage with Grandcourt would have on her, and on the probability that there would be some discernible shades of change in her manner since he saw her at Diplow, just as there had been since his first vision of her at Leubronn. "I fancy there are some natures one could see growing or degenerating every day, if one watched them," was his thought. "I suppose some of us go on faster than others: and I am sure she is a creature who keeps strong traces of anything that has once impressed her. That little affair of the necklace, and the idea that somebody thought her gambling wrong, had evidently bitten into her. But such impressibility leads both ways: it may drive one to desperation as soon as to anything better. And whatever fascinations Grandcourt may have for capricious tastes--good heavens! who can believe that he would call out the tender affections in daily companionship? One might be tempted to horsewhip him for the sake of getting some show of passion into his face and speech. I'm afraid she married him out of ambition--to escape poverty. But why did she run out of his way at first? The poverty came after, though. Poor thing! she may have been urged into it. How can one feel anything else than pity for a young creature like that--full of unused life--ignorantly rash--hanging all her blind expectations on that remnant of a human being." Doubtless the phrases which Deronda's meditation applied to the bridegroom were the less complimentary for the excuses and pity in which it clad the bride. His notion of Grandcourt as a "remnant" was founded on no particular knowledge, but simply on the impression which ordinary polite intercourse had given him that Grandcourt had worn out all his natural healthy interest in things. In general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes place, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride, female acquaintances the bridegroom: each, it is thought, might have done better; and especially where the bride is charming, young gentlemen on the scene are apt to conclude that she can have no real attachment to a fellow so uninteresting to themselves as her husband, but has married him on other grounds. Who, under such circumstances, pities the husband? Even his female friends are apt to think his position retributive: he should have chosen some one else. But perhaps Deronda may be excused that he did not prepare any pity for Grandcourt, who had never struck acquaintances as likely to come out of his experiences with more suffering than he inflicted; whereas, for Gwendolen, young, headlong, eager for pleasure, fed with the flattery which makes a lovely girl believe in her divine right to rule--how quickly might life turn from expectancy to a bitter sense of the irremediable! After what he had seen of her he must have had rather dull feelings not to have looked forward with some interest to her entrance into the room. Still, since the honeymoon was already three weeks in the distance, and Gwendolen had been enthroned, not only at Ryelands, but at Diplow, she was likely to have composed her countenance with suitable manifestation or concealment, not being one who would indulge the curious by a helpless exposure of her feelings. A various party had been invited to meet the new couple; the old aristocracy was represented by Lord and Lady Pentreath; the old gentry by young Mr. and Mrs. Fitzadam of the Worcestershire branch of the Fitzadams; politics and the public good, as specialized in the cider interest, by Mr. Fenn, member for West Orchards, accompanied by his two daughters; Lady Mallinger's family, by her brother, Mr. Raymond, and his wife; the useful bachelor element by Mr. Sinker, the eminent counsel, and by Mr. Vandernoodt, whose acquaintance Sir Hugo had found pleasant enough at Leubronn to be adopted in England. All had assembled in the drawing-room before the new couple appeared. Meanwhile, the time was being passed chiefly in noticing the children--various little Raymonds, nephews and nieces of Lady Mallinger's with her own three girls, who were always allowed to appear at this hour. The scene was really delightful--enlarged by full-length portraits with deep backgrounds, inserted in the cedar paneling--surmounted by a ceiling that glowed with the rich colors of the coats of arms ranged between the sockets--illuminated almost as much by the red fire of oak-boughs as by the pale wax-lights--stilled by the deep-piled carpet and by the high English breeding that subdues all voices; while the mixture of ages, from the white-haired Lord and Lady Pentreath to the four-year-old Edgar Raymond, gave a varied charm to the living groups. Lady Mallinger, with fair matronly roundness and mildly prominent blue eyes, moved about in her black velvet, carrying a tiny white dog on her arm as a sort of finish to her costume; the children were scattered among the ladies, while most of the gentlemen were standing rather aloof, conversing with that very moderate vivacity observable during the long minutes before dinner. Deronda was a little out of the circle in a dialogue fixed upon him by Mr. Vandernoodt, a man of the best Dutch blood imported at the revolution: for the rest, one of those commodious persons in society who are nothing particular themselves, but are understood to be acquainted with the best in every department; close-clipped, pale-eyed, _nonchalant_, as good a foil as could well be found to the intense coloring and vivid gravity of Deronda. He was talking of the bride and bridegroom, whose appearance was being waited for. Mr. Vandernoodt was an industrious gleaner of personal details, and could probably tell everything about a great philosopher or physicist except his theories or discoveries; he was now implying that he had learned many facts about Grandcourt since meeting him at Leubronn. "Men who have seen a good deal of life don't always end by choosing their wives so well. He has had rather an anecdotic history--gone rather deep into pleasures, I fancy, lazy as he is. But, of course, you know all about him." "No, really," said Deronda, in an indifferent tone. "I know little more of him than that he is Sir Hugo's nephew." But now the door opened and deferred any satisfaction of Mr. Vandernoodt's communicativeness. The scene was one to set off any figure of distinction that entered on it, and certainly when Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt entered, no beholder could deny that their figures had distinction. The bridegroom had neither more nor less easy perfection of costume, neither more nor less well-cut impassibility of face, than before his marriage. It was to be supposed of him that he would put up with nothing less than the best in outward equipment, wife included; and the bride was what he might have been expected to choose. "By George, I think she's handsomer, if anything!" said Mr. Vandernoodt. And Deronda was of the same opinion, but he said nothing. The white silk and diamonds--it may seem strange, but she did wear diamonds on her neck, in her ears, in her hair--might have something to do with the new imposingness of her beauty, which flashed on him as more unquestionable if not more thoroughly satisfactory than when he had first seen her at the gaming-table. Some faces which are peculiar in their beauty are like original works of art: for the first time they are almost always met with question. But in seeing Gwendolen at Diplow, Deronda had discerned in her more than he had expected of that tender appealing charm which we call womanly. Was there any new change since then? He distrusted his impressions; but as he saw her receiving greetings with what seemed a proud cold quietude and a superficial smile, there seemed to be at work within her the same demonic force that had possessed her when she took him in her resolute glance and turned away a loser from the gaming-table. There was no time for more of a conclusion--no time even for him to give his greeting before the summons to dinner. He sat not far from opposite to her at table, and could sometimes hear what she said in answer to Sir Hugo, who was at his liveliest in conversation with her; but though he looked toward her with the intention of bowing, she gave him no opportunity of doing so for some time. At last Sir Hugo, who might have imagined that they had already spoken to each other, said, "Deronda, you will like to hear what Mrs. Grandcourt tells me about your favorite Klesmer." Gwendolen's eyelids had been lowered, and Deronda, already looking at her, thought he discovered a quivering reluctance as she was obliged to raise them and return his unembarrassed bow and smile, her own smile being one of the lip merely. It was but an instant, and Sir Hugo continued without pause, "The Arrowpoints have condoned the marriage, and he is spending the Christmas with his bride at Quetcham." "I suppose he will be glad of it for the sake of his wife, else I dare say he would not have minded keeping at a distance," said Deronda. "It's a sort of troubadour story," said Lady Pentreath, an easy, deep-voiced old lady; "I'm glad to find a little romance left among us. I think our young people now are getting too worldly wise." "It shows the Arrowpoints' good sense, however, to have adopted the affair, after the fuss in the paper," said Sir Hugo. "And disowning your own child because of a _mésalliance_ is something like disowning your one eye: everybody knows it's yours, and you have no other to make an appearance with." "As to _mésalliance_, there's no blood on any side," said Lady Pentreath. "Old Admiral Arrowpoint was one of Nelson's men, you know--a doctor's son. And we all know how the mother's money came." "If they were any _mésalliance_ in the case, I should say it was on Klesmer's side," said Deronda. "Ah, you think it is a case of the immortal marrying the mortal. What is your opinion?" said Sir Hugo, looking at Gwendolen. "I have no doubt that Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal. But I dare say his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires," said Gwendolen. She had recovered any composure that she might have lost. "Don't you approve of a wife burning incense before her husband?" said Sir Hugo, with an air of jocoseness. "Oh, yes," said Gwendolen, "if it were only to make others believe in him." She paused a moment and then said with more gayety, "When Herr Klesmer admires his own genius, it will take off some of the absurdity if his wife says Amen." "Klesmer is no favorite of yours, I see," said Sir Hugo. "I think very highly of him, I assure you," said Gwendolen. "His genius is quite above my judgment, and I know him to be exceedingly generous." She spoke with the sudden seriousness which is often meant to correct an unfair or indiscreet sally, having a bitterness against Klesmer in her secret soul which she knew herself unable to justify. Deronda was wondering what he should have thought of her if he had never heard of her before: probably that she put on a little hardness and defiance by way of concealing some painful consciousness--if, indeed, he could imagine her manners otherwise than in the light of his suspicion. But why did she not recognize him with more friendliness? Sir Hugo, by way of changing the subject, said to her, "Is not this a beautiful room? It was part of the refectory of the Abbey. There was a division made by those pillars and the three arches, and afterward they were built up. Else it was half as large again originally. There used to be rows of Benedictines sitting where we are sitting. Suppose we were suddenly to see the lights burning low and the ghosts of the old monks rising behind all our chairs!" "Please don't!" said Gwendolen, with a playful shudder. "It is very nice to come after ancestors and monks, but they should know their places and keep underground. I should be rather frightened to go about this house all alone. I suppose the old generations must be angry with us because we have altered things so much." "Oh, the ghosts must be of all political parties," said Sir Hugo. "And those fellows who wanted to change things while they lived and couldn't do it must be on our side. But if you would not like to go over the house alone, you will like to go in company, I hope. You and Grandcourt ought to see it all. And we will ask Deronda to go round with us. He is more learned about it than I am." The baronet was in the most complaisant of humors. Gwendolen stole a glance at Deronda, who must have heard what Sir Hugo said, for he had his face turned toward them helping himself to an _entrée_; but he looked as impassive as a picture. At the notion of Deronda's showing her and Grandcourt the place which was to be theirs, and which she with painful emphasis remembered might have been his (perhaps, if others had acted differently), certain thoughts had rushed in--thoughts repeated within her, but now returning on an occasion embarrassingly new; and was conscious of something furtive and awkward in her glance which Sir Hugo must have noticed. With her usual readiness of resource against betrayal, she said, playfully, "You don't know how much I am afraid of Mr. Deronda." "How's that? Because you think him too learned?" said Sir Hugo, whom the peculiarity of her glance had not escaped. "No. It is ever since I first saw him at Leubronn. Because when he came to look on at the roulette-table, I began to lose. He cast an evil eye on my play. He didn't approve it. He has told me so. And now whatever I do before him, I am afraid he will cast an evil eye upon it." "Gad! I'm rather afraid of him myself when he doesn't approve," said Sir Hugo, glancing at Deronda; and then turning his face toward Gwendolen, he said less audibly, "I don't think ladies generally object to have his eyes upon them." The baronet's small chronic complaint of facetiousness was at this moment almost as annoying to Gwendolen as it often was to Deronda. "I object to any eyes that are critical," she said, in a cool, high voice, with a turn of her neck. "Are there many of these old rooms left in the Abbey?" "Not many. There is a fine cloistered court with a long gallery above it. But the finest bit of all is turned into stables. It is part of the old church. When I improved the place I made the most of every other bit; but it was out of my reach to change the stables, so the horses have the benefit of the fine old choir. You must go and see it." "I shall like to see the horses as well as the building," said Gwendolen. "Oh, I have no stud to speak of. Grandcourt will look with contempt at my horses," said Sir Hugo. "I've given up hunting, and go on in a jog-trot way, as becomes an old gentlemen with daughters. The fact is, I went in for doing too much at this place. We all lived at Diplow for two years while the alterations were going on: Do you like Diplow?" "Not particularly," said Gwendolen, with indifference. One would have thought that the young lady had all her life had more family seats than she cared to go to. "Ah! it will not do after Ryelands," said Sir Hugo, well pleased. "Grandcourt, I know, took it for the sake of the hunting. But he found something so much better there," added the baronet, lowering his voice, "that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world." "It has one attraction for me," said Gwendolen, passing over this compliment with a chill smile, "that it is within reach of Offendene." "I understand that," said Sir Hugo, and then let the subject drop. What amiable baronet can escape the effect of a strong desire for a particular possession? Sir Hugo would have been glad that Grandcourt, with or without reason, should prefer any other place to Diplow; but inasmuch as in the pure process of wishing we can always make the conditions of our gratification benevolent, he did wish that Grandcourt's convenient disgust for Diplow should not be associated with his marriage with this very charming bride. Gwendolen was much to the baronet's taste, but, as he observed afterward to Lady Mallinger, he should never have taken her for a young girl who had married beyond her expectations. Deronda had not heard much of this conversation, having given his attention elsewhere, but the glimpses he had of Gwendolen's manner deepened the impression that it had something newly artificial. Later, in the drawing-room, Deronda, at somebody's request, sat down to the piano and sang. Afterward, Mrs. Raymond took his place; and on rising he observed that Gwendolen had left her seat, and had come to this end of the room, as if to listen more fully, but was now standing with her back to every one, apparently contemplating a fine cowled head carved in ivory which hung over a small table. He longed to go to her and speak. Why should he not obey such an impulse, as he would have done toward any other lady in the room? Yet he hesitated some moments, observing the graceful lines of her back, but not moving. If you have any reason for not indulging a wish to speak to a fair woman, it is a bad plan to look long at her back: the wish to see what it screens becomes the stronger. There may be a very sweet smile on the other side. Deronda ended by going to the end of the small table, at right angles to Gwendolen's position, but before he could speak she had turned on him no smile, but such an appealing look of sadness, so utterly different from the chill effort of her recognition at table, that his speech was checked. For what was an appreciative space of time to both, though the observation of others could not have measured it, they looked at each other--she seeming to take the deep rest of confession, he with an answering depth of sympathy that neutralized all other feelings. "Will you not join in the music?" he said, by way of meeting the necessity for speech. That her look of confession had been involuntary was shown by that just perceptible shake and change of countenance with which she roused herself to reply calmly, "I join in it by listening. I am fond of music." "Are you not a musician?" "I have given a great deal of time to music. But I have not talent enough to make it worth while. I shall never sing again." "But if you are fond of music, it will always be worth while in private, for your own delight. I make it a virtue to be content with my middlingness," said Deronda, smiling; "it is always pardonable, so that one does not ask others to take it for superiority." "I cannot imitate you," said Gwendolen, recovering her tone of artificial vivacity. "To be middling with me is another phrase for being dull. And the worst fault I have to find with the world is that it is dull. Do you know, I am going to justify gambling in spite of you. It is a refuge from dullness." "I don't admit the justification," said Deronda. "I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how can any one find an intense interest in life? And many do." "Ah, I see! The fault I find in the world is my own fault," said Gwendolen, smiling at him. Then after a moment, looking up at the ivory again, she said, "Do _you_ never find fault with the world or with others?" "Oh, yes. When I am in a grumbling mood." "And hate people? Confess you hate them when they stand in your way--when their gain is your loss? That is your own phrase, you know." "We are often standing in each other's way when we can't help it. I think it is stupid to hate people on that ground." "But if they injure you and could have helped it?" said Gwendolen with a hard intensity unaccountable in incidental talk like this. Deronda wondered at her choice of subjects. A painful impression arrested his answer a moment, but at last he said, with a graver, deeper intonation, "Why, then, after all, I prefer my place to theirs." "There I believe you are right," said Gwendolen, with a sudden little laugh, and turned to join the group at the piano. Deronda looked around for Grandcourt, wondering whether he followed his bride's movements with any attention; but it was rather undiscerning to him to suppose that he could find out the fact. Grandcourt had a delusive mood of observing whatever had an interest for him, which could be surpassed by no sleepy-eyed animal on the watch for prey. At that moment he was plunged in the depth of an easy chair, being talked to by Mr. Vandernoodt, who apparently thought the acquaintance of such a bridegroom worth cultivating; and an incautious person might have supposed it safe to telegraph secrets in front of him, the common prejudice being that your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick movements. Not at all. If you want a respectable witness who will see nothing inconvenient, choose a vivacious gentleman, very much on the alert, with two eyes wide open, a glass in one of them, and an entire impartiality as to the purpose of looking. If Grandcourt cared to keep any one under his power he saw them out of the corners of his long narrow eyes, and if they went behind him he had a constructive process by which he knew what they were doing there. He knew perfectly well where his wife was, and how she was behaving. Was he going to be a jealous husband? Deronda imagined that to be likely; but his imagination was as much astray about Grandcourt as it would have been about an unexplored continent where all the species were peculiar. He did not conceive that he himself was a likely subject of jealousy, or that he should give any pretext for it; but the suspicion that a wife is not happy naturally leads one to speculate on the husband's private deportment; and Deronda found himself after one o'clock in the morning in the rather ludicrous position of sitting up severely holding a Hebrew grammar in his hands (for somehow, in deference to Mordecai, he had begun to study Hebrew), with the consciousness that he had been in that attitude nearly an hour, and had thought of nothing but Gwendolen and her husband. To be an unusual young man means for the most part to get a difficult mastery over the usual, which is often like the sprite of ill-luck you pack up your goods to escape from, and see grinning at you from the top of your luggage van. The peculiarities of Deronda's nature had been acutely touched by the brief incident and words which made the history of his intercourse with Gwendolen; and this evening's slight addition had given them an importunate recurrence. It was not vanity--it was ready sympathy that had made him alive to a certain appealingness in her behavior toward him; and the difficulty with which she had seemed to raise her eyes to bow to him, in the first instance, was to be interpreted now by that unmistakable look of involuntary confidence which she had afterward turned on him under the consciousness of his approach. "What is the use of it all?" thought Deronda, as he threw down his grammar, and began to undress. "I can't do anything to help her--nobody can, if she has found out her mistake already. And it seems to me that she has a dreary lack of the ideas that might help her. Strange and piteous to think what a center of wretchedness a delicate piece of human flesh like that might be, wrapped round with fine raiment, her ears pierced for gems, her head held loftily, her mouth all smiling pretense, the poor soul within her sitting in sick distaste of all things! But what do I know of her? There may be a demon in her to match the worst husband, for what I can tell. She was clearly an ill-educated, worldly girl: perhaps she is a coquette." This last reflection, not much believed in, was a self-administered dose of caution, prompted partly by Sir Hugo's much-contemned joking on the subject of flirtation. Deronda resolved not to volunteer any _tete-à-tete_ with Gwendolen during the days of her stay at the Abbey; and he was capable of keeping a resolve in spite of much inclination to the contrary. But a man cannot resolve about a woman's actions, least of all about those of a woman like Gwendolen, in whose nature there was a combination of proud reserve with rashness, of perilously poised terror with defiance, which might alternately flatter and disappoint control. Few words could less represent her than "coquette." She had native love of homage, and belief in her own power; but no cold artifice for the sake of enslaving. And the poor thing's belief in her power, with her other dreams before marriage, had often to be thrust aside now like the toys of a sick child, which it looks at with dull eyes, and has no heart to play with, however it may try. The next day at lunch Sir Hugo said to her, "The thaw has gone on like magic, and it's so pleasant out of doors just now--shall we go and see the stables and the other odd bits about the place?" "Yes, pray," said Gwendolen. "You will like to see the stables, Henleigh?" she added, looking at her husband. "Uncommonly," said Grandcourt, with an indifference which seemed to give irony to the word, as he returned her look. It was the first time Deronda had seen them speak to each other since their arrival, and he thought their exchange of looks as cold or official as if it had been a ceremony to keep up a charter. Still, the English fondness for reserve will account for much negation; and Grandcourt's manners with an extra veil of reserve over them might be expected to present the extreme type of the national taste. "Who else is inclined to make the tour of the house and premises?" said Sir Hugo. "The ladies must muffle themselves; there is only just about time to do it well before sunset. You will go, Dan, won't you?" "Oh, yes," said Deronda, carelessly, knowing that Sir Hugo would think any excuse disobliging. "All meet in the library, then, when they are ready--say in half an hour," said the baronet. Gwendolen made herself ready with wonderful quickness, and in ten minutes came down into the library in her sables, plume, and little thick boots. As soon as she entered the room she was aware that some one else was there: it was precisely what she had hoped for. Deronda was standing with his back toward her at the far end of the room, and was looking over a newspaper. How could little thick boots make any noise on an Axminster carpet? And to cough would have seemed an intended signaling which her pride could not condescend to; also, she felt bashful about walking up to him and letting him know that she was there, though it was her hunger to speak to him which had set her imagination on constructing this chance of finding him, and had made her hurry down, as birds hover near the water which they dare not drink. Always uneasily dubious about his opinion of her, she felt a peculiar anxiety to-day, lest he might think of her with contempt, as one triumphantly conscious of being Grandcourt's wife, the future lady of this domain. It was her habitual effort now to magnify the satisfactions of her pride, on which she nourished her strength; but somehow Deronda's being there disturbed them all. There was not the faintest touch of coquetry in the attitude of her mind toward him: he was unique to her among men, because he had impressed her as being not her admirer but her superior: in some mysterious way he was becoming a part of her conscience, as one woman whose nature is an object of reverential belief may become a new conscience to a man. And now he would not look round and find out that she was there! The paper crackled in his hand, his head rose and sank, exploring those stupid columns, and he was evidently stroking his beard; as if this world were a very easy affair to her. Of course all the rest of the company would soon be down, and the opportunity of her saying something to efface her flippancy of the evening before, would be quite gone. She felt sick with irritation--so fast do young creatures like her absorb misery through invisible suckers of their own fancies--and her face had gathered that peculiar expression which comes with a mortification to which tears are forbidden. At last he threw down the paper and turned round. "Oh, you are there already," he said, coming forward a step or two: "I must go and put on my coat." He turned aside and walked out of the room. This was behaving quite badly. Mere politeness would have made him stay to exchange some words before leaving her alone. It was true that Grandcourt came in with Sir Hugo immediately after, so that the words must have been too few to be worth anything. As it was, they saw him walking from the library door. "A--you look rather ill," said Grandcourt, going straight up to her, standing in front of her, and looking into her eyes. "Do you feel equal to the walk?" "Yes, I shall like it," said Gwendolen, without the slightest movement except this of the lips. "We could put off going over the house, you know, and only go out of doors," said Sir Hugo, kindly, while Grandcourt turned aside. "Oh, dear no!" said Gwendolen, speaking with determination; "let us put off nothing. I want a long walk." The rest of the walking party--two ladies and two gentlemen besides Deronda--had now assembled; and Gwendolen rallying, went with due cheerfulness by the side of Sir Hugo, paying apparently an equal attention to the commentaries Deronda was called upon to give on the various architectural fragments, to Sir Hugo's reasons for not attempting to remedy the mixture of the undisguised modern with the antique--which in his opinion only made the place the more truly historical. On their way to the buttery and kitchen they took the outside of the house and paused before a beautiful pointed doorway, which was the only old remnant in the east front. "Well, now, to my mind," said Sir Hugo, "that is more interesting standing as it is in the middle of what is frankly four centuries later, than if the whole front had been dressed up in a pretense of the thirteenth century. Additions ought to smack of the time when they are made and carry the stamp of their period. I wouldn't destroy any old bits, but that notion of reproducing the old is a mistake, I think. At least, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. Besides, where are you to stop along that road--making loopholes where you don't want to peep, and so on? You may as well ask me to wear out the stones with kneeling; eh, Grandcourt?" "A confounded nuisance," drawled Grandcourt. "I hate fellows wanting to howl litanies--acting the greatest bores that have ever existed." "Well, yes, that's what their romanticism must come to," said Sir Hugo, in a tone of confidential assent--"that is if they carry it out logically." "I think that way of arguing against a course because it may be ridden down to an absurdity would soon bring life to a standstill," said Deronda. "It is not the logic of human action, but of a roasting-jack, that must go on to the last turn when it has been once wound up. We can do nothing safely without some judgment as to where we are to stop." "I find the rule of the pocket the best guide," said Sir Hugo, laughingly. "And as for most of your new-old building, you had need to hire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an elderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor would not answer." "Do you want to keep up the old fashions, then, Mr. Deronda?" said Gwendolen, taking advantage of the freedom of grouping to fall back a little, while Sir Hugo and Grandcourt went on. "Some of them. I don't see why we should not use our choice there as we do elsewhere--or why either age or novelty by itself is an argument for or against. To delight in doing things because our fathers did them is good if it shuts out nothing better; it enlarges the range of affection--and affection is the broadest basis of good in life." "Do you think so?" said Gwendolen with a little surprise. "I should have thought you cared most about ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and all that." "But to care about _them_ is a sort of affection," said Deronda, smiling at her sudden _naïveté_. "Call it attachment; interest, willing to bear a great deal for the sake of being with them and saving them from injury. Of course, it makes a difference if the objects of interest are human beings; but generally in all deep affections the objects are a mixture--half persons and half ideas--sentiments and affections flow in together." "I wonder whether I understand that," said Gwendolen, putting up her chin in her old saucy manner. "I believe I am not very affectionate; perhaps you mean to tell me, that is the reason why I don't see much good in life." "No, I did _not_ mean to tell you that; but I admit that I should think it true if I believed what you say of yourself," said Deronda, gravely. Here Sir Hugo and Grandcourt turned round and paused. "I never can get Mr. Deronda to pay me a compliment," said Gwendolen. "I have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be extracted from him." "Ah!" said Sir Hugo, glancing at Deronda, "the fact is, it is useless to flatter a bride. We give it up in despair. She has been so fed on sweet speeches that every thing we say seems tasteless." "Quite true," said Gwendolen, bending her head and smiling. "Mr. Grandcourt won me by neatly-turned compliments. If there had been one word out of place it would have been fatal." "Do you hear that?" said Sir Hugo, looking at the husband. "Yes," said Grandcourt, without change of countenance. "It's a deucedly hard thing to keep up, though." All this seemed to Sir Hugo a natural playfulness between such a husband and wife; but Deronda wondered at the misleading alternations in Gwendolen's manner, which at one moment seemed to excite sympathy by childlike indiscretion, at another to repel it by proud concealment. He tried to keep out of her way by devoting himself to Miss Juliet Fenn, a young lady whose profile had been so unfavorably decided by circumstances over which she had no control, that Gwendolen some months ago had felt it impossible to be jealous of her. Nevertheless, when they were seeing the kitchen--a part of the original building in perfect preservation--the depth of shadow in the niches of the stone-walls and groined vault, the play of light from the huge glowing fire on polished tin, brass, and copper, the fine resonance that came with every sound of voice or metal, were all spoiled for Gwendolen, and Sir Hugo's speech about them was made rather importunate, because Deronda was discoursing to the other ladies and kept at a distance from her. It did not signify that the other gentlemen took the opportunity of being near her: of what use in the world was their admiration while she had an uneasy sense that there was some standard in Deronda's mind which measured her into littleness? Mr. Vandernoodt, who had the mania of always describing one thing while you were looking at another, was quite intolerable with his insistence on Lord Blough's kitchen, which he had seen in the north. "Pray don't ask us to see two kitchens at once. It makes the heat double. I must really go out of it," she cried at last, marching resolutely into the open air, and leaving the others in the rear. Grandcourt was already out, and as she joined him, he said, "I wondered how long you meant to stay in that damned place"--one of the freedoms he had assumed as a husband being the use of his strongest epithets. Gwendolen, turning to see the rest of the party approach, said, "It was certainly rather too warm in one's wraps." They walked on the gravel across a green court, where the snow still lay in islets on the grass, and in masses on the boughs of the great cedar and the crenelated coping of the stone walls, and then into a larger court, where there was another cedar, to find the beautiful choir long ago turned into stables, in the first instance perhaps after an impromptu fashion by troopers, who had a pious satisfaction in insulting the priests of Baal and the images of Ashtoreth, the queen of heaven. The exterior--its west end, save for the stable door, walled in with brick and covered with ivy--was much defaced, maimed of finial and gargoyle, the friable limestone broken and fretted, and lending its soft gray to a powdery dark lichen; the long windows, too, were filled in with brick as far as the springing of the arches, the broad clerestory windows with wire or ventilating blinds. With the low wintry afternoon sun upon it, sending shadows from the cedar boughs, and lighting up the touches of snow remaining on every ledge, it had still a scarcely disturbed aspect of antique solemnity, which gave the scene in the interior rather a startling effect; though, ecclesiastical or reverential indignation apart, the eyes could hardly help dwelling with pleasure on its piquant picturesqueness. Each finely-arched chapel was turned into a stall, where in the dusty glazing of the windows there still gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for the rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and drained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose boxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows on sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces looking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on the hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the altar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a little white-and-liver-colored spaniel making his bed on the back of an elderly hackney, and on four ancient angels, still showing signs of devotion like mutilated martyrs--while over all, the grand pointed roof, untouched by reforming wash, showed its lines and colors mysteriously through veiling shadow and cobweb, and a hoof now and then striking against the boards seemed to fill the vault with thunder, while outside there was the answering bay of the blood-hounds. "Oh, this is glorious!" Gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness of everything but the immediate impression: there had been a little intoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and the fact of her being an important person among them. "This _is_ glorious! Only I wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. I would ten times rather have these stables than those at Diplow." But she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her, and involuntarily she turned her eyes toward Deronda, who oddly enough had taken off his felt hat and stood holding it before him as if they had entered a room or an actual church. He, like others, happened to be looking at her, and their eyes met--to her intense vexation, for it seemed to her that by looking at him she had betrayed the reference of her thoughts, and she felt herself blushing: she exaggerated the impression that even Sir Hugo as well as Deronda would have of her bad taste in referring to the possession of anything at the Abbey: as for Deronda, she had probably made him despise her. Her annoyance at what she imagined to be the obviousness of her confusion robbed her of her usual facility in carrying it off by playful speech, and turning up her face to look at the roof, she wheeled away in that attitude. If any had noticed her blush as significant, they had certainly not interpreted it by the secret windings and recesses of her feeling. A blush is no language: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two contradictories. Deronda alone had a faint guess at some part of her feeling; but while he was observing her he was himself under observation. "Do you take off your hat to horses?" said Grandcourt, with a slight sneer. "Why not?" said Deronda, covering himself. He had really taken off the hat automatically, and if he had been an ugly man might doubtless have done so with impunity; ugliness having naturally the air of involuntary exposure, and beauty, of display. Gwendolen's confusion was soon merged in the survey of the horses, which Grandcourt politely abstained from appraising, languidly assenting to Sir Hugo's alternate depreciation and eulogy of the same animal, as one that he should not have bought when he was younger, and piqued himself on his horses, but yet one that had better qualities than many more expensive brutes. "The fact is, stables dive deeper and deeper into the pocket nowadays, and I am very glad to have got rid of that _démangeaison_," said Sir Hugo, as they were coming out. "What is a man to do, though?" said Grandcourt. "He must ride. I don't see what else there is to do. And I don't call it riding to sit astride a set of brutes with every deformity under the sun." This delicate diplomatic way of characterizing Sir Hugo's stud did not require direct notice; and the baronet, feeling that the conversation had worn rather thin, said to the party generally, "Now we are going to see the cloister--the finest bit of all--in perfect preservation; the monks might have been walking there yesterday." But Gwendolen had lingered behind to look at the kenneled blood-hounds, perhaps because she felt a little dispirited; and Grandcourt waited for her. "You had better take my arm," he said, in his low tone of command; and she took it. "It's a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar," said Grandcourt. "I thought you would like it." "Like it!--one eternal chatter. And encouraging those ugly girls--inviting one to meet such monsters. How that _fat_ Deronda can bear looking at her----" "Why do you call him a _fat_? Do you object to him so much?" "Object? no. What do I care about his being a _fat_? It's of no consequence to me. I'll invite him to Diplow again if you like." "I don't think he would come. He is too clever and learned to care about _us_," said Gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be told (privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon. "I never saw that make much difference in a man. Either he is a gentleman, or he is not," said Grandcourt. That a new husband and wife should snatch a moment's _tete-à-tete_ was what could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left them in the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in that cloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen years before, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. This cloister was built of a harder stone than the church, and had been in greater safety from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of a northern cloister with arched and pillared openings not intended for glazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed still to carry the very touches of the chisel. Gwendolen had dropped her husband's arm and joined the other ladies, to whom Deronda was noticing the delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in the imitation of natural forms. "I wonder whether one oftener learns to love real objects through their representations, or the representations through the real objects," he said, after pointing out a lovely capital made by the curled leaves of greens, showing their reticulated under-side with the firm gradual swell of its central rib. "When I was a little fellow these capitals taught me to observe and delight in the structure of leaves." "I suppose you can see every line of them with your eyes shut," said Juliet Fenn. "Yes. I was always repeating them, because for a good many years this court stood for me as my only image of a convent, and whenever I read of monks and monasteries, this was my scenery for them." "You must love this place very much," said Miss Fenn, innocently, not thinking of inheritance. "So many homes are like twenty others. But this is unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. I dare say you could never love another home so well." "Oh, I carry it with me," said Deronda, quietly, being used to all possible thoughts of this kind. "To most men their early home is no more than a memory of their early years, and I'm not sure but they have the best of it. The image is never marred. There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side." Gwendolen felt sure that he spoke in that way out of delicacy to her and Grandcourt--because he knew they must hear him; and that he probably thought of her as a selfish creature who only cared about possessing things in her own person. But whatever he might say, it must have been a secret hardship to him that any circumstances of his birth had shut him out from the inheritance of his father's position; and if he supposed that she exulted in her husband's taking it, what could he feel for her but scornful pity? Indeed it seemed clear to her that he was avoiding her, and preferred talking to others--which nevertheless was not kind in him. With these thoughts in her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride and timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at the rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she kept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any direct appeal to Deronda. But at the end she was very weary of her assumed spirits, and as Grandcourt turned into the billiard-room, she went to the pretty boudoir which had been assigned to her, and shut herself up to look melancholy at her ease. No chemical process shows a more wonderful activity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we imagine to be going on in another. Changes in theory, religion, admirations, may begin with a suspicion of dissent or disapproval, even when the grounds of disapproval are but matter of searching conjecture. Poor Gwendolen was conscious of an uneasy, transforming process--all the old nature shaken to its depths, its hopes spoiled, its pleasures perturbed, but still showing wholeness and strength in the will to reassert itself. After every new shock of humiliation she tried to adjust herself and seize her old supports--proud concealment, trust in new excitements that would make life go by without much thinking; trust in some deed of reparation to nullify her self-blame and shield her from a vague, ever-visiting dread of some horrible calamity; trust in the hardening effect of use and wont that would make her indifferent to her miseries. Yes--miseries. This beautiful, healthy young creature, with her two-and-twenty years and her gratified ambition, no longer felt inclined to kiss her fortunate image in the glass. She looked at it with wonder that she could be so miserable. One belief which had accompanied her through her unmarried life as a self-cajoling superstition, encouraged by the subordination of every one about her--the belief in her own power of dominating--was utterly gone. Already, in seven short weeks, which seemed half her life, her husband had gained a mastery which she could no more resist than she could have resisted the benumbing effect from the touch of a torpedo. Gwendolen's will had seemed imperious in its small girlish sway; but it was the will of a creature with a large discourse of imaginative fears: a shadow would have been enough to relax its hold. And she had found a will like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goes on pinching or crushing without alarm at thunder. Not that Grandcourt was without calculation of the intangible effects which were the chief means of mastery; indeed, he had a surprising acuteness in detecting that situation of feeling in Gwendolen which made her proud and rebellious spirit dumb and helpless before him. She had burned Lydia Glasher's letter with an instantaneous terror lest other eyes should see it, and had tenaciously concealed from Grandcourt that there was any other cause of her violent hysterics than the excitement and fatigue of the day: she had been urged into an implied falsehood. "Don't ask me--it was my feeling about everything--it was the sudden change from home." The words of that letter kept repeating themselves, and hung on her consciousness with the weight of a prophetic doom. "I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul. Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us more--me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse." The words had nestled their venomous life within her, and stirred continually the vision of the scene at the Whispering Stones. That scene was now like an accusing apparition: she dreaded that Grandcourt should know of it--so far out of her sight now was that possibility she had once satisfied herself with, of speaking to him about Mrs. Glasher and her children, and making them rich amends. Any endurance seemed easier than the mortal humiliation of confessing that she knew all before she married him, and in marrying him had broken her word. For the reasons by which she had justified herself when the marriage tempted her, and all her easy arrangement of her future power over her husband to make him do better than he might be inclined to do, were now as futile as the burned-out lights which set off a child's pageant. Her sense of being blameworthy was exaggerated by a dread both definite and vague. The definite dread was lest the veil of secrecy should fall between her and Grandcourt, and give him the right to taunt her. With the reading of that letter had begun her husband's empire of fear. And her husband all the while knew it. He had not, indeed, any distinct knowledge of her broken promise, and would not have rated highly the effect of that breach on her conscience; but he was aware not only of what Lush had told him about the meeting at the Whispering Stones, but also of Gwendolen's concealment as to the cause of her sudden illness. He felt sure that Lydia had enclosed something with the diamonds, and that this something, whatever it was, had at once created in Gwendolen a new repulsion for him and a reason for not daring to manifest it. He did not greatly mind, or feel as many men might have felt, that his hopes in marriage were blighted: he had wanted to marry Gwendolen, and he was not a man to repent. Why should a gentleman whose other relations in life are carried on without the luxury of sympathetic feeling, be supposed to require that kind of condiment in domestic life? What he chiefly felt was that a change had come over the conditions of his mastery, which, far from shaking it, might establish it the more thoroughly. And it was established. He judged that he had not married a simpleton unable to perceive the impossibility of escape, or to see alternative evils: he had married a girl who had spirit and pride enough not to make a fool of herself by forfeiting all the advantages of a position which had attracted her; and if she wanted pregnant hints to help her in making up her mind properly he would take care not to withhold them. Gwendolen, indeed, with all that gnawing trouble in her consciousness, had hardly for a moment dropped the sense that it was her part to bear herself with dignity, and appear what is called happy. In disclosure of disappointment or sorrow she saw nothing but a humiliation which would have been vinegar to her wounds. Whatever her husband might have come at last to be to her, she meant to wear the yoke so as not to be pitied. For she did think of the coming years with presentiment: she was frightened at Grandcourt. The poor thing had passed from her girlish sauciness of superiority over this inert specimen of personal distinction into an amazed perception of her former ignorance about the possible mental attitude of a man toward the woman he sought in marriage--of her present ignorance as to what their life with each other might turn into. For novelty gives immeasurableness to fear, and fills the early time of all sad changes with phantoms of the future. Her little coquetries, voluntary or involuntary, had told on Grandcourt during courtship, and formed a medium of communication between them, showing him in the light of a creature such as she could understand and manage: but marriage had nullified all such interchange, and Grandcourt had become a blank uncertainty to her in everything but this, that he would do just what he willed, and that she had neither devices at her command to determine his will, nor any rational means of escaping it. What had occurred between them and her wearing the diamonds was typical. One evening, shortly before they came to the Abbey, they were going to dine at Brackenshaw Castle. Gwendolen had said to herself that she would never wear those diamonds: they had horrible words clinging and crawling about them, as from some bad dream, whose images lingered on the perturbed sense. She came down dressed in her white, with only a streak of gold and a pendant of emeralds, which Grandcourt had given her, round her neck, and the little emerald stars in her ears. Grandcourt stood with his back to the fire and looked at her as she entered. "Am I altogether as you like?" she said, speaking rather gaily. She was not without enjoyment in this occasion of going to Brackenshaw Castle with her new dignities upon her, as men whose affairs are sadly involved will enjoy dining out among persons likely to be under a pleasant mistake about them. "No," said Grandcourt. Gwendolen felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering what was to come. She was not unprepared for some struggle about the diamonds; but suppose he were going to say, in low, contemptuous tones, "You are not in any way what I like." It was very bad for her to be secretly hating him; but it would be much worse when he gave the first sign of hating her. "Oh, mercy!" she exclaimed, the pause lasting till she could bear it no longer. "How am I to alter myself?" "Put on the diamonds," said Grandcourt, looking straight at her with his narrow glance. Gwendolen paused in her turn, afraid of showing any emotion, and feeling that nevertheless there was some change in her eyes as they met his. But she was obliged to answer, and said as indifferently as she could, "Oh, please not. I don't think diamonds suit me." "What you think has nothing to do with it," said Grandcourt, his _sotto voce_ imperiousness seeming to have an evening quietude and finish, like his toilet. "I wish you to wear the diamonds." "Pray excuse me; I like these emeralds," said Gwendolen, frightened in spite of her preparation. That white hand of his which was touching his whisker was capable, she fancied, of clinging round her neck and threatening to throttle her; for her fear of him, mingling with the vague foreboding of some retributive calamity which hung about her life, had reached a superstitious point. "Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when I desire it," said Grandcourt. His eyes were still fixed upon her, and she felt her own eyes narrowing under them as if to shut out an entering pain. Of what use was the rebellion within her? She could say nothing that would not hurt her worse than submission. Turning slowly and covering herself again, she went to her dressing-room. As she reached out the diamonds, it occurred to her that her unwillingness to wear them might have already raised a suspicion in Grandcourt that she had some knowledge about them which he had not given her. She fancied that his eyes showed a delight in torturing her. How could she be defiant? She had nothing to say that would touch him--nothing but what would give him a more painful grasp on her consciousness. "He delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half his pleasure in calling them his," she said to herself, as she opened the jewel-case with a shivering sensation. "It will come to be so with me; and I shall quail. What else is there for me? I will not say to the world, 'Pity me.'" She was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behind her. It was Grandcourt who came in. "You want some one to fasten them," he said, coming toward her. She did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out the ornaments and fasten them as he would. Doubtless he had been used to fasten them on some one else. With a bitter sort of sarcasm against herself, Gwendolen thought, "What a privilege this is, to have robbed another woman of!" "What makes you so cold?" said Grandcourt, when he had fastened the last ear-ring. "Pray put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come into a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all, appear decently." This marital speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the quick of Gwendolen's pride and forced her to rally. The words of the bad dream crawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others they were brilliants that suited her perfectly, and Grandcourt inwardly observed that she answered to the rein. "Oh, yes, mamma, quite happy," Gwendolen had said on her return to Diplow. "Not at all disappointed in Ryelands. It is a much finer place than this--larger in every way. But don't you want some more money?" "Did you not know that Mr. Grandcourt left me a letter on your wedding-day? I am to have eight hundred a year. He wishes me to keep Offendene for the present, while you are at Diplow. But if there were some pretty cottage near the park at Ryelands we might live there without much expense, and I should have you most of the year, perhaps." "We must leave that to Mr. Grandcourt, mamma." "Oh, certainly. It is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will pay the rent for Offendene till June. And we can go on very well--without any man-servant except Crane, just for out-of-doors. Our good Merry will stay with us and help me to manage everything. It is natural that Mr. Grandcourt should wish me to live in a good style of house in your neighborhood, and I cannot decline. So he said nothing about it to you?" "No; he wished me to hear it from you, I suppose." Gwendolen in fact had been very anxious to have some definite knowledge of what would be done for her mother, but at no moment since her marriage had she been able to overcome the difficulty of mentioning the subject to Grandcourt. Now, however, she had a sense of obligation which would not let her rest without saying to him, "It is very good of you to provide for mamma. You took a great deal on yourself in marrying a girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her." Grandcourt was smoking, and only said carelessly, "Of course I was not going to let her live like a gamekeeper's mother." "At least he is not mean about money," thought Gwendolen, "and mamma is the better off for my marriage." She often pursued the comparison between what might have been, if she had not married Grandcourt, and what actually was, trying to persuade herself that life generally was barren of satisfaction, and that if she had chosen differently she might now have been looking back with a regret as bitter as the feeling she was trying to argue away. Her mother's dullness, which used to irritate her, she was at present inclined to explain as the ordinary result of woman's experience. True, she still saw that she would "manage differently from mamma;" but her management now only meant that she would carry her troubles with spirit, and let none suspect them. By and by she promised herself that she should get used to her heart-sores, and find excitements that would carry her through life, as a hard gallop carried her through some of the morning hours. There was gambling: she had heard stories at Leubronn of fashionable women who gambled in all sorts of ways. It seemed very flat to her at this distance, but perhaps if she began to gamble again, the passion might awake. Then there was the pleasure of producing an effect by her appearance in society: what did celebrated beauties do in town when their husbands could afford display? All men were fascinated by them: they had a perfect equipage and toilet, walked into public places, and bowed, and made the usual answers, and walked out again, perhaps they bought china, and practiced accomplishments. If she could only feel a keen appetite for those pleasures--could only believe in pleasure as she used to do! Accomplishments had ceased to have the exciting quality of promising any pre-eminence to her; and as for fascinated gentlemen--adorers who might hover round her with languishment, and diversify married life with the romantic stir of mystery, passion, and danger, which her French reading had given her some girlish notion of--they presented themselves to her imagination with the fatal circumstance that, instead of fascinating her in return, they were clad in her own weariness and disgust. The admiring male, rashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of his conversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object to her, and at present seemed rather detestable. Many courses are actually pursued--follies and sins both convenient and inconvenient--without pleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace ourselves with imagining any course beforehand, there must be some foretaste of pleasure in the shape of appetite; and Gwendolen's appetite had sickened. Let her wander over the possibilities of her life as she would, an uncertain shadow dogged her. Her confidence in herself and her destiny had turned into remorse and dread; she trusted neither herself nor her future. This hidden helplessness gave fresh force to the hold Deronda had from the first taken on her mind, as one who had an unknown standard by which he judged her. Had he some way of looking at things which might be a new footing for her--an inward safeguard against possible events which she dreaded as stored-up retribution? It is one of the secrets in that change of mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that to many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some personality touches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them into receptiveness. It had been Gwendolen's habit to think of the persons around her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting. Deronda had lit up her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words only, but by imagined facts, his influence had entered into the current of that self-suspicion and self-blame which awakens a new consciousness. "I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him," was one of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, supporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror--not in admiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. "I wish he knew that I am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in deep trouble, and want to be something better if I could." Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience. But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. Those who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration of Gwendolen's, some education was being prepared for Deronda. CHAPTER XXXVI. "Rien ne pese tant qu'un secret Le porter loin est difficile aux dames: Et je sçais mesme sur ce fait Bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes." --LA FONTAINE. Meanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, who wished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we cannot tell a man his own secrets, the restraint of being in his company often breeds a desire to pair off in conversation with some more ignorant person, and Mr. Vandernoodt presently said, "What a washed-out piece of cambric Grandcourt is! But if he is a favorite of yours, I withdraw the remark." "Not the least in the world," said Deronda. "I thought not. One wonders how he came to have a great passion again; and he must have had--to marry in this way. Though Lush, his old chum, hints that he married this girl out of obstinacy. By George! it was a very accountable obstinacy. A man might make up his mind to marry her without the stimulus of contradiction. But he must have made himself a pretty large drain of money, eh?" "I know nothing of his affairs." "What! not of the other establishment he keeps up?" "Diplow? Of course. He took that of Sir Hugo. But merely for the year." "No, no; not Diplow: Gadsmere. Sir Hugo knows, I'll answer for it." Deronda said nothing. He really began to feel some curiosity, but he foresaw that he should hear what Mr. Vandernoodt had to tell, without the condescension of asking. "Lush would not altogether own to it, of course. He's a confident and go-between of Grandcourt's. But I have it on the best authority. The fact is, there's another lady with four children at Gadsmere. She has had the upper hand of him these ten years and more, and by what I can understand has it still--left her husband for him, and used to travel with him everywhere. Her husband's dead now; I found a fellow who was in the same regiment with him, and knew this Mrs. Glasher before she took wing. A fiery dark-eyed woman--a noted beauty at that time--he thought she was dead. They say she has Grandcourt under her thumb still, and it's a wonder he didn't marry her, for there's a very fine boy, and I understand Grandcourt can do absolutely as he pleases with the estates. Lush told me as much as that." "What right had he to marry this girl?" said Deronda, with disgust. Mr. Vandernoodt, adjusting the end of his cigar, shrugged his shoulders and put out his lips. "_She_ can know nothing of it," said Deronda, emphatically. But that positive statement was immediately followed by an inward query--"Could she have known anything of it?" "It's rather a piquant picture," said Mr. Vandernoodt--"Grandcourt between two fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has plenty of devil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It's a sort of Medea and Creüsa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt is a new kind of Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it. It's a dog's part at best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, 'Jasone! Jasone!' These fine women generally get hold of a stick." "Grandcourt can bite, I fancy," said Deronda. "He is no stick." "No, no; I meant Jason. I can't quite make out Grandcourt. But he's a keen fellow enough--uncommonly well built too. And if he comes into all this property, the estates will bear dividing. This girl, whose friends had come to beggary, I understand, may think herself lucky to get him. I don't want to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair of that sort. But he might make himself more agreeable. I was telling him a capital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the middle. I felt inclined to kick him. Do you suppose that is inattention or insolence, now?" "Oh, a mixture. He generally observes the forms: but he doesn't listen much," said Deronda. Then, after a moment's pause, he went on, "I should think there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you have heard about this lady at Gadsmere." "Not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. People have forgotten all about it. But there the nest is, and the birds are in it. And I know Grandcourt goes there. I have good evidence that he goes there. However, that's nobody's business but his own. The affair has sunk below the surface." "I wonder you could have learned so much about it," said Deronda, rather drily. "Oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such stories get packed away like old letters. They interest me. I like to know the manners of my time--contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. These Dryasdust fellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal about Semiramis or Nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems written upon it by all the warblers big and little. But I don't care a straw about the _faux pas_ of the mummies. You do, though. You are one of the historical men--more interested in a lady when she's got a rag face and skeleton toes peeping out. Does that flatter your imagination?" "Well, if she had any woes in her love, one has the satisfaction of knowing that she's well out of them." "Ah, you are thinking of the Medea, I see." Deronda then chose to point to some giant oaks worth looking at in their bareness. He also felt an interest in this piece of contemporary gossip, but he was satisfied that Mr. Vandernoodt had no more to tell about it. Since the early days when he tried to construct the hidden story of his own birth, his mind had perhaps never been so active in weaving probabilities about any private affair as it had now begun to be about Gwendolen's marriage. This unavowed relation of Grandcourt's--could she have gained some knowledge of it, which caused her to shrink from the match--a shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty? He could recall almost every word she had said to him, and in certain of these words he seemed to discern that she was conscious of having done some wrong--inflicted some injury. His own acute experience made him alive to the form of injury which might affect the unavowed children and their mother. Was Mrs. Grandcourt, under all her determined show of satisfaction, gnawed by a double, a treble-headed grief--self-reproach, disappointment, jealousy? He dwelt especially on all the slight signs of self-reproach: he was inclined to judge her tenderly, to excuse, to pity. He thought he had found a key now by which to interpret her more clearly: what magnifying of her misery might not a young creature get into who had wedded her fresh hopes to old secrets! He thought he saw clearly enough now why Sir Hugo had never dropped any hint of this affair to him; and immediately the image of this Mrs. Glasher became painfully associated with his own hidden birth. Gwendolen knowing of that woman and her children, marrying Grandcourt, and showing herself contented, would have been among the most repulsive of beings to him; but Gwendolen tasting the bitterness of remorse for having contributed to their injury was brought very near to his fellow-feeling. If it were so, she had got to a common plane of understanding with him on some difficulties of life which a woman is rarely able to judge of with any justice or generosity; for, according to precedent, Gwendolen's view of her position might easily have been no other than that her husband's marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while Mrs. Glasher represented his forsaken sin. And Deronda had naturally some resentment on behalf of the Hagars and Ishmaels. Undeniably Deronda's growing solicitude about Gwendolen depended chiefly on her peculiar manner toward him; and I suppose neither man nor woman would be the better for an utter insensibility to such appeals. One sign that his interest in her had changed its footing was that he dismissed any caution against her being a coquette setting snares to involve him in a vulgar flirtation, and determined that he would not again evade any opportunity of talking to her. He had shaken off Mr. Vandernoodt, and got into a solitary corner in the twilight; but half an hour was long enough to think of those possibilities in Gwendolen's position and state of mind; and on forming the determination not to avoid her, he remembered that she was likely to be at tea with the other ladies in the drawing-room. The conjecture was true; for Gwendolen, after resolving not to go down again for the next four hours, began to feel, at the end of one, that in shutting herself up she missed all chances of seeing and hearing, and that her visit would only last two days more. She adjusted herself, put on her little air of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutely agreeable. Only ladies were assembled, and Lady Pentreath was amusing them with a description of a drawing-room under the Regency, and the figure that was cut by ladies and gentlemen in 1819, the year she was presented--when Deronda entered. "Shall I be acceptable?" he said. "Perhaps I had better go back and look for the others. I suppose they are in the billiard-room." "No, no; stay where you are," said Lady Pentreath. "They were all getting tired of me; let us hear what _you_ have to say." "That is rather an embarrassing appeal," said Deronda, drawing up a chair near Lady Mallinger's elbow at the tea-table. "I think I had better take the opportunity of mentioning our songstress," he added, looking at Lady Mallinger--"unless you have done so." "Oh, the little Jewess!" said Lady Mallinger. "No, I have not mentioned her. It never entered my head that any one here wanted singing lessons." "All ladies know some one else who wants singing lessons," said Deronda. "I have happened to find an exquisite singer,"--here he turned to Lady Pentreath. "She is living with some ladies who are friends of mine--the mother and sisters of a man who was my chum at Cambridge. She was on the stage at Vienna; but she wants to leave that life, and maintain herself by teaching." "There are swarms of those people, aren't there?" said the old lady. "Are her lessons to be very cheap or very expensive? Those are the two baits I know of." "There is another bait for those who hear her," said Deronda. "Her singing is something quite exceptional, I think. She has had such first-rate teaching--or rather first-rate instinct with her teaching--that you might imagine her singing all came by nature." "Why did she leave the stage, then?" said Lady Pentreath. "I'm too old to believe in first-rate people giving up first-rate chances." "Her voice was too weak. It is a delicious voice for a room. You who put up with my singing of Schubert would be enchanted with hers," said Deronda, looking at Mrs. Raymond. "And I imagine she would not object to sing at private parties or concerts. Her voice is quite equal to that." "I am to have her in my drawing-room when we go up to town," said Lady Mallinger. "You shall hear her then. I have not heard her myself yet; but I trust Daniel's recommendation. I mean my girls to have lessons of her." "Is it a charitable affair?" said Lady Pentreath. "I can't bear charitable music." Lady Mallinger, who was rather helpless in conversation, and felt herself under an engagement not to tell anything of Mirah's story, had an embarrassed smile on her face, and glanced at Deronda. "It is a charity to those who want to have a good model of feminine singing," said Deronda. "I think everybody who has ears would benefit by a little improvement on the ordinary style. If you heard Miss Lapidoth"--here he looked at Gwendolen--"perhaps you would revoke your resolution to give up singing." "I should rather think my resolution would be confirmed," said Gwendolen. "I don't feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own middlingness." "For my part," said Deronda, "people who do anything finely always inspirit me to try. I don't mean that they make me believe I can do it as well. But they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be done. I can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world would be more dismal if I thought music itself not good for much. Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world." "But then, if we can't imitate it, it only makes our own life seem the tamer," said Gwendolen, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on her own insignificance. "That depends on the point of view, I think," said Deronda. "We should have a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our own performances. A little private imitation of what is good is a sort of private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practice art only in the light of private study--preparation to understand and enjoy what the few can do for us. I think Miss Lapidoth is one of the few." "She must be a very happy person, don't you think?" said Gwendolen, with a touch of sarcasm, and a turn of her neck toward Mrs. Raymond. "I don't know," answered the independent lady; "I must hear more of her before I say that." "It may have been a bitter disappointment to her that her voice failed her for the stage," said Juliet Fenn, sympathetically. "I suppose she's past her best, though," said the deep voice of Lady Pentreath. "On the contrary, she has not reached it," said Deronda. "She is barely twenty." "And very pretty," interposed Lady Mallinger, with an amiable wish to help Deronda. "And she has very good manners. I'm sorry she's a bigoted Jewess; I should not like it for anything else, but it doesn't matter in singing." "Well, since her voice is too weak for her to scream much, I'll tell Lady Clementina to set her on my nine granddaughters," said Lady Pentreath; "and I hope she'll convince eight of them that they have not voice enough to sing anywhere but at church. My notion is, that many of our girls nowadays want lessons not to sing." "I have had my lessons in that," said Gwendolen, looking at Deronda. "You see Lady Pentreath is on my side." While she was speaking, Sir Hugo entered with some of the other gentlemen, including Grandcourt, and standing against the group at the low tea-table said, "What imposition is Deronda putting on you, ladies--slipping in among you by himself?" "Wanting to pass off an obscurity on us as better than any celebrity," said Lady Pentreath--"a pretty singing Jewess who is to astonish these young people. You and I, who heard Catalani in her prime, are not so easily astonished." Sir Hugo listened with his good-humored smile as he took a cup of tea from his wife, and then said, "Well, you know, a Liberal is bound to think that there have been singers since Catalani's time." "Ah, you are younger than I am. I dare say you are one of the men who ran after Alcharisi. But she married off and left you all in the lurch." "Yes, yes; it's rather too bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while Deronda, who had moved from his place to make room for others, and felt that he was not in request, sat down a little apart. Presently he became aware that, in the general dispersion of the group, Gwendolen had extricated herself from the attentions of Mr. Vandernoodt and had walked to the piano, where she stood apparently examining the music which lay on the desk. Will any one be surprised at Deronda's concluding that she wished him to join her? Perhaps she wanted to make amends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his recommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse often was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went to her side and said, "Are you relenting about the music and looking for something to play or sing?" "I am not looking for anything, but I _am_ relenting," said Gwendolen, speaking in a submissive tone. "May I know the reason?" "I should like to hear Miss Lapidoth and have lessons from her, since you admire her so much--that is, of course, when we go to town. I mean lessons in rejoicing at her excellence and my own deficiency," said Gwendolen, turning on him a sweet, open smile. "I shall be really glad for you to see and hear her," said Deronda, returning the smile in kind. "Is she as perfect in every thing else as in her music?" "I can't vouch for that exactly. I have not seen enough of her. But I have seen nothing in her that I could wish to be different. She has had an unhappy life. Her troubles began in early childhood, and she has grown up among very painful surroundings. But I think you will say that no advantages could have given her more grace and truer refinement." "I wonder what sort of trouble hers were?" "I have not any very precise knowledge. But I know that she was on the brink of drowning herself in despair." "And what hindered her?" said Gwendolen, quickly, looking at Deronda. "Some ray or other came--which made her feel that she ought to live--that it was good to live," he answered, quietly. "She is full of piety, and seems capable of submitting to anything when it takes the form of duty." "Those people are not to be pitied," said Gwendolen, impatiently. "I have no sympathy with women who are always doing right. I don't believe in their great sufferings." Her fingers moved quickly among the edges of the music. "It is true," said Deronda, "that the consciousness of having done wrong is something deeper, more bitter. I suppose we faulty creatures can never feel so much for the irreproachable as for those who are bruised in the struggle with their own faults. It is a very ancient story, that of the lost sheep--but it comes up afresh every day." "That is a way of speaking--it is not acted upon, it is not real," said Gwendolen, bitterly. "You admire Miss Lapidoth because you think her blameless, perfect. And you know you would despise a woman who had done something you thought very wrong." "That would depend entirely upon her own view of what she had done," said Deronda. "You would be satisfied if she were very wretched, I suppose," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "No, not satisfied--full of sorrow for her. It was not a mere way of speaking. I did not mean to say that the finer nature is not more adorable; I meant that those who would be comparatively uninteresting beforehand may become worthier of sympathy when they do something that awakens in them a keen remorse. Lives are enlarged in different ways. I dare say some would never get their eyes opened if it were not for a violent shock from the consequences of their own actions. And when they are suffering in that way one must care for them more than for the comfortably self-satisfied." Deronda forgot everything but his vision of what Gwendolen's experience had probably been, and urged by compassion let his eyes and voice express as much interest as they would. Gwendolen had slipped on to the music-stool, and looked up at him with pain in her long eyes, like a wounded animal asking for help. "Are you persuading Mrs. Grandcourt to play to us, Dan?" said Sir Hugo, coming up and putting his hand on Deronda's shoulder with a gentle, admonitory pinch. "I cannot persuade myself," said Gwendolen, rising. Others had followed Sir Hugo's lead, and there was an end of any liability to confidences for that day. But the next was New Year's Eve; and a grand dance, to which the chief tenants were invited, was to be held in the picture-gallery above the cloister--the sort of entertainment in which numbers and general movement may create privacy. When Gwendolen was dressing, she longed, in remembrance of Leubronn, to put on the old turquoise necklace for her sole ornament; but she dared not offend her husband by appearing in that shabby way on an occasion when he would demand her utmost splendor. Determined to wear the memorial necklace somehow, she wound it thrice round her wrist and made a bracelet of it--having gone to her room to put it on just before the time of entering the ball-room. It was always a beautiful scene, this dance on New Year's Eve, which had been kept up by the family tradition as nearly in the old fashion as inexorable change would allow. Red carpet was laid down for the occasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in bowers at the extremities and in every recess of the gallery; and the old portraits stretching back through generations, even to the pre-portraying period, made a piquant line of spectators. Some neighboring gentry, major and minor, were invited; and it was certainly an occasion when a prospective master and mistress of Abbott's and King's Topping might see their future glory in an agreeable light, as a picturesque provincial supremacy with a rent-roll personified by the most prosperous-looking tenants. Sir Hugo expected Grandcourt to feel flattered by being asked to the Abbey at a time which included this festival in honor of the family estate; but he also hoped that his own hale appearance might impress his successor with the probable length of time that would elapse before the succession came, and with the wisdom of preferring a good actual sum to a minor property that must be waited for. All present, down to the least important farmer's daughter, knew that they were to see "young Grandcourt," Sir Hugo's nephew, the presumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his bride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and nephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. The bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness and spirit would enable her to make the best of. And now she was wondering that she could get so little joy out of the exultation to which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and superfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even unreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the moment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist like willful tormentors. Wondering in this way at her own dullness, and all the while longing for an excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing through files of admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it was traditional to open the ball, and was being generally regarded by her own sex as an enviable woman. It was remarked that she carried herself with a wonderful air, considering that she had been nobody in particular, and without a farthing to her fortune. If she had been a duke's daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have taken the honors of the evening more as a matter of course. Poor Gwendolen! It would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was automatically practiced to bear this last great gambling loss with an air of perfect self-possession. The next couple that passed were also worth looking at. Lady Pentreath had said, "I shall stand up for one dance, but I shall choose my partner. Mr. Deronda, you are the youngest man, I mean to dance with you. Nobody is old enough to make a good pair with me. I must have a contrast." And the contrast certainly set off the old lady to the utmost. She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early as possible. What might have seemed harshness in her features when she was young, had turned now into a satisfactory strength of form and expression which defied wrinkles, and was set off by a crown of white hair; her well-built figure was well covered with black drapery, her ears and neck comfortably caressed with lace, showing none of those withered spaces which one would think it a pitiable condition of poverty to expose. She glided along gracefully enough, her dark eyes still with a mischievous smile in them as she observed the company. Her partner's young richness of tint against the flattened hues and rougher forms of her aged head had an effect something like that of a fine flower against a lichenous branch. Perhaps the tenants hardly appreciated this pair. Lady Pentreath was nothing more than a straight, active old lady: Mr. Deronda was a familiar figure regarded with friendliness; but if he had been the heir, it would have been regretted that his face was not as unmistakably English as Sir Hugo's. Grandcourt's appearance when he came up with Lady Mallinger was not impeached with foreignness: still the satisfaction in it was not complete. It would have been matter of congratulation if one who had the luck to inherit two old family estates had had more hair, a fresher color, and a look of greater animation; but that fine families dwindled off into females, and estates ran together into the single heirship of a mealy-complexioned male, was a tendency in things which seemed to be accounted for by a citation of other instances. It was agreed that Mr. Grandcourt could never be taken for anything but what he was--a born gentleman; and that, in fact, he looked like an heir. Perhaps the person least complacently disposed toward him at that moment was Lady Mallinger, to whom going in procession up this country-dance with Grandcourt was a blazonment of herself as the infelicitous wife who had produced nothing but daughters, little better than no children, poor dear things, except for her own fondness and for Sir Hugo's wonderful goodness to them. But such inward discomfort could not prevent the gentle lady from looking fair and stout to admiration, or her full blue eyes from glancing mildly at her neighbors. All the mothers and fathers held it a thousand pities that she had not had a fine boy, or even several--which might have been expected, to look at her when she was first married. The gallery included only three sides of the quadrangle, the fourth being shut off as a lobby or corridor: one side was used for dancing, and the opposite side for the supper-table, while the intermediate part was less brilliantly lit, and fitted with comfortable seats. Later in the evening Gwendolen was in one of these seats, and Grandcourt was standing near her. They were not talking to each other: she was leaning backward in her chair, and he against the wall; and Deronda, happening to observe this, went up to ask her if she had resolved not to dance any more. Having himself been doing hard duty in this way among the guests, he thought he had earned the right to sink for a little while into the background, and he had spoken little to Gwendolen since their conversation at the piano the day before. Grandcourt's presence would only make it the easier to show that pleasure in talking to her even about trivialities which would be a sign of friendliness; and he fancied that her face looked blank. A smile beamed over it as she saw him coming, and she raised herself from her leaning posture. Grandcourt had been grumbling at the _ennui_ of staying so long in this stupid dance, and proposing that they should vanish: she had resisted on the ground of politeness--not without being a little frightened at the probability that he was silently angry with her. She had her reason for staying, though she had begun to despair of the opportunity for the sake of which she had put the old necklace on her wrist. But now at last Deronda had come. "Yes; I shall not dance any more. Are you not glad?" she said, with some gayety, "you might have felt obliged humbly to offer yourself as a partner, and I feel sure you have danced more than you like already." "I will not deny that," said Deronda, "since you have danced as much as you like." "But will you take trouble for me in another way, and fetch me a glass of that fresh water?" It was but a few steps that Deronda had to go for the water. Gwendolen was wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under which her hands were hidden. While he was gone she had drawn off her glove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her hand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the necklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily to her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. Grandcourt saw it, and saw that it was attracting Deronda's notice. "What is that hideous thing you have got on your wrist?" said the husband. "That?" said Gwendolen, composedly, pointing to the turquoises, while she still held the glass; "it is an old necklace I like to wear. I lost it once, and someone found it for me." With that she gave the glass again to Deronda, who immediately carried it away, and on returning said, in order to banish any consciousness about the necklace, "It is worth while for you to go and look out at one of the windows on that side. You can see the finest possible moonlight on the stone pillars and carving, and shadows waving across it in the wind." "I should like to see it. Will you go?" said Gwendolen, looking up at her husband. He cast his eyes down at her, and saying, "No, Deronda will take you," slowly moved from his leaning attitude, and walked away. Gwendolen's face for a moment showed a fleeting vexation: she resented this show of indifference toward her. Deronda felt annoyed, chiefly for her sake; and with a quick sense, that it would relieve her most to behave as if nothing peculiar had occurred, he said, "Will you take my arm and go, while only servants are there?" He thought that he understood well her action in drawing his attention to the necklace: she wished him to infer that she had submitted her mind to rebuke--her speech and manner had from the first fluctuated toward that submission--and that she felt no lingering resentment. Her evident confidence in his interpretation of her appealed to him as a peculiar claim. When they were walking together, Gwendolen felt as if the annoyance which had just happened had removed another film of reserve from between them, and she had more right than before to be as open as she wished. She did not speak, being filled with the sense of silent confidence, until they were in front of the window looking out on the moonlit court. A sort of bower had been made round the window, turning it into a recess. Quitting his arm, she folded her hands in her burnous, and pressed her brow against the glass. He moved slightly away, and held the lapels of his coat with his thumbs under the collar as his manner was: he had a wonderful power of standing perfectly still, and in that position reminded one sometimes of Dante's _spiriti magni con occhi tardi e gravi_. (Doubtless some of these danced in their youth, doubted of their own vocation, and found their own times too modern.) He abstained from remarking on the scene before them, fearing that any indifferent words might jar on her: already the calm light and shadow, the ancient steadfast forms, and aloofness enough from those inward troubles which he felt sure were agitating her. And he judged aright: she would have been impatient of polite conversation. The incidents of the last minute or two had receded behind former thoughts which she had imagined herself uttering to Deronda, which now urged themselves to her lips. In a subdued voice, she said, "Suppose I had gambled again, and lost the necklace again, what should you have thought of me?" "Worse than I do now." "Then you are mistaken about me. You wanted me not to do that--not to make my gain out of another's loss in that way--and I have done a great deal worse." "I can't imagine temptations," said Deronda. "Perhaps I am able to understand what you mean. At least I understand self-reproach." In spite of preparation he was almost alarmed at Gwendolen's precipitancy of confidence toward him, in contrast with her habitual resolute concealment. "What should you do if you were like me--feeling that you were wrong and miserable, and dreading everything to come?" It seemed that she was hurrying to make the utmost use of this opportunity to speak as she would. "That is not to be amended by doing one thing only--but many," said Deronda, decisively. "What?" said Gwendolen, hastily, moving her brow from the glass and looking at him. He looked full at her in return, with what she thought was severity. He felt that it was not a moment in which he must let himself be tender, and flinch from implying a hard opinion. "I mean there are many thoughts and habits that may help us to bear inevitable sorrow. Multitudes have to bear it." She turned her brow to the window again, and said impatiently, "You must tell me then what to think and what to do; else why did you not let me go on doing as I liked and not minding? If I had gone on gambling I might have won again, and I might have got not to care for anything else. You would not let me do that. Why shouldn't I do as I like, and not mind? Other people do." Poor Gwendolen's speech expressed nothing very clearly except her irritation. "I don't believe you would ever get not to mind," said Deronda, with deep-toned decision. "If it were true that baseness and cruelty made an escape from pain, what difference would that make to people who can't be quite base or cruel? Idiots escape some pain; but you can't be an idiot. Some may do wrong to another without remorse; but suppose one does feel remorse? I believe you could never lead an injurious life--all reckless lives are injurious, pestilential--without feeling remorse." Deronda's unconscious fervor had gathered as he went on: he was uttering thoughts which he had used for himself in moments of painful meditation. "Then tell me what better I can do," said Gwendolen, insistently. "Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their troubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try to care for what is best in thought and action--something that is good apart from the accidents of your own lot." For an instant or two Gwendolen was mute. Then, again moving her brow from the glass, she said, "You mean that I am selfish and ignorant." He met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly--"You will not go on being selfish and ignorant!" She did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change came over her face--that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the subsidence of self-assertion. "Shall I lead you back?" said Deronda, gently, turning and offering her his arm again. She took it silently, and in that way they came in sight of Grandcourt, who was walking slowly near their former place. Gwendolen went up to him and said, "I am ready to go now. Mr. Deronda will excuse us to Lady Mallinger." "Certainly," said Deronda. "Lord and Lady Pentreath disappeared some time ago." Grandcourt gave his arm in silent compliance, nodding over his shoulder to Deronda, and Gwendolen too only half turned to bow and say, "Thanks." The husband and wife left the gallery and paced the corridors in silence. When the door had closed on them in the boudoir, Grandcourt threw himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness, "Sit down." She, already in the expectation of something unpleasant, had thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and immediately obeyed. Turning his eyes toward her, he began, "Oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play." "What do you mean?" said Gwendolen. "I suppose there is some understanding between you and Deronda about that thing you have on your wrist. If you have anything to say to him, say it. But don't carry on a telegraphing which other people are supposed not to see. It's damnably vulgar." "You can know all about the necklace," said Gwendolen, her angry pride resisting the nightmare of fear. "I don't want to know. Keep to yourself whatever you like." Grandcourt paused between each sentence, and in each his speech seemed to become more preternaturally distinct in its inward tones. "What I care to know I shall know without your telling me. Only you will please to behave as becomes my wife. And not make a spectacle of yourself." "Do you object to my talking to Mr. Deronda?" "I don't care two straws about Deronda, or any other conceited hanger-on. You may talk to him as much as you like. He is not going to take my place. You are my wife. And you will either fill your place properly--to the world and to me--or you will go to the devil." "I never intended anything but to fill my place properly," said Gwendolen, with bitterest mortification in her soul. "You put that thing on your wrist, and hid it from me till you wanted him to see it. Only fools go into that deaf and dumb talk, and think they're secret. You will understand that you are not to compromise yourself. Behave with dignity. That's all I have to say." With that last word Grandcourt rose, turned his back to the fire and looked down on her. She was mute. There was no reproach that she dared to fling back at him in return for these insulting admonitions, and the very reason she felt them to be insulting was that their purport went with the most absolute dictate of her pride. What she would least like to incur was the making a fool of herself and being compromised. It was futile and irrelevant to try and explain that Deronda too had only been a monitor--the strongest of all monitors. Grandcourt was contemptuous, not jealous; contemptuously certain of all the subjection he cared for. Why could she not rebel and defy him? She longed to do it. But she might as well have tried to defy the texture of her nerves and the palpitation of her heart. Her husband had a ghostly army at his back, that could close round her wherever she might turn. She sat in her splendid attire, like a white image of helplessness, and he seemed to gratify himself with looking at her. She could not even make a passionate exclamation, or throw up her arms, as she would have done in her maiden days. The sense of his scorn kept her still. "Shall I ring?" he said, after what seemed to her a long while. She moved her head in assent, and after ringing he went to his dressing-room. Certain words were gnawing within her. "The wrong you have done me will be your own curse." As he closed the door, the bitter tears rose, and the gnawing words provoked an answer: "Why did you put your fangs into me and not into him?" It was uttered in a whisper, as the tears came up silently. But she immediately pressed her handkerchief against her eyes, and checked her tendency to sob. The next day, recovered from the shuddering fit of this evening scene, she determined to use the charter which Grandcourt had scornfully given her, and to talk as much as she liked with Deronda; but no opportunities occurred, and any little devices she could imagine for creating them were rejected by her pride, which was now doubly active. Not toward Deronda himself--she was singularly free from alarm lest he should think her openness wanting in dignity: it was part of his power over her that she believed him free from all misunderstanding as to the way in which she appealed to him; or rather, that he should misunderstand her had never entered into her mind. But the last morning came, and still she had never been able to take up the dropped thread of their talk, and she was without devices. She and Grandcourt were to leave at three o'clock. It was too irritating that after a walk in the grounds had been planned in Deronda's hearing, he did not present himself to join in it. Grandcourt was gone with Sir Hugo to King's Topping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the waterfowl, and everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with old Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodt and his admiring manners. The irritation became too strong for her; without premeditation, she took advantage of the winding road to linger a little out of sight, and then set off back to the house, almost running when she was safe from observation. She entered by a side door, and the library was on her left hand; Deronda, she knew, was often there; why might she not turn in there as well as into any other room in the house? She had been taken there expressly to see the illuminated family tree, and other remarkable things--what more natural than that she should like to look in again? The thing most to be feared was that the room would be empty of Deronda, for the door was ajar. She pushed it gently, and looked round it. He was there, writing busily at a distant table, with his back toward the door (in fact, Sir Hugo had asked him to answer some constituents' letters which had become pressing). An enormous log fire, with the scent of Russia from the books, made the great room as warmly odorous as a private chapel in which the censors have been swinging. It seemed too daring to go in--too rude to speak and interrupt him; yet she went in on the noiseless carpet, and stood still for two or three minutes, till Deronda, having finished a letter, pushed it aside for signature, and threw himself back to consider whether there were anything else for him to do, or whether he could walk out for the chance of meeting the party which included Gwendolen, when he heard her voice saying, "Mr. Deronda." It was certainly startling. He rose hastily, turned round, and pushed away his chair with a strong expression of surprise. "Am I wrong to come in?" said Gwendolen. "I thought you were far on your walk," said Deronda. "I turned back," said Gwendolen. "Do you intend to go out again? I could join you now, if you would allow me." "No; I want to say something, and I can't stay long," said Gwendolen, speaking quickly in a subdued tone, while she walked forward and rested her arms and muff on the back of the chair he had pushed away from him. "I want to tell you that it is really so--I can't help feeling remorse for having injured others. That was what I meant when I said that I had done worse than gamble again and pawn the necklace again--something more injurious, as you called it. And I can't alter it. I am punished, but I can't alter it. You said I could do many things. Tell me again. What should you do--what should you feel if you were in my place?" The hurried directness with which she spoke--the absence of all her little airs, as if she were only concerned to use the time in getting an answer that would guide her, made her appeal unspeakably touching. Deronda said, "I should feel something of what you feel--deep sorrow." "But what would you try to do?" said Gwendolen, with urgent quickness. "Order my life so as to make any possible amends, and keep away from doing any sort of injury again," said Deronda, catching her sense that the time for speech was brief. "But I can't--I can't; I must go on," said Gwendolen, in a passionate loud whisper. "I have thrust out others--I have made my gain out of their loss--tried to make it--tried. And I must go on. I can't alter it." It was impossible to answer this instantaneously. Her words had confirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in swift images before him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out sanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart was full of pity for her. But as soon as he could he answered--taking up her last words, "That is the bitterest of all--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing. But if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or life-long incurable disease?--and made the unalterable wrong a reason for more effort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil? One who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by that consciousness into a higher course than is common. There are many examples. Feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make us long to save other lives from being spoiled." "But you have not wronged any one, or spoiled their lives," said Gwendolen, hastily. "It is only others who have wronged _you_." Deronda colored slightly, but said immediately--"I suppose our keen feeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others, if, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others go through the same sharp experience. That is a sort of remorse before commission. Can't you understand that?" "I think I do--now," said Gwendolen. "But you were right--I _am_ selfish. I have never thought much of any one's feelings, except my mother's. I have not been fond of people. But what can I do?" she went on, more quickly. "I must get up in the morning and do what every one else does. It is all like a dance set beforehand. I seem to see all that can be--and I am tired and sick of it. And the world is all confusion to me"--she made a gesture of disgust. "You say I am ignorant. But what is the good of trying to know more, unless life were worth more?" "This good," said Deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity, which he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; "life _would_ be worth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in the world beyond the small drama of personal desires. It is the curse of your life--forgive me--of so many lives, that all passion is spent in that narrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger home for it. Is there any single occupation of mind that you care about with passionate delight or even independent interest?" Deronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an electric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently, "I take what you said of music for a small example--it answers for all larger things--you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy in it. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in it for souls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus for our attention and awe, I don't see how four would have it. We should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own inanity--which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The refuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the religious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our own appetites and vanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by an elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our wisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are clad with knowledge." The half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Deronda's voice came, as often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather than from severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial effect on her than any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent rebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is comparative activity. For the moment she felt like a shaken child--shaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly, "I will try. I will think." They both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had arrested them,--for Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure which is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering around us,--till Gwendolen began again, "You said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly any--none about me. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible. Things have changed to me so--in such a short time. What I used not to like I long for now. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things now they are gone." Her lip trembled. "Take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light," said Deronda, more gently. "You are conscious of more beyond the round of your own inclinations--you know more of the way in which your life presses on others, and their life on yours. I don't think you could have escaped the painful process in some form or other." "But it is a very cruel form," said Gwendolen, beating her foot on the ground with returning agitation. "I am frightened at everything. I am frightened at myself. When my blood is fired I can do daring things--take any leap; but that makes me frightened at myself." She was looking at nothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the window, away from Deronda, who, with quick comprehension said, "Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may do a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always in a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our memories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our tastes. Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately present to you. Try to take hold of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision." Deronda uttered each sentence more urgently; he felt as if he were seizing a faint chance of rescuing her from some indefinite danger. "Yes, I know; I understand what you mean," said Gwendolen in her loud whisper, not turning her eyes, but lifting up her small gloved hand and waving it in deprecation of the notion that it was easy to obey that advice. "But if feelings rose--there are some feelings--hatred and anger--how can I be good when they keep rising? And if there came a moment when I felt stifled and could bear it no longer----" She broke off, and with agitated lips looked at Deronda, but the expression on his face pierced her with an entirely new feeling. He was under the baffling difficulty of discerning that what he had been urging on her was thrown into the pallid distance of mere thought before the outburst of her habitual emotion. It was as if he saw her drowning while his limbs were bound. The pained compassion which was spread over his features as he watched her, affected her with a compunction unlike any she had felt before, and in a changed and imploring tone she said, "I am grieving you. I am ungrateful. You _can_ help me. I will think of everything. I will try. Tell me--it will not be a pain to you that I have dared to speak of my trouble to you? You began it, you know, when you rebuked me." There was a melancholy smile on her lips as she said that, but she added more entreatingly, "It will not be a pain to you?" "Not if it does anything to save you from an evil to come," said Deronda, with strong emphasis; "otherwise, it will be a lasting pain." "No--no--it shall not be. It may be--it shall be better with me because I have known you." She turned immediately, and quitted the room. When she was on the first landing of the staircase, Sir Hugo passed across the hall on his way to the library, and saw her. Grandcourt was not with him. Deronda, when the baronet entered, was standing in his ordinary attitude, grasping his coat-collar, with his back to the table, and with that indefinable expression by which we judge that a man is still in the shadow of a scene which he has just gone through. He moved, however, and began to arrange the letters. "Has Mrs. Grandcourt been in here?" said Sir Hugo. "Yes, she has." "Where are the others?" "I believe she left them somewhere in the grounds." After a moment's silence, in which Sir Hugo looked at a letter without reading it, he said "I hope you are not playing with fire, Dan--you understand me?" "I believe I do, sir," said Deronda, after a slight hesitation, which had some repressed anger in it. "But there is nothing answering to your metaphor--no fire, and therefore no chance of scorching." Sir Hugo looked searchingly at him, and then said, "So much the better. For, between ourselves, I fancy there may be some hidden gunpowder in that establishment." CHAPTER XXXVII. _Aspern._ Pardon, my lord--I speak for Sigismund. _Fronsberg._ For him? Oh, ay--for him I always hold A pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw Sooner or later on me. What his need? Mad project broken? fine mechanic wings That would not fly? durance, assault on watch, Bill for Epernay, not a crust to eat? _Aspern._ Oh, none of these, my lord; he has escaped From Circe's herd, and seeks to win the love Of your fair ward Cecilia: but would win First your consent. You frown. _Fronsberg._ Distinguish words. I said I held a pardon, not consent. In spite of Deronda's reasons for wishing to be in town again--reasons in which his anxiety for Mirah was blent with curiosity to know more of the enigmatic Mordecai--he did not manage to go up before Sir Hugo, who preceded his family that he might be ready for the opening of Parliament on the sixth of February. Deronda took up his quarters in Park Lane, aware that his chambers were sufficiently tenanted by Hans Meyrick. This was what he expected; but he found other things not altogether according to his expectations. Most of us remember Retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear, foreseeing that the imbecile will turn this delusion into a prejudice against waterproofs instead of giving a closer study to the weather-signs. It is a peculiar test of a man's mettle when, after he has painfully adjusted himself to what seems a wise provision, he finds all his mental precaution a little beside the mark, and his excellent intentions no better than miscalculated dovetails, accurately cut from a wrong starting-point. His magnanimity has got itself ready to meet misbehavior, and finds quite a different call upon it. Something of this kind happened to Deronda. His first impression was one of pure pleasure and amusement at finding his sitting-room transformed into an _atelier_ strewed with miscellaneous drawings and with the contents of two chests from Rome, the lower half of the windows darkened with baize, and the blonde Hans in his weird youth as the presiding genius of the littered place--his hair longer than of old, his face more whimsically creased, and his high voice as usual getting higher under the excitement of rapid talk. The friendship of the two had been kept up warmly since the memorable Cambridge time, not only by correspondence but by little episodes of companionship abroad and in England, and the original relation of confidence on one side and indulgence on the other had been developed in practice, as is wont to be the case where such spiritual borrowing and lending has been well begun. "I knew you would like to see my casts and antiquities," said Hans, after the first hearty greetings and inquiries, "so I didn't scruple to unlade my chests here. But I've found two rooms at Chelsea not many hundred yards from my mother and sisters, and I shall soon be ready to hang out there--when they've scraped the walls and put in some new lights. That's all I'm waiting for. But you see I don't wait to begin work: you can't conceive what a great fellow I'm going to be. The seed of immortality has sprouted within me." "Only a fungoid growth, I dare say--a growing disease in the lungs," said Deronda, accustomed to treat Hans in brotherly fashion. He was walking toward some drawings propped on the ledge of his bookcases; five rapidly-sketched heads--different aspects of the same face. He stood at a convenient distance from them, without making any remark. Hans, too, was silent for a minute, took up his palette and began touching the picture on his easel. "What do you think of them?" he said at last. "The full face looks too massive; otherwise the likenesses are good," said Deronda, more coldly than was usual with him. "No, it is not too massive," said Hans, decisively. "I have noted that. There is always a little surprise when one passes from the profile to the full face. But I shall enlarge her scale for Berenice. I am making a Berenice series--look at the sketches along there--and now I think of it, you are just the model I want for the Agrippa." Hans, still with pencil and palette in hand, had moved to Deronda's side while he said this, but he added hastily, as if conscious of a mistake, "No, no, I forgot; you don't like sitting for your portrait, confound you! However, I've picked up a capital Titus. There are to be five in the series. The first is Berenice clasping the knees of Gessius Florus and beseeching him to spare her people; I've got that on the easel. Then, this, where she is standing on the Xystus with Agrippa, entreating the people not to injure themselves by resistance." "Agrippa's legs will never do," said Deronda. "The legs are good realistically," said Hans, his face creasing drolly; "public men are often shaky about the legs--' Their legs, the emblem of their various thought,' as somebody says in the _Rehearsal._" "But these are as impossible as the legs of Raphael's Alcibiades," said Deronda. "Then they are good ideally," said Hans. "Agrippa's legs were possibly bad; I idealize that and make them impossibly bad. Art, my Eugenius, must intensify. But never mind the legs now: the third sketch in the series is Berenice exulting in the prospects of being Empress of Rome, when the news has come that Vespasian is declared Emperor and her lover Titus his successor." "You must put a scroll in her mouth, else people will not understand that. You can't tell that in a picture." "It will make them feel their ignorance then--an excellent æsthetic effect. The fourth is, Titus sending Berenice away from Rome after she has shared his palace for ten years--both reluctant, both sad--_invitus invitam_, as Suetonius hath it. I've found a model for the Roman brute." "Shall you make Berenice look fifty? She must have been that." "No, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. Dark-eyed beauty wears well, hers particularly. But now, here is the fifth: Berenice seated lonely on the ruins of Jerusalem. That is pure imagination. That is what ought to have been--perhaps was. Now, see how I tell a pathetic negative. Nobody knows what became of her--that is finely indicated by the series coming to a close. There is no sixth picture." Here Hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of sublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a like impression on Deronda. "I break off in the Homeric style. The story is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into nothing--_le néant_; can anything be more sublime, especially in French? The vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial--perhaps her will read and her linen distributed. But now come and look at this on the easel. I have made some way there." "That beseeching attitude is really good," said Deronda, after a moment's contemplation. "You have been very industrious in the Christmas holidays; for I suppose you have taken up the subject since you came to London." Neither of them had yet mentioned Mirah. "No," said Hans, putting touches to his picture, "I made up my mind to the subject before. I take that lucky chance for an augury that I am going to burst on the world as a great painter. I saw a splendid woman in the Trastevere--the grandest women there are half Jewesses--and she set me hunting for a fine situation of a Jewess at Rome. Like other men of vast learning, I ended by taking what lay on the surface. I'll show you a sketch of the Trasteverina's head when I can lay my hands on it." "I should think she would be a more suitable model for Berenice," said Deronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent. "Not a bit of it. The model ought to be the most beautiful Jewess in the world, and I have found her." "Have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that character? I should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. Does she quite know what you are doing?" "Certainly. I got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude. Little mother sat for Gessius Florus, and Mirah clasped her knees." Here Hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches. "I dare say she knows nothing about Berenice's history," said Deronda, feeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify. "Oh, yes, she does--ladies' edition. Berenice was a fervid patriot, but was beguiled by love and ambition into attaching herself to the arch-enemy of her people. Whence the Nemesis. Mirah takes it as a tragic parable, and cries to think what the penitent Berenice suffered as she wandered back to Jerusalem and sat desolate amidst desolation. That was her own phrase. I couldn't find it in my heart to tell her I invented that part of the story." "Show me your Trasteverina," said Deronda, chiefly in order to hinder himself from saying something else. "Shall you mind turning over that folio?" said Hans. "My studies of heads are all there. But they are in confusion. You will perhaps find her next to a crop-eared undergraduate." After Deronda had been turning over the drawings a minute or two, he said, "These seem to be all Cambridge heads and bits of country. Perhaps I had better begin at the other end." "No; you'll find her about the middle. I emptied one folio into another." "Is this one of your undergraduates?" said Deronda, holding up a drawing. "It's an unusually agreeable face." "That! Oh, that's a man named Gascoigne--Rex Gascoigne. An uncommonly good fellow; his upper lip, too, is good. I coached him before he got his scholarship. He ought to have taken honors last Easter. But he was ill, and has had to stay up another year. I must look him up. I want to know how he's going on." "Here she is, I suppose," said Deronda, holding up a sketch of the Trasteverina. "Ah," said Hans, looking at it rather contemptuously, "too coarse. I was unregenerate then." Deronda was silent while he closed the folio, leaving the Trasteverina outside. Then clasping his coat-collar, and turning toward Hans, he said, "I dare say my scruples are excessive, Meyrick, but I must ask you to oblige me by giving up this notion." Hans threw himself into a tragic attitude, and screamed, "What! my series--my immortal Berenice series? Think of what you are saying, man--destroying, as Milton says, not a life but an immortality. Wait before you answer, that I may deposit the implements of my art and be ready to uproot my hair." Here Hans laid down his pencil and palette, threw himself backward into a great chair, and hanging limply over the side, shook his long hair over his face, lifted his hooked fingers on each side his head, and looked up with comic terror at Deronda, who was obliged to smile, as he said, "Paint as many Berenices as you like, but I wish you could feel with me--perhaps you will, on reflection--that you should choose another model." "Why?" said Hans, standing up, and looking serious again. "Because she may get into such a position that her face is likely to be recognized. Mrs. Meyrick and I are anxious for her that she should be known as an admirable singer. It is right, and she wishes it, that she should make herself independent. And she has excellent chances. One good introduction is secured already, and I am going to speak to Klesmer. Her face may come to be very well known, and--well, it is useless to attempt to explain, unless you feel as I do. I believe that if Mirah saw the circumstances clearly, she would strongly object to being exhibited in this way--to allowing herself to be used as a model for a heroine of this sort." As Hans stood with his thumbs in the belt of his blouse, listening to this speech, his face showed a growing surprise melting into amusement, that at last would have its way in an explosive laugh: but seeing that Deronda looked gravely offended, he checked himself to say, "Excuse my laughing, Deronda. You never gave me an advantage over you before. If it had been about anything but my own pictures, I should have swallowed every word because you said it. And so you actually believe that I should get my five pictures hung on the line in a conspicuous position, and carefully studied by the public? Zounds, man! cider-cup and conceit never gave me half such a beautiful dream. My pictures are likely to remain as private as the utmost hypersensitiveness could desire." Hans turned to paint again as a way of filling up awkward pauses. Deronda stood perfectly still, recognizing his mistake as to publicity, but also conscious that his repugnance was not much diminished. He was the reverse of satisfied either with himself or with Hans; but the power of being quiet carries a man well through moments of embarrassment. Hans had a reverence for his friend which made him feel a sort of shyness at Deronda's being in the wrong; but it was not in his nature to give up anything readily, though it were only a whim--or rather, especially if it were a whim, and he presently went on, painting the while, "But even supposing I had a public rushing after my pictures as if they were a railway series including nurses, babies and bonnet-boxes, I can't see any justice in your objection. Every painter worth remembering has painted the face he admired most, as often as he could. It is a part of his soul that goes out into his pictures. He diffuses its influence in that way. He puts what he hates into a caricature. He puts what he adores into some sacred, heroic form. If a man could paint the woman he loves a thousand times as the _Stella Maris_ to put courage into the sailors on board a thousand ships, so much the more honor to her. Isn't that better than painting a piece of staring immodesty and calling it by a worshipful name?" "Every objection can be answered if you take broad ground enough, Hans: no special question of conduct can be properly settled in that way," said Deronda, with a touch of peremptoriness. "I might admit all your generalities, and yet be right in saying you ought not to publish Mirah's face as a model for Berenice. But I give up the question of publicity. I was unreasonable there." Deronda hesitated a moment. "Still, even as a private affair, there might be good reasons for your not indulging yourself too much in painting her from the point of view you mention. You must feel that her situation at present is a very delicate one; and until she is in more independence, she should be kept as carefully as a bit of Venetian glass, for fear of shaking her out of the safe place she is lodged in. Are you quite sure of your own discretion? Excuse me, Hans. My having found her binds me to watch over her. Do you understand me?" "Perfectly," said Hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile. "You have the very justifiable opinion of me that I am likely to shatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the bargain. Quite fair. Since I got into the scrape of being born, everything I have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or somebody else. Everything I have taken to heartily has somehow turned into a scrape. My painting is the last scrape; and I shall be all my life getting out of it. You think now I shall get into a scrape at home. No; I am regenerate. You think I must be over head and ears in love with Mirah. Quite right; so I am. But you think I shall scream and plunge and spoil everything. There you are mistaken--excusably, but transcendently mistaken. I have undergone baptism by immersion. Awe takes care of me. Ask the little mother." "You don't reckon a hopeless love among your scrapes, then," said Deronda, whose voice seemed to get deeper as Hans's went higher. "I don't mean to call mine hopeless," said Hans, with provoking coolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt, and moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more deliberately. "My dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself," said Deronda, decisively. "She would not marry a Christian, even if she loved him. Have you heard her--of course you have--heard her speak of her people and her religion?" "That can't last," said Hans. "She will see no Jew who is tolerable. Every male of that race is insupportable--'insupportably advancing'--his nose." "She may rejoin her family. That is what she longs for. Her mother and brother are probably strict Jews." "I'll turn proselyte, if she wishes it," said Hans, with a shrug and a laugh. "Don't talk nonsense, Hans. I thought you professed a serious love for her," said Deronda, getting heated. "So I do. You think it desperate, but I don't." "I know nothing; I can't tell what has happened. We must be prepared for surprises. But I can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than that there should have seemed to be anything in Mirah's sentiments for you to found a romantic hope on." Deronda felt that he was too contemptuous. "I don't found my romantic hopes on a woman's sentiments," said Hans, perversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with gravity. "I go to science and philosophy for my romance. Nature designed Mirah to fall in love with me. The amalgamation of races demands it--the mitigation of human ugliness demands it--the affinity of contrasts assures it. I am the utmost contrast to Mirah--a bleached Christian, who can't sing two notes in tune. Who has a chance against me?" "I see now; it was all _persiflage_. You don't mean a word you say, Meyrick," said Deronda, laying his hand on Meyrick's shoulder, and speaking in a tone of cordial relief. "I was a wiseacre to answer you seriously." "Upon my honor I do mean it, though," said Hans, facing round and laying his left hand on Deronda's shoulder, so that their eyes fronted each other closely. "I am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as soon as you came. My mother says you are Mirah's guardian, and she thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah in her house. Well, I love her--I worship her--I won't despair--I mean to deserve her." "My dear fellow, you can't do it," said Deronda, quickly. "I should have said, I mean to try." "You can't keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would do for your mother and sisters." "You have a right to reproach me, old fellow," said Hans, gently. "Perhaps I am ungenerous," said Deronda, not apologetically, however. "Yet it can't be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad, Quixotic expectations." "Who will be hurt but myself, then?" said Hans, putting out his lip. "I am not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir Thomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose, than be sure of winning anywhere else. And I don't mean to swallow the poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity." "With all my heart, if it will do you any good," said Deronda, loosing Hans's shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his words were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced. He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor--the irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans's egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, had soon forgotten it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent--nay, satisfied. But now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger because it must not be betrayed, Hans's evident assumption that for any danger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to Mirah, Deronda was not as much out of the question as the angel Gabriel. It is one thing to be resolute in placing one's self out of the question, and another to endure that others should perform that exclusion for us. He had expected that Hans would give him trouble: what he had not expected was that the trouble would have a strong element of personal feeling. And he was rather ashamed that Hans's hopes caused him uneasiness in spite of his well-warranted conviction that they would never be fulfilled. They had raised an image of Mirah changing; and however he might protest that the change would not happen, the protest kept up the unpleasant image. Altogether poor Hans seemed to be entering into Deronda's experience in a disproportionate manner--going beyond his part of rescued prodigal, and rousing a feeling quite distinct from compassionate affection. When Deronda went to Chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought to have been by Mrs. Meyrick's evident release from anxiety about the beloved but incalculable son. Mirah seemed livelier than before, and for the first time he saw her laugh. It was when they were talking of Hans, he being naturally the mother's first topic. Mirah wished to know if Deronda had seen Mr. Hans going through a sort of character piece without changing his dress. "He passes from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame where you fancied the figures without seeing them," said Mirah, full of her subject; "he is so wonderfully quick. I used never to like comic things on the stage--they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute Mr. Hans makes himself a blind bard, and then Rienzi addressing the Romans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young gentleman--I am sorry for them all, and yet I laugh, all in one"--here Mirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song. "We hardly thought that Mirah could laugh till Hans came," said Mrs. Meyrick, seeing that Deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty picture. "Hans seems in great force just now," said Deronda in a tone of congratulation. "I don't wonder at his enlivening you." "He's been just perfect ever since he came back," said Mrs. Meyrick, keeping to herself the next clause--"if it will but last." "It is a great happiness," said Mirah, "to see the son and brother come into this dear home. And I hear them all talk about what they did together when they were little. That seems like heaven, and to have a mother and brother who talk in that way. I have never had it." "Nor I," said Deronda, involuntarily. "No?" said Mirah, regretfully. "I wish you had. I wish you had had every good." The last words were uttered with a serious ardor as if they had been part of a litany, while her eyes were fixed on Deronda, who with his elbow on the back of his chair was contemplating her by the new light of the impression she had made on Hans, and the possibility of her being attracted by that extraordinary contrast. It was no more than what had happened on each former visit of his, that Mirah appeared to enjoy speaking of what she felt very much as a little girl fresh from school pours forth spontaneously all the long-repressed chat for which she has found willing ears. For the first time in her life Mirah was among those whom she entirely trusted, and her original visionary impression that Deronda was a divinely-sent messenger hung about his image still, stirring always anew the disposition to reliance and openness. It was in this way she took what might have been the injurious flattery of admiring attention into which her helpless dependence had been suddenly transformed. Every one around her watched for her looks and words, and the effect on her was simply that of having passed from a trifling imprisonment into an exhilarating air which made speech and action a delight. To her mind it was all a gift from others' goodness. But that word of Deronda's implying that there had been some lack in his life which might be compared with anything she had known in hers, was an entirely new inlet of thought about him. After her first expression of sorrowful surprise she went on, "But Mr. Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you hardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of Buddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her little ones from starving. And he said you were like Buddha. That is what we all imagine of you." "Pray don't imagine that," said Deronda, who had lately been finding such suppositions rather exasperating. "Even if it were true that I thought so much of others, it would not follow that I had no wants for myself. When Buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been very hungry himself." "Perhaps if he was starved he would not mind so much about being eaten," said Mab, shyly. "Please don't think that, Mab; it takes away the beauty of the action," said Mirah. "But if it were true, Mirah?" said the rational Amy, having a half-holiday from her teaching; "you always take what is beautiful as if it were true." "So it is," said Mirah, gently. "If people have thought what is the most beautiful and the best thing, it must be true. It is always there." "Now, Mirah, what do you mean?" said Amy. "I understand her," said Deronda, coming to the rescue. "It is a truth in thought though it may never have been carried out in action. It lives as an idea. Is that it?" He turned to Mirah, who was listening with a blind look in her lovely eyes. "It must be that, because you understand me, but I cannot quite explain," said Mirah, rather abstractedly--still searching for some expression. "But _was_ it beautiful for Buddha to let the tiger eat him?" said Amy, changing her ground. "It would be a bad pattern." "The world would get full of fat tigers," said Mab. Deronda laughed, but defended the myth. "It is like a passionate word," he said; "the exaggeration is a flash of fervor. It is an extreme image of what is happening every day--the transmutation of self." "I think I can say what I mean, now," said Mirah, who had not heard the intermediate talk. "When the best thing comes into our thoughts, it is like what my mother has been to me. She has been just as really with me as all the other people about me--often more really with me." Deronda, inwardly wincing under this illustration, which brought other possible realities about that mother vividly before him, presently turned the conversation by saying, "But we must not get too far away from practical matters. I came, for one thing, to tell of an interview I had yesterday, which I hope Mirah will find to have been useful to her. It was with Klesmer, the great pianist." "Ah?" said Mrs. Meyrick, with satisfaction. "You think he will help her?" "I hope so. He is very much occupied, but has promised to fix a time for receiving and hearing Miss Lapidoth, as we must learn to call her"--here Deronda smiled at Mirah--"If she consents to go to him." "I shall be very grateful," said Mirah. "He wants to hear me sing, before he can judge whether I ought to be helped." Deronda was struck with her plain sense about these matters of practical concern. "It will not be at all trying to you, I hope, if Mrs. Meyrick will kindly go with you to Klesmer's house." "Oh, no, not at all trying. I have been doing that all my life--I mean, told to do things that others may judge of me. And I have gone through a bad trial of that sort. I am prepared to bear it, and do some very small thing. Is Klesmer a severe man?" "He is peculiar, but I have not had experience enough of him to know whether he would be what you would call severe." "I know he is kind-hearted--kind in action, if not in speech." "I have been used to be frowned at and not praised," said Mirah. "By the by, Klesmer frowns a good deal," said Deronda, "but there is often a sort of smile in his eyes all the while. Unhappily he wears spectacles, so you must catch him in the right light to see the smile." "I shall not be frightened," said Mirah. "If he were like a roaring lion, he only wants me to sing. I shall do what I can." "Then I feel sure you will not mind being invited to sing in Lady Mallinger's drawing-room," said Deronda. "She intends to ask you next month, and will invite many ladies to hear you, who are likely to want lessons from you for their daughters." "How fast we are mounting!" said Mrs. Meyrick, with delight. "You never thought of getting grand so quickly, Mirah." "I am a little frightened at being called Miss Lapidoth," said Mirah, coloring with a new uneasiness. "Might I be called Cohen?" "I understand you," said Deronda, promptly. "But I assure you, you must not be called Cohen. The name is inadmissible for a singer. This is one of the trifles in which we must conform to vulgar prejudice. We could choose some other name, however--such as singers ordinarily choose--an Italian or Spanish name, which would suit your _physique_." To Deronda just now the name Cohen was equivalent to the ugliest of yellow badges. Mirah reflected a little, anxiously, then said, "No. If Cohen will not do, I will keep the name I have been called by. I will not hide myself. I have friends to protect me. And now--if my father were very miserable and wanted help--no," she said, looking at Mrs. Meyrick, "I should think, then, that he was perhaps crying as I used to see him, and had nobody to pity him, and I had hidden myself from him. He had none belonging to him but me. Others that made friends with him always left him." "Keep to what you feel right, my dear child," said Mrs. Meyrick. "_I_ would not persuade you to the contrary." For her own part she had no patience or pity for that father, and would have left him to his crying. Deronda was saying to himself, "I am rather base to be angry with Hans. How can he help being in love with her? But it is too absurdly presumptuous for him even to frame the idea of appropriating her, and a sort of blasphemy to suppose that she could possibly give herself to him." What would it be for Daniel Deronda to entertain such thoughts? He was not one who could quite naively introduce himself where he had just excluded his friend, yet it was undeniable that what had just happened made a new stage in his feeling toward Mirah. But apart from other grounds for self-repression, reasons both definite and vague made him shut away that question as he might have shut up a half-opened writing that would have carried his imagination too far, and given too much shape to presentiments. Might there not come a disclosure which would hold the missing determination of his course? What did he really know about his origin? Strangely in these latter months when it seemed right that he should exert his will in the choice of a destination, the passion of his nature had got more and more locked by this uncertainty. The disclosure might bring its pain, indeed the likelihood seemed to him to be all on that side; but if it helped him to make his life a sequence which would take the form of duty--if it saved him from having to make an arbitrary selection where he felt no preponderance of desire? Still more, he wanted to escape standing as a critic outside the activities of men, stiffened into the ridiculous attitude of self-assigned superiority. His chief tether was his early inwrought affection for Sir Hugo, making him gratefully deferential to wishes with which he had little agreement: but gratitude had been sometimes disturbed by doubts which were near reducing it to a fear of being ungrateful. Many of us complain that half our birthright is sharp duty: Deronda was more inclined to complain that he was robbed of this half; yet he accused himself, as he would have accused another, of being weakly self-conscious and wanting in resolve. He was the reverse of that type painted for us in Faulconbridge and Edmund of Gloster, whose coarse ambition for personal success is inflamed by a defiance of accidental disadvantages. To Daniel the words Father and Mother had the altar-fire in them; and the thought of all closest relations of our nature held still something of the mystic power which had made his neck and ears burn in boyhood. The average man may regard this sensibility on the question of birth as preposterous and hardly credible; but with the utmost respect for his knowledge as the rock from which all other knowledge is hewn, it must be admitted that many well-proved facts are dark to the average man, even concerning the action of his own heart and the structure of his own retina. A century ago he and all his forefathers had not had the slightest notion of that electric discharge by means of which they had all wagged their tongues mistakenly; any more than they were awake to the secluded anguish of exceptional sensitiveness into which many a carelessly-begotten child of man is born. Perhaps the ferment was all the stronger in Deronda's mind because he had never had a confidant to whom he could open himself on these delicate subjects. He had always been leaned on instead of being invited to lean. Sometimes he had longed for the sort of friend to whom he might possibly unfold his experience: a young man like himself who sustained a private grief and was not too confident about his own career; speculative enough to understand every moral difficulty, yet socially susceptible, as he himself was, and having every outward sign of equality either in bodily or spiritual wrestling--for he had found it impossible to reciprocate confidences with one who looked up to him. But he had no expectation of meeting the friend he imagined. Deronda's was not one of those quiveringly-poised natures that lend themselves to second-sight. CHAPTER XXXVIII. There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound not _after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire into the _narthex_ whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust by the Kratos and Bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despised ideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure of poverty and disease--a solitude where many pass by, but none regard. "Second-sight" is a flag over disputed ground. But it is matter of knowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions--nay, traveled conclusions--continually take the form of images which have a foreshadowing power; the deed they would do starts up before them in complete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or dread rises into vision with a seed-like growth, feeding itself fast on unnumbered impressions. They are not always the less capable of the argumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators of the market: sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold openings, like the hundred-gated Thebes, where there may naturally be a greater and more miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow beadle-watched portal. No doubt there are abject specimens of the visionary, as there is a minim mammal which you might imprison in the finger of your glove. That small relative of the elephant has no harm in him; but what great mental or social type is free from specimens whose insignificance is both ugly and noxious? One is afraid to think of all that the genus "patriot" embraces; or of the elbowing there might be at the day of judgment for those who ranked as authors, and brought volumes either in their hands or on trucks. This apology for inevitable kinship is meant to usher in some facts about Mordecai, whose figure had bitten itself into Deronda's mind as a new question which he felt an interest in getting answered. But the interest was no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the consumptive-looking Jew, apparently a fervid student of some kind, getting his crust by a quiet handicraft, like Spinoza, fitted into none of Deronda's anticipations. It was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For many winters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and as widening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had concentrated itself in the yearning for some young ear into which he could pour his mind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept the spiritual product of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to be executed. It was remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the beneficent illusion of consumptive patients, was in Mordecai wholly diverted from the prospect of bodily recovery and carried into the current of this yearning for transmission. The yearning, which had panted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into a hope--the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being checked by the clear conception he had of his hastening decline, took rather the intensity of expectant faith in a prophecy which has only brief space to get fulfilled in. Some years had now gone since he had first begun to measure men with a keen glance, searching for a possibility which became more and more a distinct conception. Such distinctness as it had at first was reached chiefly by a method of contrast: he wanted to find a man who differed from himself. Tracing reasons in that self for the rebuffs he had met with and the hindrances that beset him, he imagined a man who would have all the elements necessary for sympathy with him, but in an embodiment unlike his own: he must be a Jew, intellectually cultured, morally fervid--in all this a nature ready to be plenished from Mordecai's; but his face and frame must be beautiful and strong, he must have been used to all the refinements of social life, his voice must flow with a full and easy current, his circumstances be free from sordid need: he must glorify the possibilities of the Jew, not sit and wonder as Mordecai did, bearing the stamp of his people amid the sign of poverty and waning breath. Sensitive to physical characteristics, he had, both abroad and in England, looked at pictures as well as men, and in a vacant hour he had sometimes lingered in the National Gallery in search of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and noble types of the human form, such as might well belong to men of his own race. But he returned in disappointment. The instances are scattered but thinly over the galleries of Europe, in which the fortune or selection even of the chief masters has given to art a face at once young, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, it is no feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability of heroism. Some observant persons may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and dark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that had touched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore a cloth cap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked him to take off. But spectators would be likely to think of him as an odd-looking Jew who probably got money out of pictures; and Mordecai, when he looked at them, was perfectly aware of the impression he made. Experience had rendered him morbidly alive to the effect of a man's poverty and other physical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas, unless they are those of a Peter the Hermit who has a tocsin for the rabble. But he was too sane and generous to attribute his spiritual banishment solely to the excusable prejudices of others; certain incapacities of his own had made the sentence of exclusion; and hence it was that his imagination had constructed another man who would be something more ample than the second soul bestowed, according to the notion of the Cabalists, to help out the insufficient first--who would be a blooming human life, ready to incorporate all that was worthiest in an existence whose visible, palpable part was burning itself fast away. His inward need for the conception of this expanded, prolonged self was reflected as an outward necessity. The thoughts of his heart (that ancient phrase best shadows the truth) seemed to him too precious, too closely interwoven with the growth of things not to have a further destiny. And as the more beautiful, the stronger, the more executive self took shape in his mind, he loved it beforehand with an affection half identifying, half contemplative and grateful. Mordecai's mind wrought so constantly in images, that his coherent trains of thought often resembled the significant dreams attributed to sleepers by waking persons in their most inventive moments: nay, they often resembled genuine dreams in their way of breaking off the passage from the known to the unknown. Thus, for a long while, he habitually thought of the Being answering to his need as one distantly approaching or turning his back toward him, darkly painted against a golden sky. The reason of the golden sky lay in one of Mordecai's habits. He was keenly alive to some poetic aspects of London; and a favorite resort of his, when strength and leisure allowed, was to some of the bridges, especially about sunrise or sunset. Even when he was bending over watch-wheels and trinkets, or seated in a small upper room looking out on dingy bricks and dingy cracked windows, his imagination spontaneously planted him on some spot where he had a far-stretching scene; his thoughts went on in wide spaces; and whenever he could, he tried to have in reality the influences of a large sky. Leaning on the parapet of Blackfriar's Bridge, and gazing meditatively, the breadth and calm of the river, with its long vista half hazy, half luminous, the grand dim masses of tall forms of buildings which were the signs of world-commerce, the oncoming of boats and barges from the still distance into sound and color, entered into his mood and blent themselves indistinguishably with his thinking, as a fine symphony to which we can hardly be said to listen, makes a medium that bears up our spiritual wings. Thus it happened that the figure representative of Mordecai's longing was mentally seen darkened by the excess of light in the aerial background. But in the inevitable progress of his imagination toward fuller detail, he ceased to see the figure with its back toward him. It began to advance, and a face became discernible; the words youth, beauty, refinement, Jewish birth, noble gravity, turned into hardly individual but typical form and color: gathered from his memory of faces seen among the Jews of Holland and Bohemia, and from the paintings which revived that memory. Reverently let it be said of this mature spiritual need that it was akin to the boy's and girl's picturing of the future beloved; but the stirrings of such young desire are feeble compared with the passionate current of an ideal life straining to embody itself, made intense by resistance to imminent dissolution. The visionary form became a companion and auditor; keeping a place not only in the waking imagination, but in those dreams of lighter slumber of which it is truest to say, "I sleep, but my heart waketh"--when the disturbing trivial story of yesterday is charged with the impassioned purpose of years. Of late the urgency of irremediable time, measured by the gradual choking of life, had turned Mordecai's trust into an agitated watch for the fulfillment that must be at hand. Was the bell on the verge of tolling, the sentence about to be executed? The deliverer's footstep must be near--the deliverer who was to rescue Mordecai's spiritual travail from oblivion, and give it an abiding-place in the best heritage of his people. An insane exaggeration of his own value, even if his ideas had been as true and precious as those of Columbus or Newton, many would have counted this yearning, taking it as the sublimer part for a man to say, "If not I, then another," and to hold cheap the meaning of his own life. But the fuller nature desires to be an agent, to create, and not merely to look on: strong love hungers to bless, and not merely to behold blessing. And while there is warmth enough in the sun to feed an energetic life, there will still be men to feel, "I am lord of this moment's change, and will charge it with my soul." But with that mingling of inconsequence which belongs to us all, and not unhappily, since it saves us from many effects of mistake, Mordecai's confidence in the friend to come did not suffice to make him passive, and he tried expedients, pathetically humble, such as happened to be within his reach, for communicating something of himself. It was now two years since he had taken up his abode under Ezra Cohen's roof, where he was regarded with much good-will as a compound of workman, dominie, vessel of charity, inspired idiot, man of piety, and (if he were inquired into) dangerous heretic. During that time little Jacob had advanced into knickerbockers, and into that quickness of apprehension which has been already made manifest in relation to hardware and exchange. He had also advanced in attachment to Mordecai, regarding him as an inferior, but liking him none the worse, and taking his helpful cleverness as he might have taken the services of an enslaved Djinn. As for Mordecai, he had given Jacob his first lessons, and his habitual tenderness easily turned into the teacher's fatherhood. Though he was fully conscious of the spiritual distance between the parents and himself, and would never have attempted any communication to them from his peculiar world, the boy moved him with that idealizing affection which merges the qualities of the individual child in the glory of childhood and the possibilities of a long future. And this feeling had drawn him on, at first without premeditation, and afterward with conscious purpose, to a sort of outpouring in the ear of the boy which might have seemed wild enough to any excellent man of business who overheard it. But none overheard when Jacob went up to Mordecai's room one day, for example, in which there was little work to be done, or at an hour when the work was ended, and after a brief lesson in English reading or in numeration, was induced to remain standing at his teacher's knees, or chose to jump astride them, often to the patient fatigue of the wasted limbs. The inducement was perhaps the mending of a toy, or some little mechanical device in which Mordecai's well-practiced finger-tips had an exceptional skill; and with the boy thus tethered, he would begin to repeat a Hebrew poem of his own, into which years before he had poured his first youthful ardors for that conception of a blended past and future which was the mistress of his soul, telling Jacob to say the words after him. "The boy will get them engraved within him," thought Mordecai; "it is a way of printing." None readier than Jacob at this fascinating game of imitating unintelligible words; and if no opposing diversion occurred he would sometimes carry on his share in it as long as the teacher's breath would last out. For Mordecai threw into each repetition the fervor befitting a sacred occasion. In such instances, Jacob would show no other distraction than reaching out and surveying the contents of his pockets; or drawing down the skin of his cheeks to make his eyes look awful, and rolling his head to complete the effect; or alternately handling his own nose and Mordecai's as if to test the relation of their masses. Under all this the fervid reciter would not pause, satisfied if the young organs of speech would submit themselves. But most commonly a sudden impulse sent Jacob leaping away into some antic or active amusement, when, instead of following the recitation he would return upon the foregoing words most ready to his tongue, and mouth or gabble, with a see-saw suited to the action of his limbs, a verse on which Mordecai had spent some of his too scanty heart's blood. Yet he waited with such patience as a prophet needs, and began his strange printing again undiscouraged on the morrow, saying inwardly, "My words may rule him some day. Their meaning may flash out on him. It is so with a nation--after many days." Meanwhile Jacob's sense of power was increased and his time enlivened by a store of magical articulation with which he made the baby crow, or drove the large cat into a dark corner, or promised himself to frighten any incidental Christian of his own years. One week he had unfortunately seen a street mountebank, and this carried off his muscular imitativeness in sad divergence from New Hebrew poetry, after the model of Jehuda ha-Levi. Mordecai had arrived at a fresh passage in his poem; for as soon as Jacob had got well used to one portion, he was led on to another, and a fresh combination of sounds generally answered better in keeping him fast for a few minutes. The consumptive voice, generally a strong high baritone, with its variously mingling hoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, and its occasional incipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while it gave forth Hebrew verses with a meaning something like this: "Away from me the garment of forgetfulness. Withering the heart; The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim, Poisoned with scorn. Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo, In its heart a tomb: There the buried ark and golden cherubim Make hidden light: There the solemn gaze unchanged, The wings are spread unbroken: Shut beneath in silent awful speech The Law lies graven. Solitude and darkness are my covering, And my heart a tomb; Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel! Shatter it as the clay of the founder Around the golden image." In the absorbing enthusiasm with which Mordecai had intoned rather than spoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that Jacob had ceased to follow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw, as by a sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with his feet in the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his lips a bright farthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures. This might have been reckoned among the tricks Mordecai was used to, but at this moment it jarred him horribly, as if it had been a Satanic grin upon his prayer. "Child! child!" he called out with a strange cry that startled Jacob to his feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes. "What?" said Jacob, quickly. Then, not getting an immediate answer, he pressed Mordecai's knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse him. Mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned forward, grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse whisper, "A curse is on your generation, child. They will open the mountain and drag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn faces they will break up into ear-rings for wanton women! And they shall get themselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the fiery brand, shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead desires that turn their life to rottenness." The aspect and action of Mordecai were so new and mysterious to Jacob--they carried such a burden of obscure threat--it was as if the patient, indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and terrific: the sunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the thin grappling fingers, shook Jacob's little frame into awe, and while Mordecai was speaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house was tumbling in and they were not going to have dinner any more. But when the terrible speech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock resolved itself into tears; Jacob lifted up his small patriarchal countenance and wept aloud. This sign of childish grief at once recalled Mordecai to his usual gentle self: he was not able to speak again at present, but with a maternal action he drew the curly head toward him and pressed it tenderly against his breast. On this Jacob, feeling the danger well-nigh over, howled at ease, beginning to imitate his own performance and improve upon it--a sort of transition from impulse into art often observable. Indeed, the next day he undertook to terrify Adelaide Rebekah in like manner, and succeeded very well. But Mordecai suffered a check which lasted long, from the consciousness of a misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged severely his moments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt discredited with himself. All the more his mind was strained toward the discernment of that friend to come, with whom he would have a calm certainty of fellowship and understanding. It was just then that, in his usual midday guardianship of the old book-shop, he was struck by the appearance of Deronda, and it is perhaps comprehensible now why Mordecai's glance took on a sudden eager interest as he looked at the new-comer: he saw a face and frame which seemed to him to realize the long-conceived type. But the disclaimer of Jewish birth was for the moment a backward thrust of double severity, the particular disappointment tending to shake his confidence in the more indefinite expectation. Nevertheless, when he found Deronda seated at the Cohens' table, the disclaimer was for the moment nullified: the first impression returned with added force, seeming to be guaranteed by this second meeting under circumstance more peculiar than the former; and in asking Deronda if he knew Hebrew, Mordecai was so possessed by the new inrush of belief, that he had forgotten the absence of any other condition to the fulfillment of his hopes. But the answering "No" struck them all down again, and the frustration was more painful than before. After turning his back on the visitor that Sabbath evening, Mordecai went through days of a deep discouragement, like that of men on a doomed ship, who having strained their eyes after a sail, and beheld it with rejoicing, behold it never advance, and say, "Our sick eyes make it." But the long-contemplated figure had come as an emotional sequence of Mordecai's firmest theoretic convictions; it had been wrought from the imagery of his most passionate life; and it inevitably reappeared--reappeared in a more specific self-asserting form than ever. Deronda had that sort of resemblance to the preconceived type which a finely individual bust or portrait has to the more generalized copy left in our minds after a long interval: we renew our memory with delight, but we hardly know with how much correction. And now, his face met Mordecai's inward gaze as it had always belonged to the awaited friend, raying out, moreover, some of that influence which belongs to breathing flesh; till by-and-by it seemed that discouragement had turned into a new obstinacy of resistance, and the ever-recurrent vision had the force of an outward call to disregard counter-evidence, and keep expectation awake. It was Deronda now who was seen in the often painful night-watches, when we are all liable to be held with the clutch of a single thought--whose figure, never with its back turned, was seen in moments of soothed reverie or soothed dozing, painted on that golden sky which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest. Mordecai knew that the nameless stranger was to come and redeem his ring; and, in spite of contrary chances, the wish to see him again was growing into a belief that he should see him. In the January weeks, he felt an increasing agitation of that subdued hidden quality which hinders nervous people from any steady occupation on the eve of an anticipated change. He could not go on with his printing of Hebrew on little Jacob's mind; or with his attendance at a weekly club, which was another effort of the same forlorn hope: something else was coming. The one thing he longed for was to get as far as the river, which he could do but seldom and with difficulty. He yearned with a poet's yearning for the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and fluctuating lights on the water which seems to breathe with a life that can shiver and mourn, be comforted and rejoice. CHAPTER XXXIX. "Vor den Wissenden sich stellen, Sicher ist's in allen Fällen! Wenn du lange dich gequälet, Weiß er gleich, wo dir es fehlet. Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen; Denn er weiß, wo du's getroffen." --GOETHE: _West-östlicher Divan_. Momentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to the small house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah's public name. But for the family group there, what appeared to be the chief sequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. About four o'clock wheels paused before the door, and there came one of those knocks with an accompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of social existence in a region where the most enlivening signals are usually those of the muffin-man. All the girls were at home, and the two rooms were thrown together to make space for Kate's drawing, as well as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the satin cushions--a sort of _pièce de résistance_ in the courses of needlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at liberty. It stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, Mrs. Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at the other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the make-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her education in that branch having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated on a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the successive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth with charming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, "The Praise of Chimney-Sweeps," and all were smiling over the "innocent blackness," when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier spheres, and they looked up in wonderment. "Dear me!" said Mrs. Meyrick; "can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a grand carriage, Amy?" "No--only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman." "The Prime Minister, I should think," said Kate dryly. "Hans says the greatest man in London may get into a hansom cab." "Oh, oh, oh!" cried Mab. "Suppose it should be Lord Russell!" The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant bringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there was seen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the respected Premier--tall and physically impressive even in his kid and kerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in fact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_. Even embarrassment could hardly have made the "little mother" awkward, but quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation, and felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah instead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active interest. But when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the cottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire family existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in the Tuileries. Klesmer's personality, especially his way of glancing round him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual locus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and affected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as natural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankest affectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident and demure. While his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a ridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details around him with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a home no longer than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and in the figurative Bohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety and romance which belong to small incomes. He addressed Mrs. Meyrick with the utmost deference. "I hope I have not taken too great a freedom. Being in the neighborhood, I ventured to save time by calling. Our friend, Mr. Deronda, mentioned to me an understanding that I was to have the honor of becoming acquainted with a young lady here--Miss Lapidoth." Klesmer had really discerned Mirah in the first moment of entering, but, with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three sisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question. "Those are my daughters: this is Miss Lapidoth," said Mrs. Meyrick, waving her hand toward Mirah. "Ah," said Klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a radiant smile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of being in the least taken by surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look of Klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician and a kind man. "You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me," he added, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid of preliminaries. "I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen to me," said Mirah, moving to the piano. "Shall I accompany myself?" "By all means," said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick's invitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute little mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really said to herself, "He will like her singing better if he sees her." All the feminine hearts except Mirah's were beating fast with anxiety, thinking Klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and only daring to look at him furtively. If he did say anything severe it would be so hard for them all. They could only comfort themselves with thinking that Prince Camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things, preferred Mirah's singing to any other: also she appeared to be doing her very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual. The song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected from Leopardi's grand Ode to Italy:, "_O patria mia, vedo le mura c gli archi E le colonne e i simula-cri e l'erme Torridegli avi nostri_", This was recitative: then followed, "_Ma la gloria--non vedo_", a mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. After this came a climax of devout triumph--passing from the subdued adoration of a happy Andante in the words, "_Beatissimi voi. Che offriste il petto alle nemiche lance Per amor di costei che al sol vi diede_", to the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro in, "_Oh viva, oh viva: Beatissimi voi Mentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._" When she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment, "That is old Leo's music." "Yes, he was my last master--at Vienna: so fierce and so good," said Mirah, with a melancholy smile. "He prophesied that my voice would not do for the stage. And he was right." "_Con_tinue, if you please," said Klesmer, putting out his lips and shaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered articulation quite unintelligible to the audience. The three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of praise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed. Mirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that he would now like to hear her sing some German, went through Prince Radzivill's music to Gretchen's songs in the _Faust,_ one after the other without any interrogatory pause. When she had finished he rose and walked to the extremity of the small space at command, then walked back to the piano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood looking toward him with her little hands crossed before her, meekly awaiting judgment; then with a sudden unknitting of his brow and with beaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, "Let us shake hands: you are a musician." Mab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmer adorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath. But straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost, was stretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip the back of Mirah's, and with protruded lip he said, "Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must be modest." Klesmer paused here. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: "as if Mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!" Mirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be waited for, and Klesmer presently went on--"I would not advise--I would not further your singing in any larger space than a private drawing-room. But you will do there. And here in London that is one of the best careers open. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a private concert at my house on Wednesday?" "Oh, I shall be grateful," said Mirah, putting her hands together devoutly. "I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything more public. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?" Klesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like words bitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his fingers the while, before he said, quite distinctly, "I shall introduce you to Astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give you advice." Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, "Mrs. Klesmer will call before Wednesday, with your permission." "We shall feel that to be a great kindness," said Mrs. Meyrick. "You will sing to her," said Klesmer, turning again to Mirah. "She is a thorough musician, and has a soul with more ears to it than you will often get in a musician. Your singing will satisfy her: 'Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;' you know the rest?" "'Sicher ist's in alien Fällen.'" said Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying "Schön!" put out his hand again as a good-by. He had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising Mirah, and the Meyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab's feeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, "That young lady is musical, I see!" She was a mere blush and sense of scorching. "Yes," said Mirah, on her behalf. "And she has a touch." "Oh, please, Mirah--a scramble, not a touch," said Mab, in anguish, with a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful divining personage--evidently Satan in gray trousers--might order her to sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the midst of her. But this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when Klesmer said benignantly, turning to Mrs. Meyrick, "Will she like to accompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?" "There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her," said Mrs. Meyrick. "She will be most glad and grateful." Thereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than they had ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing picture--the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in Klesmer's magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a little less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the walls, as many as were not otherwise occupied, looking hard at this stranger who by his face seemed a dignified contemporary of their own, but whose garments seemed a deplorable mockery of the human form. Mrs. Meyrick could not help going out of the room with Klesmer and closing the door behind her. He understood her, and said with a frowning nod, "She will do: if she doesn't attempt too much and her voice holds out, she can make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told me. You are taking care of her. She looks like a good girl." "She is an angel," said the warm-hearted woman. "No," said Klesmer, with a playful nod; "she is a pretty Jewess: the angels must not get the credit of her. But I think she has found a guardian angel," he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way. The four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the door banged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mab clapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; Mrs. Meyrick kissed Mirah and blessed her; Amy said emphatically, "We can never get her a new dress before Wednesday!" and Kate exclaimed, "Thank heaven my table is not knocked over!" Mirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and the tears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends. "Now, now, Mab!" said Mrs. Meyrick; "come and sit down reasonably and let us talk?" "Yes, let us talk," said Mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat and caressing her knees. "I am beginning to feel large again. Hans said he was coming this afternoon. I wish he had been here--only there would have been no room for him. Mirah, what are you looking sad for?" "I am too happy," said Mirah. "I feel so full of gratitude to you all; and he was so very kind." "Yes, at last," said Mab, sharply. "But he might have said something encouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning, and only said, '_Con_tinue.' I hated him all the long way from the top of his hair to the toe of his polished boot." "Nonsense, Mab; he has a splendid profile," said Kate. "_Now_, but not _then_. I cannot bear people to keep their minds bottled up for the sake of letting them off with a pop. They seem to grudge making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand. However, I forgive him everything," said Mab, with a magnanimous air, "but he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one? Was it because I have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it like a newt from under a stone?" "It was your way of listening to the singing, child," said Mrs. Meyrick. "He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them, depend upon it. But what was that German quotation you were so ready with, Mirah--you learned puss?" "Oh, that was not learning," said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into an amused smile. "I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that it is safer to do anything--singing or anything else--before those who know and understand all about it." "That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose," said Amy. "But now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday." "I don't want anything better than this black merino," said Mirah, rising to show the effect. "Some white gloves and some new _bottines_." She put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper. "There comes Hans," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Stand still, and let us hear what he says about the dress. Artists are the best people to consult about such things." "You don't consult me, ma," said Kate, lifting up her eyebrow with a playful complainingness. "I notice mothers are like the people I deal with--the girls' doings are always priced low." "My dear child, the boys are such a trouble--we could never put up with them, if we didn't make believe they were worth more," said Mrs. Meyrick, just as her boy entered. "Hans, we want your opinion about Mirah's dress. A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and she is going to sing at his house on Wednesday among grand people. She thinks this dress will do." "Let me see," said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him to be looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with one knee on a hassock to survey her. "This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me," she said, pleadingly, "in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess and sing to fashionable Christians." "It would be effective," said Hans, with a considering air; "it would stand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_." "But you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, Mirah," said Amy. "There are plenty of poor Christians and dreadfully rich Jews and fashionable Jewesses." "I didn't mean any harm," said Mirah. "Only I have been used to thinking about my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a part with a plain dress." "That makes me think it questionable," said Hans, who had suddenly become as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had thought Deronda was, apropos of the Berenice-pictures. "It looks a little too theatrical. We must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor Jewess--or of being a Jewess at all." Hans had a secret desire to neutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not keeping secret. "But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall never be anything else," said Mirah. "I always feel myself a Jewess." "But we can't feel that about you," said Hans, with a devout look. "What does it signify whether a perfect woman is a Jewess or not?" "That is your kind way of praising me; I never was praised so before," said Mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to Hans and made him feel still more of a cosmopolitan. "People don't think of me as a British Christian," he said, his face creasing merrily. "They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young man and an unpromising painter." "But you are wandering from the dress," said Amy. "If that will not do, how are we to get another before Wednesday? and to-morrow Sunday?" "Indeed this will do," said Mirah, entreatingly. "It is all real, you know," here she looked at Hans--"even if it seemed theatrical. Poor Berenice sitting on the ruins--any one might say that was theatrical, but I know that this is just what she would do." "I am a scoundrel," said Hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. "That is my invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me for not saying so before?" "Oh, yes," said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. "You knew it was what she would be sure to do--a Jewess who had not been faithful--who had done what she did and was penitent. She could have no joy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is very beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel." "The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins," said Hans, starting up with a sense of being checkmated. "That makes them convenient for pictures." "But the dress--the dress," said Amy; "is it settled?" "Yes; is it not?" said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who in her turn looked up at her son, and said, "What do you think, Hans?" "That dress will not do," said Hans, decisively. "She is not going to sit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go to Regent Street. It's plenty of time to get anything you like--a black silk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of charity. She has talents to make people indebted to her." "I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like--for her to have a handsome dress," said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating. "Of course it is," said Hans, with some sharpness. "You may take my word for what a gentleman would feel." "I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do," said Mirah, gravely, seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning on his heel, went to Kate's table and took up one of her drawings as if his interest needed a new direction. "Shouldn't you like to make a study of Klesmer's head, Hans?" said Kate. "I suppose you have often seen him?" "Seen him!" exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were surveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down perpendicularly toward the keys. But then in another instant he wheeled round on the stool, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly--"Perhaps you don't like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you don't like it." Mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still, but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said--"Thank you. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he could, belonging to you," she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick. In this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it when several bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personal attachment? CHAPTER XL. "Within the soul a faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal, that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brightness, as the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even, Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own, Yea, with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene." --WORDSWORTH: _Excursion_, B. IV. Deronda came out of the narrow house at Chelsea in a frame of mind that made him long for some good bodily exercise to carry off what he was himself inclined to call the fumes of his temper. He was going toward the city, and the sight of the Chelsea Stairs with the waiting boats at once determined him to avoid the irritating inaction of being driven in a cab, by calling a wherry and taking an oar. His errand was to go to Ram's book-shop, where he had yesterday arrived too late for Mordecai's midday watch, and had been told that he invariably came there again between five and six. Some further acquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the Cohens was particularly desired by Deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring: he wished that their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of Mordecai's interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge, and threatened to shut out any easy communication in future. As he got warmed with the use of the oar, fixing his mind on the errand before him and the ends he wanted to achieve on Mirah's account, he experienced, as was wont with him, a quick change of mental light, shifting his point of view to that of the person whom he had been thinking of hitherto chiefly as serviceable to his own purposes, and was inclined to taunt himself with being not much better than an enlisting sergeant, who never troubles himself with the drama that brings him the needful recruits. "I suppose if I got from this man the information I am most anxious about," thought Deronda, "I should be contented enough if he felt no disposition to tell me more of himself, or why he seemed to have some expectation from me which was disappointed. The sort of curiosity he stirs would die out; and yet it might be that he had neared and parted as one can imagine two ships doing, each freighted with an exile who would have recognized the other if the two could have looked out face to face. Not that there is any likelihood of a peculiar tie between me and this poor fellow, whose voyage, I fancy, must soon be over. But I wonder whether there is much of that momentous mutual missing between people who interchange blank looks, or even long for one another's absence in a crowded place. However, one makes one's self chances of missing by going on the recruiting sergeant's plan." When the wherry was approaching Blackfriars Bridge, where Deronda meant to land, it was half-past four, and the gray day was dying gloriously, its western clouds all broken into narrowing purple strata before a wide-spreading saffron clearness, which in the sky had a monumental calm, but on the river, with its changing objects, was reflected as a luminous movement, the alternate flash of ripples or currents, the sudden glow of the brown sail, the passage of laden barges from blackness into color, making an active response to that brooding glory. Feeling well heated by this time, Deronda gave up the oar and drew over him again his Inverness cape. As he lifted up his head while fastening the topmost button his eyes caught a well-remembered face looking toward him over the parapet of the bridge--brought out by the western light into startling distinctness and brilliancy--an illuminated type of bodily emaciation and spiritual eagerness. It was the face of Mordecai, who also, in his watch toward the west, had caught sight of the advancing boat, and had kept it fast within his gaze, at first simply because it was advancing, then with a recovery of impressions that made him quiver as with a presentiment, till at last the nearing figure lifted up its face toward him--the face of his visions--and then immediately, with white uplifted hand, beckoned again and again. For Deronda, anxious that Mordecai should recognize and await him, had lost no time before signaling, and the answer came straightway. Mordecai lifted his cap and waved it--feeling in that moment that his inward prophecy was fulfilled. Obstacles, incongruities, all melted into the sense of completion with which his soul was flooded by this outward satisfaction of his longing. His exultation was not widely different from that of the experimenter, bending over the first stirrings of change that correspond to what in the fervor of concentrated prevision his thought has foreshadowed. The prefigured friend had come from the golden background, and had signaled to him: this actually was: the rest was to be. In three minutes Deronda had landed, had paid his boatman, and was joining Mordecai, whose instinct it was to stand perfectly still and wait for him. "I was very glad to see you standing here," said Deronda, "for I was intending to go on to the book-shop and look for you again. I was there yesterday--perhaps they mentioned it to you?" "Yes," said Mordecai; "that was the reason I came to the bridge." This answer, made with simple gravity, was startlingly mysterious to Deronda. Were the peculiarities of this man really associated with any sort of mental alienation, according to Cohen's hint? "You knew nothing of my being at Chelsea?" he said, after a moment. "No; but I expected you to come down the river. I have been waiting for you these five years." Mordecai's deep-sunk eyes were fixed on those of the friend who had at last arrived with a look of affectionate dependence, at once pathetic and solemn. Deronda's sensitiveness was not the less responsive because he could not but believe that this strangely-disclosed relation was founded on an illusion. "It will be a satisfaction to me if I can be of any real use to you," he answered, very earnestly. "Shall we get into a cab and drive to--wherever you wish to go? You have probably had walking enough with your short breath." "Let us go to the book-shop. It will soon be time for me to be there. But now look up the river," said Mordecai, turning again toward it and speaking in undertones of what may be called an excited calm--so absorbed by a sense of fulfillment that he was conscious of no barrier to a complete understanding between him and Deronda. "See the sky, how it is slowly fading. I have always loved this bridge: I stood on it when I was a little boy. It is a meeting-place for the spiritual messengers. It is true--what the Masters said--that each order of things has its angel: that means the full message of each from what is afar. Here I have listened to the messages of earth and sky; when I was stronger I used to stay and watch for the stars in the deep heavens. But this time just about sunset was always what I loved best. It has sunk into me and dwelt with me--fading, slowly fading: it was my own decline: it paused--it waited, till at last it brought me my new life--my new self--who will live when this breath is all breathed out." Deronda did not speak. He felt himself strangely wrought upon. The first-prompted suspicion that Mordecai might be liable to hallucinations of thought--might have become a monomaniac on some subject which had given too severe a strain to his diseased organism--gave way to a more submissive expectancy. His nature was too large, too ready to conceive regions beyond his own experience, to rest at once in the easy explanation, "madness," whenever a consciousness showed some fullness and conviction where his own was blank. It accorded with his habitual disposition that he should meet rather than resist any claim on him in the shape of another's need; and this claim brought with it a sense of solemnity which seemed a radiation from Mordecai, as utterly nullifying his outward poverty and lifting him into authority as if he had been that preternatural guide seen in the universal legend, who suddenly drops his mean disguise and stands a manifest Power. That impression was the more sanctioned by a sort of resolved quietude which the persuasion of fulfillment had produced in Mordecai's manner. After they had stood a moment in silence he said, "Let us go now," and when they were riding he added, "We will get down at the end of the street and walk to the shop. You can look at the books, and Mr. Ram will be going away directly and leave us alone." It seemed that this enthusiast was just as cautious, just as much alive to judgments in other minds as if he had been that antipode of all enthusiasm called "a man of the world." While they were rattling along in the cab, Mirah was still present with Deronda in the midst of this strange experience, but he foresaw that the course of conversation would be determined by Mordecai, not by himself: he was no longer confident what questions he should be able to ask; and with a reaction on his own mood, he inwardly said, "I suppose I am in a state of complete superstition, just as if I were awaiting the destiny that could interpret the oracle. But some strong relation there must be between me and this man, since he feels it strongly. Great heaven! what relation has proved itself more potent in the world than faith even when mistaken--than expectation even when perpetually disappointed? Is my side of the relation to be disappointing or fulfilling?--well, if it is ever possible for me to fulfill I will not disappoint." In ten minutes the two men, with as intense a consciousness as if they had been two undeclared lovers, felt themselves alone in the small gas-lit book-shop and turned face to face, each baring his head from an instinctive feeling that they wished to see each other fully. Mordecai came forward to lean his back against the little counter, while Deronda stood against the opposite wall hardly more than four feet off. I wish I could perpetuate those two faces, as Titian's "Tribute Money" has perpetuated two types presenting another sort of contrast. Imagine--we all of us can--the pathetic stamp of consumption with its brilliancy of glance to which the sharply-defined structure of features reminding one of a forsaken temple, give already a far-off look as of one getting unwillingly out of reach; and imagine it on a Jewish face naturally accentuated for the expression of an eager mind--the face of a man little above thirty, but with that age upon it which belongs to time lengthened by suffering, the hair and beard, still black, throwing out the yellow pallor of the skin, the difficult breathing giving more decided marking to the mobile nostril, the wasted yellow hands conspicuous on the folded arms: then give to the yearning consumptive glance something of the slowly dying mother's look, when her one loved son visits her bedside, and the flickering power of gladness leaps out as she says, "My boy!"--for the sense of spiritual perpetuation in another resembles that maternal transference of self. Seeing such a portrait you would see Mordecai. And opposite to him was a face not more distinctively oriental than many a type seen among what we call the Latin races; rich in youthful health, and with a forcible masculine gravity in its repose, that gave the value of judgment to the reverence with which he met the gaze of this mysterious son of poverty who claimed him as a long-expected friend. The more exquisite quality of Deronda's nature--that keenly perceptive sympathetic emotiveness which ran along with his speculative tendency--was never more thoroughly tested. He felt nothing that could be called belief in the validity of Mordecai's impressions concerning him or in the probability of any greatly effective issue: what he felt was a profound sensibility to a cry from the depths of another and accompanying that, the summons to be receptive instead of superciliously prejudging. Receptiveness is a rare and massive power, like fortitude; and this state of mind now gave Deronda's face its utmost expression of calm benignant force--an expression which nourished Mordecai's confidence and made an open way before him. He began to speak. "You cannot know what has guided me to you and brought us together at this moment. You are wondering." "I am not impatient," said Deronda. "I am ready to listen to whatever you may wish to disclose." "You see some of the reasons why I needed you," said Mordecai, speaking quietly, as if he wished to reserve his strength. "You see that I am dying. You see that I am as one shut up behind bars by the wayside, who if he spoke to any would be met only by head-shaking and pity. The day is closing--the light is fading--soon we should not have been able to discern each other. But you have come in time." "I rejoice that I am come in time," said Deronda, feelingly. He would not say, "I hope you are not mistaken in me,"--the very word "mistaken," he thought, would be a cruelty at that moment. "But the hidden reasons why I need you began afar off," said Mordecai; "began in my early years when I was studying in another land. Then ideas, beloved ideas, came to me, because I was a Jew. They were a trust to fulfill, because I was a Jew. They were an inspiration, because I was a Jew, and felt the heart of my race beating within me. They were my life; I was not fully born till then. I counted this heart, and this breath, and this right hand"--Mordecai had pathetically pressed his hand upon his breast, and then stretched its wasted fingers out before him--"I counted my sleep and my waking, and the work I fed my body with, and the sights that fed my eyes--I counted them but as fuel to the divine flame. But I had done as one who wanders and engraves his thought in rocky solitudes, and before I could change my course came care and labor and disease, and blocked the way before me, and bound me with the iron that eats itself into the soul. Then I said, 'How shall I save the life within me from being stifled with this stifled breath?'" Mordecai paused to rest that poor breath which had been taxed by the rising excitement of his speech. And also he wished to check that excitement. Deronda dared not speak: the very silence in the narrow space seemed alive with mingled awe and compassion before this struggling fervor. And presently Mordecai went on: "But you may misunderstand me. I speak not as an ignorant dreamer--as one bred up in the inland valleys, thinking ancient thoughts anew, and not knowing them ancient, never having stood by the great waters where the world's knowledge passes to and fro. English is my mother-tongue, England is the native land of this body, which is but as a breaking pot of earth around the fruit-bearing tree, whose seed might make the desert rejoice. But my true life was nourished in Holland at the feet of my mother's brother, a Rabbi skilled in special learning: and when he died I went to Hamburg to study, and afterwards to Göttingen, that I might take a larger outlook on my people, and on the Gentile world, and drank knowledge at all sources. I was a youth; I felt free; I saw our chief seats in Germany; I was not then in utter poverty. And I had possessed myself of a handicraft. For I said, I care not if my lot be as that of Joshua ben Chananja: after the last destruction he earned his bread by making needles, but in his youth he had been a singer on the steps of the Temple, and had a memory of what was before the glory departed. I said, let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the hands of the toiler: but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope. I knew what I chose. They said, 'He feeds himself on visions,' and I denied not; for visions are the creators and feeders of the world. I see, I measure the world as it is, which the vision will create anew. You are not listening to one who raves aloof from the lives of his fellows." Mordecai paused, and Deronda, feeling that the pause was expectant, said, "Do me the justice to believe that I was not inclined to call your words raving. I listen that I may know, without prejudgment. I have had experience which gives me a keen interest in the story of a spiritual destiny embraced willingly, and embraced in youth." "A spiritual destiny embraced willingly--in youth?" Mordecai repeated in a corrective tone. "It was the soul fully born within me, and it came in my boyhood. It brought its own world--a mediaeval world, where there are men who made the ancient language live again in new psalms of exile. They had absorbed the philosophy of the Gentile into the faith of the Jew, and they still yearned toward a center for our race. One of their souls was born again within me, and awakened amid the memories of their world. It traveled into Spain and Provence; it debated with Aben-Ezra; it took ship with Jehuda ha-Levi; it heard the roar of the Crusaders and the shrieks of tortured Israel. And when its dumb tongue was loosed, it spoke the speech they had made alive with the new blood of their ardor, their sorrow, and their martyred trust: it sang with the cadence of their strain." Mordecai paused again, and then said in a loud, hoarse whisper, "While it is imprisoned in me, it will never learn another." "Have you written entirely in Hebrew, then?" said Deronda, remembering with some anxiety the former question as to his own knowledge of that tongue. "Yes--yes," said Mordecai, in a tone of deep sadness: "in my youth I wandered toward that solitude, not feeling that it was a solitude. I had the ranks of the great dead around me; the martyrs gathered and listened. But soon I found that the living were deaf to me. At first I saw my life spread as a long future: I said part of my Jewish heritage is an unbreaking patience; part is skill to seek divers methods and find a rooting-place where the planters despair. But there came new messengers from the Eternal. I had to bow under the yoke that presses on the great multitude born of woman: family troubles called me--I had to work, to care, not for myself alone. I was left solitary again; but already the angel of death had turned to me and beckoned, and I felt his skirts continually on my path. I loosed not my effort. I besought hearing and help. I spoke; I went to men of our people--to the rich in influence or knowledge, to the rich in other wealth. But I found none to listen with understanding. I was rebuked for error; I was offered a small sum in charity. No wonder. I looked poor; I carried a bundle of Hebrew manuscript with me; I said, our chief teachers are misleading the hope of our race. Scholar and merchant were both too busy to listen. Scorn stood as interpreter between me and them. One said, 'The book of Mormon would never have answered in Hebrew; and if you mean to address our learned men, it is not likely you can teach them anything.' He touched a truth there." The last words had a perceptible irony in their hoarsened tone. "But though you had accustomed yourself to write in Hebrew, few, surely, can use English better," said Deronda, wanting to hint consolation in a new effort for which he could smooth the way. Mordecai shook his head slowly, and answered, "Too late--too late. I can write no more. My writing would be like this gasping breath. But the breath may wake the fount of pity--the writing not. If I could write now and used English, I should be as one who beats a board to summon those who have been used to no signal but a bell. My soul has an ear to hear the faults of its own speech. New writing of mine would be like this body"--Mordecai spread his arms--"within it there might be the Ruach-ha-kodesh--the breath of divine thought--but, men would smile at it and say, 'A poor Jew!' and the chief smilers would be of my own people." Mordecai let his hands fall, and his head sink in melancholy: for the moment he had lost hold of his hope. Despondency, conjured up by his own words, had floated in and hovered above him with eclipsing wings. He had sunk into momentary darkness, "I feel with you--I feel strongly with you," said Deronda, in a clear deep voice which was itself a cordial, apart from the words of sympathy. "But forgive me if I speak hastily--for what you have actually written there need be no utter burial. The means of publication are within reach. If you will rely on me, I can assure you of all that is necessary to that end." "That is not enough," said Mordecai, quickly, looking up again with the flash of recovered memory and confidence. "That is not all my trust in you. You must be not only a hand to me, but a soul--believing my belief--being moved by my reasons--hoping my hope--seeing the vision I point to--beholding a glory where I behold it!"--Mordecai had taken a step nearer as he spoke, and now laid his hand on Deronda's arm with a tight grasp; his face little more than a foot off had something like a pale flame in it--an intensity of reliance that acted as a peremptory claim, while he went on--"You will be my life: it will be planted afresh; it will grow. You shall take the inheritance; it has been gathering for ages. The generations are crowding on my narrow life as a bridge: what has been and what is to be are meeting there; and the bridge is breaking. But I have found you. You have come in time. You will take the inheritance which the base son refuses because of the tombs which the plow and harrow may not pass over or the gold-seeker disturb: you will take the sacred inheritance of the Jew." Deronda had become as pallid as Mordecai. Quick as an alarm of flood or fire, there spread within him not only a compassionate dread of discouraging this fellowman who urged a prayer as one in the last agony, but also the opposing dread of fatally feeding an illusion, and being hurried on to a self-committal which might turn into a falsity. The peculiar appeal to his tenderness overcame the repulsion that most of us experience under a grasp and speech which assumed to dominate. The difficulty to him was to inflict the accents of hesitation and doubt on this ardent suffering creature, who was crowding too much of his brief being into a moment of perhaps extravagant trust. With exquisite instinct, Deronda, before he opened his lips, placed his palm gently on Mordecai's straining hand--an act just then equal to many speeches. And after that he said, without haste, as if conscious that he might be wrong, "Do you forget what I told you when we first saw each other? Do you remember that I said I was not of your race?" "It can't be true," Mordecai whispered immediately, with no sign of shock. The sympathetic hand still upon him had fortified the feeling which was stronger than those words of denial. There was a perceptible pause, Deronda feeling it impossible to answer, conscious indeed that the assertion "It can't be true"--had the pressure of argument for him. Mordecai, too entirely possessed by the supreme importance of the relation between himself and Deronda to have any other care in his speech, followed up that assertion by a second, which came to his lips as a mere sequence of his long-cherished conviction--"You are not sure of your own origin." "How do you know that?" said Daniel, with an habitual shrinking which made him remove his hands from Mordecai's, who also relaxed his hold, and fell back into his former leaning position. "I know it--I know it; what is my life else?" said Mordecai, with a low cry of impatience. "Tell me everything: tell me why you deny." He could have no conception what that demand was to the hearer--how probingly it touched the hidden sensibility, the vividly conscious reticence of years; how the uncertainty he was insisting on as part of his own hope had always for Daniel been a threatening possibility of painful revelation about his mother. But the moment had influences which were not only new but solemn to Deronda; any evasion here might turn out to be a hateful refusal of some task that belonged to him, some act of due fellowship; in any case it would be a cruel rebuff to a being who was appealing to him as a forlorn hope under the shadow of a coming doom. After a few moments, he said, with a great effort over himself--determined to tell all the truth briefly, "I have never known my mother. I have no knowledge about her. I have never called any man father. But I am convinced that my father is an Englishman." Deronda's deep tones had a tremor in them as he uttered this confession; and all the while there was an undercurrent of amazement in him at the strange circumstances under which he uttered it. It seemed as if Mordecai were hardly overrating his own power to determine the action of the friend whom he had mysteriously chosen. "It will be seen--it will be declared," said Mordecai, triumphantly. "The world grows, and its frame is knit together by the growing soul; dim, dim at first, then clearer and more clear, the consciousness discerns remote stirrings. As thoughts move within us darkly, and shake us before they are fully discerned--so events--so beings: they are knit with us in the growth of the world. You have risen within me like a thought not fully spelled; my soul is shaken before the words are all there. The rest will come--it will come." "We must not lose sight of the fact that the outward event has not always been a fulfillment of the firmest faith," said Deronda, in a tone that was made hesitating by the painfully conflicting desires, not to give any severe blow to Mordecai, and not to give his confidence a sanction which might have the severest of blows in reserve. Mordecai's face, which had been illuminated to the utmost in that last declaration of his confidence, changed under Deronda's words, not only into any show of collapsed trust: the force did not disappear from the expression, but passed from the triumphant into the firmly resistant. "You would remind me that I may be under an illusion--that the history of our people's trust has been full of illusion. I face it all." Here Mordecai paused a moment. Then bending his head a little forward, he said, in his hoarse whisper, "_So it might be with my trust, if you would make it an illusion. But you will not._" The very sharpness with which these words penetrated Deronda made him feel the more that here was a crisis in which he must be firm. "What my birth was does not lie in my will," he answered. "My sense of claims on me cannot be independent of my knowledge there. And I cannot promise you that I will try to hasten a disclosure. Feelings which have struck root through half my life may still hinder me from doing what I have never been able to do. Everything must be waited for. I must know more of the truth about my own life, and I must know more of what it would become if it were made a part of yours." Mordecai had folded his arms again while Deronda was speaking, and now answered with equal firmness, though with difficult breathing, "You _shall_ know. What are we met for, but that you should know. Your doubts lie as light as dust on my belief. I know the philosophies of this time and of other times; if I chose I could answer a summons before their tribunals. I could silence the beliefs which are the mother-tongue of my soul and speak with the rote-learned language of a system, that gives you the spelling of all things, sure of its alphabet covering them all. I could silence them: may not a man silence his awe or his love, and take to finding reasons, which others demand? But if his love lies deeper than any reasons to be found? Man finds his pathways: at first they were foot tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness: now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway. Say, my expectation of you has grown but as false hopes grow. That doubt is in your mind? Well, my expectation was there, and you are come. Men have died of thirst. But I was thirsty, and the water is on my lips! What are doubts to me? In the hour when you come to me and say, 'I reject your soul: I know that I am not a Jew: we have no lot in common'--I shall not doubt. I shall be certain--certain that I have been deluded. That hour will never come!" Deronda felt a new chord sounding in his speech: it was rather imperious than appealing--had more of conscious power than of the yearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. And usually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of attitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a claim. But here there was something that balanced his resistance and kept it aloof. This strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his finger-nails pink with health, who was exercised in all questioning, and accused of excessive mental independence, still felt a subduing influence over him in the tenacious certitude of the fragile creature before him, whose pallid yellow nostril was tense with effort as his breath labored under the burthen of eager speech. The influence seemed to strengthen the bond of sympathetic obligation. In Deronda at this moment the desire to escape what might turn into a trying embarrassment was no more likely to determine action than the solicitations of indolence are likely to determine it in one with whom industry is a daily law. He answered simply, "It is my wish to meet and satisfy your wishes wherever that is possible to me. It is certain to me at least that I desire not to undervalue your toil and your suffering. Let me know your thoughts. But where can we meet?" "I have thought of that," said Mordecai. "It is not hard for you to come into this neighborhood later in the evening? You did so once." "I can manage it very well occasionally," said Deronda. "You live under the same roof with the Cohens, I think?" Before Mordecai could answer, Mr. Ram re-entered to take his place behind the counter. He was an elderly son of Abraham, whose childhood had fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who remained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved specimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and contempt which were the common heritage of most English Jews seventy years ago. He had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in Mr. Cohen's aspect: his very features--broad and chubby--showed that tendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous London neighborhood, may perhaps be compared with the marvels of imitation in insects, and may have been nature's imperfect effort on behalf of the pure Caucasian to shield him from the shame and spitting to which purer features would have been exposed in the times of zeal. Mr. Ram dealt ably in books, in the same way that he would have dealt in tins of meat and other commodities--without knowledge or responsibility as to the proportion of rottenness or nourishment they might contain. But he believed in Mordecai's learning as something marvellous, and was not sorry that his conversation should be sought by a bookish gentleman, whose visits had twice ended in a purchase. He greeted Deronda with a crabbed good-will, and, putting on large silver spectacles, appeared at once to abstract himself in the daily accounts. But Deronda and Mordecai were soon in the street together, and without any explicit agreement as to their direction, were walking toward Ezra Cohen's. "We can't meet there: my room is too narrow," said Mordecai, taking up the thread of talk where they had dropped it. "But there is a tavern not far from here where I sometimes go to a club. It is the _Hand and Banner_, in the street at the next turning, five doors down. We can have the parlor there any evening." "We can try that for once," said Deronda. "But you will perhaps let me provide you with some lodging, which would give you more freedom and comfort than where you are." "No; I need nothing. My outer life is as nought. I will take nothing less precious from you than your soul's brotherhood. I will think of nothing else yet. But I am glad you are rich. You did not need money on that diamond ring. You had some other motive for bringing it." Deronda was a little startled by this clear-sightedness; but before he could reply Mordecai added--"it is all one. Had you been in need of the money, the great end would have been that we should meet again. But you are rich?" he ended, in a tone of interrogation. "Not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than he needs for himself." "I desired that your life should be free," said Mordecai, dreamily--"mine has been a bondage." It was clear that he had no interest in the fact of Deronda's appearance at the Cohens' beyond its relation to his own ideal purpose. Despairing of leading easily up to the question he wished to ask, Deronda determined to put it abruptly, and said, "Can you tell me why Mrs. Cohen, the mother, must not be spoken to about her daughter?" There was no immediate answer, and he thought that he should have to repeat the question. The fact was that Mordecai had heard the words, but had to drag his mind to a new subject away from his passionate preoccupation. After a few moments, he replied with a careful effort such as he would have used if he had been asked the road to Holborn: "I know the reason. But I will not speak even of trivial family affairs which I have heard in the privacy of the family. I dwell in their tent as in a sanctuary. Their history, so far as they injure none other, is their own possession." Deronda felt the blood mounting to his cheeks as a sort of rebuke he was little used to, and he also found himself painfully baffled where he had reckoned with some confidence on getting decisive knowledge. He became the more conscious of emotional strain from the excitements of the day; and although he had the money in his pocket to redeem his ring, he recoiled from the further task of a visit to the Cohens', which must be made not only under the former uncertainty, but under a new disappointment as to the possibility of its removal. "I will part from you now," he said, just before they could reach Cohen's door; and Mordecai paused, looking up at him with an anxious fatigued face under the gaslight. "When will you come back?" he said, with slow emphasis. "May I leave that unfixed? May I ask for you at the Cohens' any evening after your hour at the book-shop? There is no objection, I suppose, to their knowing that you and I meet in private?" "None," said Mordecai. "But the days I wait now are longer than the years of my strength. Life shrinks: what was but a tithe is now the half. My hope abides in you." "I will be faithful," said Deronda--he could not have left those words unuttered. "I will come the first evening I can after seven: on Saturday or Monday, if possible. Trust me." He put out his ungloved hand. Mordecai, clasping it eagerly, seemed to feel a new instreaming of confidence, and he said with some recovered energy--"This is come to pass, and the rest will come." That was their good-by. BOOK VI.--REVELATIONS CHAPTER XLI. "This, too is probable, according to that saying of Agathon: 'It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.'" --ARISTOTLE: _Poetics_. Imagine the conflict in a mind like Deronda's given not only to feel strongly but to question actively, on the evening after the interview with Mordecai. To a young man of much duller susceptibilities the adventure might have seemed enough out of the common way to divide his thoughts; but it had stirred Deronda so deeply, that with the usual reaction of his intellect he began to examine the grounds of his emotion, and consider how far he must resist its guidance. The consciousness that he was half dominated by Mordecai's energetic certitude, and still more by his fervent trust, roused his alarm. It was his characteristic bias to shrink from the moral stupidity of valuing lightly what had come close to him, and of missing blindly in his own life of to-day the crisis which he recognized as momentous and sacred in the historic life of men. If he had read of this incident as having happened centuries ago in Rome, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, Cairo, to some man young as himself, dissatisfied with his neutral life, and wanting some closer fellowship, some more special duty to give him ardor for the possible consequences of his work, it would have appeared to him quite natural that the incident should have created a deep impression on that far-off man, whose clothing and action would have been seen in his imagination as part of an age chiefly known to us through its more serious effects. Why should he be ashamed of his own agitated feeling merely because he dressed for dinner, wore a white tie, and lived among people who might laugh at his owning any conscience in the matter, as the solemn folly of taking himself too seriously?--that bugbear of circles in which the lack of grave emotion passes for wit. From such cowardice before modish ignorance and obtuseness, Deronda shrank. But he also shrank from having his course determined by mere contagion, without consent of reason; or from allowing a reverential pity for spiritual struggle to hurry him along a dimly-seen path. What, after all, had really happened? He knew quite accurately the answer Sir Hugo would have given: "A consumptive Jew, possessed by a fanaticism which obstacles and hastening death intensified, had fixed on Deronda as the antitype of some visionary image, the offspring of wedded hope and despair: despair of his own life, irrepressible hope in the propagation of his fanatical beliefs. The instance was perhaps odd, exceptional in its form, but substantially it was not rare. Fanaticism was not so common as bankruptcy, but taken in all its aspects it was abundant enough. While Mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the fulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the mathematical key of the universe which would supersede Newton, and regarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and keep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key, with just that hair's-breadth of difference from the old wards which would make it fit exactly. Scattered here and there in every direction you might find a terrible person, with more or less power of speech, and with an eye either glittering or preternaturally dull, on the look-out for the man who must hear him; and in most cases he had volumes which it was difficult to get printed, or if printed to get read. This Mordecai happened to have a more pathetic aspect, a more passionate, penetrative speech than was usual with such monomaniacs; he was more poetical than a social reformer with colored views of the new moral world in parallelograms, or than an enthusiast in sewage; still he came under the same class. It would be only right and kind to indulge him a little, to comfort him with such help as was practicable; but what likelihood was there that his notions had the sort of value he ascribed to them? In such cases a man of the world knows what to think beforehand. And as to Mordecai's conviction that he had found a new executive self, it might be preparing for him the worst of disappointments--that which presents itself as final." Deronda's ear caught all these negative whisperings; nay, he repeated them distinctly to himself. It was not the first but it was the most pressing occasion on which he had had to face this question of the family likeness among the heirs of enthusiasm, whether prophets or dreamers of dreams, whether the "Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers," or the devotees of phantasmal discovery--from the first believer in his own unmanifested inspiration, down to the last inventor of an ideal machine that will achieve perpetual motion. The kinship of human passion, the sameness of mortal scenery, inevitably fill fact with burlesque and parody. Error and folly have had their hecatombs of martyrs. Reduce the grandest type of man hitherto known to an abstract statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous company: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver of perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of test. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of banishment in the wrong case, nothing will do but a capacity to understand the subject-matter on which the immovable man is convinced, and fellowship with human travail, both near and afar, to hinder us from scanning any deep experience lightly. Shall we say, "Let the ages try the spirits, and see what they are worth?" Why, we are the beginning of the ages, which can only be just by virtue of just judgments in separate human breasts--separate yet combined. Even steam-engines could not have got made without that condition, but must have stayed in the mind of James Watt. This track of thinking was familiar enough to Deronda to have saved him from any contemptuous prejudgment of Mordecai, even if their communication had been free from that peculiar claim on himself strangely ushered in by some long-growing preparation in the Jew's agitated mind. This claim, indeed, considered in what is called a rational way, might seem justifiably dismissed as illusory and even preposterous; but it was precisely what turned Mordecai's hold on him from an appeal to his ready sympathy into a clutch on his struggling conscience. Our consciences are not all of the same pattern, an inner deliverance of fixed laws: they are the voice of sensibilities as various as our memories (which also have their kinship and likeness). And Deronda's conscience included sensibilities beyond the common, enlarged by his early habit of thinking himself imaginatively into the experience of others. What was the claim this eager soul made upon him?--"You must believe my beliefs--be moved by my reasons--hope my hopes--see the vision I point to--behold a glory where I behold it!" To take such a demand in the light of an obligation in any direct sense would have been preposterous--to have seemed to admit it would have been dishonesty; and Deronda, looking on the agitation of those moments, felt thankful that in the midst of his compassion he had preserved himself from the bondage of false concessions. The claim hung, too, on a supposition which might be--nay, probably was--in discordance with the full fact: the supposition that he, Deronda, was of Jewish blood. Was there ever a more hypothetic appeal? But since the age of thirteen Deronda had associated the deepest experience of his affections with what was a pure supposition, namely, that Sir Hugo was his father: that was a hypothesis which had been the source of passionate struggle within him; by its light he had been accustomed to subdue feelings and to cherish them. He had been well used to find a motive in a conception which might be disproved; and he had been also used to think of some revelation that might influence his view of the particular duties belonging to him. To be in a state of suspense, which was also one of emotive activity and scruple, was a familiar attitude of his conscience. And now, suppose that wish-begotten belief in his Jewish birth, and that extravagant demand of discipleship, to be the foreshadowing of an actual discovery and a genuine spiritual result: suppose that Mordecai's ideas made a real conquest over Deronda's conviction? Nay, it was conceivable that as Mordecai needed and believed that, he had found an active replenishment of himself, so Deronda might receive from Mordecai's mind the complete ideal shape of that personal duty and citizenship which lay in his own thought like sculptured fragments certifying some beauty yearned after but not traceable by divination. As that possibility presented itself in his meditations, he was aware that it would be called dreamy, and began to defend it. If the influence he imagined himself submitting to had been that of some honored professor, some authority in a seat of learning, some philosopher who had been accepted as a voice of the age, would a thorough receptiveness toward direction have been ridiculed? Only by those who hold it a sign of weakness to be obliged for an idea, and prefer to hint that they have implicitly held in a more correct form whatever others have stated with a sadly short-coming explicitness. After all, what was there but vulgarity in taking the fact that Mordecai was a poor Jewish workman, and that he was to be met perhaps on a sanded floor in the parlor of the _Hand and Banner_ as a reason for determining beforehand that there was not some spiritual force within him that might have a determining effect on a white-handed gentleman? There is a legend told of the Emperor Domitian, that having heard of a Jewish family, of the house of David, whence the ruler of the world was to spring, he sent for its members in alarm, but quickly released them on observing that they had the hands of work-people--being of just the opposite opinion with that Rabbi who stood waiting at the gate of Rome in confidence that the Messiah would be found among the destitute who entered there. Both Emperor and Rabbi were wrong in their trust of outward signs: poverty and poor clothes are no sign of inspiration, said Deronda to his inward objector, but they have gone with it in some remarkable cases. And to regard discipleship as out of the question because of them, would be mere dullness of imagination. A more plausible reason for putting discipleship out of the question was the strain of visionary excitement in Mordecai, which turned his wishes into overmastering impressions, and made him read outward facts as fulfillment. Was such a temper of mind likely to accompany that wise estimate of consequences which is the only safeguard from fatal error, even to ennobling motive? But it remained to be seen whether that rare conjunction existed or not in Mordecai: perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in. The inspirations of the world have come in that way too: even strictly-measuring science could hardly have got on without that forecasting ardor which feels the agitations of discovery beforehand, and has a faith in its preconception that surmounts many failures of experiment. And in relation to human motives and actions, passionate belief has a fuller efficacy. Here enthusiasm may have the validity of proof, and happening in one soul, give the type of what will one day be general. At least, Deronda argued, Mordecai's visionary excitability was hardly a reason for concluding beforehand that he was not worth listening to except for pity's sake. Suppose he had introduced himself as one of the strictest reasoners. Do they form a body of men hitherto free from false conclusions and illusory speculations? The driest argument has its hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at last be large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream in demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms, definitions, and propositions, with a final exclusion of fact signed Q.E.D. No formulas for thinking will save us mortals from mistake in our imperfect apprehension of the matter to be thought about. And since the unemotional intellect may carry us into a mathematical dreamland where nothing is but what is not, perhaps an emotional intellect may have absorbed into its passionate vision of possibilities some truth of what will be--the more comprehensive massive life feeding theory with new material, as the sensibility of the artist seizes combinations which science explains and justifies. At any rate, presumptions to the contrary are not to be trusted. We must be patient with the inevitable makeshift of our human thinking, whether in its sum total or in the separate minds that have made the sum. Columbus had some impressions about himself which we call superstitions, and used some arguments which we disapprove; but he had also some sound physical conceptions, and he had the passionate patience of genius to make them tell on mankind. The world has made up its mind rather contemptuously about those who were deaf to Columbus. "My contempt for them binds me to see that I don't adopt their mistake on a small scale," said Deronda, "and make myself deaf with the assumption that there cannot be any momentous relation between this Jew and me, simply because he has clad it in illusory notions. What I can be to him, or he to me, may not at all depend on his persuasion about the way we came together. To me the way seems made up of plainly discernible links. If I had not found Mirah, it is probable that I should not have begun to be specially interested in the Jews, and certainly I should not have gone on that loitering search after an Ezra Cohen which made me pause at Ram's book-shop and ask the price of _Maimon_. Mordecai, on his side, had his visions of a disciple, and he saw me by their light; I corresponded well enough with the image his longing had created. He took me for one of his race. Suppose that his impression--the elderly Jew at Frankfort seemed to have something like it--suppose in spite of all presumptions to the contrary, that his impression should somehow be proved true, and that I should come actually to share any of the ideas he is devoted to? This is the only question which really concerns the effect of our meeting on my life. "But if the issue should be quite different?--well, there will be something painful to go through. I shall almost inevitably have to be an active cause of that poor fellow's crushing disappointment. Perhaps this issue is the one I had need prepare myself for. I fear that no tenderness of mine can make his suffering lighter. Would the alternative--that I should not disappoint him--be less painful to me?" Here Deronda wavered. Feelings had lately been at work within him which had very much modified the reluctance he would formerly have had to think of himself as probably a Jew. And, if you like, he was romantic. That young energy and spirit of adventure which have helped to create the world-wide legions of youthful heroes going to seek the hidden tokens of their birth and its inheritance of tasks, gave him a certain quivering interest in the bare possibility that he was entering on a like track --all the more because the track was one of thought as well as action. "The bare possibility." He could not admit it to be more. The belief that his father was an Englishman only grew firmer under the weak assaults of unwarranted doubt. And that a moment should ever come in which that belief was declared a delusion, was something of which Deronda would not say, "I should be glad." His life-long affection for Sir Hugo, stronger than all his resentment, made him shrink from admitting that wish. Which way soever the truth might lie, he repeated to himself what he had said to Mordecai--that he could not without farther reasons undertake to hasten its discovery. Nay, he was tempted now to regard his uncertainty as a condition to be cherished for the present. If further intercourse revealed nothing but illusions as what he was expected to share in, the want of any valid evidence that he was a Jew might save Mordecai the worst shock in the refusal of fraternity. It might even be justifiable to use the uncertainty on this point in keeping up a suspense which would induce Mordecai to accept those offices of friendship that Deronda longed to urge on him. These were the meditations that busied Deronda in the interval of four days before he could fulfill his promise to call for Mordecai at Ezra Cohen's, Sir Hugo's demands on him often lasting to an hour so late as to put the evening expedition to Holborn out of the question. CHAPTER XLII. "Wenn es eine Stufenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die höchste Staffel erstiegen; wen die Dauer der Schmerzen und die Geduld, mit welcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so nehmen es die Juden mit den Hochgeborenen aller Länder auf; wenn eine Literatur reich genannt wird, die wenige klassische Trauerspiele besitzt, welcher Platz gebührt dann einer Tragodie die anderthalb Jahrtausende wahrt, gedichtet und dargestellt von den Helden selber?"--ZUNZ: _Die Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters._ "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land--if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?" Deronda had lately been reading that passage of Zunz, and it occurred to him by way of contrast when he was going to the Cohens, who certainly bore no obvious stamp of distinction in sorrow or in any other form of aristocracy. Ezra Cohen was not clad in the sublime pathos of the martyr, and his taste for money-getting seemed to be favored with that success which has been the most exasperating difference in the greed of Jews during all the ages of their dispersion. This Jeshurun of a pawnbroker was not a symbol of the great Jewish tragedy; and yet was there not something typical in the fact that a life like Mordecai's--a frail incorporation of the national consciousness, breathing with difficult breath--was nested in the self-gratulating ignorant prosperity of the Cohens? Glistening was the gladness in their faces when Deronda reappeared among them. Cohen himself took occasion to intimate that although the diamond ring, let alone a little longer, would have bred more money, he did not mind _that_--not a sixpence--when compared with the pleasure of the women and children in seeing a young gentleman whose first visit had been so agreeable that they had "done nothing but talk of it ever since." Young Mrs. Cohen was very sorry that baby was asleep, and then very glad that Adelaide was not yet gone to bed, entreating Deronda not to stay in the shop, but to go forthwith into the parlor to see "mother and the children." He willingly accepted the invitation, having provided himself with portable presents; a set of paper figures for Adelaide, and an ivory cup and ball for Jacob. The grandmother had a pack of cards before her and was making "plates" with the children. A plate had just been thrown down and kept itself whole. "Stop!" said Jacob, running to Deronda as he entered. "Don't tread on my plate. Stop and see me throw it up again." Deronda complied, exchanging a smile of understanding with the grandmother, and the plate bore several tossings before it came to pieces; then the visitor was allowed to come forward and seat himself. He observed that the door from which Mordecai had issued on the former visit was now closed, but he wished to show his interest in the Cohens before disclosing a yet stronger interest in their singular inmate. It was not until he had Adelaide on his knee, and was setting up the paper figures in their dance on the table, while Jacob was already practicing with the cup and ball, that Deronda said, "Is Mordecai in just now?" "Where is he, Addy?" said Cohen, who had seized an interval of business to come and look on. "In the workroom there," said his wife, nodding toward the closed door. "The fact is, sir," said Cohen, "we don't know what's come to him this last day or two. He's always what I may call a little touched, you know"--here Cohen pointed to his own forehead--"not quite so rational in all things, like you and me; but he's mostly wonderful regular and industrious so far as a poor creature can be, and takes as much delight in the boy as anybody could. But this last day or two he's been moving about like a sleep-walker, or else sitting as still as a wax figure." "It's the disease, poor dear creature," said the grandmother, tenderly. "I doubt whether he can stand long against it." "No; I think its only something he's got in his head," said Mrs. Cohen the younger. "He's been turning over writing continually, and when I speak to him it takes him ever so long to hear and answer." "You may think us a little weak ourselves," said Cohen, apologetically. "But my wife and mother wouldn't part with him if he was a still worse encumbrance. It isn't that we don't know the long and short of matters, but it's our principle. There's fools do business at a loss and don't know it. I'm not one of 'em." "Oh, Mordecai carries a blessing inside him," said the grandmother. "He's got something the matter inside him," said Jacob, coming up to correct this erratum of his grandmother's. "He said he couldn't talk to me, and he wouldn't have a bit o' bun." "So far from wondering at your feeling for him," said Deronda, "I already feel something of the same sort myself. I have lately talked to him at Ram's book-shop--in fact, I promised to call for him here, that we might go out together." "That's it, then!" said Cohen, slapping his knee. "He's been expecting you, and it's taken hold of him. I suppose he talks about his learning to you. It's uncommonly kind of _you_, sir; for I don't suppose there's much to be got out of it, else it wouldn't have left him where he is. But there's the shop." Cohen hurried out, and Jacob, who had been listening inconveniently near to Deronda's elbow, said to him with obliging familiarity, "I'll call Mordecai for you, if you like." "No, Jacob," said his mother; "open the door for the gentleman, and let him go in himself Hush! Don't make a noise." Skillful Jacob seemed to enter into the play, and turned the handle of the door as noiselessly as possible, while Deronda went behind him and stood on the threshold. The small room was lit only by a dying fire and one candle with a shade over it. On the board fixed under the window, various objects of jewelry were scattered: some books were heaped in the corner beyond them. Mordecai was seated on a high chair at the board with his back to the door, his hands resting on each other and on the board, a watch propped on a stand before him. He was in a state of expectation as sickening as that of a prisoner listening for the delayed deliverance--when he heard Deronda's voice saying, "I am come for you. Are you ready?" Immediately he turned without speaking, seized his furred cap which lay near, and moved to join Deronda. It was but a moment before they were both in the sitting-room, and Jacob, noticing the change in his friend's air and expression, seized him by the arm and said, "See my cup and ball!" sending the ball up close to Mordecai's face, as something likely to cheer a convalescent. It was a sign of the relieved tension in Mordecai's mind that he could smile and say, "Fine, fine!" "You have forgotten your greatcoat and comforter," said young Mrs. Cohen, and he went back into the work-room and got them. "He's come to life again, do you see?" said Cohen, who had re-entered--speaking in an undertone. "I told you so: I'm mostly right." Then in his usual voice, "Well, sir, we mustn't detain you now, I suppose; but I hope this isn't the last time we shall see you." "Shall you come again?" said Jacob, advancing. "See, I can catch the ball; I'll bet I catch it without stopping, if you come again." "He has clever hands," said Deronda, looking at the grandmother. "Which side of the family does he get them from?" But the grandmother only nodded towards her son, who said promptly, "My side. My wife's family are not in that line. But bless your soul! ours is a sort of cleverness as good as gutta percha; you can twist it which way you like. There's nothing some old gentlemen won't do if you set 'em to it." Here Cohen winked down at Jacob's back, but it was doubtful whether this judicious allusiveness answered its purpose, for its subject gave a nasal whinnying laugh and stamped about singing, "Old gentlemen, old gentlemen," in chiming cadence. Deronda thought, "I shall never know anything decisive about these people until I ask Cohen pointblank whether he lost a sister named Mirah when she was six years old." The decisive moment did not yet seem easy for him to face. Still his first sense of repulsion at the commonness of these people was beginning to be tempered with kindlier feeling. However unrefined their airs and speech might be, he was forced to admit some moral refinement in their treatment of the consumptive workman, whose mental distinction impressed them chiefly as a harmless, silent raving. "The Cohens seem to have an affection for you," said Deronda, as soon as he and Mordecai were off the doorstep. "And I for them," was the immediate answer. "They have the heart of the Israelite within them, though they are as the horse and the mule, without understanding beyond the narrow path they tread." "I have caused you some uneasiness, I fear," said Deronda, "by my slowness in fulfilling my promise. I wished to come yesterday, but I found it impossible." "Yes--yes, I trusted you. But it is true I have been uneasy, for the spirit of my youth has been stirred within me, and this body is not strong enough to bear the beating of its wings. I am as a man bound and imprisoned through long years: behold him brought to speech of his fellow and his limbs set free: he weeps, he totters, the joy within him threatens to break and overthrow the tabernacle of flesh." "You must not speak too much in this evening air," said Deronda, feeling Mordecai's words of reliance like so many cords binding him painfully. "Cover your mouth with the woolen scarf. We are going to the _Hand and Banner_, I suppose, and shall be in private there?" "No, that is my trouble that you did not come yesterday. For this is the evening of the club I spoke of, and we might not have any minutes alone until late, when all the rest are gone. Perhaps we had better seek another place. But I am used to that only. In new places the outer world presses on me and narrows the inward vision. And the people there are familiar with my face." "I don't mind the club if I am allowed to go in," said Deronda. "It is enough that you like this place best. If we have not enough time I will come again. What sort of club is it?" "It is called 'The Philosophers.' They are few--like the cedars of Lebanon--poor men given to thought. But none so poor as I am: and sometimes visitors of higher worldly rank have been brought. We are allowed to introduce a friend, who is interested in our topics. Each orders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. Most of them smoke. I have gone when I could, for there are other men of my race who come, and sometimes I have broken silence. I have pleased myself with a faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the Masters who handed down the thought of our race--the great Transmitters, who labored with their hands for scant bread, but preserved and enlarged for us the heritage of memory, and saved the soul of Israel alive as a seed among the tombs. The heart pleases itself with faint resemblances." "I shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you. It is a sort of meeting I should like to join in," said Deronda, not without relief in the prospect of an interval before he went through the strain of his next private conversation with Mordecai. In three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain, and were in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet square, where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what to Deronda was a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various ages, from between twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed, most of them with clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a look of concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, with blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, holding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the comparison of the avalanche in his "Prometheus Unbound") "As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round." The entrance of the new-comers broke the fixity of attention, and called for re-arrangement of seats in the too narrow semicircle round the fire-place and the table holding the glasses, spare pipes and tobacco. This was the soberest of clubs; but sobriety is no reason why smoking and "taking something" should be less imperiously needed as a means of getting a decent status in company and debate. Mordecai was received with welcoming voices which had a slight cadence of compassion in them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion. "I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects," said Mordecai. "He has traveled and studied much." "Is the gentlemen anonymous? Is he a Great Unknown?" said the broad-chested quoter of Shelley, with a humorous air. "My name is Daniel Deronda. I am unknown, but not in any sense great." The smile breaking over the stranger's grave face as he said this was so agreeable that there was a general indistinct murmur, equivalent to a "Hear, hear," and the broad man said, "You recommend the name, sir, and are welcome. Here, Mordecai, come to this corner against me," he added, evidently wishing to give the coziest place to the one who most needed it. Deronda was well satisfied to get a seat on the opposite side, where his general survey of the party easily included Mordecai, who remained an eminently striking object in this group of sharply-characterized figures, more than one of whom, even to Daniel's little exercised discrimination, seemed probably of Jewish descent. In fact pure English blood (if leech or lancet can furnish us with the precise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party at present assembled. Miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-hand bookseller who knew the insides of books, had at least grand-parents who called themselves German, and possibly far-away ancestors who denied themselves to be Jews; Buchan, the saddler, was Scotch; Pash, the watchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew; Gideon, the optical instrument maker, was a Jew of the red-haired, generous-featured type easily passing for Englishmen of unusually cordial manners: and Croop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more Celtic than he knew. Only three would have been discernable everywhere as Englishmen: the wood-inlayer Goodwin, well-built, open-faced, pleasant-voiced; the florid laboratory assistant Marrables; and Lily, the pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up in a small parallelogram above his well-filled forehead, and whose shirt, taken with an otherwise seedy costume, had a freshness that might be called insular, and perhaps even something narrower. Certainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawn together by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs of learning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman in search of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whose weekly income is only divisible into shillings. Deronda, even if he had not been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of what was pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself to find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the tone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of these men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch indulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around him with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered whisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which, characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for his own behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to indulge others. Perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming straight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a growth which can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. That he made a decidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their showing themselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly resuming their interrupted talk. "This is what I call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir," said Miller, who was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator--on addressing Deronda by way of explanation, and nodding toward each person whose name he mentioned. "Sometimes we stick pretty close to the point. But tonight our friend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we got on statistics; then Lily, there, saying we knew well enough before counting that in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain the same, than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation to society numbers are qualities--the number of drunkards is a quality in society--the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no instruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference between different social states--Lily saying this, we went off on the causes of social change, and when you came in I was going upon the power of ideas, which I hold to be the main transforming cause." "I don't hold with you there, Miller," said Goodwin, the inlayer, more concerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the new guest. "For either you mean so many sorts of things by ideas that I get no knowledge by what you say, any more than if you said light was a cause; or else you mean a particular sort of ideas, and then I go against your meaning as too narrow. For, look at it in one way, all actions men put a bit of thought into are ideas--say, sowing seed, or making a canoe, or baking clay; and such ideas as these work themselves into life and go on growing with it, but they can't go apart from the material that set them to work and makes a medium for them. It's the nature of wood and stone yielding to the knife that raises the idea of shaping them, and with plenty of wood and stone the shaping will go on. I look at it, that such ideas as are mixed straight away with all the other elements of life are powerful along with 'em. The slower the mixing, the less power they have. And as to the causes of social change, I look at it in this way--ideas are a sort of parliament, but there's a commonwealth outside and a good deal of the commonwealth is working at change without knowing what the parliament is doing." "But if you take ready mixing as your test of power," said Pash, "some of the least practical ideas beat everything. They spread without being understood, and enter into the language without being thought of." "They may act by changing the distribution of gases," said Marrables; "instruments are getting so fine now, men may come to register the spread of a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and corresponding changes in the nerves." "Yes," said Pash, his dark face lighting up rather impishly, "there is the idea of nationalities; I dare say the wild asses are snuffing it, and getting more gregarious." "You don't share that idea?" said Deronda, finding a piquant incongruity between Pash's sarcasm and the strong stamp of race on his features. "Say, rather, he does not share that spirit," said Mordecai, who had turned a melancholy glance on Pash. "Unless nationality is a feeling, what force can it have as an idea?" "Granted, Mordecai," said Pash, quite good-humoredly. "And as the feeling of nationality is dying, I take the idea to be no better than a ghost, already walking to announce the death." "A sentiment may seem to be dying and yet revive into strong life," said Deronda. "Nations have revived. We may live to see a great outburst of force in the Arabs, who are being inspired with a new zeal." "Amen, amen," said Mordecai, looking at Deronda with a delight which was the beginning of recovered energy: his attitude was more upright, his face was less worn. "That may hold with backward nations," said Pash, "but with us in Europe the sentiment of nationality is destined to die out. It will last a little longer in the quarters where oppression lasts, but nowhere else. The whole current of progress is setting against it." "Ay," said Buchan, in a rapid thin Scotch tone which was like the letting in of a little cool air on the conversation, "ye've done well to bring us round to the point. Ye're all agreed that societies change--not always and everywhere--but on the whole and in the long run. Now, with all deference, I would beg t' observe that we have got to examine the nature of changes before we have a warrant to call them progress, which word is supposed to include a bettering, though I apprehend it to be ill-chosen for that purpose, since mere motion onward may carry us to a bog or a precipice. And the questions I would put are three: Is all change in the direction of progress? if not, how shall we discern which change is progress and which not? and thirdly, how far and in what way can we act upon the course of change so as to promote it where it is beneficial, and divert it where it is injurious?" But Buchan's attempt to impose his method on the talk was a failure. Lily immediately said, "Change and progress are merged in the idea of development. The laws of development are being discovered, and changes taking place according to them are necessarily progressive; that is to say, it we have any notion of progress or improvement opposed to them, the notion is a mistake." "I really can't see how you arrive at that sort of certitude about changes by calling them development," said Deronda. "There will still remain the degrees of inevitableness in relation to our own will and acts, and the degrees of wisdom in hastening or retarding; there will still remain the danger of mistaking a tendency which should be resisted for an inevitable law that we must adjust ourselves to,--which seems to me as bad a superstition or false god as any that has been set up without the ceremonies of philosophizing." "That is a truth," said Mordecai. "Woe to the men who see no place for resistance in this generation! I believe in a growth, a passage, and a new unfolding of life whereof the seed is more perfect, more charged with the elements that are pregnant with diviner form. The life of a people grows, it is knit together and yet expanded, in joy and sorrow, in thought and action; it absorbs the thought of other nations into its own forms, and gives back the thought as new wealth to the world; it is a power and an organ in the great body of the nations. But there may come a check, an arrest; memories may be stifled, and love may be faint for the lack of them; or memories may shrink into withered relics--the soul of a people, whereby they know themselves to be one, may seem to be dying for want of common action. But who shall say, 'The fountain of their life is dried up, they shall forever cease to be a nation?' Who shall say it? Not he who feels the life of his people stirring within his own. Shall he say, 'That way events are wending, I will not resist?' His very soul is resistance, and is as a seed of fire that may enkindle the souls of multitudes, and make a new pathway for events." "I don't deny patriotism," said Gideon, "but we all know you have a particular meaning, Mordecai. You know Mordecai's way of thinking, I suppose." Here Gideon had turned to Deronda, who sat next to him, but without waiting for an answer he went on. "I'm a rational Jew myself. I stand by my people as a sort of family relations, and I am for keeping up our worship in a rational way. I don't approve of our people getting baptised, because I don't believe in a Jew's conversion to the Gentile part of Christianity. And now we have political equality, there's no excuse for a pretense of that sort. But I am for getting rid of all of our superstitions and exclusiveness. There's no reason now why we shouldn't melt gradually into the populations we live among. That's the order of the day in point of progress. I would as soon my children married Christians as Jews. And I'm for the old maxim, 'A man's country is where he's well off.'" "That country's not so easy to find, Gideon," said the rapid Pash, with a shrug and grimace. "You get ten shillings a-week more than I do, and have only half the number of children. If somebody will introduce a brisk trade in watches among the 'Jerusalem wares,' I'll go--eh, Mordecai, what do you say?" Deronda, all ear for these hints of Mordecai's opinion, was inwardly wondering at his persistence in coming to this club. For an enthusiastic spirit to meet continually the fixed indifference of men familiar with the object of his enthusiasm is the acceptance of a slow martyrdom, beside which the fate of a missionary tomahawked without any considerate rejection of his doctrines seems hardly worthy of compassion. But Mordecai gave no sign of shrinking: this was a moment of spiritual fullness, and he cared more for the utterance of his faith than for its immediate reception. With a fervor which had no temper in it, but seemed rather the rush of feeling in the opportunity of speech, he answered Pash:, "What I say is, let every man keep far away from the brotherhood and inheritance he despises. Thousands on thousands of our race have mixed with the Gentiles as Celt with Saxon, and they may inherit the blessing that belongs to the Gentile. You cannot follow them. You are one of the multitudes over this globe who must walk among the nations and be known as Jews, and with words on their lips which mean, 'I wish I had not been born a Jew, I disown any bond with the long travail of my race, I will outdo the Gentile in mocking at our separateness,' they all the while feel breathing on them the breath of contempt because they are Jews, and they will breathe it back poisonously. Can a fresh-made garment of citizenship weave itself straightway into the flesh and change the slow deposit of eighteen centuries? What is the citizenship of him who walks among a people he has no hardy kindred and fellowship with, and has lost the sense of brotherhood with his own race? It is a charter of selfish ambition and rivalry in low greed. He is an alien of spirit, whatever he may be in form; he sucks the blood of mankind, he is not a man, sharing in no loves, sharing in no subjection of the soul, he mocks it all. Is it not truth I speak, Pash?" "Not exactly, Mordecai," said Pash, "if you mean that I think the worse of myself for being a Jew. What I thank our fathers for is that there are fewer blockheads among us than among other races. But perhaps you are right in thinking the Christians don't like me so well for it." "Catholics and Protestants have not liked each other much better," said the genial Gideon. "We must wait patiently for prejudices to die out. Many of our people are on a footing with the best, and there's been a good filtering of our blood into high families. I am for making our expectations rational." "And so am I!" said Mordecai, quickly, leaning forward with the eagerness of one who pleads in some decisive crisis, his long, thin hands clasped together on his lap. "I, too, claim to be a rational Jew. But what is it to be rational--what is it to feel the light of the divine reason growing stronger within and without? It is to see more and more of the hidden bonds that bind and consecrate change as a dependent growth--yea, consecrate it with kinship: the past becomes my parent and the future stretches toward me the appealing arms of children. Is it rational to drain away the sap of special kindred that makes the families of men rich in interchanged wealth, and various as the forests are various with the glory of the cedar and the palm? When it is rational to say, 'I know not my father or my mother, let my children be aliens to me, that no prayer of mine may touch them,' then it will be rational for the Jew to say, 'I will seek to know no difference between me and the Gentile, I will not cherish the prophetic consciousness of our nationality--let the Hebrew cease to be, and let all his memorials be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall-paintings of a conjectured race. Yet let his child learn by rote the speech of the Greek, where he abjures his fellow-citizens by the bravery of those who fought foremost at Marathon--let him learn to say that was noble in the Greek, that is the spirit of an immortal nation! But the Jew has no memories that bind him to action; let him laugh that his nation is degraded from a nation; let him hold the monuments of his law which carried within its frame the breath of social justice, of charity, and of household sanctities--let him hold the energy of the prophets, the patient care of the Masters, the fortitude of martyred generations, as mere stuff for a professorship. The business of the Jew in all things is to be even as the rich Gentile." Mordecai threw himself back in his chair, and there was a moment's silence. Not one member of the club shared his point of view or his emotion; but his whole personality and speech had on them the effect of a dramatic representation which had some pathos in it, though no practical consequences; and usually he was at once indulged and contradicted. Deronda's mind went back upon what must have been the tragic pressure of outward conditions hindering this man, whose force he felt to be telling on himself, from making any world for his thought in the minds of others--like a poet among people of a strange speech, who may have a poetry of their own, but have no ear for his cadence, no answering thrill to his discovery of the latent virtues in his mother tongue. The cool Buchan was the first to speak, and hint the loss of time. "I submit," said he, "that ye're traveling away from the questions I put concerning progress." "Say they're levanting, Buchan," said Miller, who liked his joke, and would not have objected to be called Voltairian. "Never mind. Let us have a Jewish night; we've not had one for a long while. Let us take the discussion on Jewish ground. I suppose we've no prejudice here; we're all philosophers; and we like our friends Mordecai, Pash, and Gideon, as well as if they were no more kin to Abraham than the rest of us. We're all related through Adam, until further showing to the contrary, and if you look into history we've all got some discreditable forefathers. So I mean no offence when I say I don't think any great things of the part the Jewish people have played in the world. What then? I think they were iniquitously dealt by in past times. And I suppose we don't want any men to be maltreated, white, black, brown, or yellow--I know I've just given my half-crown to the contrary. And that reminds me, I've a curious old German book--I can't read it myself, but a friend of mine was reading out of it to me the other day--about the prejudicies against the Jews, and the stories used to be told against 'em, and what do you think one was? Why, that they're punished with a bad odor in their bodies; and _that_, says the author, date 1715 (I've just been pricing and marking the book this very morning)--that is true, for the ancients spoke of it. But then, he says, the other things are fables, such as that the odor goes away all at once when they're baptized, and that every one of the ten tribes, mind you, all the ten being concerned in the crucifixion, has got a particular punishment over and above the smell:--Asher, I remember, has the right arm a handbreadth shorter than the left, and Naphthali has pig's ears and a smell of live pork. What do you think of that? There's been a good deal of fun made of rabbinical fables, but in point of fables my opinion is, that all over the world it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. However, as I said before, I hold with the philosophers of the last century that the Jews have played no great part as a people, though Pash will have it they're clever enough to beat all the rest of the world. But if so, I ask, why haven't they done it?" "For the same reason that the cleverest men in the country don't get themselves or their ideas into Parliament," said the ready Pash; "because the blockheads are too many for 'em." "That is a vain question," said Mordecai, "whether our people would beat the rest of the world. Each nation has its own work, and is a member of the world, enriched by the work of each. But it is true, as Jehuda-ha-Levi first said, that Israel is the heart of mankind, if we mean by heart the core of affection which binds a race and its families in dutiful love, and the reverence for the human body which lifts the needs of our animal life into religion, and the tenderness which is merciful to the poor and weak and to the dumb creature that wears the yoke for us." "They're not behind any nation in arrogance," said Lily; "and if they have got in the rear, it has not been because they were over-modest." "Oh, every nation brags in its turn," said Miller. "Yes," said Pash, "and some of them in the Hebrew text." "Well, whatever the Jews contributed at one time, they are a stand-still people," said Lily. "They are the type of obstinate adherence to the superannuated. They may show good abilities when they take up liberal ideas, but as a race they have no development in them." "That is false!" said Mordecai, leaning forward again with his former eagerness. "Let their history be known and examined; let the seed be sifted, let its beginning be traced to the weed of the wilderness--the more glorious will be the energy that transformed it. Where else is there a nation of whom it may be as truly said that their religion and law and moral life mingled as the stream of blood in the heart and made one growth--where else a people who kept and enlarged their spiritual store at the very time when they are hated with a hatred as fierce as the forest fires that chase the wild beast from his covert? There is a fable of the Roman, that swimming to save his life he held the roll of his writings between his teeth and saved them from the waters. But how much more than that is true of our race? They struggled to keep their place among the nations like heroes--yea, when the hand was hacked off, they clung with their teeth; but when the plow and the harrow had passed over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the fruitfulness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and planters, they said, 'The spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting habitation--lasting because movable--so that it may be carried from generation to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the things that have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable foundation.' They said it and they wrought it, though often breathing with scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap of slain. Hooted and scared like the unknown dog, the Hebrew made himself envied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them to fill the bath of Gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he diffused it; his dispersed race was a new Phoenicia working the mines of Greece and carrying their products to the world. The native spirit of our tradition was not to stand still, but to use records as a seed and draw out the compressed virtues of law and prophecy; and while the Gentile, who had said, 'What is yours is ours, and no longer yours,' was reading the letter of our law as a dark inscription, or was turning its parchments into shoe-soles for an army rabid with lust and cruelty, our Masters were still enlarging and illuminating with fresh-fed interpretation. But the dispersion was wide, the yoke of oppression was a spiked torture as well as a load; the exile was forced afar among brutish people, where the consciousness of his race was no clearer to him than the light of the sun to our fathers in the Roman persecution, who had their hiding-place in a cave, and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer burning of their candles. What wonder that multitudes of our people are ignorant, narrow, superstitious? What wonder?" Here Mordecai, whose seat was next the fireplace, rose and leaned his arm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice, which had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser. "What wonder? The night is unto them, that they have no vision; in their darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone down over the prophets, and the day is dark above them; their observances are as nameless relics. But which among the chief of the Gentile nations has not an ignorant multitude? They scorn our people's ignorant observance; but the most accursed ignorance is that which has no observance--sunk to the cunning greed of the fox, to which all law is no more than a trap or the cry of the worrying hound. There is a degradation deep down below the memory that has withered into superstition. In the multitudes of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the confession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West--which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and understanding. Let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread to the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition will vanish, not in the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts which widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young offspring of beloved memories." Mordecai's voice had sunk, but with the hectic brilliancy of his gaze it was not the less impressive. His extraordinary excitement was certainly due to Deronda's presence: it was to Deronda that he was speaking, and the moment had a testamentary solemnity for him which rallied all his powers. Yet the presence of those other familiar men promoted expression, for they embodied the indifference which gave a resistant energy to his speech. Not that he looked at Deronda: he seemed to see nothing immediately around him, and if any one had grasped him he would probably not have known it. Again the former words came back to Deronda's mind,--"You must hope my hopes--see the vision I point to--behold a glory where I behold it." They came now with gathered pathos. Before him stood, as a living, suffering reality, what hitherto he had only seen as an effort of imagination, which, in its comparative faintness, yet carried a suspicion, of being exaggerated: a man steeped in poverty and obscurity, weakened by disease, consciously within the shadow of advancing death, but living an intense life in an invisible past and future, careless of his personal lot, except for its possible making some obstruction to a conceived good which he would never share except as a brief inward vision--a day afar off, whose sun would never warm him, but into which he threw his soul's desire, with a passion often wanting to the personal motives of healthy youth. It was something more than a grandiose transfiguration of the parental love that toils, renounces, endures, resists the suicidal promptings of despair--all because of the little ones, whose future becomes present to the yearning gaze of anxiety. All eyes were fixed on Mordecai as he sat down again, and none with unkindness; but it happened that the one who felt the most kindly was the most prompted to speak in opposition. This was the genial and rational Gideon, who also was not without a sense that he was addressing the guest of the evening. He said, "You have your own way of looking at things, Mordecai, and as you say, your own way seems to you rational. I know you don't hold with the restoration of Judea by miracle, and so on; but you are as well aware as I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by Jews and Christians. And as to the connection of our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as demoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts. We must look where they point; that's what I call rationality. The most learned and liberal men among us who are attached to our religion are for clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a literal fulfillment of the prophecies about restoration, and so on. Prune it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a union, between us and the rest of the world." "As plain as a pike-staff," said Pash, with an ironical laugh. "You pluck it up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the knots, and smooth it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it will do no harm, it will never sprout. You may make a handle of it, or you may throw it on the bonfire of scoured rubbish. I don't see why our rubbish is to be held sacred any more than the rubbish of Brahmanism or Buddhism." "No," said Mordecai, "no, Pash, because you have lost the heart of the Jew. Community was felt before it was called good. I praise no superstition, I praise the living fountains of enlarging belief. What is growth, completion, development? You began with that question, I apply it to the history of our people. I say that the effect of our separateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality. That is the fulfillment of the religious trust that moulded them into a people, whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What is it to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the children of Judah have mixed themselves with the Gentile populations as a river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts spread afar; they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jeweled breastplate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned in all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political counselors, who carry in their veins the Hebrew blood which has maintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the Hebrew genius for which difficulty means new device--let them say, 'we will lift up a standard, we will unite in a labor hard but glorious like that of Moses and Ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, refusing the ease of falsehood.' They have wealth enough to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the outraged Englishmen of America. And the world will gain as Israel gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom: there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I know there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement move in the great among our people, and the work will begin." "Ay, we may safely admit that, Mordecai," said Pash. "When there are great men on 'Change, and high-flying professors converted to your doctrine, difficulties will vanish like smoke." Deronda, inclined by nature to take the side of those on whom the arrows of scorn were falling, could not help replying to Pash's outfling, and said, "If we look back to the history of efforts which have made great changes, it is astonishing how many of them seemed hopeless to those who looked on in the beginning. "Take what we have all heard and seen something of--the effort after the unity of Italy, which we are sure soon to see accomplished to the very last boundary. Look into Mazzini's account of his first yearning, when he was a boy, after a restored greatness and a new freedom to Italy, and of his first efforts as a young man to rouse the same feelings in other young men, and get them to work toward a united nationality. Almost everything seemed against him; his countrymen were ignorant or indifferent, governments hostile, Europe incredulous. Of course the scorners often seemed wise. Yet you see the prophecy lay with him. As long as there is a remnant of national consciousness, I suppose nobody will deny that there may be a new stirring of memories and hopes which may inspire arduous action." "Amen," said Mordecai, to whom Deronda's words were a cordial. "What is needed is the leaven--what is needed is the seed of fire. The heritage of Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in their veins as a power without understanding, like the morning exultation of herds; it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream among writings on the walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide into speech. Let the torch of visible community be lit! Let the reason of Israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. Will any say 'It cannot be'? Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish heart, though he had sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of Jewish tradition. He laid bare his father's nakedness and said, 'They who scorn him have the higher wisdom.' Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed, he saw not why Israel should not again be a chosen nation. Who says that the history and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as the history and literature of Greece and Rome, which have inspired revolutions, enkindled the thought of Europe, and made the unrighteous powers tremble? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human frames." Mordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands quivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak. Gideon was certainly a little moved, for though there was no long pause before he made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild and deprecatory than before; Pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips together, rubbing his black head with both his hands and wrinkling his brow horizontally, with the expression of one who differs from every speaker, but does not think it worth while to say so. There is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder shape. "It may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our memories and inheritance as you do, Mordecai," said Gideon; "but there's another side. It isn't all gratitude and harmless glory. Our people have inherited a good deal of hatred. There's a pretty lot of curses still flying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from the times of persecution. How will you justify keeping one sort of memory and throwing away the other? There are ugly debts standing on both sides." "I justify the choice as all other choice is justified," said Mordecai. "I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but the good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of aught but wrong. The Master has said, an offence against man is worse than an offence against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the breasts of Jews, who are children of the ignorant and oppressed--what wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians? Our national life was a growing light. Let the central fire be kindled again, and the light will reach afar. The degraded and scorned of our race will learn to think of their sacred land, not as a place for saintly beggary to await death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic where the Jewish spirit manifests itself in a new order founded on the old, purified and enriched by the experience our greatest sons have gathered from the life of the ages. How long is it?--only two centuries since a vessel carried over the ocean the beginning of the great North American nation. The people grew like meeting waters--they were various in habit and sect--there came a time, a century ago, when they needed a polity, and there were heroes of peace among them. What had they to form a polity with but memories of Europe, corrected by the vision of a better? Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a better. A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art and wisdom. So will a new Judaea, poised between East and West--a covenant of reconciliation. Will any say, the prophetic vision of your race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry: the angel of progress has no message for Judaism--it is a half-buried city for the paid workers to lay open--the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken field? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The Messianic time is the time when Israel shall will the planting of the national ensign. The Nile overflowed and rushed onward: the Egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and make channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became the land of corn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and resolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or purpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict the blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future of the world--not renounce our higher gift and say, 'Let us be as if we were not among the populations;' but choose our full heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it will be fulfilled." With the last sentence, which was no more than a loud whisper, Mordecai let his chin sink on his breast and his eyelids fall. No one spoke. It was not the first time that he had insisted on the same ideas, but he was seen to-night in a new phase. The quiet tenacity of his ordinary self differed as much from his present exaltation of mood as a man in private talk, giving reasons for a revolution of which no sign is discernable, differs from one who feels himself an agent in a revolution begun. The dawn of fulfillment brought to his hope by Deronda's presence had wrought Mordecai's conception into a state of impassioned conviction, and he had found strength in his excitement to pour forth the unlocked floods of emotive argument, with a sense of haste as at a crisis which must be seized. But now there had come with the quiescence of fatigue a sort of thankful wonder that he had spoken--a contemplation of his life as a journey which had come at last to this bourne. After a great excitement, the ebbing strength of impulse is apt to leave us in this aloofness from our active self. And in the moments after Mordecai had sunk his head, his mind was wandering along the paths of his youth, and all the hopes which had ended in bringing him hither. Every one felt that the talk was ended, and the tone of phlegmatic discussion made unseasonable by Mordecai's high-pitched solemnity. It was as if they had come together to hear the blowing of the _shophar_, and had nothing to do now but to disperse. The movement was unusually general, and in less than ten minutes the room was empty of all except Mordecai and Deronda. "Good-nights" had been given to Mordecai, but it was evident he had not heard them, for he remained rapt and motionless. Deronda would not disturb this needful rest, but waited for a spontaneous movement. CHAPTER XLIII. "My spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky." --KEATS. After a few minutes the unwonted stillness had penetrated Mordecai's consciousness, and he looked up at Deronda, not in the least with bewilderment and surprise, but with a gaze full of reposing satisfaction. Deronda rose and placed his chair nearer, where there could be no imagined need for raising the voice. Mordecai felt the action as a patient feels the gentleness that eases his pillow. He began to speak in a low tone, as if he were only thinking articulately, not trying to reach an audience. "In the doctrine of the Cabbala, souls are born again and again in new bodies till they are perfected and purified, and a soul liberated from a worn-out body may join the fellow-soul that needs it, that they may be perfected together, and their earthly work accomplished. Then they will depart from the mortal region, and leave place for new souls to be born out of the store in the eternal bosom. It is the lingering imperfection of the souls already born into the mortal region that hinders the birth of new souls and the preparation of the Messianic time:--thus the mind has given shape to what is hidden, as the shadow of what is known, and has spoken truth, though it were only in parable. When my long-wandering soul is liberated from this weary body, it will join yours, and its work will be perfected." Mordecai's pause seemed an appeal which Deronda's feeling would not let him leave unanswered. He tried to make it truthful; but for Mordecai's ear it was inevitably filled with unspoken meaning. He only said, "Everything I can in conscience do to make your life effective I will do." "I know it," said Mordecai, in a tone of quiet certainty which dispenses with further assurance. "I heard it. You see it all--you are by my side on the mount of vision, and behold the paths of fulfillment which others deny." He was silent a moment or two, and then went on meditatively, "You will take up my life where it was broken. I feel myself back in that day when my life was broken. The bright morning sun was on the quay--it was at Trieste--the garments of men from all nations shone like jewels--the boats were pushing off--the Greek vessel that would land us at Beyrout was to start in an hour. I was going with a merchant as his clerk and companion. I said, I shall behold the lands and people of the East, and I shall speak with a fuller vision. I breathed then as you do, without labor; I had the light step and the endurance of youth, I could fast, I could sleep on the hard ground. I had wedded poverty, and I loved my bride--for poverty to me was freedom. My heart exulted as if it had been the heart of Moses ben Maimon, strong with the strength of three score years, and knowing the work that was to fill them. It was the first time I had been south; the soul within me felt its former sun; and standing on the quay, where the ground I stood on seemed to send forth light, and the shadows had an azure glory as of spirits become visible, I felt myself in the flood of a glorious life, wherein my own small year-counted existence seemed to melt, so that I knew it not; and a great sob arose within me as at the rush of waters that were too strong a bliss. So I stood there awaiting my companion; and I saw him not till he said: 'Ezra, I have been to the post and there is your letter.'" "Ezra!" exclaimed Deronda, unable to contain himself. "Ezra," repeated Mordecai, affirmatively, engrossed in memory. "I was expecting a letter; for I wrote continually to my mother. And that sound of my name was like the touch of a wand that recalled me to the body wherefrom I had been released as it were to mingle with the ocean of human existence, free from the pressure of individual bondage. I opened the letter; and the name came again as a cry that would have disturbed me in the bosom of heaven, and made me yearn to reach where that sorrow was--'Ezra, my son!'" Mordecai paused again, his imagination arrested by the grasp of that long-passed moment. Deronda's mind was almost breathlessly suspended on what was coming. A strange possibility had suddenly presented itself. Mordecai's eyes were cast down in abstracted contemplation, and in a few moments he went on, "She was a mother of whom it might have come--yea, might have come to be said, 'Her children arise up and call her blessed.' In her I understood the meaning of that Master who, perceiving the footsteps of his mother, rose up and said, 'The Majesty of the Eternal cometh near!' And that letter was her cry from the depths of anguish and desolation--the cry of a mother robbed of her little ones. I was her eldest. Death had taken four babes one after the other. Then came, late, my little sister, who was, more than all the rest, the desire of my mother's eyes; and the letter was a piercing cry to me--'Ezra, my son, I am robbed of her. He has taken her away and left disgrace behind. They will never come again.'"--Here Mordecai lifted his eyes suddenly, laid his hand on Deronda's arm, and said, "Mine was the lot of Israel. For the sin of the father my soul must go into exile. For the sin of the father the work was broken, and the day of fulfilment delayed. She who bore me was desolate, disgraced, destitute. I turned back. On the instant I turned--her spirit and the spirit of her fathers, who had worthy Jewish hearts, moved within me, and drew me. God, in whom dwells the universe, was within me as the strength of obedience. I turned and traveled with hardship--to save the scant money which she would need. I left the sunshine, and traveled into freezing cold. In the last stage I spent a night in exposure to cold and snow. And that was the beginning of this slow death." Mordecai let his eyes wander again and removed his hand. Deronda resolutely repressed the questions which urged themselves within him. While Mordecai was in this state of emotion, no other confidence must be sought than what came spontaneously: nay, he himself felt a kindred emotion which made him dread his own speech as too momentous. "But I worked. We were destitute--every thing had been seized. And she was ill: the clutch of anguish was too strong for her, and wrought with some lurking disease. At times she could not stand for the beating of her heart, and the images in her brain became as chambers of terror, where she beheld my sister reared in evil. In the dead of night I heard her crying for her child. Then I rose, and we stretched forth our arms together and prayed. We poured forth our souls in desire that Mirah might be delivered from evil." "Mirah?" Deronda repeated, wishing to assure, himself that his ears had not been deceived by a forecasting imagination. "Did you say Mirah?" "That was my little sister's name. After we had prayed for her, my mother would rest awhile. It lasted hardly four years, and in the minute before she died, we were praying the same prayer--I aloud, she silently. Her soul went out upon its wings." "Have you never since heard of your sister?" said Deronda, as quietly as he could. "Never. Never have I heard whether she was delivered according to our prayer. I know not, I know not. Who shall say where the pathways lie? The poisonous will of the wicked is strong. It poisoned my life--it is slowly stifling this breath. Death delivered my mother, and I felt it a blessedness that I was alone in the winters of suffering. But what are the winters now?--they are far off"--here Mordecai again rested his hand on Deronda's arm, and looked at him with that joy of the hectic patient which pierces us to sadness--"there is nothing to wail in the withering of my body. The work will be the better done. Once I said the work of this beginning was mine, I am born to do it. Well, I shall do it. I shall live in you. I shall live in you." His grasp had become convulsive in its force, and Deronda, agitated as he had never been before--the certainty that this was Mirah's brother suffusing his own strange relation to Mordecai with a new solemnity and tenderness--felt his strong young heart beating faster and his lips paling. He shrank from speech. He feared, in Mordecai's present state of exaltation (already an alarming strain on his feeble frame), to utter a word of revelation about Mirah. He feared to make an answer below that high pitch of expectation which resembled a flash from a dying fire, making watchers fear to see it die the faster. His dominant impulse was to do as he had once done before: he laid his firm, gentle hand on the hand that grasped him. Mordecai's, as if it had a soul of its own--for he was not distinctly willing to do what he did--relaxed its grasp, and turned upward under Deronda's. As the two palms met and pressed each other Mordecai recovered some sense of his surroundings, and said, "Let us go now. I cannot talk any longer." And in fact they parted at Cohen's door without having spoken to each other again--merely with another pressure of the hands. Deronda felt a weight on him which was half joy, half anxiety. The joy of finding in Mirah's brother a nature even more than worthy of that relation to her, had the weight of solemnity and sadness; the reunion of brother and sister was in reality the first stage of a supreme parting--like that farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. Then there was the weight of anxiety about the revelation of the fact on both sides, and the arrangements it would be desirable to make beforehand. I suppose we should all have felt as Deronda did, without sinking into snobbishness or the notion that the primal duties of life demand a morning and an evening suit, that it was an admissible desire to free Mirah's first meeting with her brother from all jarring outward conditions. His own sense of deliverance from the dreaded relationship of the other Cohens, notwithstanding their good nature, made him resolve if possible to keep them in the background for Mirah, until her acquaintance with them would be an unmarred rendering of gratitude for any kindness they had shown to her brother. On all accounts he wished to give Mordecai surroundings not only more suited to his frail bodily condition, but less of a hindrance to easy intercourse, even apart from the decisive prospect of Mirah's taking up her abode with her brother, and tending him through the precious remnant of his life. In the heroic drama, great recognitions are not encumbered with these details; and certainly Deronda had as reverential an interest in Mordecai and Mirah as he could have had in the offspring of Agamemnon; but he was caring for destinies still moving in the dim streets of our earthly life, not yet lifted among the constellations, and his task presented itself to him as difficult and delicate, especially in persuading Mordecai to change his abode and habits. Concerning Mirah's feeling and resolve he had no doubt: there would be a complete union of sentiment toward the departed mother, and Mirah would understand her brother's greatness. Yes, greatness: that was the word which Deronda now deliberately chose to signify the impression that Mordecai had made on him. He said to himself, perhaps rather defiantly toward the more negative spirit within him, that this man, however erratic some of his interpretations might be--this consumptive Jewish workman in threadbare clothing, lodged by charity, delivering himself to hearers who took his thoughts without attaching more consequences to them than the Flemings to the ethereal chimes ringing above their market-places--had the chief elements of greatness; a mind consciously, energetically moving with the larger march of human destinies, but not the less full of conscience and tender heart for the footsteps that tread near and need a leaning-place; capable of conceiving and choosing a life's task with far-off issues, yet capable of the unapplauded heroism which turns off the road of achievement at the call of the nearer duty whose effect lies within the beatings of the hearts that are close to us, as the hunger of the unfledged bird to the breast of its parent. Deronda to-night was stirred with the feeling that the brief remnant of this fervid life had become his charge. He had been peculiarly wrought on by what he had seen at the club of the friendly indifference which Mordecai must have gone on encountering. His own experience of the small room that ardor can make for itself in ordinary minds had had the effect of increasing his reserve; and while tolerance was the easiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also capable of becoming a weakness--the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an ineffective insistence on his own opinion. But such caution appeared contemptible to him just now, when he, for the first time, saw in a complete picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves out in solitary enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in the rarity of their own minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no more than a long passionate soliloquy--unless perhaps at last, when they are nearing the invisible shores, signs of recognition and fulfilment may penetrate the cloud of loneliness; or perhaps it may be with them as with the dying Copernicus made to touch the first printed copy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a dim object through the deepening dusk. Deronda had been brought near to one of those spiritual exiles, and it was in his nature to feel the relation as a strong chain, nay, to feel his imagination moving without repugnance in the direction of Mordecai's desires. With all his latent objection to schemes only definite in their generality and nebulous in detail--in the poise of his sentiments he felt at one with this man who had made a visionary selection of him: the lines of what may be called their emotional theory touched. He had not the Jewish consciousness, but he had a yearning, grown the stronger for the denial which had been his grievance, after the obligation of avowed filial and social ties. His feeling was ready for difficult obedience. In this way it came that he set about his new task ungrudgingly; and again he thought of Mrs. Meyrick as his chief helper. To her first he must make known the discovery of Mirah's brother, and with her he must consult on all preliminaries of bringing the mutually lost together. Happily the best quarter for a consumptive patient did not lie too far off the small house at Chelsea, and the first office Deronda had to perform for this Hebrew prophet who claimed him as a spiritual inheritor, was to get him a healthy lodging. Such is the irony of earthly mixtures, that the heroes have not always had carpets and teacups of their own; and, seen through the open window by the mackerel-vender, may have been invited with some hopefulness to pay three hundred per cent, in the form of fourpence. However, Deronda's mind was busy with a prospective arrangement for giving a furnished lodging some faint likeness to a refined home by dismantling his own chambers of his best old books in vellum, his easiest chair, and the bas-reliefs of Milton and Dante. But was not Mirah to be there? What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face?--and is there any harmony of tints that has such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice? Here is one good, at least, thought Deronda, that comes to Mordecai from his having fixed his imagination on me. He has recovered a perfect sister, whose affection is waiting for him. CHAPTER XLIV. Fairy folk a-listening Hear the seed sprout in the spring. And for music to their dance Hear the hedgerows wake from trance, Sap that trembles into buds Sending little rhythmic floods Of fairy sound in fairy ears. Thus all beauty that appears Has birth as sound to finer sense And lighter-clad intelligence. And Gwendolen? She was thinking of Deronda much more than he was thinking of her--often wondering what were his ideas "about things," and how his life was occupied. But a lap-dog would be necessarily at a loss in framing to itself the motives and adventures of doghood at large; and it was as far from Gwendolen's conception that Deronda's life could be determined by the historical destiny of the Jews, as that he could rise into the air on a brazen horse, and so vanish from her horizon in the form of a twinkling star. With all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it was inevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in his thoughts than she actually possessed. They must be rather old and wise persons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation about themselves reflected in other minds; and Gwendolen, with her youth and inward solitude, may be excused for dwelling on signs of special interest in her shown by the one person who had impressed her with the feeling of submission, and for mistaking the color and proportion of those signs in the mind of Deronda. Meanwhile, what would he tell her that she ought to do? "He said, I must get more interest in others, and more knowledge, and that I must care about the best things--but how am I to begin?" She wondered what books he would tell her to take up to her own room, and recalled the famous writers that she had either not looked into or had found the most unreadable, with a half-smiling wish that she could mischievously ask Deronda if they were not the books called "medicine for the mind." Then she repented of her sauciness, and when she was safe from observation carried up a miscellaneous selection--Descartes, Bacon, Locke, Butler, Burke, Guizot--knowing, as a clever young lady of education, that these authors were ornaments of mankind, feeling sure that Deronda had read them, and hoping that by dipping into them all in succession, with her rapid understanding she might get a point of view nearer to his level. But it was astonishing how little time she found for these vast mental excursions. Constantly she had to be on the scene as Mrs. Grandcourt, and to feel herself watched in that part by the exacting eyes of a husband who had found a motive to exercise his tenacity--that of making his marriage answer all the ends he chose, and with the more completeness the more he discerned any opposing will in her. And she herself, whatever rebellion might be going on within her, could not have made up her mind to failure in her representation. No feeling had yet reconciled her for a moment to any act, word, or look that would be a confession to the world: and what she most dreaded in herself was any violent impulse that would make an involuntary confession: it was the will to be silent in every other direction that had thrown the more impetuosity into her confidences toward Deronda, to whom her thought continually turned as a help against herself. Her riding, her hunting, her visiting and receiving of visits, were all performed in a spirit of achievement which served instead of zest and young gladness, so that all around Diplow, in those weeks of the new year, Mrs. Grandcourt was regarded as wearing her honors with triumph. "She disguises it under an air of taking everything as a matter of course," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "A stranger might suppose that she had condescended rather than risen. I always noticed that doubleness in her." To her mother most of all Gwendolen was bent on acting complete satisfaction, and poor Mrs. Davilow was so far deceived that she took the unexpected distance at which she was kept, in spite of what she felt to be Grandcourt's handsome behavior in providing for her, as a comparative indifference in her daughter, now that marriage had created new interests. To be fetched to lunch and then to dinner along with the Gascoignes, to be driven back soon after breakfast the next morning, and to have brief calls from Gwendolen in which her husband waited for her outside either on horseback or sitting in the carriage, was all the intercourse allowed to her mother. The truth was, that the second time Gwendolen proposed to invite her mother with Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, Grandcourt had at first been silent, and then drawled, "We can't be having _those people_ always. Gascoigne talks too much. Country clergy are always bores--with their confounded fuss about everything." That speech was full of foreboding for Gwendolen. To have her mother classed under "those people" was enough to confirm the previous dread of bringing her too near. Still, she could not give the true reasons--she could not say to her mother, "Mr. Grandcourt wants to recognize you as little as possible; and besides it is better you should not see much of my married life, else you might find out that I am miserable." So she waived as lightly as she could every allusion to the subject; and when Mrs. Davilow again hinted the possibility of her having a house close to Ryelands, Gwendolen said, "It would not be so nice for you as being near the rectory here, mamma. We shall perhaps be very little at Ryelands. You would miss my aunt and uncle." And all the while this contemptuous veto of her husband's on any intimacy with her family, making her proudly shrink from giving them the aspect of troublesome pensioners, was rousing more inward inclination toward them. She had never felt so kindly toward her uncle, so much disposed to look back on his cheerful, complacent activity and spirit of kind management, even when mistaken, as more of a comfort than the neutral loftiness which was every day chilling her. And here perhaps she was unconsciously finding some of that mental enlargement which it was hard to get from her occasional dashes into difficult authors, who instead of blending themselves with her daily agitations required her to dismiss them. It was a delightful surprise one day when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne were at Offendene to see Gwendolen ride up without her husband--with the groom only. All, including the four girls and Miss Merry, seated in the dining-room at lunch, could see the welcome approach; and even the elder ones were not without something of Isabel's romantic sense that the beautiful sister on the splendid chestnut, which held its head as if proud to bear her, was a sort of Harriet Byron or Miss Wardour reappearing out of her "happiness ever after." Her uncle went to the door to give her his hand, and she sprang from her horse with an air of alacrity which might well encourage that notion of guaranteed happiness; for Gwendolen was particularly bent to-day on setting her mother's heart at rest, and her unusual sense of freedom in being able to make this visit alone enabled her to bear up under the pressure of painful facts which were urging themselves anew. The seven family kisses were not so tiresome as they used to be. "Mr. Grandcourt is gone out, so I determined to fill up the time by coming to you, mamma," said Gwendolen, as she laid down her hat and seated herself next to her mother; and then looking at her with a playfully monitory air, "That is a punishment to you for not wearing better lace on your head. You didn't think I should come and detect you--you dreadfully careless-about-yourself mamma!" She gave a caressing touch to the dear head. "Scold me, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, her delicate worn face flushing with delight. "But I wish there was something you could eat after your ride--instead of these scraps. Let Jocosa make you a cup of chocolate in your old way. You used to like that." Miss Merry immediately rose and went out, though Gwendolen said, "Oh, no, a piece of bread, or one of those hard biscuits. I can't think about eating. I am come to say good-bye." "What! going to Ryelands again?" said Mr. Gascoigne. "No, we are going to town," said Gwendolen, beginning to break up a piece of bread, but putting no morsel into her mouth. "It is rather early to go to town," said Mrs. Gascoigne, "and Mr. Grandcourt not in Parliament." "Oh, there is only one more day's hunting to be had, and Henleigh has some business in town with lawyers, I think," said Gwendolen. "I am very glad. I shall like to go to town." "You will see your house in Grosvenor Square," said Mrs. Davilow. She and the girls were devouring with their eyes every movement of their goddess, soon to vanish. "Yes," said Gwendolen, in a tone of assent to the interest of that expectation. "And there is so much to be seen and done in town." "I wish, my dear Gwendolen," said Mr. Gascoigne, in a kind of cordial advice, "that you would use your influence with Mr. Grandcourt to induce him to enter Parliament. A man of his position should make his weight felt in politics. The best judges are confident that the ministry will have to appeal to the country on this question of further Reform, and Mr. Grandcourt should be ready for the opportunity. I am not quite sure that his opinions and mine accord entirely; I have not heard him express himself very fully. But I don't look at the matter from that point of view. I am thinking of your husband's standing in the country. And he has now come to that stage of life when a man like him should enter into public affairs. A wife has great influence with her husband. Use yours in that direction, my dear." The rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and giving something like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece's match. To Gwendolen the whole speech had the flavor of bitter comedy. If she had been merry, she must have laughed at her uncle's explanation to her that he had not heard Grandcourt express himself very fully on politics. And the wife's great influence! General maxims about husbands and wives seemed now of a precarious usefulness. Gwendolen herself had once believed in her future influence as an omnipotence in managing--she did not know exactly what. But her chief concern at present was to give an answer that would be felt appropriate. "I should be very glad, uncle. But I think Mr. Grandcourt would not like the trouble of an election--at least, unless it could be without his making speeches. I thought candidates always made speeches." "Not necessarily--to any great extent," said Mr. Gascoigne. "A man of position and weight can get on without much of it. A county member need have very little trouble in that way, and both out of the House and in it is liked the better for not being a speechifier. Tell Mr. Grandcourt that I say so." "Here comes Jocosa with my chocolate after all," said Gwendolen, escaping from a promise to give information that would certainly have been received in a way inconceivable to the good rector, who, pushing his chair a little aside from the table and crossing his leg, looked as well as if he felt like a worthy specimen of a clergyman and magistrate giving experienced advice. Mr. Gascoigne had come to the conclusion that Grandcourt was a proud man, but his own self-love, calmed through life by the consciousness of his general value and personal advantages, was not irritable enough to prevent him from hoping the best about his niece's husband because her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a distance. A certain aloofness must be allowed to the representative of an old family; you would not expect him to be on intimate terms even with abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne was less dispassionate on her husband's account, and felt Grandcourt's haughtiness as something a little blameable in Gwendolen. "Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter," she said, with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. "Dear Rex hopes to come out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father and Anna to meet him in London, that they may be jolly together, as he says. I shouldn't wonder if Lord Brackenshaw invited them, he has been so very kind since he came back to the Castle." "I hope my uncle will bring Ann to stay in Grosvenor Square," said Gwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment, but in reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of her family near Grandcourt again. "I am very glad of Rex's good fortune." "We must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand," said the rector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and altogether allowable, now that the issue of that little affair about Gwendolen had been so satisfactory. "Not but that I am in correspondence with impartial judges, who have the highest hopes about my son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. And of his excellent disposition and principle I have had the best evidence." "We shall have him a great lawyer some time," said Mrs. Gascoigne. "How very nice!" said Gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as to niceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers. "Talking of Lord Brackenshaw's kindness," said Mrs. Davilow, "you don't know how delightful he has been, Gwendolen. He has begged me to consider myself his guest in this house till I can get another that I like--he did it in the most graceful way. But now a house has turned up. Old Mr. Jodson is dead, and we can have his house. It is just what I want; small, but with nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking about it. And it is only a mile from the Rectory. You remember the low white house nearly hidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the church?" "Yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma," said Gwendolen, in a melancholy tone. "Oh, I am saving money for that. You know who has made me rather rich, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, laying her hand on Gwendolen's. "And Jocosa really makes so little do for housekeeping--it is quite wonderful." "Oh, please let me go up-stairs with you and arrange my hat, mamma," said Gwendolen, suddenly putting up her hand to her hair and perhaps creating a desired disarrangement. Her heart was swelling, and she was ready to cry. Her mother _must_ have been worse off, if it had not been for Grandcourt. "I suppose I shall never see all this again," said Gwendolen, looking round her, as they entered the black and yellow bedroom, and then throwing herself into a chair in front of the glass with a little groan as of bodily fatigue. In the resolve not to cry she had become very pale. "You are not well, dear?" said Mrs. Davilow. "No; that chocolate has made me sick," said Gwendolen, putting up her hand to be taken. "I should be allowed to come to you if you were ill, darling," said Mrs. Davilow, rather timidly, as she pressed the hand to her bosom. Something had made her sure today that her child loved her--needed her as much as ever. "Oh, yes," said Gwendolen, leaning her head against her mother, though speaking as lightly as she could. "But you know I never am ill. I am as strong as possible; and you must not take to fretting about me, but make yourself as happy as you can with the girls. They are better children to you than I have been, you know." She turned up her face with a smile. "You have always been good, my darling. I remember nothing else." "Why, what did I ever do that was good to you, except marry Mr. Grandcourt?" said Gwendolen, starting up with a desperate resolve to be playful, and keep no more on the perilous edge of agitation. "And I should not have done that unless it had pleased myself." She tossed up her chin, and reached her hat. "God forbid, child! I would not have had you marry for my sake. Your happiness by itself is half mine." "Very well," said Gwendolen, arranging her hat fastidiously, "then you will please to consider that you are half happy, which is more than I am used to seeing you." With the last words she again turned with her old playful smile to her mother. "Now I am ready; but oh, mamma, Mr. Grandcourt gives me a quantity of money, and expects me to spend it, and I can't spend it; and you know I can't bear charity children and all that; and here are thirty pounds. I wish the girls would spend it for me on little things for themselves when you go to the new house. Tell them so." Gwendolen put the notes into her mother's hands and looked away hastily, moving toward the door. "God bless you, dear," said Mrs. Davilow. "It will please them so that you should have thought of them in particular." "Oh, they are troublesome things; but they don't trouble me now," said Gwendolen, turning and nodding playfully. She hardly understood her own feeling in this act toward her sisters, but at any rate she did not wish it to be taken as anything serious. She was glad to have got out of the bedroom without showing more signs of emotion, and she went through the rest of her visit and all the good-byes with a quiet propriety that made her say to herself sarcastically as she rode away, "I think I am making a very good Mrs. Grandcourt." She believed that her husband had gone to Gadsmere that day--had inferred this, as she had long ago inferred who were the inmates of what he had described as "a dog-hutch of a place in a black country;" and the strange conflict of feeling within her had had the characteristic effect of sending her to Offendene with a tightened resolve--a form of excitement which was native to her. She wondered at her own contradictions. Why should she feel it bitter to her that Grandcourt showed concern for the beings on whose account she herself was undergoing remorse? Had she not before her marriage inwardly determined to speak and act on their behalf?--and since he had lately implied that he wanted to be in town because he was making arrangements about his will, she ought to have been glad of any sign that he kept a conscience awake toward those at Gadsmere; and yet, now that she was a wife, the sense that Grandcourt was gone to Gadsmere was like red heat near a burn. She had brought on herself this indignity in her own eyes--this humiliation of being doomed to a terrified silence lest her husband should discover with what sort of consciousness she had married him; and as she had said to Deronda, she "must go on." After the intense moments of secret hatred toward this husband who from the very first had cowed her, there always came back the spiritual pressure which made submission inevitable. There was no effort at freedoms that would not bring fresh and worse humiliation. Gwendolen could dare nothing except an impulsive action--least of all could she dare premeditatedly a vague future in which the only certain condition was indignity. In spite of remorse, it still seemed the worst result of her marriage that she should in any way make a spectacle of herself; and her humiliation was lightened by her thinking that only Mrs. Glasher was aware of the fact which caused it. For Gwendolen had never referred the interview at the Whispering Stones to Lush's agency; her disposition to vague terror investing with shadowy omnipresence any threat of fatal power over her, and so hindering her from imagining plans and channels by which news had been conveyed to the woman who had the poisoning skill of a sorceress. To Gwendolen's mind the secret lay with Mrs. Glasher, and there were words in the horrible letter which implied that Mrs. Glasher would dread disclosure to the husband, as much as the usurping Mrs. Grandcourt. Something else, too, she thought of as more of a secret from her husband than it really was--namely that suppressed struggle of desperate rebellion which she herself dreaded. Grandcourt could not indeed fully imagine how things affected Gwendolen: he had no imagination of anything in her but what affected the gratification of his own will; but on this point he had the sensibility which seems like divination. What we see exclusively we are apt to see with some mistake of proportions; and Grandcourt was not likely to be infallible in his judgments concerning this wife who was governed by many shadowy powers, to him nonexistent. He magnified her inward resistance, but that did not lessen his satisfaction in the mastery of it. CHAPTER XLV. Behold my lady's carriage stop the way. With powdered lacquey and with charming bay; She sweeps the matting, treads the crimson stair. Her arduous function solely "to be there." Like Sirius rising o'er the silent sea. She hides her heart in lustre loftily. So the Grandcourts were in Grosvenor Square in time to receive a card for the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, there being reasons of business which made Sir Hugo know beforehand that his ill-beloved nephew was coming up. It was only the third evening after their arrival, and Gwendolen made rather an absent-minded acquaintance with her new ceilings and furniture, preoccupied with the certainty that she was going to speak to Deronda again, and also to see the Miss Lapidoth who had gone through so much, and was "capable of submitting to anything in the form of duty." For Gwendolen had remembered nearly every word that Deronda had said about Mirah, and especially that phrase, which she repeated to herself bitterly, having an ill-defined consciousness that her own submission was something very different. She would have been obliged to allow, if any one had said it to her, that what she submitted to could not take the shape of duty, but was submission to a yoke drawn on her by an action she was ashamed of, and worn with a strength of selfish motives that left no weight for duty to carry. The drawing-rooms in Park Lane, all white, gold, and pale crimson, were agreeably furnished, and not crowded with guests, before Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt entered; and more than half an hour of instrumental music was being followed by an interval of movement and chat. Klesmer was there with his wife, and in his generous interest for Mirah he proposed to accompany her singing of Leo's "_O patria mia_," which he had before recommended her to choose, as more distinctive of her than better known music. He was already at the piano, and Mirah was standing there conspicuously, when Gwendolen, magnificent in her pale green velvet and poisoned diamonds, was ushered to a seat of honor well in view of them. With her long sight and self-command she had the rare power of quickly distinguishing persons and objects on entering a full room, and while turning her glance toward Mirah she did not neglect to exchange a bow with Klesmer as she passed. The smile seemed to each a lightning-flash back on that morning when it had been her ambition to stand as the "little Jewess" was standing, and survey a grand audience from the higher rank of her talent--instead of which she was one of the ordinary crowd in silk and gems, whose utmost performance it must be to admire or find fault. "He thinks I am in the right road now," said the lurking resentment within her. Gwendolen had not caught sight of Deronda in her passage, and while she was seated acquitting herself in chat with Sir Hugo, she glanced round her with careful ease, bowing a recognition here and there, and fearful lest an anxious-looking exploration in search of Deronda might be observed by her husband, and afterward rebuked as something "damnably vulgar." But all traveling, even that of a slow gradual glance round a room, brings a liability to undesired encounters, and amongst the eyes that met Gwendolen's, forcing her into a slight bow, were those of the "amateur too fond of Meyerbeer," Mr. Lush, whom Sir Hugo continued to find useful as a half-caste among gentlemen. He was standing near her husband, who, however, turned a shoulder toward him, and was being understood to listen to Lord Pentreath. How was it that at this moment, for the first time, there darted through Gwendolen, like a disagreeable sensation, the idea that this man knew all about her husband's life? He had been banished from her sight, according to her will, and she had been satisfied; he had sunk entirely into the background of her thoughts, screened away from her by the agitating figures that kept up an inward drama in which Lush had no place. Here suddenly he reappeared at her husband's elbow, and there sprang up in her, like an instantaneously fabricated memory in a dream, the sense of his being connected with the secrets that made her wretched. She was conscious of effort in turning her head away from him, trying to continue her wandering survey as if she had seen nothing of more consequence than the picture on the wall, till she discovered Deronda. But he was not looking toward her, and she withdrew her eyes from him, without having got any recognition, consoling herself with the assurance that he must have seen her come in. In fact, he was not standing far from the door with Hans Meyrick, whom he had been careful to bring into Lady Mallinger's list. They were both a little more anxious than was comfortable lest Mirah should not be heard to advantage. Deronda even felt himself on the brink of betraying emotion, Mirah's presence now being linked with crowding images of what had gone before and was to come after--all centering in the brother he was soon to reveal to her; and he had escaped as soon as he could from the side of Lady Pentreath, who had said in her violoncello voice, "Well, your Jewess is pretty--there's no denying that. But where is her Jewish impudence? She looks as demure as a nun. I suppose she learned that on the stage." He was beginning to feel on Mirah's behalf something of what he had felt for himself in his seraphic boyish time, when Sir Hugo asked him if he would like to be a great singer--an indignant dislike to her being remarked on in a free and easy way, as if she were an imported commodity disdainfully paid for by the fashionable public, and he winced the more because Mordecai, he knew, would feel that the name "Jewess" was taken as a sort of stamp like the lettering of Chinese silk. In this susceptible mood he saw the Grandcourts enter, and was immediately appealed to by Hans about "that Vandyke duchess of a beauty." Pray excuse Deronda that in this moment he felt a transient renewal of his first repulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty and her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of Mirah as a woman--a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for what is not fully recognized by others, whether in persons or in poetry, rarely allows us to escape. To Hans admiring Gwendolen with his habitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite good-natured, "I thought you could admire no style of woman but your Berenice." "That is the style I worship--not admire," said Hans. "Other styles of women I might make myself wicked for, but for Berenice I could make myself--well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult." "Hush," said Deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to begin. He was not so delighted with the answer as might have been expected, and was relieved by Hans's movement to a more advanced spot. Deronda had never before heard Mirah sing "_O patria mia_." He knew well Leopardi's fine Ode to Italy (when Italy sat like a disconsolate mother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the few selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole, which seemed to breathe an inspiration through the music. Mirah singing this, made Mordecai more than ever one presence with her. Certain words not included in the song nevertheless rang within Deronda as harmonies from the invisible, "Non ti difende Nessun dè tuoi! L'armi, qua l'armi: io solo Combatteró, procomberó sol io"-- [Footnote: Do none of thy children defend thee? Arms! bring me arms! alone I will fight, alone I will fall.] they seemed the very voice of that heroic passion which is falsely said to devote itself in vain when it achieves the god-like end of manifesting unselfish love. And that passion was present to Deronda now as the vivid image of a man dying helplessly away from the possibility of battle. Mirah was equal to his wishes. While the general applause was sounding, Klesmer gave a more valued testimony, audible to her only--"Good, good--the crescendo better than before." But her chief anxiety was to know that she had satisfied Mr. Deronda: any failure on her part this evening would have pained her as an especial injury to him. Of course all her prospects were due to what he had done for her; still, this occasion of singing in the house that was his home brought a peculiar demand. She looked toward him in the distance, and he saw that she did; but he remained where he was, and watched the streams of emulous admirers closing round her, till presently they parted to make way for Gwendolen, who was taken up to be introduced by Mrs. Klesmer. Easier now about "the little Jewess," Daniel relented toward poor Gwendolen in her splendor, and his memory went back, with some penitence for his momentary hardness, over all the signs and confessions that she too needed a rescue, and one much more difficult than that of the wanderer by the river--a rescue for which he felt himself helpless. The silent question--"But is it not cowardly to make that a reason for turning away?" was the form in which he framed his resolve to go near her on the first opportunity, and show his regard for her past confidence, in spite of Sir Hugo's unwelcome hints. Klesmer, having risen to Gwendolen as she approached, and being included by her in the opening conversation with Mirah, continued near them a little while, looking down with a smile, which was rather in his eyes than on his lips, at the piquant contrast of the two charming young creatures seated on the red divan. The solicitude seemed to be all on the side of the splendid one. "You must let me say how much I am obliged to you," said Gwendolen. "I had heard from Mr. Deronda that I should have a great treat in your singing, but I was too ignorant to imagine how great." "You are very good to say so," answered Mirah, her mind chiefly occupied in contemplating Gwendolen. It was like a new kind of stage-experience to her to be close to genuine grand ladies with genuine brilliants and complexions, and they impressed her vaguely as coming out of some unknown drama, in which their parts perhaps got more tragic as they went on. "We shall all want to learn of you--I, at least," said Gwendolen. "I sing very badly, as Herr Klesmer will tell you,"--here she glanced upward to that higher power rather archly, and continued--"but I have been rebuked for not liking to be middling, since I can be nothing more. I think that is a different doctrine from yours?" She was still looking at Klesmer, who said quickly, "Not if it means that it would be worth while for you to study further, and for Miss Lapidoth to have the pleasure of helping you." With that he moved away, and Mirah taking everything with _naïve_ seriousness, said, "If you think I could teach you, I shall be very glad. I am anxious to teach, but I have only just begun. If I do it well, it must be by remembering how my master taught me." Gwendolen was in reality too uncertain about herself to be prepared for this simple promptitude of Mirah's, and in her wish to change the subject, said, with some lapse from the good taste of her first address, "You have not been long in London, I think?--but you were perhaps introduced to Mr. Deronda abroad?" "No," said Mirah; "I never saw him before I came to England in the summer." "But he has seen you often and heard you sing a great deal, has he not?" said Gwendolen, led on partly by the wish to hear anything about Deronda, and partly by the awkwardness which besets the readiest person, in carrying on a dialogue when empty of matter. "He spoke of you to me with the highest praise. He seemed to know you quite well." "Oh, I was poor and needed help," said Mirah, in a new tone of feeling, "and Mr. Deronda has given me the best friends in the world. That is the only way he came to know anything about me--because he was sorry for me. I had no friends when I came. I was in distress. I owe everything to him." Poor Gwendolen, who had wanted to be a struggling artist herself, could nevertheless not escape the impression that a mode of inquiry which would have been rather rude toward herself was an amiable condescension to this Jewess who was ready to give her lessons. The only effect on Mirah, as always on any mention of Deronda, was to stir reverential gratitude and anxiety that she should be understood to have the deepest obligation to him. But both he and Hans, who were noticing the pair from a distance, would have felt rather indignant if they had known that the conversation had led up to Mirah's representation of herself in this light of neediness. In the movement that prompted her, however, there was an exquisite delicacy, which perhaps she could not have stated explicitly--the feeling that she ought not to allow any one to assume in Deronda a relation of more equality or less generous interest toward her than actually existed. Her answer was delightful to Gwendolen: she thought of nothing but the ready compassion which in another form she had trusted in and found herself; and on the signals that Klesmer was about to play she moved away in much content, entirely without presentiment that this Jewish _protégé_ would ever make a more important difference in her life than the possible improvement of her singing--if the leisure and spirits of a Mrs. Grandcourt would allow of other lessons than such as the world was giving her at rather a high charge. With her wonted alternation from resolute care of appearances to some rash indulgence of an impulse, she chose, under the pretext of getting farther from the instrument, not to go again to her former seat, but placed herself on a settee where she could only have one neighbor. She was nearer to Deronda than before: was it surprising that he came up in time to shake hands before the music began--then, that after he had stood a little while by the elbow of the settee at the empty end, the torrent-like confluences of bass and treble seemed, like a convulsion of nature, to cast the conduct of petty mortals into insignificance, and to warrant his sitting down? But when at the end of Klesmer's playing there came the outburst of talk under which Gwendolen had hoped to speak as she would to Deronda, she observed that Mr. Lush was within hearing, leaning against the wall close by them. She could not help her flush of anger, but she tried to have only an air of polite indifference in saying, "Miss Lapidoth is everything you described her to be." "You have been very quick in discovering that," said Deronda, ironically. "I have not found out all the excellencies you spoke of--I don't mean that," said Gwendolen; "but I think her singing is charming, and herself, too. Her face is lovely--not in the least common; and she is such a complete little person. I should think she will be a great success." This speech was grating on Deronda, and he would not answer it, but looked gravely before him. She knew that he was displeased with her, and she was getting so impatient under the neighborhood of Mr. Lush, which prevented her from saying any word she wanted to say, that she meditated some desperate step to get rid of it, and remained silent, too. That constraint seemed to last a long while, neither Gwendolen nor Deronda looking at the other, till Lush slowly relieved the wall of his weight, and joined some one at a distance. Gwendolen immediately said, "You despise me for talking artificially." "No," said Deronda, looking at her coolly; "I think that is quite excusable sometimes. But I did not think what you were last saying was altogether artificial." "There was something in it that displeased you," said Gwendolen. "What was it?" "It is impossible to explain such things," said Deronda. "One can never communicate niceties of feeling about words and manner." "You think I am shut out from understanding them," said Gwendolen, with a slight tremor in her voice, which she was trying to conquer. "Have I shown myself so very dense to everything you have said?" There was an indescribable look of suppressed tears in her eyes, which were turned on him. "Not at all," said Deronda, with some softening of voice. "But experience differs for different people. We don't all wince at the same things. I have had plenty of proof that you are not dense." He smiled at her. "But one may feel things and are not able to do anything better for all that," said Gwendolen, not smiling in return--the distance to which Deronda's words seemed to throw her chilling her too much. "I begin to think we can only get better by having people about us who raise good feelings. You must not be surprised at anything in me. I think it is too late for me to alter. I don't know how to set about being wise, as you told me to be." "I seldom find I do any good by my preaching. I might as well have kept from meddling," said Deronda, thinking rather sadly that his interference about that unfortunate necklace might end in nothing but an added pain to him in seeing her after all hardened to another sort of gambling than roulette. "Don't say that," said Gwendolen, hurriedly, feeling that this might be her only chance of getting the words uttered, and dreading the increase of her own agitation. "If you despair of me, I shall despair. Your saying that I should not go on being selfish and ignorant has been some strength to me. If you say you wish you had not meddled--that means you despair of me and forsake me. And then you will decide for me that I shall not be good. It is you who will decide; because you might have made me different by keeping as near to me as you could, and believing in me." She had not been looking at him as she spoke, but at the handle of the fan which she held closed. With the last words she rose and left him, returning to her former place, which had been left vacant; while every one was settling into quietude in expectation of Mirah's voice, which presently, with that wonderful, searching quality of subdued song in which the melody seems simply an effect of the emotion, gave forth, _Per pietà non dirmi addio_. In Deronda's ear the strain was for the moment a continuance of Gwendolen's pleading--a painful urging of something vague and difficult, irreconcilable with pressing conditions, and yet cruel to resist. However strange the mixture in her of a resolute pride and a precocious air of knowing the world, with a precipitate, guileless indiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. Sir Hugo's hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition might have neglected; but that Gwendolen's reliance on him was unvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her was as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his sense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing incompatible claim on him in her mind. There was a foreshadowing of some painful collision: on the one side the grasp of Mordecai's dying hand on him, with all the ideals and prospects it aroused; on the other the fair creature in silk and gems, with her hidden wound and her self-dread, making a trustful effort to lean and find herself sustained. It was as if he had a vision of himself besought with outstretched arms and cries, while he was caught by the waves and compelled to mount the vessel bound for a far-off coast. That was the strain of excited feeling in him that went along with the notes of Mirah's song; but when it ceased he moved from his seat with the reflection that he had been falling into an exaggeration of his own importance, and a ridiculous readiness to accept Gwendolen's view of himself, as if he could really have any decisive power over her. "What an enviable fellow you are," said Hans to him, "sitting on a sofa with that young duchess, and having an interesting quarrel with her!" "Quarrel with her?" repeated Deronda, rather uncomfortably. "Oh, about theology, of course; nothing personal. But she told you what you ought to think, and then left you with a grand air which was admirable. Is she an Antinomian--if so, tell her I am an Antinomian painter, and introduce me. I should like to paint her and her husband. He has the sort of handsome _physique_ that the Duke ought to have in _Lucrezia Borgia_--if it could go with a fine baritone, which it can't." Deronda devoutly hoped that Hans's account of the impression his dialogue with Gwendolen had made on a distant beholder was no more than a bit of fantastic representation, such as was common with him. And Gwendolen was not without her after-thoughts that her husband's eyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove--some offence against her dignity as his wife; her consciousness telling her that she had not kept up the perfect air of equability in public which was her own ideal. But Grandcourt made no observation on her behavior. All he said as they were driving home was, "Lush will dine with us among the other people to-morrow. You will treat him civilly." Gwendolen's heart began to beat violently. The words that she wanted to utter, as one wants to return a blow, were. "You are breaking your promise to me--the first promise you made me." But she dared not utter them. She was as frightened at a quarrel as if she had foreseen that it would end with throttling fingers on her neck. After a pause, she said in the tone rather of defeat than resentment, "I thought you did not intend him to frequent the house again." "I want him just now. He is useful to me; and he must be treated civilly." Silence. There may come a moment when even an excellent husband who has dropped smoking under more or less of a pledge during courtship, for the first time will introduce his cigar-smoke between himself and his wife, with the tacit understanding that she will have to put up with it. Mr. Lush was, so to speak, a very large cigar. If these are the sort of lovers' vows at which Jove laughs, he must have a merry time of it. CHAPTER XLVI. "If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, 'Because it was he, because it was I.' There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this union."--MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_. The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before Mirah's meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had confided everything except Mordecai's peculiar relation to himself, had been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not many minutes' walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister would be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of Scottish fervor and Gaelic liveliness had enabled her to keep the secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating suspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to secure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more arduous and dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for desiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. Perhaps "the little mother" was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in her sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and certainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due to her faith in Deronda's judgment. The consumption was a sorrowful fact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad of an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate as Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among them all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and encouraging than that of Scott's Covenanters? Her mind was anything but prosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab's delight in the romance of Mirah's story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual in real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about Sakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be glad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still more, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair. Besides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the intensity of Mirah's feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be merged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with her new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the romance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much more favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And now--here was a brother who would dip Mirah's mind over again in the deepest dye of Jewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda, "I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there are Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think that all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get out of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother and sister makes me bless him. I am sure he's good. But I never did like anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching in my youth and lost my palate for it." "I don't think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any preaching," said Deronda. "He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men who are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like to keep that word for the highest order of minds--those who care supremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. He is not a strictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others; his conformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other Jews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they can't in the least understand his ideas." "Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker's mother, and like him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don't see the merits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I suppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor husband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were nothing but common-sense in it. However, Mirah's brother will have good bedding--that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window pasted up with paper to prevent draughts." (The conversation was taking place in the destined lodging.) "It is a comfort to think that the people of the house are no strangers to me--no hypocritical harpies. And when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much prettier." "The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him to move--which may be a more difficult business," said Deronda. "And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?" said Mrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of persuasive deliberation--"No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the girls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?" "Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of Mordecai--or Ezra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don't assist their imagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath," said Deronda, smiling--Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the Covenanters. "Trust me, trust me," said the little mother. "I shall have to persuade them so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am frightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for not being brave: it warms the blood." Deronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view to be taken of Mirah's brother, if he had been less anxiously preoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which he desired to acquit himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai, by a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly alive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. In the interval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the _Hand and Banner_, but now after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular reasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and would beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens would not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the understanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would accompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little expectation that would have a preparatory effect. He was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in the women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering which even in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence--the guest's transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was rather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed his own understanding. But when Deronda said, "I suppose Mordecai is at home and expecting me," Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks, went up to his knee and said, "What do you want to talk to Mordecai about?" "Something that is very interesting to him," said Deronda, pinching the lad's ear, "but that you can't understand." "Can you say this?" said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string of his rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty and the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense of giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual position. "No, really," said Deronda, keeping grave; "I can't say anything like it." "I thought not," said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his small scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep pockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight hint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the workroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said, "Mordecai, here's the young swell"--a copying of his father's phrase, which seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew. He was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda, entering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had been laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in sign of the Cohens' respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was struck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would have seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some revelation was to be made about the lost sister. Neither of them spoke, till Deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant chair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near to Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty, "You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for." "It is true I have something very weighty to tell you--something I trust that you will rejoice in," said Deronda, on his guard against the probability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something quite different from the fact. "It is all revealed--it is made clear to you," said Mordecai, more eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. "You are even as my brother that sucked the breasts of my mother--the heritage is yours--there is no doubt to divide us." "I have learned nothing new about myself," said Deronda. The disappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be strained longer in a mistaken hope. Mordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was really coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension toward one fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his eyes. "Except," Deronda went on gently, after a pause,--"except that I had really some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with you, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling." The eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids. "I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested." "One who is closely related to your departed mother," Deronda went on wishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking movement in Mordecai, he added--"whom she and you held dear above all others." Mordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda's wrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A tremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said, "What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from evil." Mordecai's grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless sob. Deronda went on: "Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored." He waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair, again closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some minutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence. Deronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have imagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new suffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful dead. For the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family resemblance to Mirah. Presently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in accounting for Mirah's flight he made the statement about the father's conduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to come to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also he kept back the fact of Mirah's intention to drown herself, and his own part in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with friends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had shared. What he dwelt on finally was Mirah's feeling about her mother and brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail. "It was in search of them," said Deronda, smiling, "that I turned into this house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting name in the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you will forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder Mrs. Cohen's daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah's friends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that her Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai." "Mordecai is really my name--Ezra Mordecai Cohen." "Is there any kinship between this family and yours?" said Deronda. "Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have sheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in Jewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the outer air. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound to them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of the Jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of loving wisdom." "But you don't feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer tie to draw you?" said Deronda, not without fear that he might find an obstacle to overcome. "It seems to me right now--is it not?--that you should live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to take you to in the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. Pray grant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours when Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the chief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you ought to give her the guardianship of a brother's presence. You shall have books about you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out to see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that you will be more and more in need of--nay, that I need for you. This is the claim I make on you, now that we have found each other." Deronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he might have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai's eyes were fixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a little while after Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an almost reproachful emphasis, "And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew! Have we not from the first touched each other with invisible fibres--have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common stem with stirring from a common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am one among the crowd of poor--I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls know each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been parted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and all their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins." Deronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was impossible either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai would presently give him a more direct answer. And after a pause of meditation he did say, firmly, "What you wish of me I will do. And our mother--may the blessing of the Eternal be with her in our souls!--would have wished it too. I will accept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah's home shall be mine." He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone, "But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You must tell them, for my heart would fail me." "I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at once?" said Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance. "Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done," said Mordecai, rising with the air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an afterthought, "But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful." When they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, "Ask your father to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has something to say," he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It seemed part of Mordecai's eccentricity that he should call this gentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better manners by warm politeness in begging Deronda to seat himself in the best place. When Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and said with loud satisfaction, "Well, sir! I'm glad you're doing us the honor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I think." He looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the hearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her scarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and Adelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother's knee; on the other, Jacob between his father's legs; while the two markedly different figures of Deronda and Mordecai were in the middle--Mordecai a little backward in the shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was going on around him. The chief light came from the fire, which brought out the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech the dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly. "I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great change in his life," Deronda began, "but I hope you will agree with me that it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he wishes me to tell you for him at once." "Relations with money, sir?" burst in Cohen, feeling a power of divination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact. "No; not exactly," said Deronda, smiling. "But a very precious relation wishes to be reunited to him--a very good and lovely young sister, who will care for his comfort in every way." "Married, sir?" "No, not married." "But with a maintenance?" "With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already provided for Mordecai." There was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a wailing tone, "Well, well! and so you're going away from us, Mordecai." "And where there's no children as there is here," said the mother, catching the wail. "No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!" wailed the grandmother again. "Ay, ay, Jacob's learning 'ill all wear out of him. He must go to school. It'll be hard times for Jacob," said Cohen, in a tone of decision. In the wide-open ears of Jacob his father's words sounded like a doom, giving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole announcement. His face had been gathering a wondering incredulous sorrow at the notion of Mordecai's going away: he was unable to imagine the change as anything lasting; but at the mention of "hard times for Jacob" there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in loud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried, and now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby awaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the cradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the cries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his tears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general observation. His father, who had been saying, "Never mind, old man; you shall go to the riders," now released him, and he went to Mordecai, who clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without speaking. But Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make some apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a speech, addressed Deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his elbows and resting a hand on each knee: "It's not as we're the people to grudge anybody's good luck, sir, or the portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say. I'm not an envious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my sort two doors lower down, _I_ shouldn't make wry faces about it. I'm not one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be frightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I'm offal, let a wise man come and tell me, for I've never heard it yet. And in point of business, I'm not a class of goods to be in danger. If anybody takes to rolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet when I'm let alone. And though, as I may say, you're taking some of our good works from us, which is property bearing interest, I'm not saying but we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will to wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a servant who works for reward--though I see nothing against a reward if I can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I'm neither poor nor greedy--I wouldn't hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown neither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of Mordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A Jewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a woman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to His will. And we all know what He has made her--a child-bearing, tender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are mostly stout, as I think you'll say Addy's are, and she's not mushy, but her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for not being glad all at once. And as to this young lady--for by what you say 'young lady' is the proper term"--Cohen here threw some additional emphasis into his look and tone--"we shall all be glad for Mordecai's sake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are." Before Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech, Mordecai exclaimed, "Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have sought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel with love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even in the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad. But now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and used himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command sounded in his ears, 'Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.' For no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take another's. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another_--so said Ben Azai. You have made your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and me; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of like deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?" Mordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said, "Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton." Jacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going forward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word "visit" having the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his grandfather's, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and took up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands in his knickerbockers. "Well," said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, "I hope there'll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, Mordecai. For you'll have to trust to those you live with." "That's all right, that's all right, you may be sure, mother," said Cohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was uncertain of the guest's position. "So, sir," he added, turning with a look of amused enlightenment to Deronda, "it was better than learning you had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at the time. I thought somehow there was a something." "Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking him," said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he spoke. It was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on the next day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk with him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and comforter. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him go far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in communicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling the last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda had proposed parting, when he said, "Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would wish her to do so--to come and see them, would you not?" Mordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said, "I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of my sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a daughter and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who knows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers--and men in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and pleadings made in vain. In my ears I have the prayers of generations past and to come. My life is as nothing to me but the beginning of fulfilment. And yet I am only another prayer--which you will fulfil." Deronda pressed his hand, and they parted. CHAPTER XLVII. "And you must love him ere to you He will seem worthy of your love." --WORDSWORTH. One might be tempted to envy Deronda providing new clothes for Mordecai, and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in imagining the effect of the fine gray flannel shirts and a dressing-gown very much like a Franciscan's brown frock, with Mordecai's head and neck above them. Half his pleasure was the sense of seeing Mirah's brother through her eyes, and securing her fervid joy from any perturbing impression. And yet, after he had made all things ready, he was visited with doubt whether he were not mistaking her, and putting the lower effect for the higher: was she not just as capable as he himself had been of feeling the impressive distinction in her brother all the more for that aspect of poverty which was among the memorials of his past? But there were the Meyricks to be propitiated toward this too Judaic brother; and Deronda detected himself piqued into getting out of sight everything that might feed the ready repugnance in minds unblessed with that precious "seeing," that bathing of all objects in a solemnity as of sun-set glow, which is begotten of a loving reverential emotion. And his inclination would have been the more confirmed if he had heard the dialogue round Mrs. Meyrick's fire late in the evening, after Mirah had gone to her room. Hans, settled now in his Chelsea rooms, had stayed late, and Mrs. Meyrick, poking the fire into a blaze, said, "Now, Kate, put out your candle, and all come round the fire cosily. Hans, dear, do leave off laughing at those poems for the ninety-ninth time, and come too. I have something wonderful to tell." "As if I didn't know that, ma. I have seen it in the corner of your eye ever so long, and in your pretense of errands," said Kate, while the girls came up to put their feet on the fender, and Hans, pushing his chair near them, sat astride it, resting his fists and chin on the back. "Well, then, if you are so wise, perhaps you know that Mirah's brother is found!" said Mrs. Meyrick, in her clearest accents. "Oh, confound it!" said Hans, in the same moment. "Hans, that is wicked," said Mab. "Suppose we had lost you?" "I _cannot_ help being rather sorry," said Kate. "And her mother?--where is she?" "Her mother is dead." "I hope the brother is not a bad man," said Amy. "Nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry--a Crystal Palace Assyrian with a hat on," said Hans, in the worst humor. "Were there ever such unfeeling children?" said Mrs. Meyrick, a little strengthened by the need for opposition. "You don't think the least bit of Mirah's joy in the matter." "You know, ma, Mirah hardly remembers her brother," said Kate. "People who are lost for twelve years should never come back again," said Hans. "They are always in the way." "Hans!" said Mrs. Meyrick, reproachfully. "If you had lost me for _twenty_ years, I should have thought--" "I said twelve years," Hans broke in. "Anywhere about twelve years is the time at which lost relations should keep out of the way." "Well, but it's nice finding people--there is something to tell," said Mab, clasping her knees. "Did Prince Camaralzaman find him?" Then Mrs. Meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew without interruption. "Mr. Deronda has the highest admiration for him," she ended--"seems quite to look up to him. And he says Mirah is just the sister to understand this brother." "Deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those Jews," said Hans with disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. "He wants to do everything he can to encourage Mirah in her prejudices." "Oh, for shame, Hans!--to speak in that way of Mr. Deronda," said Mab. And Mrs. Meyrick's face showed something like an under-current of expression not allowed to get to the surface. "And now we shall never be all together," Hans went on, walking about with his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat, "but we must have this prophet Elijah to tea with us, and Mirah will think of nothing but sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem. She will be spoiled as an artist--mind that--she will get as narrow as a nun. Everything will be spoiled--our home and everything. I shall take to drinking." "Oh, really, Hans," said Kate, impatiently. "I do think men are the most contemptible animals in all creation. Every one of them must have everything to his mind, else he is unbearable." "Oh, oh, oh, it's very dreadful!" cried Mab. "I feel as if ancient Nineveh were come again." "I should like to know what is the good of having gone to the university and knowing everything, if you are so childish, Hans," said Amy. "You ought to put up with a man that Providence sends you to be kind to. _We_ shall have to put up with him." "I hope you will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah--'to be continued in our next'--that's all," said Hans, seizing his wide-awake. "It's no use being one thing more than another if one has to endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly at you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their text. If you're to be under a petrifying wall, you'd better be an old boot. I don't feel myself an old boot." Then abruptly, "Good night, little mother," bending to kiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner, and condescendingly, on his way to the door, "Good-night, girls." "Suppose Mirah knew how you are behaving," said Kate. But her answer was a slam of the door. "I _should_ like to see Mirah when Mr. Deronda tells her," she went on to her mother. "I know she will look so beautiful." But Deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which Mrs. Meyrick received the next morning, begging her to make the revelation instead of waiting for him, not giving the real reason--that he shrank from going again through a narrative in which he seemed to be making himself important and giving himself a character of general beneficence--but saying that he wished to remain with Mordecai while Mrs. Meyrick would bring Mirah on what was to be understood as a visit, so that there might be a little interval before that change of abode which he expected that Mirah herself would propose. Deronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far Mordecai, after years of solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the more exclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would allow him to feel a tender interest in his sister over and above the rendering of pious duties. His feeling for the Cohens, and especially for little Jacob, showed a persistent activity of affection; but these objects had entered into his daily life for years; and Deronda felt it noticeable that Mordecai asked no new questions about Mirah, maintaining, indeed, an unusual silence on all subjects, and appearing simply to submit to the changes that were coming over his personal life. He donned the new clothes obediently, but said afterward to Deronda, with a faint smile, "I must keep my old garments by me for a remembrance." And when they were seated, awaiting Mirah, he uttered no word, keeping his eyelids closed, but yet showing restless feeling in his face and hands. In fact, Mordecai was undergoing that peculiar nervous perturbation only known to those whose minds, long and habitually moving with strong impetus in one current, are suddenly compelled into a new or reopened channel. Susceptible people, whose strength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interview that imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threatening illness. Joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible. Deronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring at the door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see and greet Mirah beforehand. He was startled to find that she had on the hat and cloak in which he had first seen her--the memorable cloak that had once been wetted for a winding-sheet. She had come down-stairs equipped in this way; and when Mrs. Meyrick said, in a tone of question, "You like to go in that dress, dear?" she answered, "My brother is poor, and I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me"--imagining that she should meet him in the workman's dress. Deronda could not make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his own fastidious arrangements. They shook hands silently, for Mirah looked pale and awed. When Deronda opened the door for her, Mordecai had risen, and had his eyes turned toward it with an eager gaze. Mirah took only two or three steps, and then stood still. They looked at each other, motionless. It was less their own presence that they felt than another's; they were meeting first in memories, compared with which touch was no union. Mirah was the first to break the silence, standing where she was. "Ezra," she said, in exactly the same tone as when she was telling of her mother's call to him. Mordecai with a sudden movement advanced and laid his hand on her shoulders. He was the head taller, and looked down at her tenderly while he said, "That was our mother's voice. You remember her calling me?" "Yes, and how you answered her--'Mother!'--and I knew you loved her." Mirah threw her arms round her brother's neck, clasped her little hands behind it, and drew down his face, kissing it with childlike lavishness. Her hat fell backward on the ground and disclosed all her curls. "Ah, the dear head, the dear head!" said Mordecai, in a low loving tone, laying his thin hand gently on the curls. "You are very ill, Ezra," said Mirah, sadly looking at him with more observation. "Yes, dear child, I shall not be long with you in the body," was the quiet answer. "Oh, I will love you and we will talk to each other," said Mirah, with a sweet outpouring of her words, as spontaneous as bird-notes. "I will tell you everything, and you will teach me:--you will teach me to be a good Jewess--what she would have liked me to be. I shall always be with you when I am not working. For I work now. I shall get money to keep us. Oh, I have had such good friends." Mirah until now had quite forgotten that any one was by, but here she turned with the prettiest attitude, keeping one hand on her brother's arm while she looked at Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda. The little mother's happy emotion in witnessing this meeting of brother and sister had already won her to Mordecai, who seemed to her really to have more dignity and refinement than she had felt obliged to believe in from Deronda's account. "See this dear lady!" said Mirah. "I was a stranger, a poor wanderer, and she believed in me, and has treated me as a daughter. Please give my brother your hand," she added, beseechingly, taking Mrs. Meyrick's hand and putting it in Mordecai's, then pressing them both with her own and lifting them to her lips. "The Eternal Goodness has been with you," said Mordecai. "You have helped to fulfill our mother's prayer." "I think we will go now, shall we?--and return later," said Deronda, laying a gentle pressure on Mrs. Meyrick's arm, and she immediately complied. He was afraid of any reference to the facts about himself which he had kept back from Mordecai, and he felt no uneasiness now in the thought of the brother and sister being alone together. CHAPTER XLVIII. 'Tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule of our own security, as is well hinted by Machiavelli concerning Caesar Borgia, who, saith he, had thought of all that might occur on his father's death, and had provided against every evil chance save only one: it had never come into his mind that when his father died, his own death would quickly follow. Grandcourt's importance as a subject of this realm was of the grandly passive kind which consists in the inheritance of land. Political and social movements touched him only through the wire of his rental, and his most careful biographer need not have read up on Schleswig-Holstein, the policy of Bismarck, trade-unions, household suffrage, or even the last commercial panic. He glanced over the best newspaper columns on these topics, and his views on them can hardly be said to have wanted breadth, since he embraced all Germans, all commercial men, and all voters liable to use the wrong kind of soap, under the general epithet of "brutes;" but he took no action on these much-agitated questions beyond looking from under his eyelids at any man who mentioned them, and retaining a silence which served to shake the opinions of timid thinkers. But Grandcourt, within his own sphere of interest, showed some of the qualities which have entered into triumphal diplomacy of the wildest continental sort. No movement of Gwendolen in relation to Deronda escaped him. He would have denied that he was jealous; because jealousy would have implied some doubt of his own power to hinder what he had determined against. That his wife should have more inclination to another man's society than to his own would not pain him: what he required was that she should be as fully aware as she would have been of a locked hand-cuff, that her inclination was helpless to decide anything in contradiction with his resolve. However much of vacillating whim there might have been in his entrance on matrimony, there was no vacillating in his interpretation of the bond. He had not repented of his marriage; it had really brought more of aim into his life, new objects to exert his will upon; and he had not repented of his choice. His taste was fastidious, and Gwendolen satisfied it: he would not have liked a wife who had not received some elevation of rank from him; nor one who did not command admiration by her mien and beauty; nor one whose nails were not of the right shape; nor one the lobe of whose ear was at all too large and red; nor one who, even if her nails and ears were right, was at the same time a ninny, unable to make spirited answers. These requirements may not seem too exacting to refined contemporaries whose own ability to fall in love has been held in suspense for lack of indispensable details; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment that his wife should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if she dared, and that she should have been urged into marrying him by other feelings than passionate attachment. Still, for those who prefer command to love, one does not see why the habit of mind should change precisely at the point of matrimony. Grandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having taken on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be fooled, or allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded as pitiable. This was his state of mind--not jealousy; still, his behavior in some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yellow, which color we know may be the effect of very different causes. He had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on the spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the transference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about the succession to Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly dangled without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. But another acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the presentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to marry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. It is true that Grandcourt went about with the sense that he did not care a languid curse for any one's admiration: but this state of not-caring, just as much as desire, required its related object--namely, a world of admiring or envying spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily at smiling persons--the persons must be and they must smile--a rudimentary truth which is surely forgotten by those who complain of mankind as generally contemptible, since any other aspect of the race must disappoint the voracity of their contempt. Grandcourt, in town for the first time with his wife, had his non-caring abstinence from curses enlarged and diversified by splendid receptions, by conspicuous rides and drives, by presentations of himself with her on all distinguished occasions. He wished her to be sought after; he liked that "fellows" should be eager to talk with her and escort her within his observation; there was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her part that he would not have objected to. But what he did not like were her ways in relation to Deronda. After the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, when Grandcourt had observed the dialogue on the settee as keenly as Hans had done, it was characteristic of him that he named Deronda for invitation along with the Mallingers, tenaciously avoiding the possible suggestion to anybody concerned that Deronda's presence or absence could be of the least importance to him; and he made no direct observation to Gwendolen on her behavior that evening, lest the expression of his disgust should be a little too strong to satisfy his own pride. But a few days afterward he remarked, without being careful of the _à propos_, "Nothing makes a woman more of a gawky than looking out after people and showing tempers in public. A woman ought to have good manners. Else it's intolerable to appear with her." Gwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at the notion of being a gawky. For she, too, with her melancholy distaste for things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. But the sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of expectation toward any meeting with Deronda. The novelty and excitement of her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign travel; whatever might be the inward despondency, there was a programme to be fulfilled, not without gratification to many-sided self. But, as always happens with a deep interest, the comparatively rare occasions on which she could exchange any words with Deronda had a diffusive effect in her consciousness, magnifying their communication with each other, and therefore enlarging the place she imagined it to have in his mind. How could Deronda help this? He certainly did not avoid her; rather he wished to convince her by every delicate indirect means that her confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it had not lowered his respect. Moreover he liked being near her--how could it be otherwise? She was something more than a problem: she was a lovely woman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however futile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps all the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it lying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he had once been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might have seized her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where there was danger, had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need. One instance in which Grandcourt stimulated a feeling in Gwendolen that he would have liked to suppress without seeming to care about it, had relation to Mirah. Gwendolen's inclination lingered over the project of the singing lessons as a sort of obedience to Deronda's advice, but day followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual liability to Grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten every effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; his negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, and spoiling all contact. But one morning when they were breakfasting, Gwendolen, in a recurrent fit of determination to exercise the old spirit, said, dallying prettily over her prawns without eating them, "I think of making myself accomplished while we are in town, and having singing lessons." "Why?" said Grandcourt, languidly. "Why?" echoed Gwendolen, playing at sauciness; "because I can't eat _pâté de foie gras_ to make me sleepy, and I can't smoke, and I can't go to the club to make me like to come away again--I want a variety of _ennui_. What would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with your lawyers and people, for me to have lessons from that little Jewess, whose singing is getting all the rage." "Whenever you like," said Grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and leaning back in his chair while he looked at her with his most lizard-like expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on his lap (Gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned on him). Then he said, languidly, "I don't see why a lady should sing. Amateurs make fools of themselves. A lady can't risk herself in that way in company. And one doesn't want to hear squalling in private." "I like frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm," said Gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned her eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the boiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. "But;" she added, having devoured her mortification, "I suppose you don't object to Miss Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought of engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds, who are very particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a musician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in such good taste as hers for a drawing-room. I think his opinion is an authority." She meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way. "It's very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl," said Grandcourt in a tone of indifference. "Indecent!" exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again, overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable falsity of the phrase--"to go about praising." "Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought to hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her." "Men who judge of others by themselves," said Gwendolen, turning white after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own words. "Of course. And a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely to run her head into the wrong place," said Grandcourt, conscious of using pinchers on that white creature. "I suppose you take Deronda for a saint." "Oh dear no!" said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost miraculous power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone. "Only a little less of a monster." She rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the room with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing that he has taken more wine than usual. She turned the keys inside her dressing-room doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet as when she was leaving the breakfast-room. Even in the moments after reading the poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations than now; for emotion was at the acute point, where it is not distinguishable from sensation. Deronda unlike what she had believed him to be, was an image which affected her as a hideous apparition would have done, quite apart from the way in which it was produced. It had taken hold of her as pain before she could consider whether it were fiction or truth; and further to hinder her power of resistance came the sudden perception, how very slight were the grounds of her faith in Deronda--how little she knew of his life--how childish she had been in her confidence. His rebukes and his severity to her began to seem odious, along with all the poetry and lofty doctrine in the world, whatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his face seemed the most unpleasant mask that the common habits of men could put on. All this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her start into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out the gray sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her in warmth and light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently and looked round her--there was a world outside this bad dream, and the dream proved nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping her hands with her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from oppressive feeling, and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams. "It is not true! What does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?" This is what she repeated to herself--but this was not her faith come back again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation intolerable. And how could she go on through the day in this state? With one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild actions by which she would convince herself of what she wished: she would go to Lady Mallinger and question her about Mirah; she would write to Deronda and upbraid him with making the world all false and wicked and hopeless to her--to him she dared pour out all the bitter indignation of her heart. No; she would go to Mirah. This last form taken by her need was more definitely practicable, and quickly became imperious. No matter what came of it. She had the pretext of asking Mirah to sing at her party on the fourth. What was she going to say beside? How satisfy? She did not foresee--she could not wait to foresee. If that idea which was maddening her had been a living thing, she would have wanted to throttle it without waiting to foresee what would come of the act. She rang her bell and asked if Mr. Grandcourt were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the carriage, and began to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked about the large drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not recognizing herself in the glass panels, not noting any object around her in the painted gilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where she had been, and punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could neither desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had not been deluding herself in her trust. She was provided with Mirah's address. Soon she was on the way with all the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart, depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning which she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what happened before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of lobbies and passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of everything till she was in a room where there were folding-doors, and she heard Deronda's voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was helped by forecast, but she was as certain of it as if she had seen him. She was frightened at her own agitation, and began to unbutton her gloves that she might button them again, and bite her lips over the pretended difficulty, while the door opened, and Mirah presented herself with perfect quietude and a sweet smile of recognition. There was relief in the sight of her face, and Gwendolen was able to smile in return, while she put out her hand in silence; and as she seated herself, all the while hearing the voice, she felt some reflux of energy in the confused sense that the truth could not be anything that she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone, with something that seemed like bashfulness, "Perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps I ought to have written--but I wished to make a particular request." "I am glad to see you instead of having a letter," said Mirah, wondering at the changed expression and manner of the "Vandyke duchess," as Hans had taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and the calmness of her own face were in strong contrast with the pale agitated beauty under the plumed hat. "I thought," Gwendolen went on--"at least I hoped, you would not object to sing at our house on the 4th--in the evening--at a party like Lady Brackenshaw's. I should be so much obliged." "I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?" said Mirah, while Gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed. "At ten, please," she answered; then paused, and felt that she had nothing more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and say good-bye. Deronda's voice was in her ears. She must say it--she could contrive no other sentence, "Mr. Deronda is in the next room." "Yes," said Mirah, in her former tone. "He is reading Hebrew with my brother." "You have a brother?" said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady Mallinger, but had not minded it then. "Yes, a dear brother who is ill--consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the best of friends to him, as he has been to me," said Mirah, with the impulse that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person indifferently. "Tell me," said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah's, and speaking hardly above a whisper--"tell me--tell me the truth. You are sure he is quite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is false." Could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the strange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity and indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her voice, she said, "Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil of him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so miserable--I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken; you would have thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me as if I had been a king's daughter. He took me to the best of women. He found my brother for me. And he honors my brother--though he too was poor--oh, almost as poor as he could be. And my brother honors him. That is no light thing to say"--here Mirah's tone changed to one of profound emphasis, and she shook her head backward: "for my brother is very learned and great-minded. And Mr. Deronda says there are few men equal to him." Some Jewish defiance had flamed into her indignant gratitude and her anger could not help including Gwendolen since she seemed to have doubted Deronda's goodness. But Gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh water that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. She did not notice that Mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious of anything but of the penetrating sense that Deronda and his life were no more like her husband's conception than the morning in the horizon was like the morning mixed with street gas. Even Mirah's words sank into the indefiniteness of her relief. She could hardly have repeated them, or said how her whole state of feeling was changed. She pressed Mirah's hand, and said, "Thank you, thank you," in a hurried whisper, then rose, and added, with only a hazy consciousness, "I must go, I shall see you--on the fourth--I am so much obliged"--bowing herself out automatically, while Mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what seemed a sudden retreat into chill loftiness. Gwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward the creature who had brought her relief. The passionate need of contradiction to Grandcourt's estimate of Deronda, a need which had blunted her sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied than she wanted to be gone. She began to be aware that she was out of place, and to dread Deronda's seeing her. And once in the carriage again, she had the vision of what awaited her at home. When she drew up before the door in Grosvenor Square, her husband was arriving with a cigar between his fingers. He threw it away and handed her out, accompanying her up-stairs. She turned into the drawing-room, lest he should follow her farther and give her no place to retreat to; then she sat down with a weary air, taking off her gloves, rubbing her hand over her forehead, and making his presence as much of a cipher as possible. But he sat, too, and not far from her--just in front, where to avoid looking at him must have the emphasis of effort. "May I ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?" said Grandcourt. "Oh, yes; I have been to Miss Lapidoth's, to ask her to come and sing for us," said Gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside her, and looking down at them. "And to ask her about her relations with Deronda?" said Grandcourt, with the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor Gwendolen's ear was diabolical. For the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him without inward check. Turning her eyes full on his she said, in a biting tone, "Yes; and what you said is false--a low, wicked falsehood." "She told you so--did she?" returned Grandcourt, with a more thoroughly distilled sneer. Gwendolen was mute. The daring anger within her was turned into the rage of dumbness. What reasons for her belief could she give? All the reasons that seemed so strong and living within her--she saw them suffocated and shrivelled up under her husband's breath. There was no proof to give, but her own impression, which would seem to him her own folly. She turned her head quickly away from him and looked angrily toward the end of the room: she would have risen, but he was in her way. Grandcourt saw his advantage. "It's of no consequence so far as her singing goes," he said, in his superficial drawl. "You can have her to sing, if you like." Then, after a pause, he added in his lowest imperious tone, "But you will please to observe that you are not to go near that house again. As my wife, you must take my word about what is proper for you. When you undertook to be Mrs. Grandcourt, you undertook not to make a fool of yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself this morning; and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might soon get yourself talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like. What do _you_ know about the world? You have married _me_, and must be guided by my opinion." Every slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for Gwendolen's nature. If the low tones had come from a physician telling her that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and prognosticating its course, she could not have been more helpless against the argument that lay in it. But she was permitted to move now, and her husband never again made any reference to what had occurred this morning. He knew the force of his own words. If this white-handed man with the perpendicular profile had been sent to govern a difficult colony, he might have won reputation among his contemporaries. He had certainly ability, would have understood that it was safer to exterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and would not have flinched from making things safe in that way. Gwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered faith;--rather, she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a Protestant of old kept his bible hidden or a Catholic his crucifix, according to the side favored by the civil arm; and it was characteristic of her that apart from the impression gained concerning Deronda in that visit, her imagination was little occupied with Mirah or the eulogised brother. The one result established for her was, that Deronda had acted simply as a generous benefactor, and the phrase "reading Hebrew" had fleeted unimpressively across her sense of hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar flight across her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on its natural history. But the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a strongly active part in the process which made an habitual conflict within her, and was the cause of some external change perhaps not observed by any one except Deronda. As the weeks went on bringing occasional transient interviews with her, he thought that he perceived in her an intensifying of her superficial hardness and resolute display, which made her abrupt betrayals of agitation the more marked and disturbing to him. In fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory which, as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with a terrible strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. Grandcourt had an active divination rather than discernment of refractoriness in her, and what had happened about Mirah quickened his suspicion that there was an increase of it dependent on the occasions when she happened to see Deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them: he did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it was nonsense that evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind--an inward action which might become disagreeable outward. Husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than the speeches we have just heard. He determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was making, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved the fact of his relation to Mrs. Glasher and her children; and that there should be any overt recognition of this between Gwendolen and himself was supremely repugnant to him. Like all proud, closely-wrapped natures, he shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities, if they were personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him on the subject of shoes and stockings. And clashing was intolerable to him; his habitual want was to put collision out of the question by the quiet massive pressure of his rule. But he wished Gwendolen to know that before he made her an offer it was no secret to him that she was aware of his relations with Lydia, her previous knowledge being the apology for bringing the subject before her now. Some men in his place might have thought of writing what he wanted her to know, in the form of a letter. But Grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a bore to him, and he had long been accustomed to have all his writing done by Lush. We know that there are persons who will forego their own obvious interest rather than do anything so disagreeable as to write letters; and it is not probable that these imperfect utilitarians would rush into manuscript and syntax on a difficult subject in order to save another's feelings. To Grandcourt it did not even occur that he should, would, or could write to Gwendolen the information in question; and the only medium of communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind, was as much of an implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt had his reserves, and would not have uttered a word likely to encourage Lush in an impudent sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage which had been discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes believing too little in his penetration, and too much in his discretion? Grandcourt had always allowed Lush to know his external affairs indiscriminately--irregularities, debts, want of ready money; he had only used discrimination about what he would allow his confidant to say to him; and he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that the having him at call in London was a recovery of lost ease. It followed that Lush knew all the provisions of the will more exactly than they were known to the testator himself. Grandcourt did not doubt that Gwendolen, since she was a woman who could put two and two together, knew or suspected Lush to be the contriver of her interview with Lydia, and that this was the reason why her first request was for his banishment. But the bent of a woman's inferences on mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not determined by her capacity for simple addition; and here Grandcourt lacked the only organ of thinking that could have saved him from mistake--namely, some experience of the mixed passions concerned. He had correctly divined one-half of Gwendolen's dread--all that related to her personal pride, and her perception that his will must conquer hers; but the remorseful half, even if he had known of her broken promise, was as much out of his imagination as the other side of the moon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia was solely a tongue-tied jealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have written with the jewels was the fact that she had once been used to wearing them, with other amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse with jealous women. He had the triumphant certainty that he could aggravate the jealousy and yet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. His object was to engage all his wife's egoism on the same side as his own, and in his employment of Lush he did not intend an insult to her: she ought to understand that he was the only possible envoy. Grandcourt's view of things was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what suited him others must put up with. There is no escaping the fact that want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. Mephistopheles thrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would inevitably make blunders. One morning he went to Gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back drawing-room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered, most persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as she sat with a book on her lap, "A--Gwendolen, there's some business about property to be explained. I have told Lush to come and explain it to you. He knows all about these things. I am going out. He can come up now. He's the only person who can explain. I suppose you'll not mind." "You know that I do mind," said Gwendolen, angrily, starting up. "I shall not see him." She showed the intention to dart away to the door. Grandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. He was prepared for her anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of remonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining out, "It's no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world that one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a fuss about such things. Some business must be done. You can't expect agreeable people to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you is to take it as a matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not to toss your head and bite your lips about people of that sort." The drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave time for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance. What was there to be told her about property? This word had certain dominant associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs. Glasher and her children. What would be the use if she refused to see Lush? Could she ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be intolerable, even if he consented, which it was certain he would not, if he had made up his mind to the contrary. The humiliation of standing an obvious prisoner, with her husband barring the door, was not to be borne any longer, and she turned away to lean against a cabinet, while Grandcourt again moved toward her. "I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out," he said, after a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. "Shall I tell him he may come?" Yet another pause before she could say "Yes"--her face turned obliquely and her eyes cast down. "I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready," said Grandcourt. No answer. "She is in a desperate rage," thought he. But the rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed that he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her eyelids down, and she did not move them until he was on the other side of the door. What was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she found no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic illusions she had had in marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. He was using her as he liked. She sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing operation that she had to go through. The facts that galled her gathered a burning power when she thought of their lying in his mind. It was all a part of that new gambling, in which the losing was not simply a _minus_, but a terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her reckoning. Lush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task. Grandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, "Don't make yourself more disagreeable than nature obliges you." "That depends," thought Lush. But he said, "I will write a brief abstract for Mrs. Grandcourt to read." He did not suggest that he should make the whole communication in writing, which was a proof that the interview did not wholly displease him. Some provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no reason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with him. He was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets of the situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. He had only the small movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning that this marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as satisfactory as the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and as Grandcourt wished to feign that it was. He had no persistent spite much stronger than what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to those who repeat it and exaggerate it by their conjectures. With no active compassion or good-will, he had just as little active malevolence, being chiefly occupied in liking his particular pleasures, and not disliking anything but what hindered those pleasures--everything else ranking with the last murder and the last _opéra bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about. Nevertheless, he was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated uncivilly by a beautiful woman, or to the counter-balancing fact that his present commission put into his hands an official power of humiliating her. He did not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so gifted in relation to us that their "How do you do?" seems charged with offense. By the time that Mr. Lush was announced, Gwendolen had braced herself to a bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal of her feeling, whatever he might have to tell. She invited him to sit down with stately quietude. After all, what was this man to her? He was not in the least like her husband. Her power of hating a coarse, familiar-mannered man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the intensity with which she hated his contrast. He held a small paper folded in his hand while he spoke. "I need hardly say that I should not have presented myself if Mr. Grandcourt had not expressed a strong wish to that effect--as no doubt he has mentioned to you." From some voices that speech might have sounded entirely reverential, and even timidly apologetic. Lush had no intention to the contrary, but to Gwendolen's ear his words had as much insolence in them as his prominent eyes, and the pronoun "you" was too familiar. He ought to have addressed the folding-screen, and spoke of her as Mrs. Grandcourt. She gave the smallest sign of a bow, and Lush went on, with a little awkwardness, getting entangled in what is elegantly called tautology. "My having been in Mr. Grandcourt's confidence for fifteen years or more--since he was a youth, in fact--of course gives me a peculiar position. He can speak to me of affairs that he could not mention to any one else; and, in fact, he could not have employed any one else in this affair. I have accepted the task out of friendship for him. Which is my apology for accepting the task--if you would have preferred some one else." He paused, but she made no sign, and Lush, to give himself a countenance in an apology which met no acceptance, opened the folded paper, and looked at it vaguely before he began to speak again. "This paper contains some information about Mr. Grandcourt's will, an abstract of a part he wished you to know--if you'll be good enough to cast your eyes over it. But there is something I had to say by way of introduction--which I hope you'll pardon me for, if it's not quite agreeable." Lush found that he was behaving better than he had expected, and had no idea how insulting he made himself with his "not quite agreeable." "Say what you have to say without apologizing, please," said Gwendolen, with the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a reward for finding the dog he had stolen. "I have only to remind you of something that occurred before your engagement to Mr. Grandcourt," said Lush, not without the rise of some willing insolence in exchange for her scorn. "You met a lady in Cardell Chase, if you remember, who spoke to you of her position with regard to Mr. Grandcourt. She had children with her--one a very fine boy." Gwendolen's lips were almost as pale as her cheeks; her passion had no weapons--words were no better than chips. This man's speech was like a sharp knife-edge drawn across her skin: but even her indignation at the employment of Lush was getting merged in a crowd of other feelings, dim and alarming as a crowd of ghosts. "Mr. Grandcourt was aware that you were acquainted with this unfortunate affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his position and intentions should be made quite clear to you. It is an affair of property and prospects; and if there were any objection you had to make, if you would mention it to me--it is a subject which of course he would rather not speak about himself--if you will be good enough just to read this." With the last words Lush rose and presented the paper to her. When Gwendolen resolved that she would betray no feeling in the presence of this man, she had not prepared herself to hear that her husband knew the silent consciousness, the silently accepted terms on which she had married him. She dared not raise her hand to take the paper, least it should visibly tremble. For a moment Lush stood holding it toward her, and she felt his gaze on her as ignominy, before she could say even with low-toned haughtiness, "Lay it on the table. And go into the next room, please." Lush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back drawing-room, "My lady winces considerably. She didn't know what would be the charge for that superfine article, Henleigh Grandcourt." But it seemed to him that a penniless girl had done better than she had any right to expect, and that she had been uncommonly knowing for her years and opportunities: her words to Lydia meant nothing, and her running away had probably been part of her adroitness. It had turned out a master-stroke. Meanwhile Gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the paper. She must read it. Her whole being--pride, longing for rebellion, dreams of freedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh visitation--all made one need to know what the paper contained. But at first it was not easy to take in the meaning of the words. When she had succeeded, she found that in the case of there being no son as issue of her marriage, Grandcourt had made the small Henleigh his heir; that was all she cared to extract from the paper with any distinctness. The other statement as to what provision would be made for her in the same case, she hurried over, getting only a confused perception of thousands and Gadsmere. It was enough. She could dismiss the man in the next room with the defiant energy which had revived in her at the idea that this question of property and inheritance was meant as a finish to her humiliations and her thraldom. She thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in her hand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where Lush immediately arose, awaiting her approach. When she was four yards from him, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high tone, while she swept him with her eyelashes, "Tell Mr. Grandcourt that his arrangements are just what I desired"--passing on without haste, and leaving Lush time to mingle some admiration of her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her spirit and impertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and just thrusting his tongue between his teeth. He really did not want her to be worse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go and lunch at the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad. What did Gwendolen look forward to? When her husband returned he found her equipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. She was not again going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was ill. That was the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she could have framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving Lush behind her. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and not to give herself time to reflect. She rang the bell for her maid, and went with the usual care through her change of toilet. Doubtless her husband had meant to produce a great effect on her: by-and-by perhaps she would let him see an effect the very opposite of what he intended; but at present all that she could show was a defiant satisfaction in what had been presumed to be disagreeable. It came as an instinct rather than a thought, that to show any sign which could be interpreted as jealousy, when she had just been insultingly reminded that the conditions were what she had accepted with her eyes open, would be the worst self-humiliation. She said to herself that she had not time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all she could be clear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring any ground for excitement. She not only rode, but went out with him to dine, contributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that of rapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected a handkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent--a scent that Grandcourt had once objected to. Gwendolen would not have liked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgust to be on her side. But to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk without singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our passion is as penetrative as air--everything is porous to it; bows, smiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting herself up in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to have gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already the same succession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious outlets rejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every course. Already she was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling that she was under eyes which saw her past actions solely in the light of her lowest motives. She lived back in the scenes of her courtship, with the new bitter consciousness of what had been in Grandcourt's mind--certain now, with her present experience of him, that he had a peculiar triumph in conquering her dumb repugnance, and that ever since their marriage he had had a cold exultation in knowing her fancied secret. Her imagination exaggerated every tyrannical impulse he was capable of. "I will insist on being separated from him"--was her first darting determination; then, "I will leave him whether he consents or not. If this boy becomes his heir, I have made an atonement." But neither in darkness nor in daylight could she imagine the scenes which must carry out those determinations with the courage to feel them endurable. How could she run away to her own family--carry distress among them, and render herself an object of scandal in the society she had left behind her? What future lay before her as Mrs. Grandcourt gone back to her mother, who would be made destitute again by the rupture of the marriage for which one chief excuse had been that it had brought that mother a maintenance? She had lately been seeing her uncle and Anna in London, and though she had been saved from any difficulty about inviting them to stay in Grosvenor Square by their wish to be with Rex, who would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visit she had had from them helped now in giving stronger color to the picture of what it would be for her to take refuge in her own family. What could she say to justify her flight? Her uncle would tell her to go back. Her mother would cry. Her aunt and Anna would look at her with wondering alarm. Her husband would have power to compel her. She had absolutely nothing that she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears. And to "insist on separation!" That was an easy combination of words; but considered as an action to be executed against Grandcourt, it would be about as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread of other people's unwillingness. How was she to begin? What was she to say that would not be a condemnation of herself? "If I am to have misery anyhow," was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, "I had better have the misery that I can keep to myself." Moreover, her capability of rectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain of her contract, or to withdraw from it. And always among the images that drove her back to submission was Deronda. The idea of herself separated from her husband, gave Deronda a changed, perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively she felt that the separation would be from him too, and in the prospective vision of herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman, she felt some tingling bashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior towards him. The association of Deronda with a dubious position for herself was intolerable. And what would he say if he knew everything? Probably that she ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless she were sure that she could make herself a better woman by taking any other course. And what sort of woman was she to be--solitary, sickened of life, looked at with a suspicious kind of pity?--even if she could dream of success in getting that dreary freedom. Mrs. Grandcourt "run away" would be a more pitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth condemned to teach the bishop's daughters, and to be inspected by Mrs. Mompert. One characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. She would not look a second time at the paper Lush had given her; and before ringing for her maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at hand, proudly resolved against curiosity about what was allotted to herself in connection with Gadsmere--feeling herself branded in the minds of her husband and his confidant with the meanness that would accept marriage and wealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and humiliating. Day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There came nothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only a recurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and still Mrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting herself as she was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the accustomed grace, beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the week, through all the scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the other. Church was not markedly distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction that enabled her to connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of the world than that of unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social fashions. While a laudable zeal was laboring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys where law is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt, condescending a little to a fashionable rector and conscious of a feminine advantage over a learned dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse. Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive rebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number of persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unwearied statement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, on inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. Poor Gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now marked some hardening in a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of feeling. For example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by her side, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing them, a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at once recognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her to behold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; he being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and Gwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from the dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled past the group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition. Immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame for herself, and the words, "You might at least have raised your hat to her," flew impetuously to her lips--but did not pass them. If as her husband, in her company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she herself had excluded from the place she was filling, how could she be the person to reproach him? She was dumb. It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher there with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making purchases--really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and had had interviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her uneasy mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her ultimate triumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the marriage dissolve itself in one way or other--Lush hinted at several ways--leaving the succession assured to her boy. She had had an interview with Grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave like a reasonable woman, and threatened punishment if she were troublesome; but had, also as usual, vindicated himself from any wish to be stingy, the money he was receiving from Sir Hugo on account of Diplow encouraging him to be lavish. Lydia, feeding on the probabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless wrath along with that pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her discretion go entirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparition before Gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet of venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the other side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush the likely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that post, daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh into the Park? The Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia's conception by the shock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this woman who had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the children she had borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast on the lot of a woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread itself over her visions of a future that might be her own, and made part of her dread on her own behalf. She shrank all the more from any lonely action. What possible release could there be for her from this hated vantage ground, which yet she dared not quit, any more than if fire had been raining outside it? What release, but death? Not her own death. Gwendolen was not a woman who could easily think of her own death as a near reality, or front for herself the dark entrance on the untried and invisible. It seemed more possible that Grandcourt should die:--and yet not likely. The power of tyranny in him seemed a power of living in the presence of any wish that he should die. The thought that his death was the only possible deliverance for her was one with the thought that deliverance would never come--the double deliverance from the injury with which other beings might reproach her and from the yoke she had brought on her own neck. No! she foresaw him always living, and her own life dominated by him; the "always" of her young experience not stretching beyond the few immediate years that seemed immeasurably long with her passionate weariness. The thought of his dying would not subsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terror that she should die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging that thought. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in her more acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: dark rays doing their work invisibly in the broad light. Only an evening or two after that encounter in the Park, there was a grand concert at Klesmer's, who was living rather magnificently now in one of the large houses in Grosvenor Place, a patron and prince among musical professors. Gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as one on which she was sure to meet Deronda, and she had been meditating how to put a question to him which, without containing a word that she would feel a dislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to understand it. The struggle of opposite feelings would not let her abide by her instinct that the very idea of Deronda's relation to her was a discouragement to any desperate step towards freedom. The next wave of emotion was a longing for some word of his to enforce a resolve. The fact that her opportunities of conversation with him had always to be snatched in the doubtful privacy of large parties, caused her to live through them many times beforehand, imagining how they would take place and what she would say. The irritation was proportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at Klesmer's she included Deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as possible at a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying her impatience to every one who spoke to her. She found her only safety in a chill haughtiness which made Mr. Vandernoodt remark that Mrs. Grandcourt was becoming a perfect match for her husband. When at last the chances of the evening brought Deronda near her, Sir Hugo and Mrs. Raymond were close by and could hear every word she said. No matter: her husband was not near, and her irritation passed without check into a fit of daring which restored the security of her self-possession. Deronda was there at last, and she would compel him to do what she pleased. Already and without effort rather queenly in her air as she stood in her white lace and green leaves she threw a royal permissiveness into her way of saying, "I wish you would come and see me to-morrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda." There could be but one answer at that moment: "Certainly," with a tone of obedience. Afterward it occurred to Deronda that he would write a note to excuse himself. He had always avoided making a call at Grandcourt's. He could not persuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his excuse were taken for indifference or for the affectation of indifference it would be equally wounding. He kept his promise. Gwendolen had declined to ride out on the plea of not feeling well enough having left her refusal to the last moment when the horses were soon to be at the door--not without alarm lest her husband should say that he too would stay at home. Become almost superstitious about his power of suspicious divination, she had a glancing forethought of what she would do in that case--namely, have herself denied as not well. But Grandcourt accepted her excuse without remark, and rode off. Nevertheless when Gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down the order that only Mr. Deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed at what she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought that he would soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not of trivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come: and yet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seem impossible. For the first time the impulse of appeal to him was being checked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by the possibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. If so, she would have sunk in his esteem. But immediately she resisted this intolerable fear as an infection from her husband's way of thinking. That _he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a reason why such a judgment would be remote from Deronda's mind. But that she could not rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly reticence was manifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to her before. In her struggle between agitation and the effort to suppress it, she was walking up and down the length of the two drawing-rooms, where at one end a long mirror reflected her in her black dress, chosen in the early morning with a half-admitted reference to this hour. But above this black dress her head on its white pillar of a neck showed to advantage. Some consciousness of this made her turn hastily and hurry to the boudoir, where again there was a glass, but also, tossed over a chair, a large piece of black lace which she snatched and tied over her crown of hair so as completely to conceal her neck, and leave only her face looking out from the black frame. In this manifest contempt of appearance, she thought it possible to be freer from nervousness, but the black lace did not take away the uneasiness from her eyes and lips. She was standing in the middle of the room when Deronda was announced, and as he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was not his usual self. She could not have defined the change except by saying that he looked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under some effort in speaking to her. And yet the speaking was the slightest possible. They both said, "How do you do?" quite curtly; and Gwendolen, instead of sitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms slightly on the tall back of a chair, while Deronda stood where he was,--both feeling it difficult to say any more, though the preoccupation in his mind could hardly have been more remote than it was from Gwendolen's conception. She naturally saw in his embarrassment some reflection of her own. Forced to speak, she found all her training in concealment and self-command of no use to her and began with timid awkwardness, "You will wonder why I begged you to come. I wanted to ask you something. You said I was ignorant. That is true. And what can I do but ask you?" And at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put the questions she had intended. Something new in her nervous manner roused Deronda's anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. He said with the sadness of affection in his voice, "My only regret is, that I can be of so little use to you." The words and the tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more sense of freedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to say, and beginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right words. "I wanted to tell you that I have always been thinking of your advice, but is it any use?--I can't make myself different, because things about me raise bad feelings--and I must go on--I can alter nothing--it is no use." She paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding the right words, but began again hurriedly, "But if I go on I shall get worse. I want not to get worse. I should like to be what you wish. There are people who are good and enjoy great things--I know there are. I am a contemptible creature. I feel as if I should get wicked with hating people. I have tried to think that I would go away from everybody. But I can't. There are so many things to hinder me. You think, perhaps, that I don't mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of everything. I am afraid of getting wicked. Tell me what I can do." She had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery which she was trying to make present to Deronda in broken allusive speech--wishing to convey but not express all her need. Her eyes were tearless, and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there was a subdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it was hardly above a whisper. She was hurting herself with the jewels that glittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart. The feeling Deronda endured in these moments he afterward called horrible. Words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had been beholding a vessel in peril of wreck--the poor ship with its many-lived anguish beaten by the inescapable storm. How could he grasp the long-growing process of this young creature's wretchedness?--how arrest and change it with a sentence? He was afraid of his own voice. The words that rushed into his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing better than despair made audible, or than that insensibility to another's hardship which applies precept to soothe pain. He felt himself holding a crowd of words imprisoned within his lips, as if the letting them escape would be a violation of awe before the mysteries of our human lot. The thought that urged itself foremost was--"Confess everything to your husband; have nothing concealed:"--the words carried in his mind a vision of reasons which would have needed much fuller expressions for Gwendolen to apprehend them, but before he had begun those brief sentences, the door opened and the husband entered. Grandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy a suspicion. What he saw was Gwendolen's face of anguish framed black like a nun's, and Deronda standing three yards from her with a look of sorrow such as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a beloved object. Without any show of surprise Grandcourt nodded to Deronda, gave a second look at Gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself easily at a little distance crossing his legs, taking out his handkerchief and trifling with it elegantly. Gwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she did not turn or move from her place. It was not a moment in which she could feign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: the passionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her. What she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview with Deronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. But he, naturally, was urged into self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what might follow for her from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of agitation; and feeling that any pretense of ease in prolonging his visit would only exaggerate Grandcourt's possible conjectures of duplicity, he merely said, "I will not stay longer now. Good bye." He put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill fingers; but she said no good-bye. When he had left the room, Gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with an expectation as dull as her despair--the expectation that she was going to be punished. But Grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have let her know that she had not deceived him, and to keep a silence which was formidable with omniscience. He went out that evening, and her plea of feeling ill was accepted without even a sneer. The next morning at breakfast he said, "I am going yachting to the Mediterranean." "When?" said Gwendolen, with a leap of heart which had hope in it. "The day after to-morrow. The yacht is at Marseilles. Lush is gone to get everything ready." "Shall I have mamma to stay with me, then?" said Gwendolen, the new sudden possibility of peace and affection filling her mind like a burst of morning light. "No; you will go with me." CHAPTER XLIX. Ever in his soul That larger justice which makes gratitude Triumphed above resentment. 'Tis the mark Of regal natures, with the wider life. And fuller capability of joy:-- Not wits exultant in the strongest lens To show you goodness vanished into pulp Never worth "thank you"--they're the devil's friars, Vowed to be poor as he in love and trust, Yet must go begging of a world that keeps Some human property. Deronda, in parting from Gwendolen, had abstained from saying, "I shall not see you again for a long while: I am going away," lest Grandcourt should understand him to imply that the fact was of importance to her. He was actually going away under circumstances so momentous to himself that when he set out to fulfill his promise of calling on her, he was already under the shadow of a solemn emotion which revived the deepest experience of his life. Sir Hugo had sent for him to his chambers with the note--"Come immediately. Something has happened:" a preparation that caused him some relief when, on entering the baronet's study, he was received with grave affection instead of the distress which he had apprehended. "It is nothing to grieve you, sir?" said Deronda, in a tone rather of restored confidence than question, as he took the hand held out to him. There was an unusual meaning in Sir Hugo's look, and a subdued emotion in his voice, as he said, "No, Dan, no. Sit down. I have something to say." Deronda obeyed, not without presentiment. It was extremely rare for Sir Hugo to show so much serious feeling. "Not to grieve me, my boy, no. At least, if there is nothing in it that will grieve you too much. But I hardly expected that this--just this--would ever happen. There have been reasons why I have never prepared you for it. There have been reasons why I have never told you anything about your parentage. But I have striven in every way not to make that an injury to you." Sir Hugo paused, but Deronda could not speak. He could not say, "I have never felt it an injury." Even if that had been true, he could not have trusted his voice to say anything. Far more than any one but himself could know of was hanging on this moment when the secrecy was to be broken. Sir Hugo had never seen the grand face he delighted in so pale--the lips pressed together with such a look of pain. He went on with a more anxious tenderness, as if he had a new fear of wounding. "I have acted in obedience to your mother's wishes. The secrecy was her wish. But now she desires to remove it. She desires to see you. I will put this letter into your hands, which you can look at by-and-by. It will merely tell you what she wishes you to do, and where you will find her." Sir Hugo held out a letter written on foreign paper, which Deronda thrust into his breast-pocket, with a sense of relief that he was not called on to read anything immediately. The emotion on Daniel's face had gained on the baronet, and was visibly shaking his composure. Sir Hugo found it difficult to say more. And Deronda's whole soul was possessed by a question which was the hardest in the world to utter. Yet he could not bear to delay it. This was a sacramental moment. If he let it pass, he could not recover the influences under which it was possible to utter the words and meet the answer. For some moments his eyes were cast down, and it seemed to both as if thoughts were in the air between them. But at last Deronda looked at Sir Hugo, and said, with a tremulous reverence in his voice--dreading to convey indirectly the reproach that affection had for years been stifling, "Is my father also living?" The answer came immediately in a low emphatic tone--"No." In the mingled emotions which followed that answer it was impossible to distinguish joy from pain. Some new light had fallen on the past for Sir Hugo too in this interview. After a silence in which Deronda felt like one whose creed is gone before he has religiously embraced another, the baronet said, in a tone of confession, "Perhaps I was wrong, Dan, to undertake what I did. And perhaps I liked it a little too well--having you all to myself. But if you have had any pain which I might have helped, I ask you to forgive me." "The forgiveness has long been there," said Deronda "The chief pain has always been on account of some one else--whom I never knew--whom I am now to know. It has not hindered me from feeling an affection for you which has made a large part of all the life I remember." It seemed one impulse that made the two men clasp each other's hand for a moment. BOOK VII.--THE MOTHER AND THE SON CHAPTER L. "If some mortal, born too soon, Were laid away in some great trance--the ages Coming and going all the while--till dawned His true time's advent; and could then record The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, Then I might tell more of the breath so light Upon my eyelids, and the fingers warm Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never So dull was I but, when that spirit passed, I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep." --BROWNING: _Paracelsus_. This was the letter which Sir Hugo put into Deronda's hands:, TO MY SON, DANIEL DERONDA. My good friend and yours, Sir Hugo Mallinger, will have told you that I wish to see you. My health is shaken, and I desire there should be no time lost before I deliver to you what I have long withheld. Let nothing hinder you from being at the _Albergo dell' Italia_ in Genoa by the fourteenth of this month. Wait for me there. I am uncertain when I shall be able to make the journey from Spezia, where I shall be staying. That will depend on several things. Wait for me--the Princess Halm-Eberstein. Bring with you the diamond ring that Sir Hugo gave you. I shall like to see it again.--Your unknown mother, LEONORA HALM-EBERSTEIN. This letter with its colorless wording gave Deronda no clue to what was in reserve for him; but he could not do otherwise than accept Sir Hugo's reticence, which seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate the mother's disclosures; and the discovery that his life-long conjectures had been mistaken checked further surmise. Deronda could not hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed possibilities, but he refused to contemplate any of them as more likely than another, lest he should be nursing it into a dominant desire or repugnance, instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet the fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be. In this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the reason for the absence which in some quarters he was obliged to mention beforehand, least of all to Mordecai, whom it would affect as powerfully as it did himself, only in rather a different way. If he were to say, "I am going to learn the truth about my birth," Mordecai's hope would gather what might prove a painful, dangerous excitement. To exclude suppositions, he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by Sir Hugo's wish, and threw as much indifference as he could into his manner of announcing it, saying he was uncertain of its duration, but it would perhaps be very short. "I will ask to have the child Jacob to stay with me," said Mordecai, comforting himself in this way, after the first mournful glances. "I will drive round and ask Mrs. Cohen to let him come," said Mirah. "The grandmother will deny you nothing," said Deronda. "I'm glad you were a little wrong as well as I," he added, smiling at Mordecai. "You thought that old Mrs. Cohen would not bear to see Mirah." "I undervalued her heart," said Mordecai. "She is capable of rejoicing that another's plant blooms though her own be withered." "Oh, they are dear good people; I feel as if we all belonged to each other," said Mirah, with a tinge of merriment in her smile. "What should you have felt if that Ezra had been your brother?" said Deronda, mischievously--a little provoked that she had taken kindly at once to people who had caused him so much prospective annoyance on her account. Mirah looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment, and then said, "He is not a bad man--I think he would never forsake any one." But when she uttered the words she blushed deeply, and glancing timidly at Mordecai, turned away to some occupation. Her father was in her mind, and this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful mutual consciousness. "If he should come and find us!" was a thought which to Mirah sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a haunted forest where each turn screened for her an imaginary apparition. Deronda felt what was her involuntary allusion, and understood the blush. How could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed nearer than ever to his own? for the words of his mother's letter implied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful conditions; indeed, singularly enough that letter which had brought his mother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more remoteness for his affections. The tender yearning after a being whose life might have been the worse for not having his care and love, the image of a mother who had not had all her dues, whether of reverence or compassion, had long been secretly present with him in his observation of all the women he had come near. But it seemed now that this picturing of his mother might fit the facts no better than his former conceptions about Sir Hugo. He wondered to find that when this mother's very hand-writing had come to him with words holding her actual feeling, his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative neutrality toward her. A veiled figure with enigmatic speech had thrust away that image which, in spite of uncertainty, his clinging thought had gradually modeled and made the possessor of his tenderness and duteous longing. When he set off to Genoa, the interest really uppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to Mordecai and Mirah. "God bless you, Dan!" Sir Hugo had said, when they shook hands. "Whatever else changes for you, it can't change my being the oldest friend you have known, and the one who has all along felt the most for you. I couldn't have loved you better if you'd been my own--only I should have been better pleased with thinking of you always as the future master of the Abbey instead of my fine nephew; and then you would have seen it necessary for you to take a political line. However--things must be as they may." It was a defensive movement of the baronet's to mingle purposeless remarks with the expression of serious feeling. When Deronda arrived at the _Italia_ in Genoa, no Princess Halm-Eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for him, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be deferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made it impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she entreated him to wait as patiently as he could. With this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment to him, Deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on philosophic grounds, as a means of quieting excited feeling and giving patience a lift over a weary road. His former visit to the superb city had been only cursory, and left him much to learn beyond the prescribed round of sight-seeing, by spending the cooler hours in observant wandering about the streets, the quay, and the environs; and he often took a boat that he might enjoy the magnificent view of the city and harbor from the sea. All sights, all subjects, even the expected meeting with his mother, found a central union in Mordecai and Mirah, and the ideas immediately associated with them; and among the thoughts that most filled his mind while his boat was pushing about within view of the grand harbor was that of the multitudinous Spanish Jews centuries ago driven destitute from their Spanish homes, suffered to land from the crowded ships only for a brief rest on this grand quay of Genoa, overspreading it with a pall of famine and plague--dying mothers and dying children at their breasts--fathers and sons a-gaze at each other's haggardness, like groups from a hundred Hunger-towers turned out beneath the midday sun. Inevitably dreamy constructions of a possible ancestry for himself would weave themselves with historic memories which had begun to have a new interest for him on his discovery of Mirah, and now, under the influence of Mordecai, had become irresistibly dominant. He would have sealed his mind against such constructions if it had been possible, and he had never yet fully admitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify Mordecai's conviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter, and that wishing was folly--nay, on the question of parentage, wishing seemed part of that meanness which disowns kinship: it was a disowning by anticipation. What he had to do was simply to accept the fact; and he had really no strong presumption to go upon, now that he was assured of his mistake about Sir Hugo. There had been a resolved concealment which made all inference untrustworthy, and the very name he bore might be a false one. If Mordecai was wrong--if he, the so-called Daniel Deronda, were held by ties entirely aloof from any such course as his friend's pathetic hope had marked out?--he would not say "I wish"; but he could not help feeling on which side the sacrifice lay. Across these two importunate thoughts, which he resisted as much as one can resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to suspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to banish--dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to us the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable to meet. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. In the wonderful mixtures of our nature there is a feeling distinct from that exclusive passionate love of which some men and women (by no means all) are capable, which yet is not the same with friendship, nor with a merely benevolent regard, whether admiring or compassionate: a man, say--for it is a man who is here concerned--hardly represents to himself this shade of feeling toward a woman more nearly than in words, "I should have loved her, if----": the "if" covering some prior growth in the inclinations, or else some circumstances which have made an inward prohibitory law as a stay against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance. The "if" in Deronda's case carried reasons of both kinds; yet he had never throughout his relations with Gwendolen been free from the nervous consciousness that there was something to guard against not only on her account but on his own--some precipitancy in the manifestations of impulsive feeling--some ruinous inroad of what is but momentary on the permanent chosen treasure of the heart--some spoiling of her trust, which wrought upon him now as if it had been the retreating cry of a creature snatched and carried out of his reach by swift horsemen or swifter waves, while his own strength was only a stronger sense of weakness. How could his feelings for Gwendolen ever be exactly like his feelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he desired to stand apart from them? Strangely the figure entered into the pictures of his present and future; strangely (and now it seemed sadly) their two lots had come in contact, hers narrowly personal, his charged with far-reaching sensibilities, perhaps with durable purposes, which were hardly more present to her than the reasons why men migrate are present to the birds that come as usual for the crumbs and find them no more. Not that Deronda was too ready to imagine himself of supreme importance to a woman; but her words of insistence that he must "remain near her--must not forsake her"--continually recurred to him with the clearness and importunity of imagined sounds, such as Dante has said pierce us like arrows whose points carry the sharpness of pity, "Lamenti saettaron me diversi Che di pieta ferrati avean gli strali". Day after day passed, and the very air of Italy seemed to carry the consciousness that war had been declared against Austria, and every day was a hurrying march of crowded Time toward the world-changing battle of Sadowa. Meanwhile, in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the converging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued holiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office--scattering abroad those whom the midday had sent under shelter, and sowing all paths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and whirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not leisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and gardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fullness of beauty after their long siesta, till all strong color melted in the stream of moonlight which made the Streets a new spectacle with shadows, both still and moving, on cathedral steps and against the façades of massive palaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great Lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the blackness above. Deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of the days as he might have watched a wonderful clock where the striking of the hours was made solemn with antique figures advancing and retreating in monitory procession, while he still kept his ear open for another kind of signal which would have its solemnity too: He was beginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. In his letters to Mordecai and Hans, he had avoided writing about himself, but he was really getting into that state of mind to which all subjects become personal; and the few books he had brought to make him a refuge in study were becoming unreadable, because the point of view that life would make for him was in that agitating moment of uncertainty which is close upon decision. Many nights were watched through by him in gazing from the open window of his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the heavens; often in struggling under the oppressive skepticism which represented his particular lot, with all the importance he was allowing Mordecai to give it, as of no more lasting effect than a dream--a set of changes which made passion to him, but beyond his consciousness were no more than an imperceptible difference of mass and shadow; sometimes with a reaction of emotive force which gave even to sustained disappointment, even to the fulfilled demand of sacrifice, the nature of a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it might be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet irresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities might befall him--the blending of a complete personal love in one current with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion (what human creature escapes it?) against things in general because they are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which Gwendolen and her equivocal fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world along with the concealments which he had felt as a hardship in his own life, and which were acting in him now under the form of an afflicting doubtfulness about the mother who had announced herself coldly and still kept away. But at last she was come. One morning in his third week of waiting there was a new kind of knock at the door. A servant in Chasseurs livery entered and delivered in French the verbal message that, the Princess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during the day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would dine early, so as to be at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him. CHAPTER LI. She held the spindle as she sat, Errina with the thick-coiled mat Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, Gazing with a sad surprise At surging visions of her destiny-- To spin the byssus drearily In insect-labor, while the throng Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song. When Deronda presented himself at the door of his mother's apartment in the _Italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature agitations. The two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly, a little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was this striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe lines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. But Deronda could notice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in the presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood awaiting his approach. She was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black lace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long train stretching from her tall figure. Her arms, naked to the elbow, except for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine poise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. But Deronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of her, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips. She still kept her hand in his and looked at him examiningly; while his chief consciousness was that her eyes were piercing and her face so mobile that the next moment she might look like a different person. For even while she was examining him there was a play of the brow and nostril which made a tacit language. Deronda dared no movement, not able to conceive what sort of manifestation her feeling demanded; but he felt himself changing color like a girl, and yet wondering at his own lack of emotion; he had lived through so many ideal meetings with his mother, and they had seemed more real than this! He could not even conjecture in what language she would speak to him. He imagined it would not be English. Suddenly, she let fall his hand, and placed both hers on his shoulders, while her face gave out a flash of admiration in which every worn line disappeared and seemed to leave a restored youth. "You are a beautiful creature!" she said, in a low melodious voice, with syllables which had what might be called a foreign but agreeable outline. "I knew you would be." Then she kissed him on each cheek, and he returned the kisses. But it was something like a greeting between royalties. She paused a moment while the lines were coming back into her face, and then said in a colder tone, "I am your mother. But you can have no love for me." "I have thought of you more than of any other being in the world," said Deronda, his voice trembling nervously. "I am not like what you thought I was," said the mother decisively, withdrawing her hands from his shoulders, and folding her arms as before, looking at him as if she invited him to observe her. He had often pictured her face in his imagination as one which had a likeness to his own: he saw some of the likeness now, but amidst more striking differences. She was a remarkable looking being. What was it that gave her son a painful sense of aloofness?--Her worn beauty had a strangeness in it as if she were not quite a human mother, but a Melusina, who had ties with some world which is independent of ours. "I used to think that you might be suffering," said Deronda, anxious above all not to wound her. "I used to wish that I could be a comfort to you." "I _am_ suffering. But with a suffering that you can't comfort," said the Princess, in a harder voice than before, moving to a sofa where cushions had been carefully arranged for her. "Sit down." She pointed to a seat near her; and then discerning some distress in Deronda's face, she added, more gently, "I am not suffering at this moment. I am at ease now. I am able to talk." Deronda seated himself and waited for her to speak again. It seemed as if he were in the presence of a mysterious Fate rather than of the longed-for mother. He was beginning to watch her with wonder, from the spiritual distance to which she had thrown him. "No," she began: "I did not send for you to comfort me. I could not know beforehand--I don't know now--what you will feel toward me. I have not the foolish notion that you can love me merely because I am your mother, when you have never seen or heard of me in all your life. But I thought I chose something better for you than being with me. I did not think I deprived you of anything worth having." "You cannot wish me to believe that your affection would not have been worth having," said Deronda, finding that she paused as if she expected him to make some answer. "I don't mean to speak ill of myself," said the princess, with proud impetuosity, "But I had not much affection to give you. I did not want affection. I had been stifled with it. I wanted to live out the life that was in me, and not to be hampered with other lives. You wonder what I was. I was no princess then." She rose with a sudden movement, and stood as she had done before. Deronda immediately rose too; he felt breathless. "No princess in this tame life that I live in now. I was a great singer, and I acted as well as I sang. All the rest were poor beside me. Men followed me from one country to another. I was living a myriad lives in one. I did not want a child." There was a passionate self-defence in her tone. She had cast all precedent out of her mind. Precedent had no excuse for her and she could only seek a justification in the intensest words she could find for her experience. She seemed to fling out the last words against some possible reproach in the mind of her son, who had to stand and hear them--clutching his coat-collar as if he were keeping himself above water by it, and feeling his blood in the sort of commotion that might have been excited if he had seen her going through some strange rite of a religion which gave a sacredness to crime. What else had she to tell him? She went on with the same intensity and a sort of pale illumination in her face. "I did not want to marry. I was forced into marrying your father--forced, I mean, by my father's wishes and commands; and besides, it was my best way of getting some freedom. I could rule my husband, but not my father. I had a right to be free. I had a right to seek my freedom from a bondage that I hated." She seated herself again, while there was that subtle movement in her eyes and closed lips which is like the suppressed continuation of speech. Deronda continued standing, and after a moment or two she looked up at him with a less defiant pleading as she said, "And the bondage I hated for myself I wanted to keep you from. What better could the most loving mother have done? I relieved you from the bondage of having been born a Jew." "Then I _am_ a Jew?" Deronda burst out with a deep-voiced energy that made his mother shrink a little backward against her cushions. "My father was a Jew, and you are a Jewess?" "Yes, your father was my cousin," said the mother, watching him with a change in her look, as if she saw something that she might have to be afraid of. "I am glad of it," said Deronda, impetuously, in the veiled voice of passion. He could not have imagined beforehand how he would have come to say that which he had never hitherto admitted. He could not have dreamed that it would be in impulsive opposition to his mother. He was shaken by a mixed anger which no reflection could come soon enough to check, against this mother who it seemed had borne him unwillingly, had willingly made herself a stranger to him, and--perhaps--was now making herself known unwillingly. This last suspicion seemed to flash some explanation over her speech. But the mother was equally shaken by an anger differently mixed, and her frame was less equal to any repression. The shaking with her was visibly physical, and her eyes looked the larger for her pallid excitement as she said violently, "Why do you say you are glad? You are an English gentleman. I secured you that." "You did not know what you secured me. How could you choose my birthright for me?" said Deronda, throwing himself sideways into his chair again, almost unconsciously, and leaning his arm over the back, while he looked away from his mother. He was fired with an intolerance that seemed foreign to him. But he was now trying hard to master himself and keep silence. A horror had swept in upon his anger lest he should say something too hard in this moment which made an epoch never to be recalled. There was a pause before his mother spoke again, and when she spoke her voice had become more firmly resistant in its finely varied tones: "I chose for you what I would have chosen for myself. How could I know that you would have the spirit of my father in you? How could I know that you would love what I hated?--if you really love to be a Jew." The last words had such bitterness in them that any one overhearing might have supposed some hatred had arisen between the mother and son. But Deronda had recovered his fuller self. He was recalling his sensibilities to what life had been and actually was for her whose best years were gone, and who with the signs of suffering in her frame was now exerting herself to tell him of a past which was not his alone but also hers. His habitual shame at the acceptance of events as if they were his only, helped him even here. As he looked at his mother silently after her last words, his face regained some of its penetrative calm; yet it seemed to have a strangely agitating influence over her: her eyes were fixed on him with a sort of fascination, but not with any repose of maternal delight. "Forgive me, if I speak hastily," he said, with diffident gravity. "Why have you resolved now on disclosing to me what you took care to have me brought up in ignorance of? Why--since you seem angry that I should be glad?" "Oh--the reasons of our actions!" said the Princess, with a ring of something like sarcastic scorn. "When you are as old as I am, it will not seem so simple a question--'Why did you do this?' People talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster, but I have not felt exactly what other women feel--or say they feel, for fear of being thought unlike others. When you reproach me in your heart for sending you away from me, you mean that I ought to say I felt about you as other women say they feel about their children. I did _not_ feel that. I was glad to be freed from you. But I did well for you, and I gave you your father's fortune. Do I seem now to be revoking everything?--Well, there are reasons. I feel many things that I cannot understand. A fatal illness has been growing in me for a year. I shall very likely not live another year. I will not deny anything I have done. I will not pretend to love where I have no love. But shadows are rising round me. Sickness makes them. If I have wronged the dead--I have but little time to do what I left undone." The varied transitions of tone with which this speech was delivered were as perfect as the most accomplished actress could have made them. The speech was in fact a piece of what may be called sincere acting; this woman's nature was one in which all feeling--and all the more when it was tragic as well as real--immediately became matter of conscious representation: experience immediately passed into drama, and she acted her own emotions. In a minor degree this is nothing uncommon, but in the Princess the acting had a rare perfection of physiognomy, voice, and gesture. It would not be true to say that she felt less because of this double consciousness: she felt--that is, her mind went through--all the more, but with a difference; each nucleus of pain or pleasure had a deep atmosphere of the excitement or spiritual intoxication which at once exalts and deadens. But Deronda made no reflection of this kind. All his thoughts hung on the purport of what his mother was saying; her tones and her wonderful face entered into his agitation without being noted. What he longed for with an awed desire was to know as much as she would tell him of the strange mental conflict under which it seemed he had been brought into the world; what his compassionate nature made the controlling idea within him were the suffering and the confession that breathed through her later words, and these forbade any further question, when she paused and remained silent, with her brow knit, her head turned a little away from him, and her large eyes fixed as if on something incorporeal. He must wait for her to speak again. She did so with strange abruptness, turning her eyes upon him suddenly, and saying more quickly, "Sir Hugo has written much about you. He tells me you have a wonderful mind--you comprehend everything--you are wiser than he is with all his sixty years. You say you are glad to know that you were born a Jew. I am not going to tell you that I have changed my mind about that. Your feelings are against mine. You don't thank me for what I did. Shall you comprehend your mother, or only blame her?" "There is not a fibre within me but makes me wish to comprehend her," said Deronda, meeting her sharp gaze solemnly. "It is a bitter reversal of my longing to think of blaming her. What I have been most trying to do for fifteen years is to have some understanding of those who differ from myself." "Then you have become unlike your grandfather in that." said the mother, "though you are a young copy of him in your face. He never comprehended me, or if he did, he only thought of fettering me into obedience. I was to be what he called 'the Jewish woman' under pain of his curse. I was to feel everything I did not feel, and believe everything I did not believe. I was to feel awe for the bit of parchment in the _mezuza_ over the door; to dread lest a bit of butter should touch a bit of meat; to think it beautiful that men should bind the _tephillin_ on them, and women not,--to adore the wisdom of such laws, however silly they might seem to me. I was to love the long prayers in the ugly synagogue, and the howling, and the gabbling, and the dreadful fasts, and the tiresome feasts, and my father's endless discoursing about our people, which was a thunder without meaning in my ears. I was to care forever about what Israel had been; and I did not care at all. I cared for the wide world, and all that I could represent in it. I hated living under the shadow of my father's strictness. Teaching, teaching for everlasting--'this you must be,' 'that you must not be'--pressed on me like a frame that got tighter and tighter as I grew. I wanted to live a large life, with freedom to do what every one else did, and be carried along in a great current, not obliged to care. Ah!"--here her tone changed to one of a more bitter incisiveness--"you are glad to have been born a Jew. You say so. That is because you have not been brought up as a Jew. That separateness seems sweet to you because I saved you from it." "When you resolved on that, you meant that I should never know my origin?" said Deronda, impulsively. "You have at least changed in your feeling on that point." "Yes, that was what I meant. That is what I persevered in. And it is not true to say that I have changed. Things have changed in spite of me. I am still the same Leonora"--she pointed with her forefinger to her breast--"here within me is the same desire, the same will, the same choice, _but_"--she spread out her hands, palm upward, on each side of her, as she paused with a bitter compression of her lip, then let her voice fall into muffled, rapid utterance--"events come upon us like evil enchantments: and thoughts, feelings, apparitions in the darkness are events--are they not? I don't consent. We only consent to what we love. I obey something tyrannic"--she spread out her hands again--"I am forced to be withered, to feel pain, to be dying slowly. Do I love that? Well, I have been forced to obey my dead father. I have been forced to tell you that you are a Jew, and deliver to you what he commanded me to deliver." "I beseech you to tell me what moved you--when you were young, I mean--to take the course you did," said Deronda, trying by this reference to the past to escape from what to him was the heart-rending piteousness of this mingled suffering and defiance. "I gather that my grandfather opposed your bent to be an artist. Though my own experience has been quite different, I enter into the painfulness of your struggle. I can imagine the hardship of an enforced renunciation." "No," said the Princess, shaking her head and folding her arms with an air of decision. "You are not a woman. You may try--but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl. To have a pattern cut out--'this is the Jewish woman; this is what you must be; this is what you are wanted for; a woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.' That was what my father wanted. He wished I had been a son; he cared for me as a make-shift link. His heart was set on his Judaism. He hated that Jewish women should be thought of by the Christian world as a sort of ware to make public singers and actresses of. As if we were not the more enviable for that! That is a chance of escaping from bondage." "Was my grandfather a learned man?" said Deronda, eager to know particulars that he feared his mother might not think of. She answered impatiently, putting up her hand, "Oh, yes,--and a clever physician--and good: I don't deny that he was good. A man to be admired in a play--grand, with an iron will. Like the old Foscari before he pardons. But such men turn their wives and daughters into slaves. They would rule the world if they could; but not ruling the world, they throw all the weight of their will on the necks and souls of women. But nature sometimes thwarts them. My father had no other child than his daughter, and she was like himself." She had folded her arms again, and looked as if she were ready to face some impending attempt at mastery. "Your father was different. Unlike me--all lovingness and affection. I knew I could rule him; and I made him secretly promise me, before I married him, that he would put no hindrance in the way of my being an artist. My father was on his deathbed when we were married: from the first he had fixed his mind on my marrying my cousin Ephraim. And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment. I meant to have my will in the end, but I could only have it by seeming to obey. I had an awe of my father--always I had had an awe of him: it was impossible to help it. I hated to feel awed--I wished I could have defied him openly; but I never could. It was what I could not imagine: I could not act it to myself that I should begin to defy my father openly and succeed. And I never would risk failure." This last sentence was uttered with an abrupt emphasis, and she paused after it as if the words had raised a crowd of remembrances which obstructed speech. Her son was listening to her with feelings more and more highly mixed; the first sense of being repelled by the frank coldness which had replaced all his preconceptions of a mother's tender joy in the sight of him; the first impulses of indignation at what shocked his most cherished emotions and principles--all these busy elements of collision between them were subsiding for a time, and making more and more room for that effort at just allowance and that admiration of a forcible nature whose errors lay along high pathways, which he would have felt if, instead of being his mother, she had been a stranger who had appealed to his sympathy. Still it was impossible to be dispassionate: he trembled lest the next thing she had to say would be more repugnant to him than what had gone before: he was afraid of the strange coërcion she seemed to be under to lay her mind bare: he almost wished he could say, "Tell me only what is necessary," and then again he felt the fascination which made him watch her and listen to her eagerly. He tried to recall her to particulars by asking, "Where was my grandfather's home?" "Here in Genoa, where I was married; and his family had lived here generations ago. But my father had been in various countries." "You must surely have lived in England?" "My mother was English--a Jewess of Portuguese descent. My father married her in England. Certain circumstances of that marriage made all the difference in my life: through that marriage my father thwarted his own plans. My mother's sister was a singer, and afterward she married the English partner of a merchant's house here in Genoa, and they came and lived here eleven years. My mother died when I was eight years old, and my father allowed me to be continually with my Aunt Leonora and be taught under her eyes, as if he had not minded the danger of her encouraging my wish to be a singer, as she had been. But this was it--I saw it again and again in my father:--he did not guard against consequences, because he felt sure he could hinder them if he liked. Before my aunt left Genoa, I had had enough teaching to bring out the born singer and actress within me: my father did not know everything that was done; but he knew that I was taught music and singing--he knew my inclination. That was nothing to him: he meant that I should obey his will. And he was resolved that I should marry my cousin Ephraim, the only one left of my father's family that he knew. I wanted not to marry. I thought of all plans to resist it, but at last I found that I could rule my cousin, and I consented. My father died three weeks after we were married, and then I had my way!" She uttered these words almost exultantly; but after a little pause her face changed, and she said in a biting tone, "It has not lasted, though. My father is getting his way now." She began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presently said, "You are like him--but milder--there is something of your own father in you; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me: wound up his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me--he went against his conscience for me. As I loved the life of my art, so he loved me. Let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on. It was your father's ring." He drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. We know what kind of a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same type. As he felt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him the face that held the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by intensity, the strong bent of his nature toward a reverential tenderness asserted itself above every other impression and in his most fervent tone he said, "Mother! take us all into your heart--the living and the dead. Forgive every thing that hurts you in the past. Take my affection." She looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on the brow, and saying sadly, "I reject nothing, but I have nothing to give," she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. Deronda turned pale with what seems always more of a sensation than an emotion--the pain of repulsed tenderness. She noticed the expression of pain, and said, still with melodious melancholy in her tones, "It is better so. We must part again soon and you owe me no duties. I did not wish you to be born. I parted with you willingly. When your father died I resolved that I would have no more ties, but such as I could free myself from. I was the Alcharisi you have heard of: the name had magic wherever it was carried. Men courted me. Sir Hugo Mallinger was one who wished to marry me. He was madly in love with me. One day I asked him, 'Is there a man capable of doing something for love of me, and expecting nothing in return?' He said: 'What is it you want done?' I said, 'Take my boy and bring him up as an Englishman, and never let him know anything about his parents.' You were little more than two years old, and were sitting on his foot. He declared that he would pay money to have such a boy. I had not meditated much on the plan beforehand, but as soon as I had spoken about it, it took possession of me as something I could not rest without doing. At first he thought I was not serious, but I convinced him, and he was never surprised at anything. He agreed that it would be for your good, and the finest thing for you. A great singer and actress is a queen, but she gives no royalty to her son. All that happened at Naples. And afterward I made Sir Hugo the trustee of your fortune. That is what I did; and I had a joy in doing it. My father had tyrannized over me--he cared more about a grandson to come than he did about me: I counted as nothing. You were to be such a Jew as he; you were to be what he wanted. But you were my son, and it was my turn to say what you should be. I said you should not know you were a Jew." "And for months events have been preparing me to be glad that I am a Jew," said Deronda, his opposition roused again. The point touched the quick of his experience. "It would always have been better that I should have known the truth. I have always been rebelling against the secrecy that looked like shame. It is no shame to have Jewish parents--the shame is to disown it." "You say it was a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy," said his mother, with a flash of new anger. "There is no shame attaching to me. I have no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters and gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if we were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as theirs. I delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish separateness. I am not ashamed that I did it. It was the better for you." "Then why have you now undone the secrecy?--no, not undone it--the effects will never be undone. But why have you now sent for me to tell me that I am a Jew?" said Deronda, with an intensity of opposition in feeling that was almost bitter. It seemed as if her words had called out a latent obstinacy of race in him. "Why?--ah, why?" said the Princess, rising quickly and walking to the other side of the room, where she turned round and slowly approached him, as he, too, stood up. Then she began to speak again in a more veiled voice. "I can't explain; I can only say what is. I don't love my father's religion now any more than I did then. Before I married the second time I was baptized; I made myself like the people I lived among. I had a right to do it; I was not like a brute, obliged to go with my own herd. I have not repented; I will not say that I have repented. But yet"--here she had come near to her son, and paused; then again retreated a little and stood still, as if resolute not to give way utterly to an imperious influence; but, as she went on speaking, she became more and more unconscious of anything but the awe that subdued her voice. "It is illness, I don't doubt that it has been gathering illness--my mind has gone back: more than a year ago it began. You see my gray hair, my worn look: it has all come fast. Sometimes I am in an agony of pain--I dare say I shall be to-night. Then it is as if all the life I have chosen to live, all thoughts, all will, forsook me and left me alone in spots of memory, and I can't get away: my pain seems to keep me there. My childhood--my girlhood--the day of my marriage--the day of my father's death--there seems to be nothing since. Then a great horror comes over me: what do I know of life or death? and what my father called 'right' may be a power that is laying hold of me--that is clutching me now. Well, I will satisfy him. I cannot go into the darkness without satisfying him. I have hidden what was his. I thought once I would burn it. I have not burned it. I thank God I have not burned it!" She threw herself on her cushions again, visibly fatigued. Deronda, moved too strongly by her suffering for other impulses to act within him, drew near her, and said, entreatingly, "Will you not spare yourself this evening? Let us leave the rest till to-morrow." "No," she said decisively. "I will confess it all, now that I have come up to it. Often when I am at ease it all fades away; my whole self comes quite back; but I know it will sink away again, and the other will come--the poor, solitary, forsaken remains of self, that can resist nothing. It was my nature to resist, and say, 'I have a right to resist.' Well, I say so still when I have any strength in me. You have heard me say it, and I don't withdraw it. But when my strength goes, some other right forces itself upon me like iron in an inexorable hand; and even when I am at ease, it is beginning to make ghosts upon the daylight. And now you have made it worse for me," she said, with a sudden return of impetuosity; "but I shall have told you everything. And what reproach is there against me," she added bitterly, "since I have made you glad to be a Jew? Joseph Kalonymos reproached me: he said you had been turned into a proud Englishman, who resented being touched by a Jew. I wish you had!" she ended, with a new marvelous alternation. It was as if her mind were breaking into several, one jarring the other into impulsive action. "Who is Joseph Kalonymos?" said Deronda, with a darting recollection of that Jew who touched his arm in the Frankfort synagogue. "Ah! some vengeance sent him back from the East, that he might see you and come to reproach me. He was my father's friend. He knew of your birth: he knew of my husband's death, and once, twenty years ago, after he had been away in the Levant, he came to see me and inquire about you. I told him that you were dead: I meant you to be dead to all the world of my childhood. If I had said that you were living, he would have interfered with my plans: he would have taken on him to represent my father, and have tried to make me recall what I had done. What could I do but say you were dead? The act was done. If I had told him of it there would have been trouble and scandal--and all to conquer me, who would not have been conquered. I was strong then, and I would have had my will, though there might have been a hard fight against me. I took the way to have it without any fight. I felt then that I was not really deceiving: it would have come to the same in the end; or if not to the same, to something worse. He believed me and begged that I would give up to him the chest that my father had charged me and my husband to deliver to our eldest son. I knew what was in the chest--things that had been dinned in my ears since I had had any understanding--things that were thrust on my mind that I might feel them like a wall around my life--my life that was growing like a tree. Once, after my husband died, I was going to burn the chest. But it was difficult to burn; and burning a chest and papers looks like a shameful act. I have committed no shameful act--except what Jews would call shameful. I had kept the chest, and I gave it to Joseph Kalonymos. He went away mournful, and said, 'If you marry again, and if another grandson is born to him who is departed, I will deliver up the chest to him.' I bowed in silence. I meant not to marry again--no more than I meant to be the shattered woman that I am now." She ceased speaking, and her head sank back while she looked vaguely before her. Her thought was traveling through the years, and when she began to speak again her voice had lost its argumentative spirit, and had fallen into a veiled tone of distress. "But months ago this Kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at Frankfort. He saw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. There was nobody else in the world to whom the name would have told anything about me." "Then it is not my real name?" said Deronda, with a dislike even to this trifling part of the disguise which had been thrown round him. "Oh, as real as another," said his mother, indifferently. "The Jews have always been changing their names. My father's family had kept the name of Charisi: my husband was a Charisi. When I came out as a singer, we made it Alcharisi. But there had been a branch of the family my father had lost sight of who called themselves Deronda, and when I wanted a name for you, and Sir Hugo said, 'Let it be a foreign name,' I thought of Deronda. But Joseph Kalonymos had heard my father speak of the Deronda branch, and the name confirmed his suspicion. He began to suspect what had been done. It was as if everything had been whispered to him in the air. He found out where I was. He took a journey into Russia to see me; he found me weak and shattered. He had come back again, with his white hair, and with rage in his soul against me. He said I was going down to the grave clad in falsehood and robbery--falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child. He accused me of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, and having brought you up as if you had been the son of an English gentleman. Well, it was true; and twenty years before I would have maintained that I had a right to do it. But I can maintain nothing now. No faith is strong within me. My father may have God on his side. This man's words were like lion's teeth upon me. My father's threats eat into me with my pain. If I tell everything--if I deliver up everything--what else can be demanded of me? I cannot make myself love the people I have never loved--is it not enough that I lost the life I did love?" She had leaned forward a little in her low-toned pleading, that seemed like a smothered cry: her arms and hands were stretched out at full length, as if strained in beseeching, Deronda's soul was absorbed in the anguish of compassion. He could not mind now that he had been repulsed before. His pity made a flood of forgiveness within him. His single impulse was to kneel by her and take her hand gently, between his palms, while he said in that exquisite voice of soothing which expresses oneness with the sufferer, "Mother, take comfort!" She did not seem inclined to repulse him now, but looked down at him and let him take both her hands to fold between his. Gradually tears gathered, but she pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and then leaned her cheek against his brow, as if she wished that they should not look at each other. "Is it not possible that I could be near you often and comfort you?" said Deronda. He was under that stress of pity that propels us on sacrifices. "No, not possible," she answered, lifting up her head again and withdrawing her hand as if she wished him to move away. "I have a husband and five children. None of them know of your existence." Deronda felt painfully silenced. He rose and stood at a little distance. "You wonder why I married," she went on presently, under the influence of a newly-recurring thought. "I meant never to marry again. I meant to be free and to live for my art. I had parted with you. I had no bonds. For nine years I was a queen. I enjoyed the life I had longed for. But something befell me. It was like a fit of forgetfulness. I began to sing out of tune. They told me of it. Another woman was thrusting herself in my place. I could not endure the prospect of failure and decline. It was horrible to me." She started up again, with a shudder, and lifted screening hands like one who dreads missiles. "It drove me to marry. I made believe that I preferred being the wife of a Russian noble to being the greatest lyric actress of Europe; I made believe--I acted that part. It was because I felt my greatness sinking away from me, as I feel my life sinking now. I would not wait till men said, 'She had better go.'" She sank into her seat again, and looked at the evening sky as she went on: "I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing out of tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. I repented; but it was too late. I could not go back. All things hindered, me--all things." A new haggardness had come in her face, but her son refrained from again urging her to leave further speech till the morrow: there was evidently some mental relief for her in an outpouring such as she could never have allowed herself before. He stood still while she maintained silence longer than she knew, and the light was perceptibly fading. At last she turned to him and said, "I can bear no more now." She put out her hand, but then quickly withdrew it saying, "Stay. How do I know that I can see you again? I cannot bear to be seen when I am in pain." She drew forth a pocket-book, and taking out a letter said, "This is addressed to the banking-house in Mainz, where you are to go for your grandfather's chest. It is a letter written by Joseph Kalonymos: if he is not there himself, this order of his will be obeyed." When Deronda had taken the letter, she said, with effort but more gently than before, "Kneel again, and let me kiss you." He obeyed, and holding his head between her hands, she kissed him solemnly on the brow. "You see, I had no life left to love you with," she said, in a low murmur. "But there is more fortune for you. Sir Hugo was to keep it in reserve. I gave you all your father's fortune. They can never accuse me of robbery there." "If you had needed anything I would have worked for you," said Deronda, conscious of disappointed yearning--a shutting out forever from long early vistas of affectionate imagination. "I need nothing that the skill of man can give me," said his mother, still holding his head, and perusing his features. "But perhaps now I have satisfied my father's will, your face will come instead of his--your young, loving face." "But you will see me again?" said Deronda, anxiously. "Yes--perhaps. Wait, wait. Leave me now." CHAPTER LII. "La même fermeté qui sert à résister à l'amour sert aussi à le rendre violent et durable; et les personnes faibles qui sont toujours agitées des passions n'en sont presque jamais véritablement remplies." --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. Among Deronda's letters the next morning was one from Hans Meyrick of four quarto pages, in the small, beautiful handwriting which ran in the Meyrick family. MY DEAR DERONDA,--In return for your sketch of Italian movements and your view of the world's affairs generally, I may say that here at home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present causes is that "time will show." As to the present causes of past effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for the last year's cattle plague--which is a refutation of philosophy falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. My own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use of analogy; but there are minds that will not hesitate to rob even the neglected painter of his solace. To my feeling there is great beauty in the conception that some bad judge might give a high price for my Berenice series, and that the men in the city would have already been punished for my ill-merited luck. Meanwhile I am consoling myself for your absence by finding my advantage in it--shining like Hesperus when Hyperion has departed; sitting with our Hebrew prophet, and making a study of his head, in the hours when he used to be occupied with you--getting credit with him as a learned young Gentile, who would have been a Jew if he could --and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is best is for that reason Jewish. I never held it my _forte_ to be a severe reasoner, but I can see that if whatever is best is A, and B happens to be best, B must be A, however little you might have expected it beforehand. On that principle I could see the force of a pamphlet I once read to prove that all good art was Protestant. However, our prophet is an uncommonly interesting sitter--a better model than Rembrandt had for his Rabbi--and I never come away from him without a new discovery. For one thing, it is a constant wonder to me that, with all his fiery feeling for his race and their traditions, he is no straight-laced Jew, spitting after the word Christian, and enjoying the prospect that the Gentile mouth will water in vain for a slice of the roasted Leviathan, while Israel will be sending up plates for more, _ad libitum_, (You perceive that my studies had taught me what to expect from the orthodox Jew.) I confess that I have always held lightly by your account of Mordecai, as apologetic, and merely part of your disposition to make an antedeluvian point of view lest you should do injustice to the megatherium. But now I have given ear to him in his proper person, I find him really a sort of philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a bladder might soon be pricked in silence by him. The mixture may be one of the Jewish prerogatives, for what I know. In fact, his mind seems so broad that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite commodiously, and how they are to be brought into agreement with the vast remainder is his affair, not mine. I leave it to him to settle our basis, never yet having seen a basis which is not a world-supporting elephant, more or less powerful and expensive to keep. My means will not allow me to keep a private elephant. I go into mystery instead, as cheaper and more lasting--a sort of gas which is likely to be continually supplied by the decomposition of the elephants. And if I like the look of an opinion, I treat it civilly, without suspicious inquiries. I have quite a friendly feeling toward Mordecai's notion that a whole Christian is three-fourths a Jew, and that from the Alexandrian time downward the most comprehensive minds have been Jewish; for I think of pointing out to Mirah that, Arabic and other incidents of life apart, there is really little difference between me and--Maimonides. But I have lately been finding out that it is your shallow lover who can't help making a declaration. If Mirah's ways were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her presence and watch her, I must long ago have flung myself at her feet, and requested her to tell me, with less indirectness, whether she wished me to blow my brains out. I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may spoil all. My Hope wanders among the orchard blossoms, feels the warm snow falling on it through the sunshine, and is in doubt of nothing; but, catching sight of Certainty in the distance, sees an ugly Janus-faced deity, with a dubious wink on the hither side of him, and turns quickly away. But you, with your supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for the worst--you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation. (You observe my new vein of allegory?) Seriously, however, I must be permitted to allege that truth will prevail, that prejudice will melt before it, that diversity, accompanied by merit, will make itself felt as fascination, and that no virtuous aspiration will be frustrated--all which, if I mistake not, are doctrines of the schools, and they imply that the Jewess I prefer will prefer me. Any blockhead can cite generalities, but the mind-master discerns the particular cases they represent. I am less convinced that my society makes amends to Mordecai for your absence, but another substitute occasionally comes in the form of Jacob Cohen. It is worth while to catch our prophet's expression when he has that remarkable type of young Israel on his knee, and pours forth some Semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy patience and devoutness. Sometimes it occurs to Jacob that Hebrew will be more edifying to him if he stops his ears with his palms, and imitates the venerable sounds as heard through that muffled medium. When Mordecai gently draws down the little fists and holds them fast, Jacob's features all take on an extraordinary activity, very much as if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. But I dare say you have seen something of this. He treats me with the easiest familiarity, and seems in general to look at me as a second-hand Christian commodity, likely to come down in price; remarking on my disadvantages with a frankness which seems to imply some thoughts of future purchase. It is pretty, though, to see the change in him if Mirah happens to come in. He turns child suddenly--his age usually strikes one as being like the Israelitish garments in the desert, perhaps near forty, yet with an air of recent production. But, with Mirah, he reminds me of the dogs that have been brought up by women, and remain manageable by them only. Still, the dog is fond of Mordecai too, and brings sugar-plums to share with him, filling his own mouth to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how Mordecai deals with a smaller supply. Judging from this modern Jacob at the age of six, my astonishment is that his race has not bought us all up long ago, and pocketed our feebler generations in the form of stock and scrip, as so much slave property. There is one Jewess I should not mind being slave to. But I wish I did not imagine that Mirah gets a little sadder, and tries all the while to hide it. It is natural enough, of course, while she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she has taken to worshipping with such looks of loving devoutness that I am ready to wish myself in his place. For the rest, we are a little merrier than usual. Rex Gascoigne--you remember a head you admired among my sketches, a fellow with a good upper lip, reading law--has got some rooms in town now not far off us, and has had a neat sister (upper lip also good) staying with him the last fortnight. I have introduced them both to my mother and the girls, who have found out from Miss Gascoigne that she is cousin to your Vandyke duchess!!! I put the notes of exclamation to mark the surprise that the information at first produced on my feeble understanding. On reflection I discovered that there was not the least ground for surprise, unless I had beforehand believed that nobody could be anybody's cousin without my knowing it. This sort of surprise, I take it, depends on a liveliness of the spine, with a more or less constant nullity of brain. There was a fellow I used to meet at Rome who was in an effervescence of surprise at contact with the simplest information. Tell him what you would--that you were fond of easy boots--he would always say, "No! are you?" with the same energy of wonder: the very fellow of whom pastoral Browne wrote prophetically, "A wretch so empty that if e'er there be In nature found the least vacuity 'Twill be in him." I have accounted for it all--he had a lively spine. However, this cousinship with the duchess came out by chance one day that Mirah was with them at home and they were talking about the Mallingers. _Apropos_; I am getting so important that I have rival invitations. Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his father's rectory in August and see the country round there. But I think self-interest well understood will take me to Topping Abbey, for Sir Hugo has invited me, and proposes--God bless him for his rashness! --that I should make a picture of his three daughters sitting on a bank--as he says, in the Gainsborough style. He came to my studio the other day and recommended me to apply myself to portrait. Of course I know what that means.--"My good fellow, your attempts at the historic and poetic are simply pitiable. Your brush is just that of a successful portrait-painter--it has a little truth and a great facility in falsehood--your idealism will never do for gods and goddesses and heroic story, but it may fetch a high price as flattery. Fate, my friend, has made you the hinder wheel--_rota posterior curras, et in axe secundo_--run behind, because you can't help it." --What great effort it evidently costs our friends to give us these candid opinions! I have even known a man to take the trouble to call, in order to tell me that I had irretrievably exposed my want of judgment in treating my subject, and that if I had asked him we would have lent me his own judgment. Such was my ingratitude and my readiness at composition, that even while he was speaking I inwardly sketched a Last Judgment with that candid friend's physiognomy on the left. But all this is away from Sir Hugo, whose manner of implying that one's gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly good-natured and comfortable that I begin to feel it an advantage not to be among those poor fellows at the tip-top. And his kindness to me tastes all the better because it comes out of his love for you, old boy. His chat is uncommonly amusing. By the way, he told me that your Vandyke duchess is gone with her husband yachting to the Mediterranean. I bethink me that it is possible to land from a yacht, or to be taken on to a yacht from the land. Shall you by chance have an opportunity of continuing your theological discussion with the fair Supralapsarian--I think you said her tenets were of that complexion? Is Duke Alphonso also theological?--perhaps an Arian who objects to triplicity. (Stage direction. While D. is reading, a profound scorn gathers in his face till at the last word he flings down the letter, grasps his coat-collar in a statuesque attitude and so remains with a look generally tremendous, throughout the following soliloquy, "O night, O blackness, etc., etc.") Excuse the brevity of this letter. You are not used to more from me than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. One fact I have omitted--that the Klesmers on the eve of departure have behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. Mirah is rich with their oriental gifts. What luck it will be if you come back and present yourself at the Abbey while I am there! I am going to behave with consummate discretion and win golden opinions, But I shall run up to town now and then, just for a peep into Gad Eden. You see how far I have got in Hebrew lore--up with my Lord Bolingbroke, who knew no Hebrew, but "understood that sort of learning and what is writ about it." If Mirah commanded, I would go to a depth below the tri-literal roots. Already it makes no difference to me whether the points are there or not. But while her brother's life lasts I suspect she would not listen to a lover, even one whose "hair is like a flock of goats on Mount Gilead"--and I flatter myself that few heads would bear that trying comparison better than mine. So I stay with my hope among the orchard-blossoms. Your devoted, HANS MEYRICK. Some months before, this letter from Hans would have divided Deronda's thoughts irritatingly: its romancing, about Mirah would have had an unpleasant edge, scarcely anointed with any commiseration for his friend's probable disappointment. But things had altered since March. Mirah was no longer so critically placed with regard to the Meyricks, and Deronda's own position had been undergoing a change which had just been crowned by the revelation of his birth. The new opening toward the future, though he would not trust in any definite visions, inevitably shed new lights, and influenced his mood toward past and present; hence, what Hans called his hope now seemed to Deronda, not a mischievous unreasonableness which roused his indignation, but an unusually persistent bird-dance of an extravagant fancy, and he would have felt quite able to pity any consequent suffering of his friend's, if he had believed in the suffering as probable. But some of the busy thought filling that long day, which passed without his receiving any new summons from his mother, was given to the argument that Hans Meyrick's nature was not one in which love could strike the deep roots that turn disappointment into sorrow: it was too restless, too readily excitable by novelty, too ready to turn itself into imaginative material, and wear its grief as a fantastic costume. "Already he is beginning to play at love: he is taking the whole affair as a comedy," said Deronda to himself; "he knows very well that there is no chance for him. Just like him--never opening his eyes on any possible objection I could have to receive his outpourings about Mirah. Poor old Hans! If we were under a fiery hail together he would howl like a Greek, and if I did not howl too it would never occur to him that I was as badly off as he. And yet he is tender-hearted and affectionate in intention, and I can't say that he is not active in imagining what goes on in other people--but then he always imagines it to fit his own inclination." With this touch of causticity Deronda got rid of the slight heat at present raised by Hans's naive expansiveness. The nonsense about Gwendolen, conveying the fact that she was gone yachting with her husband, only suggested a disturbing sequel to his own strange parting with her. But there was one sentence in the letter which raised a more immediate, active anxiety. Hans's suspicion of a hidden sadness in Mirah was not in the direction of his wishes, and hence, instead of distrusting his observation here, Deronda began to conceive a cause for the sadness. Was it some event that had occurred during his absence, or only the growing fear of some event? Was it something, perhaps alterable, in the new position which had been made for her? Or--had Mordecai, against his habitual resolve, communicated to her those peculiar cherished hopes about him, Deronda, and had her quickly sensitive nature been hurt by the discovery that her brother's will or tenacity of visionary conviction had acted coercively on their friendship--been hurt by the fear that there was more of pitying self-suppression than of equal regard in Deronda's relation to him? For amidst all Mirah's quiet renunciation, the evident thirst of soul with which she received the tribute of equality implied a corresponding pain if she found that what she had taken for a purely reverential regard toward her brother had its mixture of condescension. In this last conjecture of Deronda's he was not wrong as to the quality in Mirah's nature on which he was founding--the latent protest against the treatment she had all her life being subject to until she met him. For that gratitude which would not let her pass by any notice of their acquaintance without insisting on the depth of her debt to him, took half its fervor from the keen comparison with what others had thought enough to render to her. Deronda's affinity in feeling enabled him to penetrate such secrets. But he was not near the truth in admitting the idea that Mordecai had broken his characteristic reticence. To no soul but Deronda himself had he yet breathed the history of their relation to each other, or his confidence about his friend's origin: it was not only that these subjects were for him too sacred to be spoken of without weighty reason, but that he had discerned Deronda's shrinking at any mention of his birth; and the severity of reserve which had hindered Mordecai from answering a question on a private affair of the Cohen family told yet more strongly here. "Ezra, how is it?" Mirah one day said to him--"I am continually going to speak to Mr. Deronda as if he were a Jew?" He smiled at her quietly, and said, "I suppose it is because he treats us as if he were our brother. But he loves not to have the difference of birth dwelt upon." "He has never lived with his parents, Mr. Hans, says," continued Mirah, to whom this was necessarily a question of interest about every one for whom she had a regard. "Seek not to know such things from Mr. Hans," said Mordecai, gravely, laying his hand on her curls, as he was wont. "What Daniel Deronda wishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us." And Mirah felt herself rebuked, as Deronda had done. But to be rebuked in this way by Mordecai made her rather proud. "I see no one so great as my brother," she said to Mrs. Meyrick one day that she called at the Chelsea house on her way home, and, according to her hope, found the little mother alone. "It is difficult to think that he belongs to the same world as those people I used to live amongst. I told you once that they made life seem like a madhouse; but when I am with Ezra he makes me feel that his life is a great good, though he has suffered so much; not like me, who wanted to die because I had suffered a little, and only for a little while. His soul is so full, it is impossible for him to wish for death as I did. I get the same sort of feeling from him that I got yesterday, when I was tired, and came home through the park after the sweet rain had fallen and the sunshine lay on the grass and flowers. Everything in the sky and under the sky looked so pure and beautiful that the weariness and trouble and folly seemed only a small part of what is, and I became more patient and hopeful." A dove-like note of melancholy in this speech caused Mrs. Meyrick to look at Mirah with new examination. After laying down her hat and pushing her curls flat, with an air of fatigue, she placed herself on a chair opposite her friend in her habitual attitude, her feet and hands just crossed; and at a distance she might have seemed a colored statue of serenity. But Mrs. Meyrick discerned a new look of suppressed suffering in her face, which corresponded to the hint that to be patient and hopeful required some extra influence. "Is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?" said Mrs. Meyrick, giving up her needlework as a sign of concentrated attention. Mirah hesitated before she said, "I am too ready to speak of troubles, I think. It seems unkind to put anything painful into other people's minds, unless one were sure it would hinder something worse. And perhaps I am too hasty and fearful." "Oh, my dear, mothers are made to like pain and trouble for the sake of their children. Is it because the singing lessons are so few, and are likely to fall off when the season comes to an end? Success in these things can't come all at once." Mrs. Meyrick did not believe that she was touching the real grief; but a guess that could be corrected would make an easier channel for confidence. "No, not that," said Mirah, shaking her head gently. "I have been a little disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give them or their daughters lessons, and then I never heard of them again, But perhaps after the holidays I shall teach in some schools. Besides, you know, I am as rich as a princess now. I have not touched the hundred pounds that Mrs. Klesmer gave me; and I should never be afraid that Ezra would be in want of anything, because there Mr. Deronda," and he said, 'It is the chief honor of my life that your brother will share anything with me.' Oh, no! Ezra and I can have no fears for each other about such things as food and clothing." "But there is some other fear on your mind," said Mrs. Meyrick not without divination--"a fear of something that may disturb your peace. Don't be forecasting evil, dear child, unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense. But there's no defense against all the things that might be. Have you any more reason for being anxious now than you had a month ago?" "Yes, I have," said Mirah. "I have kept it from Ezra. I have not dared to tell him. Pray forgive me that I can't do without telling you. I _have_ more reason for being anxious. It is five days ago now. I am quite sure I saw my father." Mrs. Meyrick shrank into a smaller space, packing her arms across her chest and leaning forward--to hinder herself from pelting that father with her worst epithets. "The year has changed him," Mirah went on. "He had already been much altered and worn in the time before I left him. You remember I said how he used sometimes to cry. He was always excited one way or the other. I have told Ezra everything that I told you, and he says that my father had taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then again exalted. And now--it was only a moment that I saw him--his face was more haggard, and his clothes were shabby. He was with a much worse-looking man, who carried something, and they were hurrying along after an omnibus." "Well, child, he did not see you, I hope?" "No. I had just come from Mrs. Raymond's, and I was waiting to cross near the Marble Arch. Soon he was on the omnibus and gone out of sight. It was a dreadful moment. My old life seemed to have come back again, and it was worse than it had ever been before. And I could not help feeling it a new deliverance that he was gone out of sight without knowing that I was there. And yet it hurt me that I was feeling so--it seemed hateful in me--almost like words I once had to speak in a play, that 'I had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.' For where might my father be going? What may become of him? And his having a daughter who would own him in spite of all, might have hindered the worst. Is there any pain like seeing what ought to be the best things in life turned into the worst? All those opposite feelings were meeting and pressing against each other, and took up all my strength. No one could act that. Acting is slow and poor to what we go through within. I don't know how I called a cab. I only remember that I was in it when I began to think, 'I cannot tell Ezra; he must not know.'" "You are afraid of grieving him?" Mrs. Meyrick asked, when Mirah had paused a little. "Yes--and there is something more," said Mirah, hesitatingly, as if she were examining her feeling before she would venture to speak of it. "I want to tell you; I cannot tell any one else. I could not have told my own mother: I should have closed it up before her. I feel shame for my father, and it is perhaps strange--but the shame is greater before Ezra than before any one else in the world. He desired me to tell him all about my life, and I obeyed him. But it is always like a smart to me to know that those things about my father are in Ezra's mind. And--can you believe it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father were to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would scorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. That is the truth. I don't know whether it is a right feeling. But I can't help thinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and bear a great deal in that way, if I could hinder him from meeting my brother." "You must not encourage that feeling, Mirah," said Mrs. Meyrick, hastily. "It would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. You must not have concealment of that sort." "But ought I now to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?" said Mirah, with deprecation in her tone. "No," Mrs. Meyrick answered, dubitatively. "I don't know that it is necessary to do that. Your father may go away with the birds. It is not clear that he came after you; you may never see him again. And then your brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. But promise me that if your father sees you--gets hold of you in any way again--and you will let us all know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah. I have a right to ask it." Mirah reflected a little, then leaned forward to put her hands in Mrs. Meyrick's, and said, "Since you ask it, I do promise. I will bear this feeling of shame. I have been so long used to think that I must bear that sort of inward pain. But the shame for my father burns me more when I think of his meeting Ezra." She was silent a moment or two, and then said, in a new tone of yearning compassion, "And we are his children--and he was once young like us--and my mother loved him. Oh! I cannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty." Mirah shed no tears: the discipline of her whole life had been against indulgence in such manifestation, which soon falls under the control of strong motives; but it seemed that the more intense expression of sorrow had entered into her voice. Mrs. Meyrick, with all her quickness and loving insight, did not quite understand that filial feeling in Mirah which had active roots deep below her indignation for the worst offenses. She could conceive that a mother would have a clinging pity and shame for a reprobate son, but she was out of patience with what she held an exaggerated susceptibility on behalf of this father, whose reappearance inclined her to wish him under the care of a turnkey. Mirah's promise, however, was some security against her weakness. That incident was the only reason that Mirah herself could have stated for the hidden sadness which Hans had divined. Of one element in her changed mood she could have given no definite account: it was something as dim as the sense of approaching weather-change, and had extremely slight external promptings, such as we are often ashamed to find all we can allege in support of the busy constructions that go on within us, not only without effort, but even against it, under the influence of any blind emotional stirring. Perhaps the first leaven of uneasiness was laid by Gwendolen's behavior on that visit which was entirely superfluous as a means of engaging Mirah to sing, and could have no other motive than the excited and strange questioning about Deronda. Mirah had instinctively kept the visit a secret, but the active remembrance of it had raised a new susceptibility in her, and made her alive as she had never been before to the relations Deronda must have with that society which she herself was getting frequent glimpses of without belonging to it. Her peculiar life and education had produced in her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness, with knowledge of the world's evil, and even this knowledge was a strange blending of direct observation with the effects of reading and theatrical study. Her memory was furnished with abundant passionate situation and intrigue, which she never made emotionally her own, but felt a repelled aloofness from, as she had done from the actual life around her. Some of that imaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around Mrs. Grandcourt; and though Mirah would admit no position likely to affect her reverence for Deronda, she could not avoid a new painfully vivid association of his general life with a world away from her own, where there might be some involvement of his feeling and action with a woman like Gwendolen, who was increasingly repugnant to her--increasingly, even after she had ceased to see her; for liking and disliking can grow in meditation as fast as in the more immediate kind of presence. Any disquietude consciously due to the idea that Deronda's deepest care might be for something remote not only from herself but even from his friendship for her brother, she would have checked with rebuking questions:--What was she but one who had shared his generous kindness with many others? and his attachment to her brother, was it not begun late to be soon ended? Other ties had come before, and others would remain after this had been cut by swift-coming death. But her uneasiness had not reached that point of self-recognition in which she would have been ashamed of it as an indirect, presumptuous claim on Deronda's feeling. That she or any one else should think of him as her possible lover was a conception which had never entered her mind; indeed it was equally out of the question with Mrs. Meyrick and the girls, who with Mirah herself regarded his intervention in her life as something exceptional, and were so impressed by his mission as her deliverer and guardian that they would have held it an offense to him at his holding any other relation toward her: a point of view which Hans also had readily adopted. It is a little hard upon some men that they appear to sink for us in becoming lovers. But precisely to this innocence of the Meyricks was owing the disturbance of Mirah's unconsciousness. The first occasion could hardly have been more trivial, but it prepared her emotive nature for a deeper effect from what happened afterward. It was when Anna Gascoigne, visiting the Meyricks; was led to speak of her cousinship with Gwendolen. The visit had been arranged that Anna might see Mirah; the three girls were at home with their mother, and there was naturally a flux of talk among six feminine creatures, free from the presence of a distorting male standard. Anna Gascoigne felt herself much at home with the Meyrick girls, who knew what it was to have a brother, and to be generally regarded as of minor importance in the world; and she had told Rex that she thought the University very nice, because brothers made friends there whose families were not rich and grand, and yet (like the University) were very nice. The Meyricks seemed to her almost alarmingly clever, and she consulted them much on the best mode of teaching Lotta, confiding to them that she herself was the least clever of her family. Mirah had lately come in, and there was a complete bouquet of young faces around the tea-table--Hafiz, seated a little aloft with large eyes on the alert, regarding the whole scene as an apparatus for supplying his allowance of milk. "Think of our surprise, Mirah," said Kate. "We were speaking of Mr. Deronda and the Mallingers, and it turns out that Miss Gascoigne knows them." "I only knew about them," said Anna, a little flushed with excitement, what she had heard and now saw of the lovely Jewess being an almost startling novelty to her. "I have not even seen them. But some months ago, my cousin married Sir Hugo Mallinger's nephew, Mr. Grandcourt, who lived in Sir Hugo's place at Diplow, near us." "There!" exclaimed Mab, clasping her hands. "Something must come of that. Mrs. Grandcourt, the Vandyke duchess, is your cousin?" "Oh, yes; I was her bridesmaid," said Anna. "Her mamma and mine are sisters. My aunt was much richer before last year, but then she and mamma lost all their fortune. Papa is a clergyman, you know, so it makes very little difference to us, except that we keep no carriage, and have no dinner parties--and I like it better. But it was very sad for poor Aunt Davilow, for she could not live with us, because she has four daughters besides Gwendolen; but then, when she married Mr. Grandcourt, it did not signify so much, because of his being so rich." "Oh, this finding out relationships is delightful!" said Mab. "It is like a Chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. I feel sure something wonderful may be made of it, but I can't tell what." "Dear me, Mab," said Amy, "relationships must branch out. The only difference is, that we happen to know some of the people concerned. Such things are going on every day." "And pray, Amy, why do you insist on the number nine being so wonderful?" said Mab. "I am sure that is happening every day. Never mind, Miss Gascoigne; please go on. And Mr. Deronda?--have you never seen Mr. Deronda? You _must_ bring him in." "No, I have not seen him," said Anna; "but he was at Diplow before my cousin was married, and I have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa. She said what you have been saying about him--only not so much: I mean, about Mr. Deronda living with Sir Hugo Mallinger, and being so nice, she thought. We talk a great deal about every one who comes near Pennicote, because it is so seldom there is any one new. But I remember, when I asked Gwendolen what she thought of Mr. Deronda, she said, 'Don't mention it, Anna: but I think his hair is dark.' That was her droll way of answering: she was always so lively. It is really rather wonderful that I should come to hear so much about him, all through Mr. Hans knowing Rex, and then my having the pleasure of knowing you," Anna ended, looking at Mrs. Meyrick with a shy grace. "The pleasure is on our side too; but the wonder would have been, if you had come to this house without hearing of Mr. Deronda--wouldn't it, Mirah?" said Mrs. Meyrick. Mirah smiled acquiescently, but had nothing to say. A confused discontent took possession of her at the mingling of names and images to which she had been listening. "My son calls Mrs. Grandcourt the Vandyke duchess," continued Mrs. Meyrick, turning again to Anna; "he thinks her so striking and picturesque." "Yes," said Anna. "Gwendolen was always so beautiful--people fell dreadfully in love with her. I thought it a pity, because it made them unhappy." "And how do you like Mr. Grandcourt, the happy lover?" said Mrs. Meyrick, who, in her way, was as much interested as Mab in the hints she had been hearing of vicissitude in the life of a widow with daughters. "Papa approved of Gwendolen's accepting him, and my aunt says he is very generous," said Anna, beginning with a virtuous intention of repressing her own sentiments; but then, unable to resist a rare occasion for speaking them freely, she went on--"else I should have thought he was not very nice--rather proud, and not at all lively, like Gwendolen. I should have thought some one younger and more lively would have suited her better. But, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us better than any one makes us think worse of others." "Wait till you see Mr. Deronda," said Mab, nodding significantly. "Nobody's brother will do after him." "Our brothers _must_ do for people's husbands," said Kate, curtly, "because they will not get Mr. Deronda. No woman will do for him to marry." "No woman ought to want him to marry him," said Mab, with indignation. "_I_ never should. Fancy finding out that he had a tailor's bill, and used boot-hooks, like Hans. Who ever thought of his marrying?" "I have," said Kate. "When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece to 'Hearts and Diamonds,' I made a sort of likeness to him for the bridegroom, and I went about looking for a grand woman who would do for his countess, but I saw none that would not be poor creatures by the side of him." "You should have seen this Mrs. Grandcourt then," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Hans says that she and Mr. Deronda set each other off when they are side by side. She is tall and fair. But you know her, Mirah--you can always say something descriptive. What do _you_ think of Mrs. Grandcourt?" "I think she is the _Princess of Eboli_ in _Don Carlos_," said Mirah, with a quick intensity. She was pursuing an association in her own mind not intelligible to her hearers--an association with a certain actress as well as the part she represented. "Your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear," said Mrs. Meyrick, smiling. "You said that Mrs. Grandcourt was tall and fair," continued Mirah, slightly paler. "That is quite true." Mrs. Meyrick's quick eye and ear detected something unusual, but immediately explained it to herself. Fine ladies had often wounded Mirah by caprices of manner and intention. "Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah," she said turning to Anna. "But many have talked of having lessons, and then have found no time. Fashionable ladies have too much work to do." And the chat went on without further insistence on the _Princess of Eboli_. That comparison escaped Mirah's lips under the urgency of a pang unlike anything she had felt before. The conversation from the beginning had revived unpleasant impressions, and Mrs. Meyrick's suggestion of Gwendolen's figure by the side of Deronda's had the stinging effect of a voice outside her, confirming her secret conviction that this tall and fair woman had some hold on his lot. For a long while afterward she felt as if she had had a jarring shock through her frame. In the evening, putting her cheek against her brother's shoulder as she was sitting by him, while he sat propped up in bed under a new difficulty of breathing, she said, "Ezra, does it ever hurt your love for Mr. Deronda that so much of his life was all hidden away from you--that he is amongst persons and cares about persons who are all so unlike us--I mean unlike you?" "No, assuredly no," said Mordecai. "Rather it is a precious thought to me that he has a preparation which I lacked, and is an accomplished Egyptian." Then, recollecting that his words had reference which his sister must not yet understand, he added, "I have the more to give him, since his treasure differs from mine. That is a blessedness in friendship." Mirah mused a little. "Still," she said, "it would be a trial to your love for him if that other part of his life were like a crowd in which he had got entangled, so that he was carried away from you--I mean in his thoughts, and not merely carried out of sight as he is now--and not merely for a little while, but continually. How should you bear that! Our religion commands us to bear. But how should you bear it?" "Not well, my sister--not well; but it will never happen," said Mordecai, looking at her with a tender smile. He thought that her heart needed comfort on his account. Mirah said no more. She mused over the difference between her own state of mind and her brother's, and felt her comparative pettiness. Why could she not be completely satisfied with what satisfied his larger judgment? She gave herself no fuller reason than a painful sense of unfitness--in what? Airy possibilities to which she could give no outline, but to which one name and one figure gave the wandering persistency of a blot in her vision. Here lay the vaguer source of the hidden sadness rendered noticeable to Hans by some diminution of that sweet ease, that ready joyousness of response in her speech and smile, which had come with the new sense of freedom and safety, and had made her presence like the freshly-opened daisies and clear bird-notes after the rain. She herself regarded her uneasiness as a sort of ingratitude and dullness of sensibility toward the great things that had been given her in her new life; and whenever she threw more energy than usual into her singing, it was the energy of indignation against the shallowness of her own content. In that mood she once said, "Shall I tell you what is the difference between you and me, Ezra? You are a spring in the drought, and I am an acorn-cup; the waters of heaven fill me, but the least little shake leaves me empty." "Why, what has shaken thee?" said Mordecai. He fell into this antique form of speech habitually in talking to his sister and to the Cohen children. "Thoughts," said Mirah; "thoughts that come like the breeze and shake me--bad people, wrong things, misery--and how they might touch our life." "We must take our portion, Mirah. It is there. On whose shoulder would we lay it, that we might be free?" The one voluntary sign she made of her inward care was this distant allusion. CHAPTER LIII. "My desolation does begin to make A better life." --SHAKESPEARE: _Antony and Cleopatra._ Before Deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a day had passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she was not yet well enough to receive him again; but on the third morning he had a note saying, "I leave to-day. Come and see me at once." He was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened with blinds and curtains. The Princess was not there, but she presently entered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a dusky orange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms showing themselves bare from under her wide sleeves. Her face seemed even more impressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines more vigorous. You might have imagined her a sorceress who would stretch forth her wonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for others, but scorned to mix them for herself, having had enough of youth. She put her arms on her son's shoulders at once, and kissed him on both cheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assured firmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview, and told Deronda to sit down by her. He obeyed, saying, "You are quite relieved now, I trust?" "Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like to ask me?" she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother. "Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with my grandfather?" said Deronda. "No," she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, "it is pulled down--not to be found. But about our family, and where my father lived at various times--you will find all that among the papers in the chest, better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a physician. My mother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things without listening. You will find them all. I was born amongst them without my will. I banished them as soon as I could." Deronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, "Anything else that I should desire to know from you could only be what it is some satisfaction to your own feeling to tell me." "I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me," said the Princess, looking coldly meditative. It seemed as if she had exhausted her emotion in their former interview. The fact was, she had said to herself, "I have done it all. I have confessed all. I will not go through it again. I will save myself from agitation." And she was acting out that scheme. But to Deronda's nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial yearning of his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there were no longer the symbols of sacredness. It seemed that all the woman lacking in her was present in him, as he said, with some tremor in his voice, "Then are we to part and I never be anything to you?" "It is better so," said the Princess, in a softer, mellower voice. "There could be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible for you to take the place of my son. You would not love me. Don't deny it," she said, abruptly, putting up her hand. "I know what is the truth. You don't like what I did. You are angry with me. You think I robbed you of something. You are on your grandfather's side, and you will always have a condemnation of me in your heart." Deronda felt himself under a ban of silence. He rose from his seat by her, preferring to stand, if he had to obey that imperious prohibition of any tenderness. But his mother now looked up at him with a new admiration in her glance, saying, "You are wrong to be angry with me. You are the better for what I did." After pausing a little, she added, abruptly, "And now tell me what you shall do?" "Do you mean now, immediately," said Deronda; "or as to the course of my future life?" "I mean in the future. What difference will it make to you that I have told you about your birth?" "A very great difference," said Deronda, emphatically. "I can hardly think of anything that would make a greater difference." "What shall you do then?" said the Princess, with more sharpness. "Make yourself just like your grandfather--be what he wished you--turn yourself into a Jew like him?" "That is impossible. The effect of my education can never be done away with. The Christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never die out of me," said Deronda, with increasing tenacity of tone. "But I consider it my duty--it is the impulse of my feeling--to identify myself, as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if I can see any work to be done for them that I can give my soul and hand to I shall choose to do it." His mother had her eyes fixed on him with a wondering speculation, examining his face as if she thought that by close attention she could read a difficult language there. He bore her gaze very firmly, sustained by a resolute opposition, which was the expression of his fullest self. She bent toward him a little, and said, with a decisive emphasis, "You are in love with a Jewess." Deronda colored and said, "My reasons would be independent of any such fact." "I know better. I have seen what men are," said the Princess, peremptorily. "Tell me the truth. She is a Jewess who will not accept any one but a Jew. There _are_ a few such," she added, with a touch of scorn. Deronda had that objection to answer which we all have known in speaking to those who are too certain of their own fixed interpretations to be enlightened by anything we may say. But besides this, the point immediately in question was one on which he felt a repugnance either to deny or affirm. He remained silent, and she presently said, "You love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as I drew him." Those words touched Deronda's filial imagination, and some tenderness in his glance was taken by his mother as an assent. She went on with rising passion: "But I was leading him the other way. And now your grandfather is getting his revenge." "Mother," said Deronda, remonstrantly, "don't let us think of it in that way. I will admit that there may come some benefit from the education you chose for me. I prefer cherishing the benefit with gratitude, to dwelling with resentment on the injury. I think it would have been right that I should have been brought up with the consciousness that I was a Jew, but it must always have been a good to me to have as wide an instruction and sympathy as possible. And now, you have restored me my inheritance--events have brought a fuller restitution than you could have made--you have been saved from robbing my people of my service and me of my duty: can you not bring your whole soul to consent to this?" Deronda paused in his pleading: his mother looked at him listeningly, as if the cadence of his voice were taking her ear, yet she shook her head slowly. He began again, even more urgently. "You have told me that you sought what you held the best for me: open your heart to relenting and love toward my grandfather, who sought what he held the best for you." "Not for me, no," she said, shaking her head with more absolute denial, and folding her arms tightly. "I tell you, he never thought of his daughter except as an instrument. Because I had wants outside his purpose, I was to be put in a frame and tortured. If that is the right law for the world, I will not say that I love it. If my acts were wrong--if it is God who is exacting from me that I should deliver up what I withheld--who is punishing me because I deceived my father and did not warn him that I should contradict his trust--well, I have told everything. I have done what I could. And _your_ soul consents. That is enough. I have after all been the instrument my father wanted.--'I desire a grandson who shall have a true Jewish heart. Every Jew should rear his family as if he hoped that a Deliverer might spring from it.'" In uttering these last sentences the Princess narrowed her eyes, waved her head up and down, and spoke slowly with a new kind of chest-voice, as if she were quoting unwillingly. "Were those my grandfather's words?" said Deronda. "Yes, yes; and you will find them written. I wanted to thwart him," said the Princess, with a sudden outburst of the passion she had shown in the former interview. Then she added more slowly, "You would have me love what I have hated from the time I was so high"--here she held her left hand a yard from the floor.--"That can never be. But what does it matter? His yoke has been on me, whether I loved it or not. You are the grandson he wanted. You speak as men do--as if you felt yourself wise. What does it all mean?" Her tone was abrupt and scornful. Deronda, in his pained feeling, and under the solemn urgency of the moment, had to keep a clutching remembrance of their relationship, lest his words should become cruel. He began in a deep entreating tone: "Mother, don't say that I feel myself wise. We are set in the midst of difficulties. I see no other way to get any clearness than by being truthful--not by keeping back facts which may--which should carry obligation within them--which should make the only guidance toward duty. No wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite of concealments. The effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph over a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of self. Your will was strong, but my grandfather's trust which you accepted and did not fulfill--what you call his yoke--is the expression of something stronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into the foundations of sacredness for all men. You renounced me--you still banish me--as a son"--there was an involuntary movement of indignation in Deronda's voice--"But that stronger Something has determined that I shall be all the more the grandson whom also you willed to annihilate." His mother was watching him fixedly, and again her face gathered admiration. After a moment's silence she said, in a low, persuasive tone, "Sit down again," and he obeyed, placing himself beside her. She laid her hand on his shoulder and went on, "You rebuke me. Well--I am the loser. And you are angry because I banish you. What could you do for me but weary your own patience? Your mother is a shattered woman. My sense of life is little more than a sense of what was--except when the pain is present. You reproach me that I parted with you. I had joy enough without you then. Now you are come back to me, and I cannot make you a joy. Have you the cursing spirit of the Jew in you? Are you not able to forgive me? Shall you be glad to think that I am punished because I was not a Jewish mother to you?" "How can you ask me that?" said Deronda, remonstrantly. "Have I not besought you that I might now at least be a son to you? My grief is that you have declared me helpless to comfort you. I would give up much that is dear for the sake of soothing your anguish." "You shall give up nothing," said his mother, with the hurry of agitation. "You shall be happy. You shall let me think of you as happy. I shall have done you no harm. You have no reason to curse me. You shall feel for me as they feel for the dead whom they say prayers for--you shall long that I may be freed from all suffering--from all punishment. And I shall see you instead of always seeing your grandfather. Will any harm come to me because I broke his trust in the daylight after he was gone into darkness? I cannot tell:--if you think _Kaddish_ will help me--say it, say it. You will come between me and the dead. When I am in your mind, you will look as you do now--always as if you were a tender son--always--as if I had been a tender mother." She seemed resolved that her agitation should not conquer her, but he felt her hand trembling on his shoulder. Deep, deep compassion hemmed in all words. With a face of beseeching he put his arm around her and pressed her head tenderly under his. They sat so for some moments. Then she lifted her head again and rose from her seat with a great sigh, as if in that breath she were dismissing a weight of thoughts. Deronda, standing in front of her, felt that the parting was near. But one of her swift alternations had come upon his mother. "Is she beautiful?" she said, abruptly. "Who?" said Deronda, changing color. "The woman you love." It was not a moment for deliberate explanation. He was obliged to say, "Yes." "Not ambitious?" "No, I think not." "Not one who must have a path of her own?" "I think her nature is not given to make great claims." "She is not like that?" said the Princess, taking from her wallet a miniature with jewels around it, and holding it before her son. It was her own in all the fire of youth, and as Deronda looked at it with admiring sadness, she said, "Had I not a rightful claim to be something more than a mere daughter and mother? The voice and the genius matched the face. Whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that I had a right to be an artist, though my father's will was against it. My nature gave me a charter." "I do acknowledge that," said Deronda, looking from the miniature to her face, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living force beyond anything that the pencil could show. "Will you take the portrait?" said the Princess, more gently. "If she is a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly." "I shall be grateful for the portrait," said Deronda, "but--I ought to say, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for me. I have kept silence." "Who and what is she?" said the mother. The question seemed a command. "She was brought up as a singer for the stage," said Deronda, with inward reluctance. "Her father took her away early from her mother, and her life has been unhappy. She is very young--only twenty. Her father wished to bring her up in disregard--even in dislike of her Jewish origin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her mother and the fellowship of her people." "Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of," said the Princess, peremptorily. "That is poetry--fit to last through an opera night. Is she fond of her artist's life--is her singing worth anything?" "Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. I think that the artist's life has been made repugnant to her." "Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly against being a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself be merged in a wife, as your father was." "I repeat," said Deronda, emphatically--"I repeat that I have no assurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be united. Other things--painful issues may lie before me. I have always felt that I should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that prospect. But I suppose I might feel so of happiness in general. Whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it." "Do you feel in that way?" said his mother, laying her hands on his shoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative tone, pausing between her sentences. "Poor boy!----I wonder how it would have been if I had kept you with me----whether you would have turned your heart to the old things against mine----and we should have quarreled----your grandfather would have been in you----and you would have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root." "I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling," said Deronda, saddened more and more, "and that would not have hampered--surely it would have enriched your life." "Not then, not then----I did not want it then----I might have been glad of it now," said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, "if I could have been glad of anything." "But you love your other children, and they love you?" said Deronda, anxiously. "Oh, yes," she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, while she folded her arms again. "But,"----she added in a deeper tone,----"I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to love--I lack it. Others have loved me--and I have acted their love. I know very well what love makes of men and women--it is subjection. It takes another for a larger self, enclosing this one,"--she pointed to her own bosom. "I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been subject to me." "Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two," said Deronda--not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother's privation. "Perhaps--but I _was_ happy--for a few years I was happy. If I had not been afraid of defeat and failure, I might have gone on. I miscalculated. What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of 'another life,' as if it only began on the other side of the grave. I have long entered on another life." With the last words she raised her arms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one deep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky flame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some region of departed mortals. Deronda's feeling was wrought to a pitch of acuteness in which he was no longer quite master of himself. He gave an audible sob. His mother opened her eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders, said, "Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kiss me." He clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other. Deronda did not know how he got out of the room. He felt an older man. All his boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished. He had gone through a tragic experience which must forever solemnize his life and deepen the significance of the acts by which he bound himself to others. CHAPTER LIV. "The unwilling brain Feigns often what it would not; and we trust Imagination with such phantasies As the tongue dares not fashion into words; Which have no words, their horror makes them dim To the mind's eye." --SHELLEY. Madonna Pia, whose husband, feeling himself injured by her, took her to his castle amid the swampy flats of the Maremma and got rid of her there, makes a pathetic figure in Dante's Purgatory, among the sinners who repented at the last and desire to be remembered compassionately by their fellow-countrymen. We know little about the grounds of mutual discontent between the Siennese couple, but we may infer with some confidence that the husband had never been a very delightful companion, and that on the flats of the Maremma his disagreeable manners had a background which threw them out remarkably; whence in his desire to punish his wife to the upmost, the nature of things was so far against him that in relieving himself of her he could not avoid making the relief mutual. And thus, without any hardness to the poor Tuscan lady, who had her deliverance long ago, one may feel warranted in thinking of her with a less sympathetic interest than of the better known Gwendolen who, instead of being delivered from her errors on earth and cleansed from their effect in purgatory, is at the very height of her entanglement in those fatal meshes which are woven within more closely than without, and often make the inward torture disproportionate to what is discernable as outward cause. In taking his wife with him on a yachting expedition, Grandcourt had no intention to get rid of her; on the contrary, he wanted to feel more securely that she was his to do as he liked with, and to make her feel it also. Moreover, he was himself very fond of yachting: its dreamy do-nothing absolutism, unmolested by social demands, suited his disposition, and he did not in the least regard it as an equivalent for the dreariness of the Maremma. He had his reasons for carrying Gwendolen out of reach, but they were not reasons that can seem black in the mere statement. He suspected a growing spirit of opposition in her, and his feeling about the sentimental inclination she betrayed for Deronda was what in another man he would have called jealousy. In himself it seemed merely a resolution to put an end to such foolery as must have been going on in that prearranged visit of Deronda's which he had divined and interrupted. And Grandcourt might have pleaded that he was perfectly justified in taking care that his wife should fulfill the obligations she had accepted. Her marriage was a contract where all the ostensible advantages were on her side, and it was only of those advantages that her husband should use his power to hinder her from any injurious self committal or unsuitable behavior. He knew quite well that she had not married him--had not overcome her repugnance to certain facts--out of love to him personally; he had won her by the rank and luxuries he had to give her, and these she had got: he had fulfilled his side of the contract. And Gwendolen, we know, was thoroughly aware of the situation. She could not excuse herself by saying that there had been a tacit part of the contract on her side--namely, that she meant to rule and have her own way. With all her early indulgence in the disposition to dominate, she was not one of the narrow-brained women who through life regard all their own selfish demands as rights, and every claim upon themselves as an injury. She had a root of conscience in her, and the process of purgatory had begun for her on the green earth: she knew that she had been wrong. But now enter into the soul of this young creature as she found herself, with the blue Mediterranean dividing her from the world, on the tiny plank-island of a yacht, the domain of the husband to whom she felt that she had sold herself, and had been paid the strict price--nay, paid more than she had dared to ask in the handsome maintenance of her mother:--the husband to whom she had sold her truthfulness and sense of justice, so that he held them throttled into silence, collared and dragged behind him to witness what he would, without remonstrance. What had she to complain of? The yacht was of the prettiest; the cabin fitted up to perfection, smelling of cedar, soft-cushioned, hung with silk, expanded with mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant toy, one of them having even ringlets, as well as a bronze complexion and fine teeth; and Mr. Lush was not there, for he had taken his way back to England as soon as he had seen all and everything on board. Moreover, Gwendolen herself liked the sea: it did not make her ill; and to observe the rigging of the vessel and forecast the necessary adjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her activity and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and they were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed, heat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world has done with sorrow. But what can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? What sort of Moslem paradise would quiet the terrible fury of moral repulsion and cowed resistance which, like an eating pain intensifying into torture, concentrates the mind in that poisonous misery? While Gwendolen, throned on her cushions at evening, and beholding the glory of sea and sky softening as if with boundless love around her, was hoping that Grandcourt in his march up and down was not going to pause near her, not going to look at her or speak to her, some woman, under a smoky sky, obliged to consider the price of eggs in arranging her dinner, was listening for the music of a footstep that would remove all risk from her foretaste of joy; some couple, bending cheek by cheek, over a bit of work done by the one and delighted in by the other, were reckoning the earnings that would make them rich enough for a holiday among the furze and heather. Had Grandcourt the least conception of what was going on in the breast of his wife? He conceived that she did not love him; but was that necessary? She was under his power, and he was not accustomed to soothe himself, as some cheerfully-disposed persons are, with the conviction that he was very generally and justly beloved. But what lay quite away from his conception was, that she could have any special repulsion for him personally. How could she? He himself knew what personal repulsion was--nobody better; his mind was much furnished with a sense of what brutes his fellow-creatures were, both masculine and feminine; what odious familiarities they had, what smirks, what modes of flourishing their handkerchiefs, what costume, what lavender water, what bulging eyes, and what foolish notions of making themselves agreeable by remarks which were not wanted. In this critical view of mankind there was an affinity between him and Gwendolen before their marriage, and we know that she had been attractingly wrought upon by the refined negations he presented to her. Hence he understood her repulsion for Lush. But how was he to understand or conceive her present repulsion for Henleigh Grandcourt? Some men bring themselves to believe, and not merely maintain, the non-existence of an external world; a few others believe themselves objects of repulsion to a woman without being told so in plain language. But Grandcourt did not belong to this eccentric body of thinkers. He had all his life had reason to take a flattering view of his own attractiveness, and to place himself in fine antithesis to the men who, he saw at once, must be revolting to a woman of taste. He had no idea of moral repulsion, and could not have believed, if he had been told it, that there may be a resentment and disgust which will gradually make beauty more detestable than ugliness, through exasperation at that outward virtue in which hateful things can flaunt themselves or find a supercilious advantage. How, then, could Grandcourt divine what was going on in Gwendolen's breast? For their behavior to each other scandalized no observer--not even the foreign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor Grandcourt's own experienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them as a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly in a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had no humorous observations at which Gwendolen could refuse to smile, no chit-chat to make small occasions of dispute. He was perfectly polite in arranging an additional garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object that he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into the vulgarity of accepting or rejecting such politeness rudely. Grandcourt put up his telescope and said, "There's a plantation of sugar-canes at the foot of that rock; should you like to look?" Gwendolen said, "Yes, please," remembering that she must try and interest herself in sugar-canes as something outside her personal affairs. Then Grandcourt would walk up and down and smoke for a long while, pausing occasionally to point out a sail on the horizon, and at last would seat himself and look at Gwendolen with his narrow immovable gaze, as if she were part of the complete yacht; while she, conscious of being looked at was exerting her ingenuity not to meet his eyes. At dinner he would remark that the fruit was getting stale, and they must put in somewhere for more; or, observing that she did not drink the wine, he asked her if she would like any other kind better. A lady was obliged to respond to these things suitably; and even if she had not shrunk from quarrelling on other grounds, quarreling with Grandcourt was impossible; she might as well have made angry remarks to a dangerous serpent ornamentally coiled in her cabin without invitation. And what sort of dispute could a woman of any pride and dignity begin on a yacht? Grandcourt had intense satisfaction in leading his wife captive after this fashion; it gave their life on a small scale a royal representation and publicity in which every thing familiar was got rid of, and every body must do what was expected of them whatever might be their private protest--the protest (kept strictly private) adding to the piquancy of despotism. To Gwendolen, who even in the freedom of her maiden time, had had very faint glimpses of any heroism or sublimity, the medium that now thrust itself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to him. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often virtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed gentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for a human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the minds of those who live with them--like a piece of yellow and wavy glass that distorts form and makes color an affliction. Their trivial sentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless _ennui_, may be making somebody else's life no better than a promenade through a pantheon of ugly idols. Gwendolen had that kind of window before her, affecting the distant equally with the near. Some unhappy wives are soothed by the possibility that they may become mothers; but Gwendolen felt that to desire a child for herself would have been a consenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She was reduced to dread lest she should become a mother. It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was a refuge from worse temptation. The embitterment of hatred is often as unaccountable to onlookers as the growth of devoted love, and it not only seems but is really out of direct relation with any outward causes to be alleged. Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the detested object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their suffering into dumbness. Such hidden rites went on in the secrecy of Gwendolen's mind, but not with soothing effect--rather with the effect of a struggling terror. Side by side with the dread of her husband had grown the self-dread, which urged her to flee from the pursuing images wrought by her pent-up impulse. The vision of her past wrong-doing, and what it had brought on her, came with a pale ghastly illumination over every imagined deed that was a rash effort at freedom, such as she had made in her marriage. Moreover, she had learned to see all her acts through the impression they would make on Deronda: whatever relief might come to her, she could not sever it from the judgment of her that would be created in his mind. Not one word of flattery, of indulgence, of dependence on her favor, could be fastened on by her in all their intercourse, to weaken his restraining power over her (in this way Deronda's effort over himself was repaid); and amid the dreary uncertainties of her spoiled life the possible remedies that lay in his mind, nay, the remedy that lay in her feeling for him, made her only hope. He seemed to her a terrible-browed angel, from whom she could not think of concealing any deed so as to win an ignorant regard from him: it belonged to the nature of their relation that she should be truthful, for his power over her had begun in the raising of a self-discontent which could be satisfied only by genuine change. But in no concealment had she now any confidence: her vision of what she had to dread took more decidedly than ever the form of some fiercely impulsive deed, committed as in a dream that she would instantaneously wake from to find the effects real though the images had been false: to find death under her hands, but instead of darkness, daylight; instead of satisfied hatred, the dismay of guilt; instead of freedom, the palsy of a new terror--a white dead face from which she was forever trying to flee and forever held back. She remembered Deronda's words: they were continually recurring in her thought, "Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of increasing your remorse. * * * Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately present to you." And so it was. In Gwendolen's consciousness temptation and dread met and stared like two pale phantoms, each seeing itself in the other--each obstructed by its own image; and all the while her fuller self beheld the apparitions and sobbed for deliverance from them. Inarticulate prayers, no more definite than a cry, often swept out from her into the vast silence, unbroken except by her husband's breathing or the plash of the wave or the creaking of the masts; but if ever she thought of definite help, it took the form of Deronda's presence and words, of the sympathy he might have for her, of the direction he might give her. It was sometimes after a white-lipped fierce-eyed temptation with murdering fingers had made its demon-visit that these best moments of inward crying and clinging for rescue would come to her, and she would lie with wide-open eyes in which the rising tears seemed a blessing, and the thought, "I will not mind if I can keep from getting wicked," seemed an answer to the indefinite prayer. So the days passed, taking with them light breezes beyond and about the Balearic Isles, and then to Sardinia, and then with gentle change persuading them northward again toward Corsica. But this floating, gentle-wafted existence, with its apparently peaceful influences, was becoming as bad as a nightmare to Gwendolen. "How long are we to be yachting?" she ventured to ask one day after they had been touching at Ajaccio, and the mere fact of change in going ashore had given her a relief from some of the thoughts which seemed now to cling about the very rigging of the vessel, mix with the air in the red silk cabin below, and make the smell of the sea odious. "What else should we do?" said Grandcourt. "I'm not tired of it. I don't see why we shouldn't stay out any length of time. There's less to bore one in this way. And where would you go to? I'm sick of foreign places. And we shall have enough of Ryelands. Would you rather be at Ryelands?" "Oh, no," said Gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike undescribable as soon as she imagined herself and her husband in them. "I only wondered how long you would like this." "I like yachting longer than anything else," said Grandcourt; "and I had none last year. I suppose you are beginning to tire of it. Women are so confoundedly whimsical. They expect everything to give way to them." "Oh, dear, no!" said Gwendolen, letting out her scorn in a flute-like tone. "I never expect you to give way." "Why should I?" said Grandcourt, with his inward voice, looking at her, and then choosing an orange--for they were at table. She made up her mind to a length of yachting that she could not see beyond; but the next day, after a squall which had made her rather ill for the first time, he came down to her and said, "There's been the devil's own work in the night. The skipper says we shall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things are set right." "Do you mind that?" said Gwendolen, who lay looking very white amidst her white drapery. "I should think so. Who wants to be broiling at Genoa?" "It will be a change," said Gwendolen, made a little incautious by her languor. "_I_ don't want any change. Besides, the place is intolerable; and one can't move along the roads. I shall go out in a boat, as I used to do, and manage it myself. One can get a few hours every day in that way instead of striving in a damnable hotel." Here was a prospect which held hope in it. Gwendolen thought of hours when she would be alone, since Grandcourt would not want to take her in the said boat, and in her exultation at this unlooked-for relief, she had wild, contradictory fancies of what she might do with her freedom--that "running away" which she had already innumerable times seen to be a worse evil than any actual endurance, now finding new arguments as an escape from her worse self. Also, visionary relief on a par with the fancy of a prisoner that the night wind may blow down the wall of his prison and save him from desperate devices, insinuated itself as a better alternative, lawful to wish for. The fresh current of expectation revived her energies, and enabled her to take all things with an air of cheerfulness and alacrity that made a change marked enough to be noticed by her husband. She watched through the evening lights to the sinking of the moon with less of awed loneliness than was habitual to her--nay, with a vague impression that in this mighty frame of things there might be some preparation of rescue for her. Why not?--since the weather had just been on her side. This possibility of hoping, after her long fluctuation amid fears, was like a first return of hunger to the long-languishing patient. She was waked the next morning by the casting of the anchor in the port of Genoa--waked from a strangely-mixed dream in which she felt herself escaping over the Mont Cenis, and wondering to find it warmer even in the moonlight on the snow, till suddenly she met Deronda, who told her to go back. In an hour or so from that dream she actually met Deronda. But it was on the palatial staircase of the _Italia_, where she was feeling warm in her light woolen dress and straw hat; and her husband was by her side. There was a start of surprise in Deronda before he could raise his hat and pass on. The moment did not seem to favor any closer greeting, and the circumstances under which they had last parted made him doubtful whether Grandcourt would be civilly inclined to him. The doubt might certainly have been changed into a disagreeable certainty, for Grandcourt on this unaccountable appearance of Deronda at Genoa of all places, immediately tried to conceive how there could have been an arrangement between him and Gwendolen. It is true that before they were well in their rooms, he had seen how difficult it was to shape such an arrangement with any probability, being too cool-headed to find it at once easily credible that Gwendolen had not only while in London hastened to inform Deronda of the yachting project, but had posted a letter to him from Marseilles or Barcelona, advising him to travel to Genoa in time for the chance of meeting her there, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other destination--all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in her, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching idly. Still he was there, and though Grandcourt would not make a fool of himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was not, for all that, disposed to admit fully that Deronda's presence was, so far as Gwendolen was concerned, a mere accident. It was a disgusting fact; that was enough; and no doubt she was well pleased. A man out of temper does not wait for proofs before feeling toward all things animate and inanimate as if they were in a conspiracy against him, but at once threshes his horse or kicks his dog in consequence. Grandcourt felt toward Gwendolen and Deronda as if he knew them to be in a conspiracy against him, and here was an event in league with them. What he took for clearly certain--and so far he divined the truth--was that Gwendolen was now counting on an interview with Deronda whenever her husband's back was turned. As he sat taking his coffee at a convenient angle for observing her, he discerned something which he felt sure was the effect of a secret delight--some fresh ease in moving and speaking, some peculiar meaning in her eyes, whatever she looked on. Certainly her troubles had not marred her beauty. Mrs. Grandcourt was handsomer than Gwendolen Harleth: her grace and expression were informed by a greater variety of inward experience, giving new play to her features, new attitudes in movement and repose; her whole person and air had the nameless something which often makes a woman more interesting after marriage than before, less confident that all things are according to her opinion, and yet with less of deer-like shyness--more fully a human being. This morning the benefits of the voyage seemed to be suddenly revealing themselves in a new elasticity of mien. As she rose from the table and put her two heavily-jewelled hands on each side of her neck, according to her wont, she had no art to conceal that sort of joyous expectation which makes the present more bearable than usual, just as when a man means to go out he finds it easier to be amiable to the family for a quarter of an hour beforehand. It is not impossible that a terrier whose pleasure was concerned would perceive those amiable signs and know their meaning--know why his master stood in a peculiar way, talked with alacrity, and even had a peculiar gleam in his eye, so that on the least movement toward the door, the terrier would scuttle to be in time. And, in dog fashion, Grandcourt discerned the signs of Gwendolen's expectation, interpreting them with the narrow correctness which leaves a world of unknown feeling behind. "A--just ring, please, and tell Gibbs to order some dinner for us at three," said Grandcourt, as he too rose, took out a cigar, and then stretched his hand toward the hat that lay near. "I'm going to send Angus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that I can manage, with you at the tiller. It's uncommonly pleasant these fine evenings--the least boring of anything we can do." Gwendolen turned cold. There was not only the cruel disappointment; there was the immediate conviction that her husband had determined to take her because he would not leave her out of his sight; and probably this dual solitude in a boat was the more attractive to him because it would be wearisome to her. They were not on the plank-island; she felt it the more possible to begin a contest. But the gleaming content had died out of her. There was a change in her like that of a glacier after sunset. "I would rather not go in the boat," she said. "Take some one else with you." "Very well; if you don't go, I shall not go," said Grandcourt. "We shall stay suffocating here, that's all." "I can't bear to go in a boat," said Gwendolen, angrily. "That is a sudden change," said Grandcourt, with a slight sneer. "But, since you decline, we shall stay indoors." He laid down his hat again, lit his cigar, and walked up and down the room, pausing now and then to look out of the windows. Gwendolen's temper told her to persist. She knew very well now that Grandcourt would not go without her; but if he must tyrannize over her, he should not do it precisely in the way he would choose. She would oblige him to stay in the hotel. Without speaking again, she passed into the adjoining bedroom and threw herself into a chair with her anger, seeing no purpose or issue--only feeling that the wave of evil had rushed back upon her, and dragged her away from her momentary breathing-place. Presently Grandcourt came in with his hat on, but threw it off and sat down sideways on a chair nearly in front of her, saying, in his superficial drawl, "Have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of temper. You make things uncommonly pleasant for me." "Why do you want to make them unpleasant for _me_?" said Gwendolen, getting helpless again, and feeling the hot tears rise. "Now, will you be good enough to say what it is you have to complain of?" said Grandcourt, looking into her eyes, and using his most inward voice. "Is it that I stay indoors when you stay?" She could give no answer. The sort of truth that made any excuse for her anger could not be uttered. In the conflict of despair and humiliation she began to sob, and the tears rolled down her cheeks--a form of agitation which she had never shown before in her husband's presence. "I hope this is useful," said Grandcourt, after a moment or two. "All I can say is, it's most confoundedly unpleasant. What the devil women can see in this kind of thing, I don't know. _You_ see something to be got by it, of course. All I can see is, that we shall be shut up here when we might have been having a pleasant sail." "Let us go, then," said Gwendolen, impetuously. "Perhaps we shall be drowned." She began to sob again. This extraordinary behavior, which had evidently some relation to Deronda, gave more definiteness to Grandcourt's conclusions. He drew his chair quite close in front of her, and said, in a low tone, "Just be quiet and listen, will you?" There seemed to be a magical effect in this close vicinity. Gwendolen shrank and ceased to sob. She kept her eyelids down and clasped her hands tightly. "Let us understand each other," said Grandcourt, in the same tone. "I know very well what this nonsense means. But if you suppose I am going to let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind. What are you looking forward to, if you can't behave properly as my wife? There is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but I don't know anything else; and as to Deronda, it's quite clear that he hangs back from you." "It's all false!" said Gwendolen, bitterly. "You don't in the least imagine what is in my mind. I have seen enough of the disgrace that comes in that way. And you had better leave me at liberty to speak with any one I like. It will be better for you." "You will allow me to judge of that," said Grandcourt, rising and moving to a little distance toward the window, but standing there playing with his whiskers as if he were awaiting something. Gwendolen's words had so clear and tremendous a meaning for herself that she thought they must have expressed it to Grandcourt, and had no sooner uttered them than she dreaded their effect. But his soul was garrisoned against presentiments and fears: he had the courage and confidence that belong to domination, and he was at that moment feeling perfectly satisfied that he held his wife with bit and bridle. By the time they had been married a year she would cease to be restive. He continued standing with his air of indifference, till she felt her habitual stifling consciousness of having an immovable obstruction in her life, like the nightmare of beholding a single form that serves to arrest all passage though the wide country lies open. "What decision have you come to?" he said, presently looking at her. "What orders shall I give?" "Oh, let us go," said Gwendolen. The walls had begun to be an imprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the mastery over her. His words had the power of thumb-screws and the cold touch of the rock. To resist was to act like a stupid animal unable to measure results. So the boat was ordered. She even went down to the quay again with him to see it before midday. Grandcourt had recovered perfect quietude of temper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given by the nautical groups to the _milord_, owner of the handsome yacht which had just put in for repairs, and who being an Englishman was naturally so at home on the sea that he could manage a sail with the same ease that he could manage a horse. The sort of exultation he had discerned in Gwendolen this morning she now thought that she discerned in him; and it was true that he had set his mind on this boating, and carried out his purpose as something that people might not expect him to do, with the gratified impulse of a strong will which had nothing better to exert itself upon. He had remarkable physical courage, and was proud of it--or rather he had a great contempt for the coarser, bulkier men who generally had less. Moreover, he was ruling that Gwendolen should go with him. And when they came down again at five o'clock, equipped for their boating, the scene was as good as a theatrical representation for all beholders. This handsome, fair-skinned English couple, manifesting the usual eccentricity of their nation, both of them proud, pale, and calm, without a smile on their faces, moving like creatures who were fulfilling a supernatural destiny--it was a thing to go out and see, a thing to paint. The husband's chest, back, and arms, showed very well in his close-fitting dress, and the wife was declared to be a statue. Some suggestions were proffered concerning a possible change in the breeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but Grandcourt's manner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and that he knew better than they. Gwendolen, keeping her impassable air, as they moved away from the strand, felt her imagination obstinately at work. She was not afraid of any outward dangers--she was afraid of her own wishes which were taking shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was afraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had compelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. As she sat guiding the tiller under her husband's eyes, doing just what he told her, the strife within her seemed like her own effort to escape from herself. She clung to the thought of Deronda: she persuaded herself that he would not go away while she was there--he knew that she needed help. The sense that he was there would save her from acting out the evil within. And yet quick, quick, came images, plans of evil that would come again and seize her in the night, like furies preparing the deed that they would straightway avenge. They were taken out of the port and carried eastward by a gentle breeze. Some clouds tempered the sunlight, and the hour was always deepening toward the supreme beauty of evening. Sails larger and smaller changed their aspect like sensitive things, and made a cheerful companionship, alternately near and far. The grand city shone more vaguely, the mountains looked out above it, and there was stillness as in an island sanctuary. Yet suddenly Gwendolen let her hands fall, and said in a scarcely audible tone, "God help me!" "What is the matter?" said Grandcourt, not distinguishing the words. "Oh, nothing," said Gwendolen, rousing herself from her momentary forgetfulness and resuming the ropes. "Don't you find this pleasant?" said Grandcourt. "Very." "You admit now we couldn't have done anything better?" "No--I see nothing better. I think we shall go on always, like the Flying Dutchman," said Gwendolen wildly. Grandcourt gave her one of his narrow examining glances, and then said, "If you like, we can go to Spezia in the morning, and let them take us up there." "No; I shall like nothing better than this." "Very well: we'll do the same to-morrow. But we must be turning in soon. I shall put about." CHAPTER LV. "Ritorna a tua scienza Che vuol, quanto la cosa e più perfetta Più senta il bene, e cosi la doglienza." --DANTE. When Deronda met Gwendolen and Grandcourt on the staircase, his mind was seriously preoccupied. He had just been summoned to the second interview with his mother. In two hours after his parting from her he knew that the Princess Halm-Eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his journey to Genoa was concerned, he might himself have set off on his way to Mainz, to deliver the letter from Joseph Kalonymos, and get possession of the family chest. But mixed mental conditions, which did not resolve themselves into definite reasons, hindered him from departure. Long after the farewell he was kept passive by a weight of retrospective feeling. He lived again, with the new keenness of emotive memory, through the exciting scenes which seemed past only in the sense of preparation for their actual presence in his soul. He allowed himself in his solitude to sob, with perhaps more than a woman's acuteness of compassion, over that woman's life so near to his, and yet so remote. He beheld the world changed for him by the certitude of ties that altered the poise of hopes and fears, and gave him a new sense of fellowship, as if under cover of the night he had joined the wrong band of wanderers, and found with the rise of morning that the tents of his kindred were grouped far off. He had a quivering imaginative sense of close relation to the grandfather who had been animated by strong impulses and beloved thoughts, which were now perhaps being roused from their slumber within himself. And through all this passionate meditation Mordecai and Mirah were always present, as beings who clasped hands with him in sympathetic silence. Of such quick, responsive fibre was Deronda made, under that mantle of self-controlled reserve into which early experience had thrown so much of his young strength. When the persistent ringing of a bell as a signal reminded him of the hour he thought of looking into _Bradshaw_, and making the brief necessary preparations for starting by the next train--thought of it, but made no movement in consequence. Wishes went to Mainz and what he was to get possession of there--to London and the beings there who made the strongest attachments of his life; but there were other wishes that clung in these moments to Genoa, and they kept him where he was by that force which urges us to linger over an interview that carries a presentiment of final farewell or of overshadowing sorrow. Deronda did not formally say, "I will stay over to-night, because it is Friday, and I should like to go to the evening service at the synagogue where they must all have gone; and besides, I may see the Grandcourts again." But simply, instead of packing and ringing for his bill, he sat doing nothing at all, while his mind went to the synagogue and saw faces there probably little different from those of his grandfather's time, and heard the Spanish-Hebrew liturgy which had lasted through the seasons of wandering generations like a plant with wandering seed, that gives the far-off lands a kinship to the exile's home--while, also, his mind went toward Gwendolen, with anxious remembrance of what had been, and with a half-admitted impression that it would be hardness in him willingly to go away at once without making some effort, in spite of Grandcourt's probable dislike, to manifest the continuance of his sympathy with her since their abrupt parting. In this state of mind he deferred departure, ate his dinner without sense of flavor, rose from it quickly to find the synagogue, and in passing the porter asked if Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt were still in the hotel, and what was the number of their apartment. The porter gave him the number, but added that they were gone out boating. That information had somehow power enough over Deronda to divide his thoughts with the memories wakened among the sparse _talithim_ and keen dark faces of worshippers whose way of taking awful prayers and invocations with the easy familiarity which might be called Hebrew dyed Italian, made him reflect that his grandfather, according to the Princess's hints of his character, must have been almost as exceptional a Jew as Mordecai. But were not men of ardent zeal and far-reaching hope everywhere exceptional? the men who had the visions which, as Mordecai said, were the creators and feeders of the world--moulding and feeding the more passive life which without them would dwindle and shrivel into the narrow tenacity of insects, unshaken by thoughts beyond the reach of their antennae. Something of a mournful impatience perhaps added itself to the solicitude about Gwendolen (a solicitude that had room to grow in his present release from immediate cares) as an incitement to hasten from the synagogue and choose to take his evening walk toward the quay, always a favorite haunt with him, and just now attractive with the possibility that he might be in time to see the Grandcourts come in from their boating. In this case, he resolved that he would advance to greet them deliberately, and ignore any grounds that the husband might have for wishing him elsewhere. The sun had set behind a bank of cloud, and only a faint yellow light was giving its farewell kisses to the waves, which were agitated by an active breeze. Deronda, sauntering slowly within sight of what took place on the strand, observed the groups there concentrating their attention on a sailing-boat which was advancing swiftly landward, being rowed by two men. Amidst the clamorous talk in various languages, Deronda held it the surer means of getting information not to ask questions, but to elbow his way to the foreground and be an unobstructed witness of what was occurring. Telescopes were being used, and loud statements made that the boat held somebody who had been drowned. One said it was the _milord_ who had gone out in a sailing boat; another maintained that the prostrate figure he discerned was _miladi_; a Frenchman who had no glass would rather say that it was _milord_ who had probably taken his wife out to drown her, according to the national practice--a remark which an English skipper immediately commented on in our native idiom (as nonsense which--had undergone a mining operation), and further dismissed by the decision that the reclining figure was a woman. For Deronda, terribly excited by fluctuating fears, the strokes of the oars as he watched them were divided by swift visions of events, possible and impossible, which might have brought about this issue, or this broken-off fragment of an issue, with a worse half undisclosed--if this woman apparently snatched from the waters were really Mrs. Grandcourt. But soon there was no longer any doubt: the boat was being pulled to land, and he saw Gwendolen half raising herself on her hands, by her own effort, under her heavy covering of tarpaulin and pea-jackets--pale as one of the sheeted dead, shivering, with wet hair streaming, a wild amazed consciousness in her eyes, as if she had waked up in a world where some judgment was impending, and the beings she saw around were coming to seize her. The first rower who jumped to land was also wet through, and ran off; the sailors, close about the boat, hindered Deronda from advancing, and he could only look on while Gwendolen gave scared glances, and seemed to shrink with terror as she was carefully, tenderly helped out, and led on by the strong arms of those rough, bronzed men, her wet clothes clinging about her limbs, and adding to the impediment of her weakness. Suddenly her wandering eyes fell on Deronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms, which were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffled voice, "It is come, it is come! He is dead!" "Hush, hush!" said Deronda, in a tone of authority; "quiet yourself." Then to the men who were assisting her, "I am a connection of this lady's husband. If you will get her on to the _Italia_ as quickly as possible, I will undertake everything else." He stayed behind to hear from the remaining boatman that her husband had gone down irrecoverably, and that his boat was left floating empty. He and his comrade had heard a cry, had come up in time to see the lady jump in after her husband, and had got her out fast enough to save her from much damage. After this, Deronda hastened to the hotel to assure himself that the best medical help would be provided; and being satisfied on this point, he telegraphed the event to Sir Hugo, begging him to come forthwith, and also to Mr. Gascoigne, whose address at the rectory made his nearest known way of getting the information to Gwendolen's mother. Certain words of Gwendolen's in the past had come back to him with the effectiveness of an inspiration: in moments of agitated confession she had spoken of her mother's presence, as a possible help, if she could have had it. CHAPTER LVI. "The pang, the curse with which they died, Had never passed away: I could not draw my eyes from theirs, Nor lift them up to pray." --COLERIDGE. Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed, had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering, repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent for him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might come over her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the suspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect which might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding within him. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself ready to be called if there were any alarming change of symptoms, making it understood by all concerned that he was in communication with her friends in England, and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on her behalf--a position which it was the easier for him to assume, because he was well known to Grandcourt's valet, the only old servant who had come on the late voyage. But when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last sent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning dreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday's events, and finally waked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety. Still, it was morning, and there had been no summons--an augury which cheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too early to send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too wakeful night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at last sleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so alive to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under the effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a determination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that his sensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the meeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling claims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had lately been living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen's lot, that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes familiar in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the inward response to them. Meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized statement from the fishermen who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details came to light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been found drifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen thought it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of the sail while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; but, though they were near, their attention had been first arrested by a cry which seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were hastening with their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw her jump in. On re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen, and was desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by blinds and curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped round her, looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. But her long hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through all, the blue stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started impulsively to her full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face and neck not less white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her lips a little apart with the peculiar expression of one accused and helpless, she looked like the unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth whom Deronda had seen turning with firm lips and proud self-possession from her losses at the gaming table. The sight pierced him with pity, and the effects of all their past relations began to revive within him. "I beseech you to rest--not to stand," said Deronda, as he approached her; and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again. "Will you sit down near me?" she said. "I want to speak very low." She was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side. The action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full upon his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone, "You know I am a guilty woman?" Deronda himself turned paler as he said, "I know nothing." He did not dare to say more. "He is dead." She uttered this with the same undertoned decision. "Yes," said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to speak. "His face will not be seen above the water again," said Gwendolen, in a tone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held both her hands clenched. "No." "Not by any one else--only by me--a dead face--I shall never get away from it." It was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke these last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something at a distance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole event--her own acts included--through an exaggerating medium of excitement and horror? Was she in a state of delirium into which there entered a sense of concealment and necessity for self-repression? Such thoughts glanced through Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the conflict of feeling that kept him silent. She was bent on confession, and he dreaded hearing her confession. Against his better will he shrank from the task that was laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked the wish as cowardly, that she could bury her secrets in her own bosom. He was not a priest. He dreaded the weight of this woman's soul flung upon his own with imploring dependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly, looking at him, "You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that I ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I cannot have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her know. I must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should know." "I can say nothing in my ignorance," said Deronda, mournfully, "except that I desire to help you." "I told you from the beginning--as soon as I could--I told you I was afraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit--contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse--all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. And _he_ came in." She paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on. "I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?" "Great God!" said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, "don't torture me needlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the water with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This death was an accident that you could not have hindered." "Don't be impatient with me." The tremor, the childlike beseeching in these words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face. The poor quivering lips went on. "You said--you used to say--you felt more for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said they might get better--they might be scourged into something better. If you had not spoken in that way, everything would have been worse. I _did_ remember all you said to me. It came to me always. It came to me at the very last--that was the reason why I--But now, if you cannot bear with me when I tell you everything--if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall I do? Am I worse than I was when you found me and wanted to make me better? All the wrong I have done was in me then--and more--and more--if you had not come and been patient with me. And now--will you forsake me?" Her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were now helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Her quivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could not answer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and clasped it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it was the only way in which he could answer, "I will not forsake you." And all the while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank paper which might be filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted face with its expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved to undergo, might have told half the truth of the situation to a beholder who had suddenly entered. That grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had never before had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had needed, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise of inexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength made it possible for her to go on as she had begun--with that fitful, wandering confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify the sense of time or of order in events. She began again in a fragmentary way, "All sorts of contrivances in my mind--but all so difficult. And I fought against them--I was terrified at them--I saw his dead face"--here her voice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda's ear--"ever so long ago I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it terrified me. I was like two creatures. I could not speak--I wanted to kill--it was as strong as thirst--and then directly--I felt beforehand I had done something dreadful, unalterable--that would make me like an evil spirit. And it came--it came." She was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a web where each mesh drew all the rest. "It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you--when we were at the Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was the only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about over everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams--all but one. I did one act--and I never undid it--it is there still--as long ago as when we were at Ryelands. There it was--something my fingers longed for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir--small and sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in the drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and how I should use it. I fancied myself putting it under my pillow. But I never did. I never looked at it again. I dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the yacht, I dropped the key into the deep water. It was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. After that I began to think how I could open the drawer without the key: and when I found we were to stay at Genoa, it came into my mind that I could get it opened privately at the hotel. But then, when we were going up the stairs, I met you; and I thought I should talk to you alone and tell you this--everything I could not tell you in town; and then I was forced to go out in the boat." A sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank back in her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for the moment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her, but he said, insistently, "And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in your thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?" There was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed her handkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning her resolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda's ear, she began in a whisper, "No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no falsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I used to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if they were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt wicked. And everything has been a punishment to me--all the things I used to wish for--it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very daylight has often been a punishment to me. Because--you know--I ought not to have married. That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one else. I broke my promise. I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. I wanted to make my gain out of another's loss--you remember?--it was like roulette--and the money burned into me. And I could not complain. It was as if I had prayed that another should lose and I should win. And I had won, I knew it all--I knew I was guilty. When we were on the sea, and I lay awake at night in the cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had done lay open without excuse--nothing was hidden--how could anything be known to me only?--it was not my own knowledge, it was God's that had entered into me, and even the stillness--everything held a punishment for me--everything but you. I always thought that you would not want me to be punished--you would have tried and helped me to be better. And only thinking of that helped me. You will not change--you will not want to punish me now?" Again a sob had risen. "God forbid!" groaned Deronda. But he sat motionless. This long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past was difficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. He must let her mind follow its own need. She unconsciously left intervals in her retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and what she had only an inward vision of. Her next words came after such an interval. "That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Because when I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell you everything--about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you before. And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would have less power over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my struggles and my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that frightened me, the longing, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came back. And that disappointment--when I was quite shut out from speaking to you, and was driven to go in the boat--brought all the evil back, as if I had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so long ago now since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up everything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead." Some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find its way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said, with agitated hurry, "If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here--and yet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne contempt. I ought to have gone away--gone and wandered like a beggar rather than stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there was something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill _me_ if I resisted his will. But now--his dead face is there, and I cannot bear it." Suddenly loosing Deronda's hand, she started up, stretching her arms to their full length upward, and said with a sort of moan, "I have been a cruel woman! What can _I_ do but cry for help? _I_ am sinking. Die--die--you are forsaken--go down, go down into darkness. Forsaken--no pity--_I_ shall be forsaken." She sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no place in her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned. Instead of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had dulled his susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of this young creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood into this agony of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, pierced him the deeper because it came close upon another sad revelation of spiritual conflict: he was in one of those moments when the very anguish of passionate pity makes us ready to choose that we will know pleasure no more, and live only for the stricken and afflicted. He had risen from his seat while he watched that terrible outburst--which seemed the more awful to him because, even in this supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of one who confesses in secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his back toward her and walk to a distance. But presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense that he had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach her again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips parted. She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching--too timid to entreat in words while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken by him--now--already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully--met hers for the first time fully since she had said, "You know I am a guilty woman," and that full glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, "I know it, but I shall all the less forsake you." He sat down by her side again in the same attitude--without turning his face toward her and without again taking her hand. Once more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow at the Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged her to confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret, "I make you very unhappy." Deronda gave an indistinct "Oh," just shrinking together and changing his attitude a little. Then he had gathered resolution enough to say clearly, "There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most desire at this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel it a relief to tell." Devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from her, and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of getting nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from a halo of superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble herself more. She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; but no--her wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that impulse, and she was kept silent and motionless by the pressure of opposing needs. Her stillness made Deronda at last say, "Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever you wish it?" "No, no," said Gwendolen--the dread of his leaving her bringing back her power of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, "I want to tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of rage at being obliged to go--full of rage--and I could do nothing but sit there like a galley slave. And then we got away--out of the port--into the deep--and everything was still--and we never looked at each other, only he spoke to order me--and the very light about me seemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over me that when I was a child I used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were not forced to live with any one they did not like--I did not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just the opposite had come to me. I had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away--gliding on and no help--always into solitude with _him_, away from deliverance. And because I felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things--I longed for worse things--I had cruel wishes--I fancied impossible ways of--I did not want to die myself; I was afraid of our being drowned together. If it had been any use I should have prayed--I should have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of killing him there, but I did, I did kill him in my thoughts." She sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memory which no words could represent. "But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And what had been with me so much, came to me just then--what you once said--about dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse--I should hope for nothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within me. Getting wicked was misery--being shut out forever from knowing what you--what better lives were. That had always been coming back to me then--but yet with a despair--a feeling that it was no use--evil wishes were too strong. I remember then letting go the tiller and saying 'God help me!' But then I was forced to take it again and go on; and the evil longings, the evil prayers came again and blotted everything else dim, till, in the midst of them--I don't know how it was--he was turning the sail--there was a gust--he was struck--I know nothing--I only know that I saw my wish outside me." She began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper. "I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of me. I think I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough for me to be glad, and yet to think it was no use--he would come up again. And he _was_ come--farther off--the boat had moved. It was all like lightning. 'The rope!' he called out in a voice--not his own--I hear it now--and I stooped for the rope--I felt I must--I felt sure he could swim, and he would come back whether or not, and I dreaded him. That was in my mind--he would come back. But he was gone down again, and I had the rope in my hand--no, there he was again--his face above the water--and he cried again--and I held my hand, and my heart said, 'Die!'--and he sank; and I felt 'It is done--I am wicked, I am lost!--and I had the rope in my hand--I don't know what I thought--I was leaping away from myself--I would have saved him then. I was leaping from my crime, and there it was--close to me as I fell--there was the dead face--dead, dead. It can never be altered. That was what happened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can never be altered." She sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory and speech. Deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than the foregoing dread. The word "guilty" had held a possibility of interpretations worse than the fact; and Gwendolen's confession, for the very reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining power of her evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been throughout a counterbalancing struggle of her better will. It seemed almost certain that her murderous thought had had no outward effect--that, quite apart from it, the death was inevitable. Still, a question as to the outward effectiveness of a criminal desire dominant enough to impel even a momentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the desire; and Deronda shrank from putting that question forward in the first instance. He held it likely that Gwendolen's remorse aggravated her inward guilt, and that she gave the character of decisive action to what had been an inappreciably instantaneous glance of desire. But her remorse was the precious sign of a recoverable nature; it was the culmination of that self-disapproval which had been the awakening of a new life within her; it marked her off from the criminals whose only regret is failure in securing their evil wish. Deronda could not utter one word to diminish that sacred aversion to her worst self--that thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the sorrowful better, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thought and feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on rashly. There were no words of comfort that did not carry some sacrilege. If he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have echoed, "It can never be altered--it remains unaltered, to alter other things." But he was silent and motionless--he did not know how long--before he turned to look at her, and saw her sunk back with closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten white doe, unable to rise and pursue its unguided way. He rose and stood before her. The movement touched her consciousness, and she opened her eyes with a slight quivering that seemed like fear. "You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you again this evening--to-morrow--when you have had some rest? Let us say no more now." The tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement of the head. Deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessity that she should be got to rest, and then left her. CHAPTER LVII. "The unripe grape, the ripe, and the dried. All things are changes, not into nothing, but into that which is not at present."--MARCUS AURELIUS. Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life, And righteous or unrighteous, being done, Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself Be laid in darkness, and the universe Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more. In the evening she sent for him again. It was already near the hour at which she had been brought in from the sea the evening before, and the light was subdued enough with blinds drawn up and windows open. She was seated gazing fixedly on the sea, resting her cheek on her hand, looking less shattered than when he had left her, but with a deep melancholy in her expression which as Deronda approached her passed into an anxious timidity. She did not put out her hand, but said, "How long ago it is!" Then, "Will you sit near me again a little while?" He placed himself by her side as he had done before, and seeing that she turned to him with that indefinable expression which implies a wish to say something, he waited for her to speak. But again she looked toward the window silently, and again turned with the same expression, which yet did not issue in speech. There was some fear hindering her, and Deronda, wishing to relieve her timidity, averted his face. Presently he heard her cry imploringly, "You will not say that any one else should know?" "Most decidedly not," said Deronda. "There is no action that ought to be taken in consequence. There is no injury that could be righted in that way. There is no retribution that any mortal could apportion justly." She was so still during a pause that she seemed to be holding her breath before she said, "But if I had not had that murderous will--that moment--if I had thrown the rope on the instant--perhaps it would have hindered death?" "No--I think not," said Deronda, slowly. "If it were true that he could swim, he must have been seized with cramp. With your quickest, utmost effort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save him. That momentary murderous will cannot, I think, have altered the course of events. Its effect is confined to the motives in your own breast. Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or later it works its way outside us--it may be in the vitiation that breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings us into better striving." "I am saved from robbing others--there are others--they will have everything--they will have what they ought to have. I knew that some time before I left town. You do not suspect me of wrong desires about those things?" She spoke hesitatingly. "I had not thought of them," said Deronda; "I was thinking too much of the other things." "Perhaps you don't quite know the beginning of it all," said Gwendolen, slowly, as if she were overcoming her reluctance. "There was some one else he ought to have married. And I knew it, and I told her I would not hinder it. And I went away--that was when you first saw me. But then we became poor all at once, and I was very miserable, and I was tempted. I thought, 'I shall do as I like and make everything right.' I persuaded myself. And it was all different. It was all dreadful. Then came hatred and wicked thoughts. That was how it all came. I told you I was afraid of myself. And I did what you told me--I did try to make my fear a safeguard. I thought of what would be if I--I felt what would come--how I should dread the morning--wishing it would be always night--and yet in the darkness always seeing something--seeing death. If you did not know how miserable I was, you might--but now it has all been no use. I can care for nothing but saving the rest from knowing--poor mamma, who has never been happy." There was silence again before she said with a repressed sob--"You cannot bear to look at me any more. You think I am too wicked. You do not believe that I can become any better--worth anything--worthy enough--I shall always be too wicked to--" The voice broke off helpless. Deronda's heart was pierced. He turned his eyes on her poor beseeching face and said, "I believe that you may become worthier than you have ever yet been--worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing. No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. You _have_ made efforts--you will go on making them." "But you were the beginning of them. You must not forsake me," said Gwendolen, leaning with her clasped hands on the arm of her chair and looking at him, while her face bore piteous traces of the life-experience concentrated in the twenty-four hours--that new terrible life lying on the other side of the deed which fulfills a criminal desire. "I will bear any penance. I will lead any life you tell me. But you must not forsake me. You must be near. If you had been near me--if I could have said everything to you, I should have been different. You will not forsake me?" "It could never be my impulse to forsake you," said Deronda promptly, with that voice which, like his eyes, had the unintentional effect of making his ready sympathy seem more personal and special than it really was. And in that moment he was not himself quite free from a foreboding of some such self-committing effect. His strong feeling for this stricken creature could not hinder rushing images of future difficulty. He continued to meet her appealing eyes as he spoke, but it was with the painful consciousness that to her ear his words might carry a promise which one day would seem unfulfilled: he was making an indefinite promise to an indefinite hope. Anxieties, both immediate and distant, crowded on his thought, and it was under their influence that, after a moment's silence, he said, "I expect Sir Hugo Mallinger to arrive by to-morrow night at least; and I am not without hope that Mrs. Davilow may shortly follow him. Her presence will be the greatest comfort to you--it will give you a motive to save her from unnecessary pain?" "Yes, yes--I will try. And you will not go away?" "Not till after Sir Hugo has come." "But we shall all go to England?" "As soon as possible," said Deronda, not wishing to enter into particulars. Gwendolen looked toward the window again with an expression which seemed like a gradual awakening to new thoughts. The twilight was perceptibly deepening, but Deronda could see a movement in her eyes and hands such as accompanies a return of perception in one who has been stunned. "You will always be with Sir Hugo now!" she said presently, looking at him. "You will always live at the Abbey--or else at Diplow?" "I am quite uncertain where I shall live," said Deronda, coloring. She was warned by his changed color that she had spoken too rashly, and fell silent. After a little while she began, again looking away, "It is impossible to think how my life will go on. I think now it would be better for me to be poor and obliged to work." "New promptings will come as the days pass. When you are among your friends again, you will discern new duties," said Deronda. "Make it a task now to get as well and calm--as much like yourself as you can, before--" He hesitated. "Before my mother comes," said Gwendolen. "Ah! I must be changed. I have not looked at myself. Should you have known me," she added, turning toward him, "if you had met me now?--should you have known me for the one you saw at Leubronn?" "Yes, I should have known you," said Deronda, mournfully. "The outside change is not great. I should have seen at once that it was you, and that you had gone through some great sorrow." "Don't wish now that you had never seen me; don't wish that," said Gwendolen, imploringly, while the tears gathered. "I should despise myself for wishing it," said Deronda. "How could I know what I was wishing? We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what we imagine might have been. If I took to foolish wishing of that sort, I should wish--not that I had never seen you, but that I had been able to save you from this." "You have saved me from worse," said Gwendolen, in a sobbing voice. "I should have been worse if it had not been for you. If you had not been good, I should have been more wicked than I am." "It will be better for me to go now," said Deronda, worn in spirit by the perpetual strain of this scene. "Remember what we said of your task--to get well and calm before other friends come." He rose as he spoke, and she gave him her hand submissively. But when he had left her she sank on her knees, in hysterical crying. The distance between them was too great. She was a banished soul--beholding a possible life which she had sinned herself away from. She was found in this way, crushed on the floor. Such grief seemed natural in a poor lady whose husband had been drowned in her presence. BOOK VIII.--FRUIT AND SEED. CHAPTER LVIII. "Much adoe there was, God wot; He wold love and she wold not." --NICHOLAS BRETON. Extension, we know, is a very imperfect measure of things; and the length of the sun's journeying can no more tell us how life has advanced than the acreage of a field can tell us what growths may be active within it. A man may go south, and, stumbling over a bone, may meditate upon it till he has found a new starting-point for anatomy; or eastward, and discover a new key to language telling a new story of races; or he may head an expedition that opens new continental pathways, get himself maimed in body, and go through a whole heroic poem of resolve and endurance; and at the end of a few months he may come back to find his neighbors grumbling at the same parish grievance as before, or to see the same elderly gentleman treading the pavement in discourse with himself, shaking his head after the same percussive butcher's boy, and pausing at the same shop-window to look at the same prints. If the swiftest thinking has about the pace of a greyhound, the slowest must be supposed to move, like the limpet, by an apparent sticking, which after a good while is discerned to be a slight progression. Such differences are manifest in the variable intensity which we call human experience, from the revolutionary rush of change which makes a new inner and outer life, to that quiet recurrence of the familiar, which has no other epochs than those of hunger and the heavens. Something of this contrast was seen in the year's experience which had turned the brilliant, self-confident Gwendolen Harleth of the Archery Meeting into the crushed penitent impelled to confess her unworthiness where it would have been her happiness to be held worthy; while it had left her family in Pennicote without deeper change than that of some outward habits, and some adjustment of prospects and intentions to reduced income, fewer visits, and fainter compliments. The rectory was as pleasant a home as before: and the red and pink peonies on the lawn, the rows of hollyhocks by the hedges, had bloomed as well this year as last: the rector maintained his cheerful confidence in the good will of patrons and his resolution to deserve it by diligence in the fulfillment of his duties, whether patrons were likely to hear of it or not; doing nothing solely with an eye to promotion except, perhaps, the writing of two ecclesiastical articles, which having no signature, were attributed to some one else, except by the patrons who had a special copy sent them, and these certainly knew the author but did not read the articles. The rector, however, chewed no poisonous cud of suspicion on this point: he made marginal notes on his own copies to render them a more interesting loan, and was gratified that the Archdeacon and other authorities had nothing to say against the general tenor of his argument. Peaceful authorship!--living in the air of the fields and downs, and not in the thrice-breathed breath of criticism--bringing no Dantesque leanness; rather, assisting nutrition by complacency, and perhaps giving a more suffusive sense of achievement than the production of a whole _Divina Commedia_. Then there was the father's recovered delight in his favorite son, which was a happiness outweighing the loss of eighteen hundred a year. Of whatever nature might be the hidden change wrought in Rex by the disappointment of his first love, it was apparently quite secondary to that evidence of more serious ambition which dated from the family misfortune; indeed, Mr. Gascoigne was inclined to regard the little affair which had caused him so much anxiety the year before as an evaporation of superfluous moisture, a kind of finish to the baking process which the human dough demands. Rex had lately come down for a summer visit to the rectory, bringing Anna home, and while he showed nearly the old liveliness with his brothers and sisters, he continued in his holiday the habits of the eager student, rising early in the morning and shutting himself up early in the evenings to carry on a fixed course of study. "You don't repent the choice of the law as a profession, Rex?" said his father. "There is no profession I would choose before it," said Rex. "I should like to end my life as a first-rate judge, and help to draw up a code. I reverse the famous dictum. I should say, 'Give me something to do with making the laws, and let who will make the songs.'" "You will have to stow in an immense amount of rubbish, I suppose--that's the worst of it," said the rector. "I don't see that law-rubbish is worse than any other sort. It is not so bad as the rubbishy literature that people choke their minds with. It doesn't make one so dull. Our wittiest men have often been lawyers. Any orderly way of looking at things as cases and evidence seems to me better than a perpetual wash of odds and ends bearing on nothing in particular. And then, from a higher point of view, the foundations and the growth of law make the most interesting aspects of philosophy and history. Of course there will be a good deal that is troublesome, drudging, perhaps exasperating. But the great prizes in life can't be won easily--I see that." "Well, my boy, the best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world. But I fancy it so with most work when a man goes into it with a will. Brewitt, the blacksmith, said to me the other day that his 'prentice had no mind to his trade; 'and yet, sir,' said Brewitt, 'what would a young fellow have if he doesn't like the blacksmithing?" The rector cherished a fatherly delight, which he allowed to escape him only in moderation. Warham, who had gone to India, he had easily borne parting with, but Rex was that romance of later life which a man sometimes finds in a son whom he recognizes as superior to himself, picturing a future eminence for him according to a variety of famous examples. It was only to his wife that he said with decision: "Rex will be a distinguished man, Nancy, I am sure of it--as sure as Paley's father was about his son." "Was Paley an old bachelor?" said Mrs. Gascoigne. "That is hardly to the point, my dear," said the rector, who did not remember that irrelevant detail. And Mrs. Gascoigne felt that she had spoken rather weakly. This quiet trotting of time at the rectory was shared by the group who had exchanged the faded dignity of Offendene for the low white house not a mile off, well enclosed with evergreens, and known to the villagers, as "Jodson's." Mrs. Davilow's delicate face showed only a slight deepening of its mild melancholy, her hair only a few more silver lines, in consequence of the last year's trials; the four girls had bloomed out a little from being less in the shade; and the good Jocosa preserved her serviceable neutrality toward the pleasures and glories of the world as things made for those who were not "in a situation." The low narrow drawing-room, enlarged by two quaint projecting windows, with lattices wide open on a July afternoon to the scent of monthly roses, the faint murmurs of the garden, and the occasional rare sound of hoofs and wheels seeming to clarify the succeeding silence, made rather a crowded, lively scene, Rex and Anna being added to the usual group of six. Anna, always a favorite with her younger cousins, had much to tell of her new experience, and the acquaintances she had made in London, and when on her first visit she came alone, many questions were asked her about Gwendolen's house in Grosvenor Square, what Gwendolen herself had said, and what any one else had said about Gwendolen. Had Anna been to see Gwendolen after she had known about the yacht? No:--an answer which left speculation free concerning everything connected with that interesting unknown vessel beyond the fact that Gwendolen had written just before she set out to say that Mr. Grandcourt and she were going yachting on the Mediterranean, and again from Marseilles to say that she was sure to like the yachting, the cabins were very elegant, and she would probably not send another letter till she had written quite a long diary filled with _dittos_. Also, this movement of Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt had been mentioned in "the newspaper;" so that altogether this new phase of Gwendolen's exalted life made a striking part of the sisters' romance, the book-devouring Isabel throwing in a corsair or two to make an adventure that might end well. But when Rex was present, the girls, according to instructions, never started this fascinating topic, and to-day there had only been animated descriptions of the Meyricks and their extraordinary Jewish friends, which caused some astonished questioning from minds to which the idea of live Jews, out of a book, suggested a difference deep enough to be almost zoological, as of a strange race in Pliny's Natural History that might sleep under the shade of its own ears. Bertha could not imagine what Jews believed now; and she had a dim idea that they rejected the Old Testament since it proved the New; Miss Merry thought that Mirah and her brother could "never have been properly argued with," and the amiable Alice did not mind what the Jews believed, she was sure she "couldn't bear them." Mrs. Davilow corrected her by saying that the great Jewish families who were in society were quite what they ought to be both in London and Paris, but admitted that the commoner unconverted Jews were objectionable; and Isabel asked whether Mirah talked just as they did, or whether you might be with her and not find out that she was a Jewess. Rex, who had no partisanship with the Israelites, having made a troublesome acquaintance with the minutiae of their ancient history in the form of "cram," was amusing himself by playfully exaggerating the notion of each speaker, while Anna begged them all to understand that he was only joking, when the laughter was interrupted by the bringing in of a letter for Mrs. Davilow. A messenger had run with it in great haste from the rectory. It enclosed a telegram, and as Mrs. Davilow read and re-read it in silence and agitation, all eyes were turned on her with anxiety, but no one dared to speak. Looking up at last and seeing the young faces "painted with fear," she remembered that they might be imagining something worse than the truth, something like her own first dread which made her unable to understand what was written, and she said, with a sob which was half relief, "My dears, Mr. Grandcourt--" She paused an instant, and then began again, "Mr. Grandcourt is drowned." Rex started up as if a missile had been suddenly thrown into the room. He could not help himself, and Anna's first look was at him. But then, gathering some self-command while Mrs. Davilow was reading what the rector had written on the enclosing paper, he said, "Can I do anything, aunt? Can I carry any word to my father from you?" "Yes, dear. Tell him I will be ready--he is very good. He says he will go with me to Genoa--he will be here at half-past six. Jocosa and Alice, help me to get ready. She is safe--Gwendolen is safe--but she must be ill. I am sure she must be very ill. Rex, dear--Rex and Anna--go and and tell your father I will be quite ready. I would not for the world lose another night. And bless him for being ready so soon. I can travel night and day till we get there." Rex and Anna hurried away through the sunshine which was suddenly solemn to them, without uttering a word to each other: she chiefly possessed by solicitude about any reopening of his wound, he struggling with a tumultuary crowd of thoughts that were an offence against his better will. The tumult being undiminished when they were at the rectory gate, he said, "Nannie, I will leave you to say everything to my father. If he wants me immediately, let me know. I shall stay in the shrubbery for ten minutes--only ten minutes." Who has been quite free from egoistic escapes of the imagination, picturing desirable consequences on his own future in the presence of another's misfortune, sorrow, or death? The expected promotion or legacy is the common type of a temptation which makes speech and even prayer a severe avoidance of the most insistent thoughts, and sometimes raises an inward shame, a self-distaste that is worse than any other form of unpleasant companionship. In Rex's nature the shame was immediate, and overspread like an ugly light all the hurrying images of what might come, which thrust themselves in with the idea that Gwendolen was again free--overspread them, perhaps, the more persistently because every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified by a more substantial obstacle. Before the vision of "Gwendolen free" rose the impassable vision of "Gwendolen rich, exalted, courted;" and if in the former time, when both their lives were fresh, she had turned from his love with repugnance, what ground was there for supposing that her heart would be more open to him in the future? These thoughts, which he wanted to master and suspend, were like a tumultuary ringing of opposing chimes that he could not escape from by running. During the last year he had brought himself into a state of calm resolve, and now it seemed that three words had been enough to undo all that difficult work, and cast him back into the wretched fluctuations of a longing which he recognized as simply perturbing and hopeless. And at this moment the activity of such longing had an untimeliness that made it repulsive to his better self. Excuse poor Rex; it was not much more than eighteen months since he had been laid low by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle, lingering poison. The disappointment of a youthful passion has effects as incalculable as those of small-pox which may make one person plain and a genius, another less plain and more foolish, another plain without detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the majority without obvious change. Everything depends--not on the mere fact of disappointment, but--on the nature affected and the force that stirs it. In Rex's well-endowed nature, brief as the hope had been, the passionate stirring had gone deep, and the effect of disappointment was revolutionary, though fraught with a beneficent new order which retained most of the old virtues; in certain respects he believed that it had finally determined the bias and color of his life. Now, however, it seemed that his inward peace was hardly more than that of republican Florence, and his heart no better than the alarm-bell that made work slack and tumult busy. Rex's love had been of that sudden, penetrating, clinging sort which the ancients knew and sung, and in singing made a fashion of talk for many moderns whose experience has by no means a fiery, demonic character. To have the consciousness suddenly steeped with another's personality, to have the strongest inclinations possessed by an image which retains its dominance in spite of change and apart from worthiness--nay, to feel a passion which clings faster for the tragic pangs inflicted by a cruel, reorganized unworthiness--is a phase of love which in the feeble and common-minded has a repulsive likeness to his blind animalism insensible to the higher sway of moral affinity or heaven-lit admiration. But when this attaching force is present in a nature not of brutish unmodifiableness, but of a human dignity that can risk itself safely, it may even result in a devotedness not unfit to be called divine in a higher sense than the ancient. Phlegmatic rationality stares and shakes its head at these unaccountable prepossessions, but they exist as undeniably as the winds and waves, determining here a wreck and there a triumphant voyage. This sort of passion had nested in the sweet-natured, strong Rex, and he had made up his mind to its companionship, as if it had been an object supremely dear, stricken dumb and helpless, and turning all the future of tenderness into a shadow of the past. But he had also made up his mind that his life was not to be pauperized because he had had to renounce one sort of joy; rather, he had begun life again with a new counting-up of the treasures that remained to him, and he had even felt a release of power such as may come from ceasing to be afraid of your own neck. And now, here he was pacing the shrubbery, angry with himself that the sense of irrevocableness in his lot, which ought in reason to have been as strong as ever, had been shaken by a change of circumstances that could make no change in relation to him. He told himself the truth quite roughly, "She would never love me; and that is not the question--I could never approach her as a lover in her present position. I am exactly of no consequence at all, and am not likely to be of much consequence till my head is turning gray. But what has that to do with it? She would not have me on any terms, and I would not ask her. It is a meanness to be thinking about it now--no better than lurking about the battle-field to strip the dead; but there never was more gratuitous sinning. I have nothing to gain there--absolutely nothing. Then why can't I face the facts, and behave as they demand, instead of leaving my father to suppose that there are matters he can't speak to me about, though I might be useful in them?" The last thought made one wave with the impulse that sent Rex walking firmly into the house and through the open door of the study, where he saw his father packing a traveling-desk. "Can I be of any use, sir?" said Rex, with rallied courage, as his father looked up at him. "Yes, my boy; when I'm gone, just see to my letters, and answer where necessary, and send me word of everything. Dymock will manage the parish very well, and you will stay with your mother, or, at least, go up and down again, till I come back, whenever that may be." "You will hardly be very long, sir, I suppose," said Rex, beginning to strap a railway rug. "You will perhaps bring my cousin back to England?" He forced himself to speak of Gwendolen for the first time, and the rector noticed the epoch with satisfaction. "That depends," he answered, taking the subject as a matter-of-course between them. "Perhaps her mother may stay there with her, and I may come back very soon. This telegram leaves us in ignorance which is rather anxious. But no doubt the arrangements of the will lately made are satisfactory, and there may possibly be an heir yet to be born. In any case, I feel confident that Gwendolen will be liberally--I should expect, splendidly--provided for." "It must have been a great shock for her," said Rex, getting more resolute after the first twinge had been borne. "I suppose he was a devoted husband." "No doubt of it," said the rector, in his most decided manner. "Few men of his position would have come forward as he did under the circumstances." Rex had never seen Grandcourt, had never been spoken to about him by any one of the family, and knew nothing of Gwendolen's flight from her suitor to Leubronn. He only knew that Grandcourt, being very much in love with her, had made her an offer in the first weeks of her sudden poverty, and had behaved very handsomely in providing for her mother and sisters. That was all very natural and what Rex himself would have liked to do. Grandcourt had been a lucky fellow, and had had some happiness before he got drowned. Yet Rex wondered much whether Gwendolen had been in love with the successful suitor, or had only forborne to tell him that she hated being made love to. CHAPTER LIX. "I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends." --SHAKESPEARE. Sir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr. Gascoigne had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take his departure until he had seen the baronet. There was not only Grandcourt's death, but also the late crisis in his own life to make reasons why his oldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained communication of speech with him, for in writing he had not felt able to give any details concerning the mother who had come and gone like an apparition. It was not till the fifth evening that Deronda, according to telegram, waited for Sir Hugo at the station, where he was to arrive between eight and nine; and while he was looking forward to the sight of the kind, familiar face, which was part of his earliest memories, something like a smile, in spite of his late tragic experience, might have been detected in his eyes and the curve of his lips at the idea of Sir Hugo's pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave them to his daughters, or at least--according to a view of inheritance which had just been strongly impressed on Deronda's imagination--to take makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory heir in a grandson. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no joy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless it were in agreement with our theory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good: what sour corners our mouths would get--our eyes, what frozen glances! and all the while our own possessions and desires would not exactly adjust themselves to our ideal. We must have some comradeship with imperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feel gratitude even where we discern a mistake that may have been injurious, the vehicle of the mistake being an affectionate intention prosecuted through a life-time of kindly offices. Deronda's feeling and judgment were strongly against the action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity--yes, a falsity: he could give no milder name to the concealment under which he had been reared. But the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge concerning the mother's breach of trust, and with his light, easy way of taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her that her son should be made an English gentleman, seeing that she had the eccentricity of not caring to part from her child, and be to him as if she were not. Daniel's affectionate gratitude toward Sir Hugo made him wish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as possible to be rigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from the sight of things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger who sees amiss. If Sir Hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into regarding children chiefly as a product intended to make life more agreeable to the full-grown, whose convenience alone was to be consulted in the disposal of them--why, he had shared an assumption which, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on at that date of the world's history; and Deronda, with all his keen memory of the painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able also to remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely shut out from Sir Hugo's conception. Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant _un_kindness, the most remote from Deronda's large imaginative lenience toward others. And perhaps now, after the searching scenes of the last ten days, in which the curtain had been lifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more than ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment which has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw Sir Hugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the life-long affection which had been well accustomed to make excuses, flowed in and submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed fresh ground for blame. "Well, Dan," said Sir Hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping Deronda's hand. He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a rush of mutual consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the courier, and then to propose walking slowly in the mild evening, there being no hurry to get to the hotel. "I have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition," he said, as he and Deronda came out under the starlight, which was still faint with the lingering sheen of day. "I didn't hurry in setting off, because I wanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of your letter to Lady Mallinger before I started. But now, how is the widow?" "Getting calmer," said Deronda. "She seems to be escaping the bodily illness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and terrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is being well taken care of." "Any prospect of an heir being born?" "From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if it were a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life." "It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss of the husband?" said Sir Hugo, looking round at Deronda. "The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her," said Deronda, quietly evading the question. "I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the provisions of his will?" said Sir Hugo. "Do you know what they are, sir?" parried Deronda. "Yes, I do," said the baronet, quickly. "Gad! if there is no prospect of a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs. Glasher; you know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a sort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older children--girls. The boy is to take his father's name; he is Henleigh already, and he is to be Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. The Mallinger will be of no use to him, I am happy to say; but the young dog will have more than enough with his fourteen years' minority--no need to have had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for Diplow that he had no right to: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up with a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere--a nice kind of banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which I don't think she will. The boy's mother has been living there of late years. I'm perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt. I don't know that I'm obliged to think the better of him because he's drowned, though, so far as my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the leaving it." "In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife--not in leaving his estates to the son," said Deronda, rather dryly. "I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad," said Sir Hugo; "but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a handsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the rank he had raised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand a year and the London house for her life; that's what I should have done for her. I suppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn't stand out for a settlement, else it's ill trusting to the will a man may make after he's married. Even a wise man generally lets some folly ooze out of him in his will--my father did, I know; and if a fellow has any spite or tyranny in him, he's likely to bottle off a good deal for keeping in that sort of document. It's quite clear Grandcourt meant that his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him no heir." "And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been reversed--illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?" said Deronda, with some scorn. "Precisely--Gadsmere and the two thousand. It's queer. One nuisance is that Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of my only brother, I can't refuse to act. And I shall mind it less if I can be of any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance about the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. He hints that there was no very good understanding between the couple. But I fancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt or did not feel--eh, Dan?" Sir Hugo did not put this question with his usual jocoseness, but rather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry; and Deronda felt that any evasion would be misinterpreted. He answered gravely, "She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as to the disposal of the property--from all I have seen of her, I should predict that she will be quite contented with it." "Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that's all I can say," said Sir Hugo, with a slight shrug. "However, she ought to be something extraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope and hers--eh? When that tremendous telegram came, the first thing Lady Mallinger said was, 'How very strange that it should be Daniel who sends it!' But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I was once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband without money. When I heard of it, and came forward to help her, who should she be but an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to marry an Austrian baron with a long mustache and short affection? But it was an affair of my own that called me there--nothing to do with knight-errantry, any more than you coming to Genoa had to do with the Grandcourts." There was silence for a little while. Sir Hugo had begun to talk of the Grandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and Deronda; but they were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect frankness on the events which touched their relation to each other. Deronda felt that his letter, after the first interview with his mother, had been rather a thickening than a breaking of the ice, and that he ought to wait for the first opening to come from Sir Hugo. Just when they were about to lose sight of the port, the baronet turned, and pausing as if to get a last view, said in a tone of more serious feeling--"And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You have not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope? There is nothing that you feel need change your position in any way? You know, whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me." "I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir," said Deronda. "But I can't answer those questions truly by a simple yes or no. Much that I have heard about the past has pained me. And it has been a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state, as I have been compelled to do. But it is no pain--it is rather a clearing up of doubts for which I am thankful, to know my parentage. As to the effect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you, sir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But to know that I was born a Jew, may have a momentous influence on my life, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present." Deronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some diffidence. He felt that the differences between Sir Hugo's nature and his own would have, by-and-by, to disclose themselves more markedly than had ever yet been needful. The baronet gave him a quick glance, and turned to walk on. After a few moments' silence, in which he had reviewed all the material in his memory which would enable him to interpret Deronda's words, he said, "I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for God's sake, don't go into any eccentricities! I can tolerate any man's difference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself up as a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken seriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I only think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic, especially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan. I'm sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it's a bad ground of selection. However, I don't ask you to anticipate your inclination in anything you have to tell me. When you make up your mind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand pounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have been having the interest of as income. And now I am come, I suppose you want to get back to England as soon as you can?" "I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather's, and perhaps to see a friend of his," said Deronda. "Although the chest has been lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort of nervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more likely now than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I am the more uneasy, because I lingered after my mother left, instead of setting out immediately. Yet I can't regret that I was here--else Mrs. Grandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her." "Yes, yes," said Sir Hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of some vexation hidden under his more serious speech; "I hope you are not going to set a dead Jew above a living Christian." Deronda colored, and repressed a retort. They were just turning into the _Italia_. CHAPTER LX. "But I shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts and be never the wiser."--JEREMY TAYLOR. The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites to avenge the sale of Joseph by his brethren. And there have always been enough of his kidney, whose piety lies in punishing who can see the justice of grudges but not of gratitude. For you shall never convince the stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason, or incline him who hath no love to believe that there is good ground for loving. As we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein _love_ precedeth _lovable_. When Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the _Schuster Strasse_ at Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was presently shown into an inner room, where, seated at a table arranging open letters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in the synagogue at Frankfort. He wore his hat--it seemed to be the same old felt hat as before--and near him was a packed portmanteau with a wrap and overcoat upon it. On seeing Deronda enter he rose, but did not advance or put out his hand. Looking at him with small penetrating eyes which glittered like black gems in the midst of his yellowish face and white hair, he said in German, "Good! It is now you who seek me, young man." "Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather's," said Deronda, "and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much trouble on my account." He spoke without difficulty in that liberal German tongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom. Kalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, "So you are no longer angry at being something more than an Englishman?" "On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from remaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the chest that my grandfather left in trust for me." "Sit down, sit down," said Kalonymos, in a quick undertone, seating himself again, and pointing to a chair near him. Then deliberately laying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered, with white hair, he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at the young face before him. The moment wrought strongly on Deronda's imaginative susceptibility: in the presence of one linked still in zealous friendship with the grandfather whose hope had yearned toward him when he was unborn, and who, though dead, was yet to speak with him in those written memorials which, says Milton, "contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are," he seemed to himself to be touching the electric chain of his own ancestry; and he bore the scrutinizing look of Kalonymos with a delighted awe, something like what one feels in the solemn commemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly on the life of to-day. Impossible for men of duller fibre--men whose affection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel of imagination, to comprehend, perhaps even to credit this sensibility of Deronda's; but it subsisted, like their own dullness, notwithstanding their lack of belief in it--and it gave his face an expression which seemed very satisfactory to the observer. He said in Hebrew, quoting from one of the fine hymns in the Hebrew liturgy, "As thy goodness has been great to the former generations, even so may it be to the latter." Then after pausing a little he began, "Young man, I rejoice that I was not yet set off again on my travels, and that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as he was in his youth--no longer perverted from the fellowship of your people--no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who seemed to be claiming you as a Jew. You come with thankfulness yourself to claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have robbed you of. You come with a willing soul to declare, 'I am the grandson of Daniel Charisi.' Is it not so?" "Assuredly it is," said Deronda. "But let me say that I should at no time have been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because he was a Jew. You can understand that I shrank from saying to a stranger, 'I know nothing of my mother.'" "A sin, a sin!" said Kalonymos, putting up his hand and closing his eyes in disgust. "A robbery of our people--as when our youths and maidens were reared for the Roman Edom. But it is frustrated. I have frustrated it. When Daniel Charisi--may his Rock and his Redeemer guard him!--when Daniel Charisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above his shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. He said, 'Let us bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.' That was his bent from first to last--as he said, to fortify his soul with bonds. It was a saying of his, 'Let us bind love with duty; for duty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the Eternal.' So we bound ourselves. And though we were much apart in our later life, the bond has never been broken. When he was dead, they sought to rob him; but they could not rob him of me. I rescued that remainder of him which he had prized and preserved for his offspring. And I have restored to him the offspring they had robbed him of. I will bring you the chest forthwith." Kalonymos left the room for a few minutes, and returned with a clerk who carried the chest, set it down on the floor, drew off a leather cover, and went out again. It was not very large, but was made heavy by ornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron. The wood was beautifully incised with Arabic lettering. "So!" said Kalonymos, returning to his seat. "And here is the curious key," he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. "Bestow it carefully. I trust you are methodic and wary." He gave Deronda the monitory and slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit any object to the keeping of youth. "I shall be more careful of this than of any other property," said Deronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. "I never before possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished hope and effort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly yours. Have you time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or shall I be trespassing in staying longer?" "Stay yet a while. In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for Trieste," said Kalonymos, looking at his watch, "and presently my sons will expect my attention. Will you let me make you known to them, so that they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend's grandson? They dwell here in ease and luxury, though I choose to be a wanderer." "I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some future opportunity," said Deronda. "There are pressing claims calling me to England--friends who may be much in need of my presence. I have been kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. But to know more of you and your family would be motive enough to bring me again to Mainz." "Good! Me you will hardly find, for I am beyond my threescore years and ten, and I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons and their children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for us since Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some tincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren. I and my contemporaries have had to fight for it too. Our youth fell on evil days; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the learning of all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains--though they keep not always their Jewish hearts. Have you been left altogether ignorant of your people's life, young man?" "No," said Deronda, "I have lately, before I had any true suspicion of my parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little." He was anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know--distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to Beyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious observation. But Deronda's last sentence answered its purpose. "So--you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had not hindered; for you are like him in features:--yet not altogether, young man. He had an iron will in his face: it braced up everybody about him. When he was quite young he had already got one deep upright line in his brow. I see none of that in you. Daniel Charisi used to say, 'Better, a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.' What he despised most was indifference. He had longer reasons than I can give you." "Yet his knowledge was not narrow?" said Deronda, with a tacit reference to the usual excuse for indecision--that it comes from knowing too much. "Narrow? no," said Kalonymos, shaking his head with a compassionate smile "From his childhood upward, he drank in learning as easily as the plant sucks up water. But he early took to medicine and theories about life and health. He traveled to many countries, and spent much of his substance in seeing and knowing. What he used to insist on was that the strength and wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness and communication, and he was bitterly against our people losing themselves among the Gentiles; 'It's no better,' said he, 'than the many sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.' He mingled all sorts of learning; and in that he was like our Arabic writers in the golden time. We studied together, but he went beyond me. Though we were bosom friends, and he poured himself out to me, we were as different as the inside and outside of the bowl. I stood up for two notions of my own: I took Charisi's sayings as I took the shape of the trees: they were there, not to be disputed about. It came to the same thing in both of us; we were both faithful Jews, thankful not to be Gentiles. And since I was a ripe man, I have been what I am now, for all but age--loving to wander, loving transactions, loving to behold all things, and caring nothing about hardship. Charisi thought continually of our people's future: he went with all his soul into that part of our religion: I, not. So we have freedom, I am content. Our people wandered before they were driven. Young man when I am in the East, I lie much on deck and watch the greater stars. The sight of them satisfies me. I know them as they rise, and hunger not to know more. Charisi was satisfied with no sight, but pieced it out with what had been before and what would come after. Yet we loved each other, and as he said, he bound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged ourselves to help and defend each other to the last. I have fulfilled my pledge." Here Kalonymos rose, and Deronda, rising also, said, "And in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me. It would have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known of the inheritance he had prepared for me. I thank you with my whole soul." "Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?" This question was put with a quick abruptness which embarrassed Deronda, who did not feel it quite honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. He answered, "I cannot say that I have any." "Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a Jew and profess the faith of your fathers?" said Kalonymos, putting his hand on Deronda's shoulder and looking sharply in his face. "I shall call myself a Jew," said Deronda, deliberately, becoming slightly paler under the piercing eyes of his questioner. "But I will not say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have believed. Our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief and learned of other races. But I think I can maintain my grandfather's notion of separateness with communication. I hold that my first duty is to my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring or perfecting their common life, I shall make that my vocation." It happened to Deronda at that moment, as it has often happened to others, that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. His respect for the questioner would not let him decline to answer, and by the necessity to answer he found out the truth for himself. "Ah, you argue and you look forward--you are Daniel Charisi's grandson," said Kalonymos, adding a benediction in Hebrew. With that they parted; and almost as soon as Deronda was in London, the aged man was again on shipboard, greeting the friendly stars without any eager curiosity. CHAPTER LXI. "Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, As birds within the green shade of the grove. Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme, Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love." --GUIDO GUINICELLI (_Rossetti's Translation_). There was another house besides the white house at Pennicote, another breast besides Rex Gascoigne's, in which the news of Grandcourt's death caused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it. It was Hans Meyrick's habit to send or bring in the _Times_ for his mother's reading. She was a great reader of news, from the widest-reaching politics to the list of marriages; the latter, she said, giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels without having read them, and seeing the heroes and heroines happy without knowing what poor creatures they were. On a Wednesday, there were reasons why Hans always chose to bring the paper, and to do so about the time that Mirah had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly lesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Mirah sing. But on the particular Wednesday now in question, after entering the house as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the parlor, shaking the _Times_ aloft with a crackling noise, in remorseless interruption of Mab's attempt to render _Lascia ch'io pianga_ with a remote imitation of her teacher. Piano and song ceased immediately; Mirah, who had been playing the accompaniment, involuntarily started up and turned round, the crackling sound, after the occasional trick of sounds, having seemed to her something thunderous; and Mab said, "O-o-o, Hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?" "What on earth is the wonderful news?" said Mrs. Meyrick, who was the only other person in the room. "Anything about Italy--anything about the Austrians giving up Venice?" "Nothing about Italy, but something from Italy," said Hans, with a peculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting. Imagine how some of us feel and behave when an event, not disagreeable seems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions. We say, "What do you think?" in a pregnant tone to some innocent person who has not embarked his wisdom in the same boat with ours, and finds our information flat. "Nothing bad?" said Mrs. Meyrick anxiously, thinking immediately of Deronda; and Mirah's heart had been already clutched by the same thought. "Not bad for anybody we care much about," said Hans, quickly; "rather uncommonly lucky, I think. I never knew anybody die conveniently before. Considering what a dear gazelle I am, I am constantly wondering to find myself alive." "Oh me, Hans!" said Mab, impatiently, "if you must talk of yourself, let it be behind your own back. What _is_ it that has happened?" "Duke Alfonso is drowned, and the Duchess is alive, that's all," said Hans, putting the paper before Mrs. Meyrick, with his finger against a paragraph. "But more than all is--Deronda was at Genoa in the same hotel with them, and he saw her brought in by the fishermen who had got her out of the water time enough to save her from any harm. It seems they saw her jump in after her husband, which was a less judicious action than I should have expected of the Duchess. However Deronda is a lucky fellow in being there to take care of her." Mirah had sunk on the music stool again, with her eyelids down and her hands tightly clasped; and Mrs. Meyrick, giving up the paper to Mab, said, "Poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after him." "It was an inadvertence--a little absence of mind," said Hans, creasing his face roguishly, and throwing himself into a chair not far from Mirah. "Who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances, always singing asides?--that was the husband's _rôle_, depend upon it. Nothing can be neater than his getting drowned. The Duchess is at liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that will melt instead of freezing her. And I shall be invited to the wedding." Here Mirah started from her sitting posture, and fixing her eyes on Hans, with an angry gleam in them, she said, in a deeply-shaken voice of indignation, "Mr. Hans, you ought not to speak in that way. Mr. Deronda would not like you to speak so. Why will you say he is lucky--why will you use words of that sort about life and death--when what is life to one is death to another? How do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs. Grandcourt? It might be a great evil to him. She would take him away from my brother--I know she would. Mr. Deronda would not call that lucky to pierce my brother's heart." All three were struck with the sudden transformation. Mirah's face, with a look of anger that might have suited Ithuriel, pale, even to the lips that were usually so rich of tint, was not far from poor Hans, who sat transfixed, blushing under it as if he had been a girl, while he said, nervously, "I am a fool and a brute, and I withdraw every word. I'll go and hang myself like Judas--if it's allowable to mention him." Even in Hans's sorrowful moments, his improvised words had inevitably some drollery. But Mirah's anger was not appeased: how could it be? She had burst into indignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth meet even through their own flesh, by way of making their agony bearable. She said no more, but, seating herself at the piano, pressed the sheet of music before her, as if she thought of beginning to play again. It was Mab who spoke, while Mrs. Meyrick's face seemed to reflect some of Hans' discomfort. "Mirah is quite right to scold you, Hans. You are always taking Mr. Deronda's name in vain. And it is horrible, joking in that way about his marrying Mrs. Grandcourt. Men's minds must be very black, I think," ended Mab, with much scorn. "Quite true, my dear," said Hans, in a low tone, rising and turning on his heel to walk toward the back window. "We had better go on, Mab; you have not given your full time to the lesson," said Mirah, in a higher tone than usual. "Will you sing this again, or shall I sing it to you?" "Oh, please sing it to me," said Mab, rejoiced to take no more notice of what had happened. And Mirah immediately sang _Lascia ch'io pianga_, giving forth its melodious sobs and cries with new fullness and energy. Hans paused in his walk and leaned against the mantel-piece, keeping his eyes carefully away from his mother's. When Mirah had sung her last note and touched the last chord, she rose and said, "I must go home now. Ezra expects me." She gave her hand silently to Mrs. Meyrick and hung back a little, not daring to look at her, instead of kissing her, as usual. But the little mother drew Mirah's face down to hers, and said, soothingly, "God bless you, my dear." Mirah felt that she had committed an offense against Mrs. Meyrick by angrily rebuking Hans, and mixed with the rest of her suffering was the sense that she had shown something like a proud ingratitude, an unbecoming assertion of superiority. And her friend had divined this compunction. Meanwhile Hans had seized his wide-awake, and was ready to open the door. "Now, Hans," said Mab, with what was really a sister's tenderness cunningly disguised, "you are not going to walk home with Mirah. I am sure she would rather not. You are so dreadfully disagreeable to-day." "I shall go to take care of her, if she does not forbid me," said Hans, opening the door. Mirah said nothing, and when he had opened the outer door for her and closed it behind him, he walked by her side unforbidden. She had not the courage to begin speaking to him again--conscious that she had perhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him, yet finding only severer words behind them in her heart. Besides, she was pressed upon by a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of that consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself. Hans, on his side, had a mind equally busy. Mirah's anger had waked in him a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a dolt not to have had it before. Suppose Mirah's heart were entirely preoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and her brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans's mind with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish. He had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary could have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt; he had pieced together many fragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed by what his sisters had heard from Anna Gascoigne, which convinced him not only that Mrs. Grandcourt had a passion for Deronda, but also, notwithstanding his friend's austere self-repression, that Deronda's susceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love. Some men, having such a conviction, would have avoided allusions that could have roused that susceptibility; but Hans's talk naturally fluttered toward mischief, and he was given to a form of experiment on live animals which consisted in irritating his friends playfully. His experiments had ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true. On the other hand, any susceptibility Deronda had manifested about a lover's attentions being shown to Mirah, Hans took to be sufficiently accounted for by the alleged reason, namely, her dependent position; for he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for those whom he could rescue and protect. And Deronda's insistence that Mirah would never marry one who was not a Jew necessarily seemed to exclude himself, since Hans shared the ordinary opinion, which he knew nothing to disturb, that Deronda was the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger. Thus he felt himself in clearness about the state of Deronda's affections; but now, the events which really struck him as concurring toward the desirable union with Mrs. Grandcourt, had called forth a flash of revelation from Mirah--a betrayal of her passionate feeling on this subject which had made him melancholy on her account as well as his own--yet on the whole less melancholy than if he had imagined Deronda's hopes fixed on her. It is not sublime, but it is common, for a man to see the beloved object unhappy because his rival loves another, with more fortitude and a milder jealousy than if he saw her entirely happy in his rival. At least it was so with the mercurial Hans, who fluctuated between the contradictory states of feeling, wounded because Mirah was wounded, and of being almost obliged to Deronda for loving somebody else. It was impossible for him to give Mirah any direct sign of the way in which he had understood her anger, yet he longed that his speechless companionship should be eloquent in a tender, penitent sympathy which is an admissible form of wooing a bruised heart. Thus the two went side by side in a companionship that yet seemed an agitated communication, like that of two chords whose quick vibrations lie outside our hearing. But when they reached the door of Mirah's home, and Hans said "Good-bye," putting out his hand with an appealing look of penitence, she met the look with melancholy gentleness, and said, "Will you not come in and see my brother?" Hans could not but interpret this invitation as a sign of pardon. He had not enough understanding of what Mirah's nature had been wrought into by her early experience, to divine how the very strength of her late excitement had made it pass more quickly into the resolute acceptance of pain. When he had said, "If you will let me," and they went in together, half his grief was gone, and he was spinning a little romance of how his devotion might make him indispensable to Mirah in proportion as Deronda gave his devotion elsewhere. This was quite fair, since his friend was provided for according to his own heart; and on the question of Judaism Hans felt thoroughly fortified:--who ever heard in tale or history that a woman's love went in the track of her race and religion? Moslem and Jewish damsels were always attracted toward Christians, and now if Mirah's heart had gone forth too precipitately toward Deronda, here was another case in point. Hans was wont to make merry with his own arguments, to call himself a Giaour, and antithesis the sole clue to events; but he believed a little in what he laughed at. And thus his bird-like hope, constructed on the lightest principles, soared again in spite of heavy circumstances. They found Mordecai looking singularly happy, holding a closed letter in his hand, his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his emaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over assailing death. After the greeting between him and Hans, Mirah put her arm round her brother's neck and looked down at the letter in his hand, without the courage to ask about it, though she felt sure that it was the cause of his happiness. "A letter from Daniel Deronda," said Mordecai, answering her look. "Brief--only saying that he hopes soon to return. Unexpected claims have detained him. The promise of seeing him again is like the bow in the cloud to me," continued Mordecai, looking at Hans; "and to you it must be a gladness. For who has two friends like him?" While Hans was answering Mirah slipped away to her own room; but not to indulge in any outburst of the passion within her. If the angels, once supposed to watch the toilet of women, had entered the little chamber with her and let her shut the door behind them, they would only have seen her take off her hat, sit down and press her hands against her temples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached; then rise to dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward curls were full of crystal beads, while she had dried her brow and looked out like a freshly-opened flower from among the dewy tresses of the woodland; then give deep sighs of relief, and putting on her little slippers, sit still after that action for a couple of minutes, which seemed to her so long, so full of things to come, that she rose with an air of recollection, and went down to make tea. Something of the old life had returned. She had been used to remember that she must learn her part, must go to rehearsal, must act and sing in the evening, must hide her feelings from her father; and the more painful her life grew, the more she had been used to hide. The force of her nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance, and to-day the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger had quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble, the well-known companion of her young years. But while she moved about and spoke as usual, a close observer might have discerned a difference between this apparent calm, which was the effect of restraining energy, and the sweet genuine calm of the months when she first felt a return of her infantine happiness. Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm. Mirah felt no such surprise when familiar Sorrow came back from brief absence, and sat down with her according to the old use and wont. And this habit of expecting trouble rather than joy, hindered her from having any persistent belief in opposition to the probabilities which were not merely suggested by Hans, but were supported by her own private knowledge and long-growing presentiment. An attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt, to end in their future marriage, had the aspect of a certainty for her feeling. There had been no fault in him: facts had ordered themselves so that there was a tie between him and this woman who belonged to another world than hers and Ezra's--nay, who seemed another sort of being than Deronda, something foreign that would be a disturbance in his life instead of blending with it. Well, well--but if it could have been deferred so as to make no difference while Ezra was there! She did not know all the momentousness of the relation between Deronda and her brother, but she had seen, and instinctively felt enough to forebode its being incongruous with any close tie to Mrs. Grandcourt; at least this was the clothing that Mirah first gave to her mortal repugnance. But in the still, quick action of her consciousness, thoughts went on like changing states of sensation unbroken by her habitual acts; and this inward language soon said distinctly that the mortal repugnance would remain even if Ezra were secured from loss. "What I have read about and sung about and seen acted, is happening to me--this that I am feeling is the love that makes jealousy;" so impartially Mirah summed up the charge against herself. But what difference could this pain of hers make to any one else? It must remain as exclusively her own, and hidden, as her early yearning and devotion to her lost mother. But unlike that devotion, it was something that she felt to be a misfortune of her nature--a discovery that what should have been pure gratitude and reverence had sunk into selfish pain, that the feeling she had hitherto delighted to pour out in words was degraded into something she was ashamed to betray--an absurd longing that she who had received all and given nothing should be of importance where she was of no importance--an angry feeling toward another woman who possessed the good she wanted. But what notion, what vain reliance could it be that had lain darkly within her and was now burning itself into sight as disappointment and jealousy? It was as if her soul had been steeped in poisonous passion by forgotten dreams of deep sleep, and now flamed out in this unaccountable misery. For with her waking reason she had never entertained what seemed the wildly unfitting thought that Deronda could love her. The uneasiness she had felt before had been comparatively vague and easily explained as part of a general regret that he was only a visitant in her and her brother's world, from which the world where his home lay was as different as a portico with lights and lacqueys was different from the door of a tent, where the only splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars. But her feeling was no longer vague: the cause of her pain--the image of Mrs. Grandcourt by Deronda's side, drawing him farther and farther into the distance, was as definite as pincers on her flesh. In the Psyche-mould of Mirah's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion, sometimes rashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra; her impressions had the thoroughness and tenacity that give to the first selection of passionate feeling the character of a lifelong faithfulness. And now a selection had declared itself, which gave love a cruel heart of jealousy: she had been used to a strong repugnance toward certain objects that surrounded her, and to walk inwardly aloof from them while they touched her sense. And now her repugnance concentrated itself on Mrs. Grandcourt, of whom she involuntarily conceived more evil than she knew. "I could bear everything that used to be--but this is worse--this is worse,--I used not to have horrible feelings!" said the poor child in a loud whisper to her pillow. Strange that she should have to pray against any feeling which concerned Deronda! But this conclusion had been reached through an evening spent in attending to Mordecai, whose exaltation of spirit in the prospect of seeing his friend again, disposed him to utter many thoughts aloud to Mirah, though such communication was often interrupted by intervals apparently filled with an inward utterance that animated his eyes and gave an occasional silent action to his lips. One thought especially occupied him. "Seest thou, Mirah," he said once, after a long silence, "the _Shemah_, wherein we briefly confess the divine Unity, is the chief devotional exercise of the Hebrew; and this made our religion the fundamental religion for the whole world; for the divine Unity embraced as its consequence the ultimate unity of mankind. See, then--the nation which has been scoffed at for its separateness, has given a binding theory to the human race. Now, in complete unity a part possesses the whole as the whole possesses every part: and in this way human life is tending toward the image of the Supreme Unity: for as our life becomes more spiritual by capacity of thought, and joy therein, possession tends to become more universal, being independent of gross material contact; so that in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good which has been and is, nay, is to come, than all he could possess in a whole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses. In this moment, my sister, I hold the joy of another's future within me: a future which these eyes will not see, and which my spirit may not then recognize as mine. I recognize it now, and love it so, that I can lay down this poor life upon its altar and say: 'Burn, burn indiscernibly into that which shall be, which is my love and not me.' Dost thou understand, Mirah?" "A little," said Mirah, faintly, "but my mind is too poor to have felt it." "And yet," said Mordecai, rather insistently, "women are specially framed for the love which feels possession in renouncing, and is thus a fit image of what I mean. Somewhere in the later _Midrash_, I think, is the story of a Jewish maiden who loved a Gentile king so well, that this was what she did:--she entered into prison and changed clothes with the woman who was beloved by the king, that she might deliver that woman from death by dying in her stead, and leave the king to be happy in his love which was not for her. This is the surpassing love, that loses self in the object of love." "No, Ezra, no," said Mirah, with low-toned intensity, "that was not it. She wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done, and feel that she was better than the other. It was her strong self, wanting to conquer, that made her die." Mordecai was silent a little, and then argued, "That might be, Mirah. But if she acted so, believing the king would never know." "You can make the story so in your mind, Ezra, because you are great, and like to fancy the greatest that could be. But I think it was not really like that. The Jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart, and she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king's mind. That is what she would die for." "My sister, thou hast read too many plays, where the writers delight in showing the human passions as indwelling demons, unmixed with the relenting and devout elements of the soul. Thou judgest by the plays, and not by thy own heart, which is like our mother's." Mirah made no answer. CHAPTER LXII. "Das Gluck ist eine leichte Dirne, Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort; Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne Und kusst dich rasch und flattert fort Frau Ungluck hat im Gegentheile Dich liebefest an's Herz gedruckt; Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile, Setzt sich zu dir an's Bett und strickt." --HEINE. Something which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of a threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which had lately come back, bringing abundant luggage. Turning out of Knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morning concert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by Klesmer, and where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing company, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an even pace with her own. Her concert dress being simple black, over which she had thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of unpleasant attention, and render walking an imprudence; but this reflection did not occur to Mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost in her mind. She immediately thought of her father, and could no more look round than if she had felt herself tracked by a ghost. To turn and face him would be voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which beforehand seemed intolerable. If it were her father he must mean to claim recognition, and he would oblige her to face him. She must wait for that compulsion. She walked on, not quickening her pace--of what use was that?--but picturing what was about to happen as if she had the full certainty that the man behind her was her father; and along with her picturing went a regret that she had given her word to Mrs. Meyrick not to use any concealment about him. The regret at last urged her, at least, to try and hinder any sudden betrayal that would cause her brother an unnecessary shock. Under the pressure of this motive, she resolved to turn before she reached her own door, and firmly will the encounter instead of merely submitting to it. She had already reached the entrance of the small square where her home lay, and had made up her mind to turn, when she felt her embodied presentiment getting closer to her, then slipping to her side, grasping her wrist, and saying, with a persuasive curl of accent, "Mirah!" She paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected, and she was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she had been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the intention of soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar impress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while accepting disrespect. He was lightly made and active, with something of youth about him which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in reality he was hardly fifty-seven. His dress was shabby, as when she had seen him before. The presence of this unreverend father now, more than ever, affected Mirah with the mingled anguish of shame and grief, repulsion and pity--more than ever, now that her own world was changed into one where there was no comradeship to fence him from scorn and contempt. Slowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, "It is you, father." "Why did you run away from me, child?" he began with rapid speech which was meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with various quick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. "What were you afraid of? You knew I never made you do anything against your will. It was for your sake I broke up your engagement in the Vorstadt, because I saw it didn't suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to the bad times that came in consequence. I had made an easier engagement for you at the Vorstadt Theater in Dresden: I didn't tell you, because I wanted to take you by surprise. And you left me planted there--obliged to make myself scarce because I had broken contract. That was hard lines for me, after I had given up everything for the sake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you. What father devoted himself to his daughter more than I did to you? You know how I bore that disappointment in your voice, and made the best of it: and when I had nobody besides you, and was getting broken, as a man must who has had to fight his way with his brains--you chose that time to leave me. Who else was it you owed everything to, if not to me? and where was your feeling in return? For what my daughter cared, I might have died in a ditch." Lapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because he had reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman's, taking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. He really felt that his daughter had treated him ill--a sort of sensibility which is naturally strong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to them, without any _per contra_. Mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy enough not to let him suppose that he deceived her. She answered more firmly, though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words to him. "You know why I left you, father; and I had reason to distrust you, because I felt sure that you had deceived my mother. If I could have trusted you, I would have stayed with you and worked for you." "I never meant to deceive your mother, Mirah," said Lapidoth, putting back his handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to struggle against further sobbing. "I meant to take you back to her, but chances hindered me just at the time, and then there came information of her death. It was better for you that I should stay where I was, and your brother could take care of himself. Nobody had any claim on me but you. I had word of your mother's death from a particular friend, who had undertaken to manage things for me, and I sent him over money to pay expenses. There's one chance to be sure--" Lapidoth had quickly conceived that he must guard against something unlikely, yet possible--"he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the money out of me." Mirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one--"I don't believe one word of what you say"--and she simply showed a wish that they should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw down unpleasant notice. Even as they walked along, their companionship might well have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. The figure of Mirah, with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an English lady, made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking, eager, and gesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness of air, perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the smallness of his hands and feet, and his light walk. "You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want, I see," said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination. "Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work," said Mirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied with what she would presently have to say. "I give lessons. I have sung in private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert." She paused, and then added, with significance, "I have very good friends, who know all about me." "And you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight? No wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of finding you. It was a mad quest; but a father's heart is superstitious--feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might have done very well, staying abroad: when I hadn't you to take care of, I could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball; but it's hard being lonely in the world, when your spirit's beginning to break. And I thought my little Mirah would repent leaving her father when she came to look back. I've had a sharp pinch to work my way; I don't know what I shall come down to next. Talents like mine are no use in this country. When a man's getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him. I couldn't get any decent employ with my appearance. I've been obliged to get pretty low for a shilling already." Mirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a further degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. But before she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered with as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added promptly, "Where do you live, Mirah?" "Here, in this square. We are not far from the house." "In lodgings?" "Yes." "Any one to take care of you?" "Yes," said Mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turned toward hers--"my brother." The father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across them, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said, after a just perceptible pause: "Ezra? How did you know--how did you find him?" "That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother would not wish me to close it on you." Mirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her father, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to beat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of Ezra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom she had been used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her, with a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been indirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic humiliation and shame--the stabbed heart of reverence--which belongs to a nature intensely filial. "Stay a minute, _Liebchen_," said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone; "what sort of man has Ezra turned out?" "A good man--a wonderful man," said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying to master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went on. She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration of himself which awaited him. "But he was very poor when my friends found him for me--a poor workman. Once--twelve years ago--he was strong and happy, going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother called him back because--because she had lost me. And he went to her, and took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she died--died in grief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength. The cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was forsaken. For years he has been getting weaker--always poor, always working--but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him honor him. To stand before him is like standing before a prophet of God"--Mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing--"falsehoods are no use." She had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she spoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration that gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention and decision. "Mirah, _Liebchen_," he said, in the old caressing way, "shouldn't you like me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me? If I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to you as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent place. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad enough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn't look like a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children, and forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like this before. If you had ten pounds at hand--or I could appoint you to bring it me somewhere--I could fit myself out by the day after to-morrow." Mirah felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome. She answered, obliging herself to look at him again, "I don't like to deny you what you ask, father; but I have given a promise not to do things for you in secret. It _is_ hard to see you looking needy; but we will bear that for a little while; and then you can have new clothes, and we can pay for them." Her practical sense made her see now what was Mrs. Meyrick's wisdom in exacting a promise from her. Lapidoth's good humor gave way a little. He said, with a sneer, "You are a hard and fast young lady--you have been learning useful virtues--keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two when you are getting money to dress yourself in silk--your father who made an idol of you, and gave up the best part of his life to providing for you." "It seems cruel--I know it seems cruel," said Mirah, feeling this a worse moment than when she meant to drown herself. Her lips were suddenly pale. "But, father, it is more cruel to break the promises people trust in. That broke my mother's heart--it has broken Ezra's life. You and I must eat now this bitterness from what has been. Bear it. Bear to come in and be cared for as you are." "To-morrow, then," said Lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away from this pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the inconvenient world to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with his hands feeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some return to his appealing tone, "I'm a little cut up with all this, Mirah. I shall get up my spirits by to-morrow. If you've a little money in your pocket, I suppose it isn't against your promise to give me a trifle--to buy a cigar with." Mirah could not ask herself another question--could not do anything else than put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her _portemonnaie_ and hold it out. Lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed her fingers the while, said, "Good-bye, my little girl--to-morrow then!" and left her. He had not taken many steps before he looked carefully into all the folds of the purse, found two half-sovereigns and odd silver, and, pasted against the folding cover, a bit of paper on which Ezra had inscribed, in a beautiful Hebrew character, the name of his mother, the days of her birth, marriage, and death, and the prayer, "May Mirah be delivered from evil." It was Mirah's liking to have this little inscription on many articles that she used. The father read it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, and the bright, unblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching many things, but expecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; and very fond of his beautiful bride Sara--crying when she expected him to cry, and reflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic susceptibility. Lapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, and thought of all that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory, which was like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the sense of touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape and grain, but no flavor. Among the things we may gamble away in a lazy selfish life is the capacity for ruth, compunction, or any unselfish regret--which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to feel laceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin where consciousness once was. Mirah's purse was a handsome one--a gift to her, which she had been unable to reflect about giving away--and Lapidoth presently found himself outside of his reverie, considering what the purse would fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and what prospect there was of his being able to get more from his daughter without submitting to adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes of that formidable son. On such a subject his susceptibilities were still lively. Meanwhile Mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence overcome by the cruelty of her pain. She found her brother quietly reading and sifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to consign to Deronda. In the reaction from the long effort to master herself, she fell down before him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and crying, "Ezra, Ezra!" He did not speak. His alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the cause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of this violent manifestation. But Mirah's own longing was to be able to speak and tell him the cause. Presently she raised her hand, and still sobbing, said brokenly, "Ezra, my father! our father! He followed me. I wanted him to come in. I said you would let him come in. And he said No, he would not--not now, but to-morrow. And he begged for money from me. And I gave him my purse, and he went away." Mirah's words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt in them. Her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, and said gently, "Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all,"--putting off her hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. She felt the soothing influence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she could all that had happened. "He will not come to-morrow," said Mordecai. Neither of them said to the other what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for Mirah's outgoings and beg from her again. "Seest thou," he presently added, "our lot is the lot of Israel. The grief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. It is because we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil. These things are wedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother." The surroundings were of Brompton, but the voice might have come from a Rabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in _Babli_--by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is meant the voluminous Babylonian Talmud. "The Omnipresent," said a Rabbi, "is occupied in making marriages." The levity of the saying lies in the ear of him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil. CHAPTER LXIII. "Moses, trotz seiner Befeindung der Kunst, dennoch selber ein großer Künstler war und den wahren Künstlergeist besaß. Nur war dieser Künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägyptischen Landsleuten, nur auf das Kolossale und Unverwüstliche gerichtet. Aber nicht wie die Ägypter formierte er seine Kunstwerke aus Backstein und Gra- nit, sondern er baute Menschenpyramiden, er meisselte Menschenobelisken, er nahm einen armen Hirten- stamm und schuf daraus ein Volk, das ebenfalls den Jahrhunderten trotzen sollte . . .er schuf Israel!" --HEINE: _Gestandnisse_. Imagine the difference in Deronda's state of mind when he left England and when he returned to it. He had set out for Genoa in total uncertainty how far the actual bent of his wishes and affections would be encouraged--how far the claims revealed to him might draw him into new paths, far away from the tracks his thoughts had lately been pursuing with a consent of desire which uncertainty made dangerous. He came back with something like a discovered charter warranting the inherited right that his ambition had begun to yearn for: he came back with what was better than freedom--with a duteous bond which his experience had been preparing him to accept gladly, even if it had been attended with no promise of satisfying a secret passionate longing never yet allowed to grow into a hope. But now he dared avow to himself the hidden selection of his love. Since the hour when he left the house at Chelsea in full-hearted silence under the effect of Mirah's farewell look and words--their exquisite appealingness stirring in him that deep-laid care for womanhood which had begun when his own lip was like a girl's--her hold on his feeling had helped him to be blameless in word and deed under the difficult circumstances we know of. There seemed no likelihood that he could ever woo this creature who had become dear to him amidst associations that forbade wooing; yet she had taken her place in his soul as a beloved type--reducing the power of other fascination and making a difference in it that became deficiency. The influence had been continually strengthened. It had lain in the course of poor Gwendolen's lot that her dependence on Deronda tended to rouse in him the enthusiasm of self-martyring pity rather than of personal love, and his less constrained tenderness flowed with the fuller stream toward an indwelling image in all things unlike Gwendolen. Still more, his relation to Mordecai had brought with it a new nearness to Mirah which was not the less agitating because there was no apparent change in his position toward her; and she had inevitably been bound up in all the thoughts that made him shrink from an issue disappointing to her brother. This process had not gone on unconsciously in Deronda: he was conscious of it as we are of some covetousness that it would be better to nullify by encouraging other thoughts than to give it the insistency of confession even to ourselves: but the jealous fire had leaped out at Hans's pretensions, and when his mother accused him of being in love with a Jewess any evasion suddenly seemed an infidelity. His mother had compelled him to a decisive acknowledgment of his love, as Joseph Kalonymos had compelled him to a definite expression of his resolve. This new state of decision wrought on Deronda with a force which surprised even himself. There was a release of all the energy which had long been spent in self-checking and suppression because of doubtful conditions; and he was ready to laugh at his own impetuosity when, as he neared England on his way from Mainz, he felt the remaining distance more and more of an obstruction. It was as if he had found an added soul in finding his ancestry--his judgment no longer wandering in the mazes of impartial sympathy, but choosing, with that partiality which is man's best strength, the closer fellowship that makes sympathy practical--exchanging that bird's eye reasonableness which soars to avoid preference and loses all sense of quality for the generous reasonableness of drawing shoulder to shoulder with men of like inheritance. He wanted now to be again with Mordecai, to pour forth instead of restraining his feeling, to admit agreement and maintain dissent, and all the while to find Mirah's presence without the embarrassment of obviously seeking it, to see her in the light of a new possibility, to interpret her looks and words from a new starting-point. He was not greatly alarmed about the effect of Hans's attentions, but he had a presentiment that her feeling toward himself had from the first lain in a channel from which it was not likely to be diverted into love. To astonish a woman by turning into her lover when she has been thinking of you merely as a Lord Chancellor is what a man naturally shrinks from: he is anxious to create an easier transition. What wonder that Deronda saw no other course than to go straight from the London railway station to the lodgings in that small square in Brompton? Every argument was in favor of his losing no time. He had promised to run down the next day to see Lady Mallinger at the Abbey, and it was already sunset. He wished to deposit the precious chest with Mordecai, who would study its contents, both in his absence and in company with him; and that he should pay this visit without pause would gratify Mordecai's heart. Hence, and for other reasons, it gratified Deronda's heart. The strongest tendencies of his nature were rushing in one current--the fervent affectionateness which made him delight in meeting the wish of beings near to him, and the imaginative need of some far-reaching relation to make the horizon of his immediate, daily acts. It has to be admitted that in this classical, romantic, world-historic position of his, bringing as it were from its hiding-place his hereditary armor, he wore--but so, one must suppose, did the most ancient heroes, whether Semitic or Japhetic--the summer costume of his contemporaries. He did not reflect that the drab tints were becoming to him, for he rarely went to the expense of such thinking; but his own depth of coloring, which made the becomingness, got an added radiance in the eyes, a fleeting and returning glow in the skin, as he entered the house wondering what exactly he should find. He made his entrance as noiseless as possible. It was the evening of that same afternoon on which Mirah had had the interview with her father. Mordecai, penetrated by her grief, and also the sad memories which the incident had awakened, had not resumed his task of sifting papers: some of them had fallen scattered on the floor in the first moments of anxiety, and neither he nor Mirah had thought of laying them in order again. They had sat perfectly still together, not knowing how long; while the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and the light was fading, Mirah, unable to think of the food that she ought to have been taking, had not moved since she had thrown off her dust-cloak and sat down beside Mordecai with her hand in his, while he had laid his head backward, with closed eyes and difficult breathing, looking, Mirah thought, as he would look when the soul within him could no longer live in its straitened home. The thought that his death might be near was continually visiting her when she saw his face in this way, without its vivid animation; and now, to the rest of her grief, was added the regret that she had been unable to control the violent outburst which had shaken him. She sat watching him--her oval cheeks pallid, her eyes with the sorrowful brilliancy left by young tears, her curls in as much disorder as a just-awakened child's--watching that emaciated face, where it might have been imagined that a veil had been drawn never to be lifted, as if it were her dead joy which had left her strong enough to live on in sorrow. And life at that moment stretched before Mirah with more than a repetition of former sadness. The shadow of the father was there, and more than that, a double bereavement--of one living as well as one dead. But now the door was opened, and while none entered, a well-known voice said: "Daniel Deronda--may he come in?" "Come! come!" said Mordecai, immediately rising with an irradiated face and opened eyes--apparently as little surprised as if he had seen Deronda in the morning, and expected this evening visit; while Mirah started up blushing with confused, half-alarmed expectation. Yet when Deronda entered, the sight of him was like the clearness after rain: no clouds to come could hinder the cherishing beam of that moment. As he held out his right hand to Mirah, who was close to her brother's left, he laid his other hand on Mordecai's right shoulder, and stood so a moment, holding them both at once, uttering no word, but reading their faces, till he said anxiously to Mirah, "Has anything happened?--any trouble?" "Talk not of trouble now," said Mordecai, saving her from the need to answer. "There is joy in your face--let the joy be ours." Mirah thought, "It is for something he cannot tell us." But they all sat down, Deronda drawing a chair close in front of Mordecai. "That is true," he said, emphatically. "I have a joy which will remain to us even in the worst trouble. I did not tell you the reason of my journey abroad, Mordecai, because--never mind--I went to learn my parentage. And you were right. I am a Jew." The two men clasped hands with a movement that seemed part of the flash from Mordecai's eyes, and passed through Mirah like an electric shock. But Deronda went on without pause, speaking from Mordecai's mind as much as from his own, "We have the same people. Our souls have the same vocation. We shall not be separated by life or by death." Mordecai's answer was uttered in Hebrew, and in no more than a loud whisper. It was in the liturgical words which express the religious bond: "Our God and the God of our fathers." The weight of feeling pressed too strongly on that ready-winged speech which usually moved in quick adaptation to every stirring of his fervor. Mirah fell on her knees by her brother's side, and looked at his now illuminated face, which had just before been so deathly. The action was an inevitable outlet of the violent reversal from despondency to a gladness which came over her as solemnly as if she had been beholding a religious rite. For the moment she thought of the effect on her own life only through the effect on her brother. "And it is not only that I am a Jew," Deronda went on, enjoying one of those rare moments when our yearnings and our acts can be completely one, and the real we behold is our ideal good; "but I come of a strain that has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race--a line of Spanish Jews that has borne many students and men of practical power. And I possess what will give us a sort of communion with them. My grandfather, Daniel Charisi, preserved manuscripts, family records stretching far back, in the hope that they would pass into the hands of his grandson. And now his hope is fulfilled, in spite of attempts to thwart it by hiding my parentage from me. I possess the chest containing them, with his own papers, and it is down below in this house. I mean to leave it with you, Mordecai, that you may help me to study the manuscripts. Some of them I can read easily enough--those in Spanish and Italian. Others are in Hebrew, and, I think, Arabic; but there seem to be Latin translations. I was only able to look at them cursorily while I stayed at Mainz. We will study them together." Deronda ended with that bright smile which, beaming out from the habitual gravity of his face, seemed a revelation (the reverse of the continual smile that discredits all expression). But when this happy glance passed from Mordecai to rest on Mirah, it acted like a little too much sunshine, and made her change her attitude. She had knelt under an impulse with which any personal embarrassment was incongruous, and especially any thoughts about how Mrs. Grandcourt might stand to this new aspect of things--thoughts which made her color under Deronda's glance, and rise to take her seat again in her usual posture of crossed hands and feet, with the effort to look as quiet as possible. Deronda, equally sensitive, imagined that the feeling of which he was conscious, had entered too much into his eyes, and had been repugnant to her. He was ready enough to believe that any unexpected manifestation might spoil her feeling toward him--and then his precious relation to brother and sister would be marred. If Mirah could have no love for him, any advances of love on his part would make her wretched in that continual contact with him which would remain inevitable. While such feelings were pulsating quickly in Deronda and Mirah, Mordecai, seeing nothing in his friend's presence and words but a blessed fulfillment, was already speaking with his old sense of enlargement in utterance, "Daniel, from the first, I have said to you, we know not all the pathways. Has there not been a meeting among them, as of the operations in one soul, where an idea being born and breathing draws the elements toward it, and is fed and glows? For all things are bound together in that Omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world, and events are of a glass wherethrough our eyes see some of the pathways. And if it seems that the erring and unloving wills of men have helped to prepare you, as Moses was prepared, to serve your people the better, that depends on another order than the law which must guide our footsteps. For the evil will of man makes not a people's good except by stirring the righteous will of man; and beneath all the clouds with which our thought encompasses the Eternal, this is clear--that a people can be blessed only by having counsellors and a multitude whose will moves in obedience to the laws of justice and love. For see, now, it was your loving will that made a chief pathway, and resisted the effect of evil; for, by performing the duties of brotherhood to my sister, and seeking out her brother in the flesh, your soul has been prepared to receive with gladness this message of the Eternal, 'behold the multitude of your brethren.'" "It is quite true that you and Mirah have been my teachers," said Deronda. "If this revelation had been made to me before I knew you both, I think my mind would have rebelled against it. Perhaps I should have felt then--'If I could have chosen, I would not have been a Jew.' What I feel now is--that my whole being is a consent to the fact. But it has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has brought about that full consent." At the moment Deronda was speaking, that first evening in the book-shop was vividly in his remembrance, with all the struggling aloofness he had then felt from Mordecai's prophetic confidence. It was his nature to delight in satisfying to the utmost the eagerly-expectant soul, which seemed to be looking out from the face before him, like the long-enduring watcher who at last sees the mountain signal-flame; and he went on with fuller fervor, "It is through your inspiration that I have discerned what may be my life's task. It is you who have given shape to what, I believe, was an inherited yearning--the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many ancestors--thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for painting, and born blind--the ancestral life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly-wrought musical instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy mysterious meanings of its intricate structure that, under the right touch, gives music. Something like that, I think, has been my experience. Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for some ideal task, in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a multitude--some social captainship, which would come to me as a duty, and not be striven for as a personal prize. You have raised the image of such a task for me--to bind our race together in spite of heresy. You have said to me--'Our religion united us before it divided us--it made us a people before it made Rabbanites and Karaites.' I mean to try what can be done with that union--I mean to work in your spirit. Failure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try." "Even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother," said Mordecai, falling back in his chair with a look of exultant repose, as after some finished labor. To estimate the effect of this ardent outpouring from Deronda we must remember his former reserve, his careful avoidance of premature assent or delusive encouragement, which gave to this decided pledge of himself a sacramental solemnity, both for his own mind and Mordecai's. On Mirah the effect was equally strong, though with a difference: she felt a surprise which had no place in her brother's mind, at Deronda's suddenly revealed sense of nearness to them: there seemed to be a breaking of day around her which might show her other facts unlike her forebodings in the darkness. But after a moment's silence Mordecai spoke again, "It has begun already--the marriage of our souls. It waits but the passing away of this body, and then they who are betrothed shall unite in a stricter bond, and what is mine shall be thine. Call nothing mine that I have written, Daniel; for though our masters delivered rightly that everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it--and their rule is good--yet it does not exclude the willing marriage which melts soul into soul, and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are made fuller, where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is inseparable. For I have judged what I have written, and I desire the body that I gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will pass; but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which shall be called yours." "You must not ask me to promise that," said Deronda, smiling. "I must be convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings themselves. And I am too backward a pupil yet. That blent transmission must go on without any choice of ours; but what we can't hinder must not make our rule for what we ought to choose. I think our duty is faithful tradition where we can attain it. And so you would insist for any one but yourself. Don't ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when I am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural parentage." "I will ask for no promise till you see the reason," said Mordecai. "You have said the truth: I would obey the Master's rule for another. But for years my hope, nay, my confidence, has been, not that the imperfect image of my thought, which is an ill-shaped work of the youthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern, and trembles in imitating the vision--not that this should live, but that my vision and passion should enter into yours--yea, into yours; for he whom I longed for afar, was he not you whom I discerned as mine when you came near? Nevertheless, you shall judge. For my soul is satisfied." Mordecai paused, and then began in a changed tone, reverting to previous suggestions from Deronda's disclosure: "What moved your parents----?" but he immediately checked himself, and added, "Nay, I ask not that you should tell me aught concerning others, unless it is your pleasure." "Some time--gradually--you will know all," said Deronda. "But now tell me more about yourselves, and how the time has passed since I went away. I am sure there has been some trouble. Mirah has been in distress about something." He looked at Mirah, but she immediately turned to her brother, appealing to him to give the difficult answer. She hoped he would not think it necessary to tell Deronda the facts about her father on such an evening as this. Just when Deronda had brought himself so near, and identified himself with her brother, it was cutting to her that he should hear of this disgrace clinging about them, which seemed to have become partly his. To relieve herself she rose to take up her hat and cloak, thinking she would go to her own room: perhaps they would speak more easily when she had left them. But meanwhile Mordecai said, "To-day there has been a grief. A duty which seemed to have gone far into the distance, has come back and turned its face upon us, and raised no gladness--has raised a dread that we must submit to. But for the moment we are delivered from any visible yoke. Let us defer speaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us were the beginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of our joy, and mingle no mourning with them." Deronda divined the hinted grief, and left it in silence, rising as he saw Mirah rise, and saying to her, "Are you going? I must leave almost immediately--when I and Mrs. Adam have mounted the precious chest, and I have delivered the key to Mordecai--no, Ezra,--may I call him Ezra now? I have learned to think of him as Ezra since I have heard you call him so." "Please call him Ezra," said Mirah, faintly, feeling a new timidity under Deronda's glance and near presence. Was there really something different about him, or was the difference only in her feeling? The strangely various emotions of the last few hours had exhausted her; she was faint with fatigue and want of food. Deronda, observing her pallor and tremulousness, longed to show more feeling, but dared not. She put out her hand with an effort to smile, and then he opened the door for her. That was all. A man of refined pride shrinks from making a lover's approaches to a woman whose wealth or rank might make them appear presumptuous or low-motived; but Deronda was finding a more delicate difficulty in a position which, superficially taken, was the reverse of that--though to an ardent reverential love, the loved woman has always a kind of wealth and rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the aspect of his addresses. Deronda's difficulty was what any generous man might have felt in some degree; but it affected him peculiarly through his imaginative sympathy with a mind in which gratitude was strong. Mirah, he knew, felt herself bound to him by deep obligations, which to her sensibilities might give every wish of his the aspect of a claim; and an inability to fulfill it would cause her a pain continually revived by their inevitable communion in care of Ezra. Here were fears not of pride only, but of extreme tenderness. Altogether, to have the character of a benefactor seemed to Deronda's anxiety an insurmountable obstacle to confessing himself a lover, unless in some inconceivable way it could be revealed to him that Mirah's heart had accepted him beforehand. And the agitation on his own account, too, was not small. Even a man who has practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover's awe--may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity possess a man whose inward history has cherished his susceptibilities instead of dulling them, and has kept all the language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about the hill-side spring! As for Mirah her dear head lay on its pillow that night with its former suspicions thrown out of shape but still present, like an ugly story which had been discredited but not therefore dissipated. All that she was certain of about Deronda seemed to prove that he had no such fetters upon him as she had been allowing herself to believe in. His whole manner as well as his words implied that there were no hidden bonds remaining to have any effect in determining his future. But notwithstanding this plainly reasonable inference, uneasiness still clung about Mirah's heart. Deronda was not to blame, but he had an importance for Mrs. Grandcourt which must give her some hold on him. And the thought of any close confidence between them stirred the little biting snake that had long lain curled and harmless in Mirah's gentle bosom. But did she this evening feel as completely as before that her jealousy was no less remote from any possibility for herself personally than if her human soul had been lodged in the body of a fawn that Deronda had saved from the archers? Hardly. Something indefinable had happened and made a difference. The soft warm rain of blossoms which had fallen just where she was--did it really come because she was there? What spirit was there among the boughs? CHAPTER LXIV. "Questa montagna e tale, Che sempre al cominciar di sotto a grave. E quanto uom piu va su e men fa male." --DANTE: _Il Purgatorio_. It was not many days after her mother's arrival that Gwendolen would consent to remain at Genoa. Her desire to get away from that gem of the sea, helped to rally her strength and courage. For what place, though it were the flowery vale of Enna, may not the inward sense turn into a circle of punishment where the flowers are no better than a crop of flame-tongues burning the soles of our feet? "I shall never like to see the Mediterranean again," said Gwendolen, to her mother, who thought that she quite understood her child's feeling--even in her tacit prohibition of any express reference to her late husband. Mrs. Davilow, indeed, though compelled formally to regard this time as one of severe calamity, was virtually enjoying her life more than she had ever done since her daughter's marriage. It seemed that her darling was brought back to her not merely with all the old affection, but with a conscious cherishing of her mother's nearness, such as we give to a possession that we have been on the brink of losing. "Are you there, mamma?" cried Gwendolen, in the middle of the night (a bed had been made for her mother in the same room with hers), very much as she would have done in her early girlhood, if she had felt frightened in lying awake. "Yes, dear; can I do anything for you?" "No, thank you; only I like so to know you are there. Do you mind my waking you?" (This question would hardly have been Gwendolen's in her early girlhood.) "I was not asleep, darling." "It seemed not real that you were with me. I wanted to make it real. I can bear things if you are with me. But you must not lie awake, anxious about me. You must be happy now. You must let me make you happy now at last--else what shall I do?" "God bless you, dear; I have the best happiness I can have, when you make much of me." But the next night, hearing that she was sighing and restless Mrs. Davilow said, "Let me give you your sleeping-draught, Gwendolen." "No, mamma, thank you; I don't want to sleep." "It would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling." "Don't say what would be good for me, mamma," Gwendolen answered, impetuously. "You don't know what would be good for me. You and my uncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when I feel it is not good." Mrs. Davilow was silent, not wondering that the poor child was irritable. Presently Gwendolen said, "I was always naughty to you, mamma." "No, dear, no." "Yes, I was," said Gwendolen insistently. "It is because I was always wicked that I am miserable now." She burst into sobs and cries. The determination to be silent about all the facts of her married life and its close, reacted in these escapes of enigmatic excitement. But dim lights of interpretation were breaking on the mother's mind through the information that came from Sir Hugo to Mr. Gascoigne, and, with some omissions, from Mr. Gascoigne to herself. The good-natured baronet, while he was attending to all decent measures in relation to his nephew's death, and the possible washing ashore of the body, thought it the kindest thing he could do to use his present friendly intercourse with the rector as an opportunity for communicating with him, in the mildest way, the purport of Grandcourt's will, so as to save him the additional shock that would be in store for him if he carried his illusions all the way home. Perhaps Sir Hugo would have been communicable enough without that kind motive, but he really felt the motive. He broke the unpleasant news to the rector by degrees: at first he only implied his fear that the widow was not so splendidly provided for as Mr. Gascoigne, nay, as the baronet himself had expected; and only at last, after some previous vague reference to large claims on Grandcourt, he disclosed the prior relations which, in the unfortunate absence of a legitimate heir, had determined all the splendor in another direction. The rector was deeply hurt, and remembered, more vividly than he had ever done before, how offensively proud and repelling the manners of the deceased had been toward him--remembered also that he himself, in that interesting period just before the arrival of the new occupant at Diplow, had received hints of former entangling dissipations, and an undue addiction to pleasure, though he had not foreseen that the pleasure which had probably, so to speak, been swept into private rubbish-heaps, would ever present itself as an array of live caterpillars, disastrous to the green meat of respectable people. But he did not make these retrospective thoughts audible to Sir Hugo, or lower himself by expressing any indignation on merely personal grounds, but behaved like a man of the world who had become a conscientious clergyman. His first remark was, "When a young man makes his will in health, he usually counts on living a long while. Probably Mr. Grandcourt did not believe that this will would ever have its present effect." After a moment, he added, "The effect is painful in more ways than one. Female morality is likely to suffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to illegitimate offspring." "Well, in point of fact," said Sir Hugo, in his comfortable way, "since the boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal of the estates. Grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin. And it's a chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of a cousin. A man gets a little pleasure in making his will, if it's for the good of his own curly heads; but it's a nuisance when you're giving the bequeathing to a used-up fellow like yourself, and one you don't care two straws for. It's the next worse thing to having only a life interest in your estates. No; I forgive Grandcourt for that part of his will. But, between ourselves, what I don't forgive him for, is the shabby way he has provided for your niece--_our_ niece, I will say--no better a position than if she had been a doctor's widow. Nothing grates on me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. A man ought to have some pride and fondness for his widow. _I_ should, I know. I take it as a test of a man, that he feels the easier about his death when he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it. I like that story of the fellows in the Crimean war, who were ready to go to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for." "It has certainly taken me by surprise," said Mr. Gascoigne, "all the more because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece, I had shown my reliance on Mr. Grandcourt's apparent liberality in money matters by making no claims for her beforehand. That seemed to me due to him under the circumstances. Probably you think me blamable." "Not blamable exactly. I respect a man for trusting another. But take my advice. If you marry another niece, though it may be to the Archbishop of Canterbury, bind him down. Your niece can't be married for the first time twice over. And if he's a good fellow, he'll wish to be bound. But as to Mrs. Grandcourt, I can only say that I feel my relation to her all the nearer because I think that she has not been well treated. And I hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend." Thus spake the chivalrous Sir Hugo, in his disgust at the young and beautiful widow of a Mallinger Grandcourt being left with only two thousand a year and a house in a coal-mining district. To the rector that income naturally appeared less shabby and less accompanied with mortifying privations; but in this conversation he had devoured a much keener sense than the baronet's of the humiliation cast over his niece, and also over her nearest friends, by the conspicuous publishing of her husband's relation to Mrs. Glasher. And like all men who are good husbands and fathers, he felt the humiliation through the minds of the women who would be chiefly affected by it; so that the annoyance of first hearing the facts was far slighter than what he felt in communicating them to Mrs. Davilow, and in anticipating Gwendolen's feeling whenever her mother saw fit to tell her of them. For the good rector had an innocent conviction that his niece was unaware of Mrs. Glasher's existence, arguing with masculine soundness from what maidens and wives were likely to know, do, and suffer, and having had a most imperfect observation of the particular maiden and wife in question. Not so Gwendolen's mother, who now thought that she saw an explanation of much that had been enigmatic in her child's conduct and words before and after her engagement, concluding that in some inconceivable way Gwendolen had been informed of this left-handed marriage and the existence of the children. She trusted to opportunities that would arise in moments of affectionate confidence before and during their journey to England, when she might gradually learn how far the actual state of things was clear to Gwendolen, and prepare her for anything that might be a disappointment. But she was spared from devices on the subject. "I hope you don't expect that I am going to be rich and grand, mamma," said Gwendolen, not long after the rector's communication; "perhaps I shall have nothing at all." She was dressed, and had been sitting long in quiet meditation. Mrs. Davilow was startled, but said, after a moment's reflection, "Oh yes, dear, you will have something. Sir Hugo knows all about the will." "That will not decide," said Gwendolen, abruptly. "Surely, dear: Sir Hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere." "What I have will depend on what I accept," said Gwendolen. "You and my uncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. I will do everything I can do to make you happy, but in anything about my husband I must not be interfered with. Is eight hundred a year enough for you, mamma?" "More than enough, dear. You must not think of giving me so much." Mrs. Davilow paused a little, and then said, "Do you know who is to have the estates and the rest of the money?" "Yes," said Gwendolen, waving her hand in dismissal of the subject. "I know everything. It is all perfectly right, and I wish never to have it mentioned." The mother was silent, looked away, and rose to fetch a fan-screen, with a slight flush on her delicate cheeks. Wondering, imagining, she did not like to meet her daughter's eyes, and sat down again under a sad constraint. What wretchedness her child had perhaps gone through, which yet must remain as it always had been, locked away from their mutual speech. But Gwendolen was watching her mother with that new divination which experience had given her; and in tender relenting at her own peremptoriness, said, "Come and sit nearer to me, mamma, and don't be unhappy." Mrs. Davilow did as she was told, but bit her lips in the vain attempt to hinder smarting tears. Gwendolen leaned toward her caressingly and said, "I mean to be very wise; I do, really. And good--oh, so good to you, dear, old, sweet mamma, you won't know me. Only you must not cry." The resolve that Gwendolen had in her mind was that she would ask Deronda whether she ought to accept any of her husband's money--whether she might accept what would enable her to provide for her mother. The poor thing felt strong enough to do anything that would give her a higher place in Deronda's mind. An invitation that Sir Hugo pressed on her with kind urgency was that she and Mrs. Davilow should go straight with him to Park Lane, and make his house their abode as long as mourning and other details needed attending to in London. Town, he insisted, was just then the most retired of places; and he proposed to exert himself at once in getting all articles belonging to Gwendolen away from the house in Grosvenor Square. No proposal could have suited her better than this of staying a little while in Park Lane. It would be easy for her there to have an interview with Deronda, if she only knew how to get a letter into his hands, asking him to come to her. During the journey, Sir Hugo, having understood that she was acquainted with the purport of her husband's will, ventured to talk before her and to her about her future arrangements, referring here and there to mildly agreeable prospects as matters of course, and otherwise shedding a decorous cheerfulness over her widowed position. It seemed to him really the more graceful course for a widow to recover her spirits on finding that her husband had not dealt as handsomely by her as he might have done; it was the testator's fault if he compromised all her grief at his departure by giving a testamentary reason for it, so that she might be supposed to look sad, not because he had left her, but because he had left her poor. The baronet, having his kindliness doubly fanned by the favorable wind on his fortunes and by compassion for Gwendolen, had become quite fatherly in his behavior to her, called her "my dear," and in mentioning Gadsmere to Mr. Gascoigne, with its various advantages and disadvantages, spoke of what "we" might do to make the best of that property. Gwendolen sat by in pale silence while Sir Hugo, with his face turned toward Mrs. Davilow or Mr. Gascoigne, conjectured that Mrs. Grandcourt might perhaps prefer letting Gadsmere to residing there during any part of the year, in which case he thought that it might be leased on capital terms to one of the fellows engaged with the coal: Sir Hugo had seen enough of the place to know that it was as comfortable and picturesque a box as any man need desire, providing his desires were circumscribed within a coal area. "_I_ shouldn't mind about the soot myself," said the baronet, with that dispassionateness which belongs to the potential mood. "Nothing is more healthy. And if one's business lay there, Gadsmere would be a paradise. It makes quite a feature in Scrogg's history of the county, with the little tower and the fine piece of water--the prettiest print in the book." "A more important place than Offendene, I suppose?" said Mr. Gascoigne. "Much," said the baronet, decisively. "I was there with my poor brother--it is more than a quarter of a century ago, but I remember it very well. The rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a different scale." "Our poor dear Offendene is empty after all," said Mrs. Davilow. "When it came to the point, Mr. Haynes declared off, and there has been no one to take it since. I might as well have accepted Lord Brackenshaw's kind offer that I should remain in it another year rent-free: for I should have kept the place aired and warmed." "I hope you've something snug instead," said Sir Hugo. "A little too snug," said Mr. Gascoigne, smiling at his sister-in-law. "You are rather thick upon the ground." Gwendolen had turned with a changed glance when her mother spoke of Offendene being empty. This conversation passed during one of the long unaccountable pauses often experienced in foreign trains at some country station. There was a dreamy, sunny stillness over the hedgeless fields stretching to the boundary of poplars; and to Gwendolen the talk within the carriage seemed only to make the dreamland larger with an indistinct region of coal-pits, and a purgatorial Gadsmere which she would never visit; till at her mother's words, this mingled, dozing view seemed to dissolve and give way to a more wakeful vision of Offendene and Pennicote under their cooler lights. She saw the gray shoulders of the downs, the cattle-specked fields, the shadowy plantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside seat, the neatly-clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to Offendene, the avenue where she was gradually discerned from the window, the hall-door opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome sisters coming out to meet her. All that brief experience of a quiet home which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from, now came back to her as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of morning and the unreproaching voice of birds after following a lure through a long Satanic masquerade, which she had entered on with an intoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in shrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who were dropping their human mummery and hissing around her with serpent tongues. In this way Gwendolen's mind paused over Offendene and made it the scene of many thoughts; but she gave no further outward sign of interest in this conversation, any more than in Sir Hugo's opinion on the telegraphic cable or her uncle's views of the Church Rate Abolition Bill. What subjects will not our talk embrace in leisurely day-journeying from Genoa to London? Even strangers, after glancing from China to Peru and opening their mental stores with a liberality threatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are liable to become excessively confidential. But the baronet and the rector were under a still stronger pressure toward cheerful communication: they were like acquaintances compelled to a long drive in a mourning-coach who having first remarked that the occasion is a melancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it by the most miscellaneous discourse. "I don't mind telling _you_," said Sir Hugo to the rector, in mentioning some private details; while the rector, without saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons, and the difficulty of placing them in the world. By the dint of discussing all persons and things within driving-reach of Diplow, Sir Hugo got himself wrought to a pitch of interest in that former home, and of conviction that it was his pleasant duty to regain and strengthen his personal influence in the neighborhood, that made him declare his intention of taking his family to the place for a month or two before the autumn was over; and Mr. Gascoigne cordially rejoiced in that prospect. Altogether, the journey was continued and ended with mutual liking between the male fellow-travellers. Meanwhile Gwendolen sat by like one who had visited the spirit-world and was full to the lips of an unutterable experience that threw a strange unreality over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the world's business; and Mrs. Davilow was chiefly occupied in imagining what her daughter was feeling, and in wondering what was signified by her hinted doubt whether she would accept her husband's bequest. Gwendolen in fact had before her the unsealed wall of an immediate purpose shutting off every other resolution. How to scale the wall? She wanted again to see and consult Deronda, that she might secure herself against any act he would disapprove. Would her remorse have maintained its power within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy, if it had not been for that outer conscience which was made for her by Deronda? It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the breathing-medium of all our joy--who brings to us with close pressure and immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and his opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our virtue in the making. That mission of Deronda to Gwendolen had begun with what she had felt to be his judgment of her at the gaming-table. He might easily have spoiled it:--much of our lives is spent in marring our own influence and turning others' belief in us into a widely concluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while it is really disappointment in you or me. Deronda had not spoiled his mission. But Gwendolen had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she wanted to write, and her only way of reaching him was through Sir Hugo. She was not in the least blind to the construction that all witnesses might put on her giving signs of dependence on Deronda, and her seeking him more than he sought her: Grandcourt's rebukes had sufficiently enlightened her pride. But the force, the tenacity of her nature had thrown itself into that dependence, and she would no more let go her hold on Deronda's help, or deny herself the interview her soul needed, because of witnesses, than if she had been in prison in danger of being condemned to death. When she was in Park Lane and knew that the baronet would be going down to the Abbey immediately (just to see his family for a couple of days and then return to transact needful business for Gwendolen), she said to him without any air of hesitation, while her mother was present, "Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr. Deronda again as soon as possible. I don't know his address. Will you tell it me, or let him know that I want to see him?" A quick thought passed across Sir Hugo's face, but made no difference to the ease with which he said, "Upon my word, I don't know whether he's at his chambers or the Abbey at this moment. But I'll make sure of him. I'll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if he's at the Abbey I can give him your message and send him up at once. I am sure he will want to obey your wish," the baronet ended, with grave kindness, as if nothing could seem to him more in the appropriate course of things than that she should send such a message. But he was convinced that Gwendolen had a passionate attachment to Deronda, the seeds of which had been laid long ago, and his former suspicion now recurred to him with more strength than ever, that her feeling was likely to lead her into imprudences--in which kind-hearted Sir Hugo was determined to screen and defend her as far as lay in his power. To him it was as pretty a story as need be that this fine creature and his favorite Dan should have turned out to be formed for each other, and that the unsuitable husband should have made his exit in such excellent time. Sir Hugo liked that a charming woman should be made as happy as possible. In truth, what most vexed his mind in this matter at present was a doubt whether the too lofty and inscrutable Dan had not got some scheme or other in his head, which would prove to be dearer to him than the lovely Mrs. Grandcourt, and put that neatly-prepared marriage with her out of the question. It was among the usual paradoxes of feeling that Sir Hugo, who had given his fatherly cautions to Deronda against too much tenderness in his relations with the bride, should now feel rather irritated against him by the suspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done. Of course all this thinking on Sir Hugo's part was eminently premature, only a fortnight or so after Grandcourt's death. But it is the trick of thinking to be either premature or behind-hand. However, he sent the note to Deronda's chambers, and it found him there. CHAPTER LXV. "O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!" --MILTON. Deronda did not obey Gwendolen's new summons without some agitation. Not his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the danger that another's heart might feel larger demands on him than he would be able to fulfill; and it was no longer a matter of argument with him, but of penetrating consciousness, that Gwendolen's soul clung to his with a passionate need. We do not argue the existence of the anger or the scorn that thrills through us in a voice; we simply feel it, and it admits of no disproof. Deronda felt this woman's destiny hanging on his over a precipice of despair. Any one who knows him cannot wonder at his inward confession, that if all this had happened little more than a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her; the impetuous determining impulse which would have moved him would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life forevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last the rescue he had begun in that monitory redemption of the necklace. But now, love and duty had thrown other bonds around him, and that impulse could no longer determine his life; still, it was present in him as a compassionate yearning, a painful quivering at the very imagination of having again and again to meet the appeal of her eyes and words. The very strength of the bond, the certainty of the resolve, that kept him asunder from her, made him gaze at her lot apart with the more aching pity. He awaited her coming in the back drawing-room--part of that white and crimson space where they had sat together at the musical party, where Gwendolen had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not forsaking her, and her appeal had seemed to melt into the melodic cry--_Per pietà non dirmi addio_. But the melody had come from Mirah's dear voice. Deronda walked about this room, which he had for years known by heart, with a strange sense of metamorphosis in his own life. The familiar objects around him, from Lady Mallinger's gently smiling portrait to the also human and urbane faces of the lions on the pilasters of the chimney-piece, seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence which he was revisiting in memory only, not in reality; so deep and transforming had been the impressions he had lately experienced, so new were the conditions under which he found himself in the house he had been accustomed to think of as a home--standing with his hat in his hand awaiting the entrance of a young creature whose life had also been undergoing a transformation--a tragic transformation toward a wavering result, in which he felt with apprehensiveness that his own action was still bound up. But Gwendolen was come in, looking changed; not only by her mourning dress, but by a more satisfied quietude of expression than he had seen in her face at Genoa. Her satisfaction was that Deronda was there; but there was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands; each was full of remembrance--full of anxious prevision. She said, "It was good of you to come. Let us sit down," immediately seating herself in the nearest chair. He placed himself opposite to her. "I asked you to come because I want you to tell me what I ought to do," she began, at once. "Don't be afraid of telling me what you think is right, because it seems hard. I have made up my mind to do it. I was afraid once of being poor; I could not bear to think of being under other people; and that was why I did something--why I married. I have borne worse things now. I think I could bear to be poor, if you think I ought. Do you know about my husband's will?" "Yes, Sir Hugo told me," said Deronda, already guessing the question she had to ask. "Ought I to take anything he has left me? I will tell you what I have been thinking," said Gwendolen, with a more nervous eagerness. "Perhaps you may not quite know that I really did think a good deal about my mother when I married. I _was_ selfish, but I did love her, and feel about her poverty; and what comforted me most at first, when I was miserable, was her being better off because I had married. The thing that would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again; and I have been thinking that if I took enough to provide for her, and no more--nothing for myself--it would not be wrong; for I was very precious to my mother--and he took me from her--and he meant--and if she had known--" Gwendolen broke off. She had been preparing herself for this interview by thinking of hardly anything else than this question of right toward her mother; but the question had carried with it thoughts and reasons which it was impossible for her to utter, and these perilous remembrances swarmed between her words, making her speech more and more agitated and tremulous. She looked down helplessly at her hands, now unladen of all rings except her wedding-ring. "Do not hurt yourself by speaking of that," said Deronda, tenderly. "There is no need; the case is very simple. I think I can hardly judge wrongly about it. You consult me because I am the only person to whom you have confided the most painful part of your experience: and I can understand your scruples." He did not go on immediately, waiting for her to recover herself. The silence seemed to Gwendolen full of the tenderness that she heard in his voice, and she had courage to lift up her eyes and look at him as he said, "You are conscious of something which you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. You think that you have forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was his. You want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. Your feeling even urges you to some self-punishment--some scourging of the self that disobeyed your better will--the will that struggled against temptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you?" "Yes--at least, I want to be good--not like what I have been," said Gwendolen. "I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have tried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do?" "If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income," said Deronda, "I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful prompting; but I take as a guide now, your feeling about Mrs. Davilow, which seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband's dues even to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. He voluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is always the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from him in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of course understood that if this will took effect she would share the provision he had made for you." "She has had eight hundred a year. What I thought of was to take that and leave the rest," said Gwendolen. She had been so long inwardly arguing for this as a permission, that her mind could not at once take another attitude. "I think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way," said Deronda. "You would be making a painful enigma for Mrs. Davilow; an income from which you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. And your own course would become too difficult. We agreed at Genoa that the burden on your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the knowledge of. The future beneficence of your life will be best furthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. In my opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your husband's will, and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will make of your monetary independence." In uttering the last sentence Deronda automatically took up his hat which he had laid on the floor beside him. Gwendolen, sensitive to his slightest movement, felt her heart giving a great leap, as if it too had a consciousness of its own, and would hinder him from going: in the same moment she rose from her chair, unable to reflect that the movement was an acceptance of his apparent intention to leave her; and Deronda, of course, also rose, advancing a little. "I will do what you tell me," said Gwendolen, hurriedly; "but what else shall I do?" No other than these simple words were possible to her; and even these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud secrecy was disenthroned: as the child-like sentences fell from her lips they re-acted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and she could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes. Deronda, too, felt a crushing pain; but imminent consequences were visible to him, and urged him to the utmost exertion of conscience. When she had pressed her tears away, he said, in a gently questioning tone, "You will probably be soon going with Mrs. Davilow into the country." "Yes, in a week or ten days." Gwendolen waited an instant, turning her eyes vaguely toward the window, as if looking at some imagined prospect. "I want to be kind to them all--they can be happier than I can. Is that the best I can do?" "I think so. It is a duty that cannot be doubtful," said Deronda. He paused a little between his sentences, feeling a weight of anxiety on all his words. "Other duties will spring from it. Looking at your life as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it cannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive: but once beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions--there will be newly-opening needs--continually coming to carry you on from day to day. You will find your life growing like a plant." Gwendolen turned her eyes on him with the look of one athirst toward the sound of unseen waters. Deronda felt the look as if she had been stretching her arms toward him from a forsaken shore. His voice took an affectionate imploringness when he said, "This sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you are so young--try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as a preparation for it. Let it be a preparation----" Any one overhearing his tones would have thought he was entreating for his own happiness. "See! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come from your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of injurious, selfish action--a vision of possible degradation; think that a severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the wrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has come to you in your spring-time. Think of it as a preparation. You can, you will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that they were born." The words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to Gwendolen. Mingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed the beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which stirred in her vaguely. So pregnant is the divine hope of moral recovery with the energy that fulfills it. So potent in us is the infused action of another soul, before which we bow in complete love. But the new existence seemed inseparable from Deronda: the hope seemed to make his presence permanent. It was not her thought, that he loved her, and would cling to her--a thought would have tottered with improbability; it was her spiritual breath. For the first time since that terrible moment on the sea a flush rose and spread over her cheek, brow and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually disappeared. She did not speak. Deronda advanced and put out his hand, saying, "I must not weary you." She was startled by the sense that he was going, and put her hand in his, still without speaking. "You look ill yet--unlike yourself," he added, while he held her hand. "I can't sleep much," she answered, with some return of her dispirited manner. "Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back--they will all come back," she ended, shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her. "By degrees they will be less insistent," said Deronda. He could not drop her hand or move away from her abruptly. "Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplow," said Gwendolen, snatching at previously intended words which had slipped away from her. "You will come too." "Probably," said Deronda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he added, correctively, "Yes, I shall come," and then released her hand, with the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye. "And not again here, before I leave town?" said Gwendolen, with timid sadness, looking as pallid as ever. What could Deronda say? "If I can be of any use--if you wish me--certainly I will." "I must wish it," said Gwendolen, impetuously; "you know I must wish it. What strength have I? Who else is there?" Again a sob was rising. Deronda felt a pang, which showed itself in his face. He looked miserable as he said, "I will certainly come." Gwendolen perceived the change in his face; but the intense relief of expecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling, and there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her. "Don't be unhappy about me," she said, in a tone of affectionate assurance. "I shall remember your words--every one of them. I shall remember what you believe about me; I shall try." She looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again as if she had forgotten what had passed since those words of his which she promised to remember. But there was no approach to a smile on her lips. She had never smiled since her husband's death. When she stood still and in silence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the Gwendolen whose laughter had once been so ready when others were grave. It is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the aspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to Deronda--the unreflecting openness, nay, the importunate pleading, with which she expressed her dependence on him. Considerations such as would have filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her, any more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung herself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry her into safety. She identified him with the struggling regenerative process in her which had begun with his action. Is it any wonder that she saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? She was in that state of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common experience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our own purposes. We diffuse our feeling over others, and count on their acting from our motives. Her imagination had not been turned to a future union with Deronda by any other than the spiritual tie which had been continually strengthening; but also it had not been turned toward a future separation from him. Love-making and marriage--how could they now be the imagery in which poor Gwendolen's deepest attachment could spontaneously clothe itself? Mighty Love had laid his hand upon her; but what had he demanded of her? Acceptance of rebuke--the hard task of self-change--confession--endurance. If she cried toward him, what then? She cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen backward--cried to be taken by the hand, lest she should lose herself. The cry pierced Deronda. What position could have been more difficult for a man full of tenderness, yet with clear foresight? He was the only creature who knew the real nature of Gwendolen's trouble: to withdraw himself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous loneliness. He could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently rejecting her dependence on him; and yet in the nearer or farther distance he saw a coming wrench, which all present strengthening of their bond would make the harder. He was obliged to risk that. He went once and again to Park Lane before Gwendolen left; but their interviews were in the presence of Mrs. Davilow, and were therefore less agitating. Gwendolen, since she had determined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she liked to speak of: it was to place her mother and sisters with herself in Offendene again, and, as she said, piece back her life unto that time when they first went there, and when everything was happiness about her, only she did not know it. The idea had been mentioned to Sir Hugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of Gadsmere for a rent which would more than pay the rent of Offendene. All this was told to Deronda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give some soothing occupation to Gwendolen. He said nothing and she asked nothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. Her mind was fixed on his coming to Diplow before the autumn was over; and she no more thought of the Lapidoths--the little Jewess and her brother--as likely to make a difference in her destiny, than of the fermenting political and social leaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. In fact poor Gwendolen's memory had been stunned, and all outside the lava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get deliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness. CHAPTER LXVI. "One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm." --BROWNING: _The King and the Book_. Meanwhile Ezra and Mirah, whom Gwendolen did not include in her thinking about Deronda, were having their relation to him drawn closer and brought into fuller light. The father Lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by that possibility of staking something in play or betting which presented itself with the handling of any sum beyond the price of staying actual hunger, and left no care for alternative prospects or resolutions. Until he had lost everything he never considered whether he would apply to Mirah again or whether he would brave his son's presence. In the first moment he had shrunk from encountering Ezra as he would have shrunk from any other situation of disagreeable constraint; and the possession of Mirah's purse was enough to banish the thought of future necessities. The gambling appetite is more absolutely dominant than bodily hunger, which can be neutralized by an emotional or intellectual excitation; but the passion for watching chances--the habitual suspensive poise of the mind in actual or imaginary play--nullifies the susceptibility of other excitation. In its final, imperious stage, it seems the unjoyous dissipation of demons, seeking diversion on the burning marl of perdition. But every form of selfishness, however abstract and unhuman, requires the support of at least one meal a day; and though Lapidoth's appetite for food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a shabby, unfriendly form of life in which the appetite could not be satisfied without some ready money. When, in a brief visit at a house which announced "Pyramids" on the window-blind, he had first doubled and trebled and finally lost Mirah's thirty shillings, he went out with her empty purse in his pocket, already balancing in his mind whether he should get another immediate stake by pawning the purse, or whether he should go back to her giving himself a good countenance by restoring the purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a score that was standing against him. Besides, among the sensibilities still left strong in Lapidoth was the sensibility to his own claims, and he appeared to himself to have a claim on any property his children might possess, which was stronger than the justice of his son's resentment. After all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing he could do; and the more he thought of meeting Ezra the less he winced from it, his imagination being more wrought on by the chances of his getting something into his pocket with safety and without exertion, than by the threat of a private humiliation. Luck had been against him lately; he expected it to turn--and might not the turn begin with some opening of supplies which would present itself through his daughter's affairs and the good friends she had spoken of? Lapidoth counted on the fascination of his cleverness--an old habit of mind which early experience had sanctioned: and it is not only women who are unaware of their diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn out. The result of Lapidoth's rapid balancing was that he went toward the little square in Brompton with the hope that, by walking about and watching, he might catch sight of Mirah going out or returning, in which case his entrance into the house would be made easier. But it was already evening--the evening of the day next to that which he had first seen her; and after a little waiting, weariness made him reflect that he might ring, and if she were not at home he might ask the time at which she was expected. But on coming near the house he knew that she was at home: he heard her singing. Mirah, seated at the piano, was pouring forth "_Herz, mein Herz_," while Ezra was listening with his eyes shut, when Mrs. Adam opened the door, and said in some embarrassment, "A gentleman below says he is your father, miss." "I will go down to him," said Mirah, starting up immediately and looking at her brother. "No, Mirah, not so," said Ezra, with decision. "Let him come up, Mrs. Adam." Mirah stood with her hands pinching each other, and feeling sick with anxiety, while she continued looking at Ezra, who had also risen, and was evidently much shaken. But there was an expression in his face which she had never seen before; his brow was knit, his lips seemed hardened with the same severity that gleamed from his eye. When Mrs. Adam opened the door to let in the father, she could not help casting a look at the group, and after glancing from the younger man to the elder, said to herself as she closed the door, "Father, sure enough." The likeness was that of outline, which is always most striking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the strongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can make the genius of a Cromwell within the outward type of a father who was no more than a respectable parishioner. Lapidoth had put on a melancholy expression beforehand, but there was some real wincing in his frame as he said, "Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years." "I know you--too well--father," said Ezra, with a slow biting solemnity which made the word father a reproach. "Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don't wonder at it. Appearances have been against me. When a man gets into straits he can't do just as he would by himself or anybody else, _I_'ve suffered enough, I know," said Lapidoth, quickly. In speaking he always recovered some glibness and hardihood; and now turning toward Mirah, he held out her purse, saying, "Here's your little purse, my dear. I thought you'd be anxious about it because of that bit of writing. I've emptied it, you'll see, for I had a score to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me to clear myself, and here I stand--without a single farthing in my pocket--at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out if you like, without getting a policeman. Say the word, Mirah; say, 'Father, I've had enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me, when I couldn't have done without you; but I can do better without you now,'--say that, and I'm gone out like a spark. I shan't spoil your pleasure again." The tears were in his voice as usual, before he had finished. "You know I could never say it, father," answered Mirah, with not the less anguish because she felt the falsity of everything in his speech except the implied wish to remain in the house. "Mirah, my sister, leave us!" said Ezra, in a tone of authority. She looked at her brother falteringly, beseechingly--in awe of his decision, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who was like something that had grown in her flesh with pain. She went close to her brother, and putting her hand in his, said, in a low voice, but not so low as to be unheard by Lapidoth, "Remember, Ezra--you said my mother would not have shut him out." "Trust me, and go," said Ezra. She left the room, but after going a few steps up the stairs, sat down with a palpitating heart. If, because of anything her brother said to him, he went away-- Lapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son's mind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to the situation and find a point of view that would give him a cool superiority to any attempt at humiliating him. This haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had the incongruity which selfish levity learns to see in suffering, and until the unrelenting pincers of disease clutch its own flesh. Whatever preaching he might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a man finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little religious howling that happened to be going on there. Lapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness: he had achieved it. "This home that we have here," Ezra began, "is maintained partly by the generosity of a beloved friend who supports me, and partly by the labors of my sister, who supports herself. While we have a home we will not shut you out from it. We will not cast you out to the mercy of your vices. For you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we acknowledge ours. But I will never trust you. You absconded with money, leaving your debts unpaid; you forsook my mother; you robbed her of her little child and broke her heart; you have become a gambler, and where shame and conscience were there sits an insatiable desire; you were ready to sell my sister--you had sold her, but the price was denied you. The man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted any more. We will share our food with you--you shall have a bed, and clothing. We will do this duty to you, because you are our father. But you will never be trusted. You are an evil man: you made the misery of our mother. That such a man is our father is a brand on our flesh which will not cease smarting. But the Eternal has laid it upon us; and though human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell helpless before the public scorn, we would still say, 'This is our father; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.'" Lapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to foresee the exact intensity of the lightning or the exact course it would take--that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. He could not foresee what was so new to him as this voice from the soul of his son. It touched that spring of hysterical excitability which Mirah used to witness in him when he sat at home and sobbed. As Ezra ended, Lapidoth threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his face against the table--and yet, strangely, while this hysterical crying was an inevitable reaction in him under the stress of his son's words, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty; just as in early life, when he was a bright-faced curly young man, he had been used to avail himself of this subtly-poised physical susceptibility to turn the edge of resentment or disapprobation. Ezra sat down again and said nothing--exhausted by the shock of his own irrepressible utterance, the outburst of feelings which for years he had borne in solitude and silence. His thin hands trembled on the arms of the chair; he would hardly have found voice to answer a question; he felt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning Death. Meanwhile Mirah's quick expectant ear detected a sound which her heart recognized: she could not stay out of the room any longer. But on opening the door her immediate alarm was for Ezra, and it was to his side that she went, taking his trembling hand in hers, which he pressed and found support in; but he did not speak or even look at her. The father with his face buried was conscious that Mirah had entered, and presently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his eyes, put out his hand toward her, and said with plaintive hoarseness, "Good-bye, Mirah; your father will not trouble you again. He deserves to die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had lived, she would have forgiven me--thirty-four years ago I put the ring on her finger under the _Chuppa_, and we were made one. She would have forgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. But I haven't deserved it. Good-bye." He rose from the chair as he said the last "good-bye." Mirah had put her hand in his and held him. She was not tearful and grieving, but frightened and awe-struck, as she cried out, "No, father, no!" Then turning to her brother, "Ezra, you have not forbidden him?--Stay, father, and leave off wrong things. Ezra, I cannot bear it. How can I say to my father, 'Go and die!'" "I have not said it," Ezra answered, with great effort. "I have said, stay and be sheltered." "Then you will stay, father--and be taken care of--and come with me," said Mirah, drawing him toward the door. This was really what Lapidoth wanted. And for the moment he felt a sort of comfort in recovering his daughter's dutiful attendance, that made a change of habits seem possible to him. She led him down to the parlor below, and said, "This is my sitting-room when I am not with Ezra, and there is a bed-room behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good, father. Think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has forgiven you--she speaks to you through me." Mirah's tones were imploring, but she could not give one of her former caresses. Lapidoth quickly recovered his composure, began to speak to Mirah of the improvement in her voice, and other easy subjects, and when Mrs. Adam came to lay out his supper, entered into converse with her in order to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes were just now against him. But in his usual wakefulness at night, he fell to wondering what money Mirah had by her, and went back over old Continental hours at _Roulette_, reproducing the method of his play, and the chances that had frustrated it. He had had his reasons for coming to England, but for most things it was a cursed country. These were the stronger visions of the night with Lapidoth, and not the worn frame of his ireful son uttering a terrible judgment. Ezra did pass across the gaming-table, and his words were audible; but he passed like an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of them by numbers and movements that seemed to make the very tissue of Lapidoth's consciousness. CHAPTER LXVII. The godhead in us wrings our noble deeds From our reluctant selves. It was an unpleasant surprise to Deronda when he returned from the Abbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at Brompton. Mirah had felt it necessary to speak of Deronda to her father, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in which the friendship with Ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had cemented it. She passed more lightly over what Deronda had done for her, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the shelter she had found in Mrs. Meyrick's family so as to leave her father to suppose that it was through these friends Deronda had become acquainted with her. She could not persuade herself to more completeness in her narrative: she could not let the breath of her father's soul pass over her relation to Deronda. And Lapidoth, for reasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of her flight and arrival in England. But he was much interested in the fact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the world. It was the brother who told Deronda of this new condition added to their life. "I am become calm in beholding him now," Ezra ended, "and I try to think it possible that my sister's tenderness, and the daily tasting a life of peace, may win him to remain aloof from temptation. I have enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. I have convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction." Deronda first came on the third day from Ladipoth's arrival. The new clothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing to make a favorable impression, he did not choose to present himself in the old ones. He watched for Deronda's departure, and, getting a view of him from the window, was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which Mirah had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the question in a personage who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary studies with the sepulchral Ezra. Lapidoth began to imagine that Deronda's real or chief motive must be that he was in love with Mirah. And so much the better; for a tie to Mirah had more promise of indulgence for her father than a tie to Ezra: and Lapidoth was not without the hope of recommending himself to Deronda, and of softening any hard prepossessions. He was behaving with much amiability, and trying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy domestication with his children--entering into Mirah's music, showing himself docile about smoking, which Mrs. Adam could not tolerate in her parlor, and walking out in the square with his German pipe, and the tobacco with which Mirah supplied him. He was too acute to offer any present remonstrance against the refusal of money, which Mirah told him that she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. He was comfortable enough to wait. The next time Deronda came, Lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and satisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with Ezra, who was teaching himself, as a part of his severe duty, to tolerate his father's presence whenever it was imposed. Deronda was cold and distant, the first sight of this man, who had blighted the lives of his wife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical discomfort. But Lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked leave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and actually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult German manuscript. This led him to suggest that it might be desirable to make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services for this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in Roman characters. Though Ezra's young eyes he observed were getting weak, his own were still strong. Deronda accepted the offer, thinking that Lapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed usefully; and he saw a gratified expression in Ezra's face, who, however, presently said, "Let all the writing be done here; for I cannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by burning or otherwise." Poor Ezra felt very much as if he had a convict on leave under his charge. Unless he saw his father working, it was not possible to believe that he would work in good faith. But by this arrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father's presence, which was made painful not only through his deepest, longest associations, but also through Lapidoth's restlessness of temperament, which showed itself the more as he become familiarized with his situation, and lost any awe he had felt of his son. The fact was, he was putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention for the sake of winning Deronda's favor; and like a man in an uncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity, going out to smoke, or moving about and talking, or throwing himself back in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a dumb language of facial movement or gesticulation: and if Mirah were in the room, he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping about their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and stories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he could at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. All this was a mortal infliction to Ezra; and when Mirah was at home she tried to relieve him, by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping watch over him there. What duty is made of a single difficult resolve? The difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences that mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation to be suppressed or shame to be endured. And such consequences were being borne by these, as by many other heroic children of an unworthy father--with the prospect, at least to Mirah, of their stretching onward through the solid part of life. Meanwhile Lapidoth's presence had raised a new impalpable partition between Deronda and Mirah--each of them dreading the soiling inferences of his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve and diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light came to Deronda. As soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey, he had called at Hans Meyrick's rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than one, a due of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with the reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had brought about. Hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for a few days; and Deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather expecting a note in return. But receiving no word, and fearing some freak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed sojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a second call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found his friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still wet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened--anything but country-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before his easel when Deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed to have been got up on short notice. As they shook hands, Deronda said, "You don't look much as if you had been in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?" "No," said Hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one who has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for Deronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his hands behind his head, while he went on, "I've been to I-don't-know-where--No man's land--and a mortally unpleasant country it is." "You don't mean to say you have been drinking, Hans," said Deronda, who had seated himself opposite, in anxious survey. "Nothing so good. I've been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some time or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having found myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious to seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a cask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution." "What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you wrote to me." "Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy--a sort of cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may be sure," said Hans, creasing his face into a smile; "and, in fact, I was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot London weather." "Nothing else? No real vexation?" said Deronda. Hans shook his head. "I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can't do it with a good grace if you are to hide yours." "Haven't an affair in the world," said Hans, in a flighty way, "except a quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are only beginning to pay a pretty long debt." Deronda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he trusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own confidence. "You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans," he began. "It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa to meet my mother. My father has been long dead--died when I was an infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that I was glad of it--glad to find myself a Jew." "You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda," said Hans, who had changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the heel of his slipper. "You knew it?" "My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had been there--brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can't rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be glad of in the end--_when_ exactly the end may be I can't predict," said Hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss about it. "I quite understand that you can't share my feeling," said Deronda; "but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai's ideas, and I mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man's efforts can go. I dare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some years." Hans said nothing, but rose, seized his palette and began to work his brush on it, standing before his picture with his back to Deronda, who also felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by Hans's embarrassment. Presently Hans said, again speaking low, and without turning, "Excuse the question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this?" "No; and I must beg of you, Hans," said Deronda, rather angrily, "to cease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the truth--are the very reverse of the truth." "I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral," said Hans. "But I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions on that subject." "Perhaps not," said Deronda. "But let me say, once for all, that in relation to Mrs. Grandcourt, I never have had, and never shall have the position of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation on anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken." There was silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an irritating air, exaggerating discomfort. "Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation, also," said Hans, presently. "What is that?" "That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another woman, who is neither wife nor widow." "I can't pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for supposing that you would succeed." "That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda," said Hans, with some irritation. "Why superfluous?" "Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject--and probably have had the very best evidence to convince you." "I will be more frank with you than you are with me," said Deronda, still heated by Hans' show of temper, and yet sorry for him. "I have never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact, I have very little hope." Hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his picture again. "And in our present situation," said Deronda, hurt by the idea that Hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to his words, "I don't see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best comfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than a mischievous animal." "I don't know that I have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her," said Hans, as if he were vindicating himself. "You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me." "Oh, not the slightest," said Hans, with bitter irony. "You have measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages." "I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can't help it," said Deronda, rising. "After what passed between us before, I wished to have this explanation; and I don't see that any pretensions of mine have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any pleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the father is there--did you know that the father is there?" "Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to damn him--with faint praise, I mean," said Hans, but with no smile. "She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither you nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to nothing. Our friendship can bear that strain, surely." "No, it can't," said Hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools, thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face Deronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans went on in the same tone, "Our friendship--my friendship--can't bear the strain of behaving to you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you _are_ the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than her brother, _you are the man_." Hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at Deronda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a shock passed through Deronda, and, after an instant, he said, "It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans." "I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact disagreeable when it was thrust on me--all the more, or perhaps all the less, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the duchess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right place--a Jew--and everything eligible." "Tell me what convinced you--there's a good fellow," said Deronda, distrusting a delight that he was unused to. "Don't ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is jealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the better. There! I've cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to swear at you for getting what you deserve--which is just the very best luck I know of." "God bless you, Hans!" said Deronda, putting out his hand, which the other took and wrung in silence. CHAPTER LXVIII. "All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame." --COLERIDGE. Deronda's eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a stronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his assurance that Mirah needed relief from jealousy. He went on his next visit to Ezra with the determination to be resolute in using--nay, in requesting--an opportunity of private conversation with her. If she accepted his love, he felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed husband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable defense for her in future difficulties with her father. Deronda had not observed any signs of growing restlessness in Lapidoth, or of diminished desire to recommend himself; but he had forebodings of some future struggle, some mortification, or some intolerable increase of domestic disquietude in which he might save Ezra and Mirah from being helpless victims. His forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was going on in the father's mind. That amount of restlessness, that desultoriness of attention, which made a small torture to Ezra, was to Lapidoth an irksome submission to restraint, only made bearable by his thinking of it as a means of by-and-by securing a well-conditioned freedom. He began with the intention of awaiting some really good chance, such as an opening for getting a considerable sum from Deronda; but all the while he was looking about curiously, and trying to discover where Mirah deposited her money and her keys. The imperious gambling desire within him, which carried on its activity through every other occupation, and made a continuous web of imagination that held all else in its meshes, would hardly have been under the control of a contracted purpose, if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum worth capturing. But Mirah, with her practical clear-sightedness, guarded against any frustration of the promise she had given to Ezra, by confiding all money, except what she was immediately in want of, to Mrs. Meyrick's care, and Lapidoth felt himself under an irritating completeness of supply in kind as in a lunatic asylum where everything was made safe against him. To have opened a desk or drawer of Mirah's, and pocketed any bank-notes found there, would have been to his mind a sort of domestic appropriation which had no disgrace in it; the degrees of liberty a man allows himself with other people's property being often delicately drawn, even beyond the boundary where the law begins to lay its hold--which is the reason why spoons are a safer investment than mining shares. Lapidoth really felt himself injuriously treated by his daughter, and thought that he ought to have had what he wanted of her other earnings as he had of her apple-tart. But he remained submissive; indeed, the indiscretion that most tempted him, was not any insistence with Mirah, but some kind of appeal to Deronda. Clever persons who have nothing else to sell can often put a good price on their absence, and Lapidoth's difficult search for devices forced upon him the idea that his family would find themselves happier without him, and that Deronda would be willing to advance a considerable sum for the sake of getting rid of him. But, in spite of well-practiced hardihood, Lapidoth was still in some awe of Ezra's imposing friend, and deferred his purpose indefinitely. On this day, when Deronda had come full of a gladdened consciousness, which inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, Lapidoth was at a crisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes of freedom, and Deronda's new amenity encouraged them. This pre-occupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual show of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting by even when there was reading which he could not follow. After sitting a little while, he went out to smoke and walk in the square, and the two friends were all the easier. Mirah was not at home, but she was sure to be in again before Deronda left, and his eyes glowed with a secret anticipation: he thought that when he saw her again he should see some sweetness of recognition for himself to which his eyes had been sealed before. There was an additional playful affectionateness in his manner toward Ezra. "This little room is too close for you, Ezra," he said, breaking off his reading. "The week's heat we sometimes get here is worse than the heat in Genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms. You must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being the stronger half." He smiled toward Ezra, who said, "I am straitened for nothing except breath. But you, who might be in a spacious palace, with the wide green country around you, find this a narrow prison. Nevertheless, I cannot say, 'Go.'" "Oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here," said Deronda, rising and walking round the double room, which yet offered no long promenade, while he made a great fan of his handkerchief. "This is the happiest room in the world to me. Besides, I will imagine myself in the East, since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will not wear a cravat and a heavy ring there," he ended emphatically, pausing to take off those superfluities and deposit them on a small table behind Ezra, who had the table in front of him covered with books and papers. "I have been wearing my memorable ring ever since I came home," he went on, as he reseated himself. "But I am such a Sybarite that I constantly put it off as a burden when I am doing anything. I understand why the Romans had summer rings--_if_ they had them. Now then, I shall get on better." They were soon absorbed in their work again. Deronda was reading a piece of rabbinical Hebrew under Ezra's correction and comment, and they took little notice when Lapidoth re-entered and took a seat somewhat in the background. His rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the bit of dark mahogany. During his walk, his mind had been occupied with the fiction of an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum of ready money, which, on being communicated to Deronda in private, might immediately draw from him a question as to the amount of the required sum: and it was this part of his forecast that Lapidoth found the most debatable, there being a danger in asking too much, and a prospective regret in asking too little. His own desire gave him no limit, and he was quite without guidance as to the limit of Deronda's willingness. But now, in the midst of these airy conditions preparatory to a receipt which remained indefinite, this ring, which on Deronda's finger had become familiar to Lapidoth's envy, suddenly shone detached and within easy grasp. Its value was certainly below the smallest of the imaginary sums that his purpose fluctuated between; but then it was before him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the thought (not yet an intention) that if he were quietly to pocket that ring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape from present restraint, without trouble, and also without danger; for any property of Deronda's (available without his formal consent) was all one with his children's property, since their father would never be prosecuted for taking it. The details of this thinking followed each other so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture. Lapidoth had never committed larceny; but larceny is a form of appropriation for which people are punished by law; and, take this ring from a virtual relation, who would have been willing to make a much heavier gift, would not come under the head of larceny. Still, the heavier gift was to be preferred, if Lapidoth could only make haste enough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring, which kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected idea. He satisfied his urgent longing by resolving to go below, and watch for the moment of Deronda's departure, when he would ask leave to join him in his walk and boldly carry out his meditated plan. He rose and stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw what lay beyond him--the brief passage he would have to make to the door close by the table where the ring was. However he was resolved to go down; but--by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance of desire, like the thirst of the drunkard--it so happened that in passing the table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found himself in the passage with the ring in his hand. It followed that he put on his hat and quitted the house. The possibility of again throwing himself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and before he was out on the square his sense of haste had concentrated itself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard. Deronda and Ezra were just aware of his exit; that was all. But, by-and-by, Mirah came in and made a real interruption. She had not taken off her hat; and when Deronda rose and advanced to shake hands with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and troublesome to herself, "I only came in to see that Ezra had his new draught. I must go directly to Mrs. Meyrick's to fetch something." "Pray allow me to walk with you," said Deronda urgently. "I must not tire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to Mrs. Meyrick's: may I go with you?" "Oh, yes," said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of something new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra's draught; Ezra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading was going on. Deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the walk, till Mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and saying--"Pray excuse my dishabille--I did not mean you to see it," he went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a violent impulse of surprise, "Good heavens, where is my ring gone?" beginning to search about on the floor. Ezra looked round the corner of his chair. Mirah, quick as thought, went to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, "Did you lay it down?" "Yes," said Deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes. But another explanation had visited Mirah and taken the color from her cheeks. She went to Ezra's ear and whispered "Was my father here?" He bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. She darted back to the spot where Deronda was still casting down his eyes in that hopeless exploration which we are apt to carry on over a space we have examined in vain. "You have not found it?" she said, hurriedly. He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and answered, "I perhaps put it in my pocket," professing to feel for it there. She watched him and said, "It is not there?--you put it on the table," with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda followed her--she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her father--she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there--she looked where his hat usually hung--she turned with her hands clasped tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then she looked up at Deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her white agitation. She looked up at him, unable to utter a word--the look seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence. But he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of reverent adoration, "Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours--that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will not reject me--say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife--say it now. I have been in doubt so long--I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love." The change in Mirah had been gradual. She had not passed at once from anguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of grief and shame, Deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can give to woman. With the first tones and the first words, she had only a sense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of Deronda's to his feeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for good took possession of her frame: her face glowed under Deronda's as he bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when she had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought her "worthy of the best;" and when he had finished, she could say nothing--she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as if that were the simplest "yes." They stood then, only looking at each other, he holding her hands between his--too happy to move, meeting so fully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to throw them farther apart, till Mirah said in a whisper: "Let us go and comfort Ezra." CHAPTER LXIX. "The human nature unto which I felt That I belonged, and reverenced with love, Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit Diffused through time and space, with aid derived Of evidence from monuments, erect, Prostrate, or leaning toward their common rest In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime Of vanished nations." --WORDSWORTH: _The Prelude_. Sir Hugo carried out his plan of spending part of the autumn at Diplow, and by the beginning of October his presence was spreading some cheerfulness in the neighborhood, among all ranks and persons concerned, from the stately home of Brackenshaw and Quetcham to the respectable shop-parlors in Wanchester. For Sir Hugo was a man who liked to show himself and be affable, a Liberal of good lineage, who confided entirely in reform as not likely to make any serious difference in English habits of feeling, one of which undoubtedly is the liking to behold society well fenced and adorned with hereditary rank. Hence he made Diplow a most agreeable house, extending his invitations to old Wanchester solicitors and young village curates, but also taking some care in the combination of the guests, and not feeding all the common poultry together, so that they should think their meal no particular compliment. Easy-going Lord Brackenshaw, for example, would not mind meeting Robinson the attorney, but Robinson would have been naturally piqued if he had been asked to meet a set of people who passed for his equals. On all these points Sir Hugo was well informed enough at once to gain popularity for himself and give pleasure to others--two results which eminently suited his disposition. The rector of Pennicote now found a reception at Diplow very different from the haughty tolerance he had undergone during the reign of Grandcourt. It was not that the baronet liked Mr. Gascoigne; it was that he desired to keep up a marked relation of friendliness with him on account of Mrs. Grandcourt, for whom Sir Hugo's chivalry had become more and more engaged. Why? The chief reason was one that he could not fully communicate, even to Lady Mallinger--for he would not tell what he thought one woman's secret to another, even though the other was his wife--which shows that his chivalry included a rare reticence. Deronda, after he had become engaged to Mirah, felt it right to make a full statement of his position and purposes to Sir Hugo, and he chose to make it by letter. He had more than a presentiment that his fatherly friend would feel some dissatisfaction, if not pain, at this turn of his destiny. In reading unwelcome news, instead of hearing it, there is the advantage that one avoids a hasty expression of impatience which may afterward be repented of. Deronda dreaded that verbal collision which makes otherwise pardonable feeling lastingly offensive. And Sir Hugo, though not altogether surprised, was thoroughly vexed. His immediate resource was to take the letter to Lady Mallinger, who would be sure to express an astonishment which her husband could argue against as unreasonable, and in this way divide the stress of his discontent. And in fact when she showed herself astonished and distressed that all Daniel's wonderful talents, and the comfort of having him in the house, should have ended in his going mad in this way about the Jews, the baronet could say, "Oh, nonsense, my dear! depend upon it, Dan will not make a fool of himself. He has large notions about Judaism--political views which you can't understand. No fear but Dan will keep himself head uppermost." But with regard to the prospective marriage she afforded him no counter-irritant. The gentle lady observed, without rancor, that she had little dreamed of what was coming when she had Mirah to sing at her musical party and give lessons to Amabel. After some hesitation, indeed, she confessed it _had_ passed through her mind that after a proper time Daniel might marry Mrs. Grandcourt--because it seemed so remarkable that he should be at Genoa just at that time--and although she herself was not fond of widows she could not help thinking that such a marriage would have been better than his going altogether with the Jews. But Sir Hugo was so strongly of the same opinion that he could not correct it as a feminine mistake; and his ill-humor at the disproof of his disagreeable conclusions on behalf of Gwendolen was left without vent. He desired Lady Mallinger not to breathe a word about the affair till further notice, saying to himself, "If it is an unkind cut to the poor thing (meaning Gwendolen), the longer she is without knowing it the better, in her present nervous state. And she will best learn it from Dan himself." Sir Hugo's conjectures had worked so industriously with his knowledge, that he fancied himself well informed concerning the whole situation. Meanwhile his residence with his family at Diplow enabled him to continue his fatherly attentions to Gwendolen; and in these Lady Mallinger, notwithstanding her small liking for widows, was quite willing to second him. The plan of removal to Offendene had been carried out; and Gwendolen, in settling there, maintained a calm beyond her mother's hopes. She was experiencing some of that peaceful melancholy which comes from the renunciation of demands for self, and from taking the ordinary good of existence, and especially kindness, even from a dog, as a gift above expectation. Does one who has been all but lost in a pit of darkness complain of the sweet air and the daylight? There is a way of looking at our life daily as an escape, and taking the quiet return of morn and evening--still more the star-like out-glowing of some pure fellow-feeling, some generous impulse breaking our inward darkness--as a salvation that reconciles us to hardship. Those who have a self-knowledge prompting such self-accusation as Hamlet's, can understand this habitual feeling of rescue. And it was felt by Gwendolen as she lived through and through again the terrible history of her temptations, from their first form of illusory self-pleasing when she struggled away from the hold of conscience, to their latest form of an urgent hatred dragging her toward its satisfaction, while she prayed and cried for the help of that conscience which she had once forsaken. She was now dwelling on every word of Deronda's that pointed to her past deliverance from the worst evil in herself, and the worst infliction of it on others, and on every word that carried a force to resist self-despair. But she was also upborne by the prospect of soon seeing him again: she did not imagine him otherwise than always within her reach, her supreme need of him blinding her to the separateness of his life, the whole scene of which she filled with his relation to her--no unique preoccupation of Gwendolen's, for we are all apt to fall into this passionate egoism of imagination, not only toward our fellow-men, but toward God. And the future which she turned her face to with a willing step was one where she would be continually assimilating herself to some type that he would hold before her. Had he not first risen on her vision as a corrective presence which she had recognized in the beginning with resentment, and at last with entire love and trust? She could not spontaneously think of an end to that reliance, which had become to her imagination like the firmness of the earth, the only condition of her walking. And Deronda was not long before he came to Diplow, which was a more convenient distance from town than the Abbey. He had wished to carry out a plan for taking Ezra and Mirah to a mild spot on the coast, while he prepared another home which Mirah might enter as his bride, and where they might unitedly watch over her brother. But Ezra begged not to be removed, unless it were to go with them to the East. All outward solicitations were becoming more and more of a burden to him; but his mind dwelt on the possibility of this voyage with a visionary joy. Deronda, in his preparations for the marriage, which he hoped might not be deferred beyond a couple of months, wished to have fuller consultation as to his resources and affairs generally with Sir Hugo, and here was a reason for not delaying his visit to Diplow. But he thought quite as much of another reason--his promise to Gwendolen. The sense of blessedness in his own lot had yet an aching anxiety at his heart: this may be held paradoxical, for the beloved lover is always called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed indifference to sorrow outside it. But human experience is usually paradoxical, if that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy. It was no treason to Mirah, but a part of that full nature which made his love for her the more worthy, that his joy in her could hold by its side the care for another. For what is love itself, for the one we love best?--an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love. Deronda came twice to Diplow, and saw Gwendolen twice--and yet he went back to town without having told her anything about the change in his lot and prospects. He blamed himself; but in all momentous communication likely to give pain we feel dependent on some preparatory turn of words or associations, some agreement of the other's mood with the probable effect of what we have to impart. In the first interview Gwendolen was so absorbed in what she had to say to him, so full of questions which he must answer, about the arrangement of her life, what she could do to make herself less ignorant, how she could be kindest to everybody, and make amends for her selfishness and try to be rid of it, that Deronda utterly shrank from waiving her immediate wants in order to speak of himself, nay, from inflicting a wound on her in these moments when she was leaning on him for help in her path. In the second interview, when he went with new resolve to command the conversation into some preparatory track, he found her in a state of deep depression, overmastered by some distasteful miserable memories which forced themselves on her as something more real and ample than any new material out of which she could mould her future. She cried hysterically, and said that he would always despise her. He could only seek words of soothing and encouragement: and when she gradually revived under them, with that pathetic look of renewed childlike interest which we see in eyes where the lashes are still beaded with tears, it was impossible to lay another burden on her. But time went on, and he felt it a pressing duty to make the difficult disclosure. Gwendolen, it was true, never recognized his having any affairs; and it had never even occurred to her to ask him why he happened to be at Genoa. But this unconsciousness of hers would make a sudden revelation of affairs that were determining his course in life all the heavier blow to her; and if he left the revelation to be made by different persons, she would feel that he had treated her with cruel inconsiderateness. He could not make the communication in writing: his tenderness could not bear to think of her reading his virtual farewell in solitude, and perhaps feeling his words full of a hard gladness for himself and indifference for her. He went down to Diplow again, feeling that every other peril was to be incurred rather than that of returning and leaving her still in ignorance. On this third visit Deronda found Hans Meyrick installed with his easel at Diplow, beginning his picture of the three daughters sitting on a bank, "in the Gainsborough style," and varying his work by rambling to Pennicote to sketch the village children and improve his acquaintance with the Gascoignes. Hans appeared to have recovered his vivacity, but Deronda detected some feigning in it, as we detect the artificiality of a lady's bloom from its being a little too high-toned and steadily persistent (a "Fluctuating Rouge" not having yet appeared among the advertisements). Also with all his grateful friendship and admiration for Deronda, Hans could not help a certain irritation against him, such as extremely incautious, open natures are apt to feel when the breaking of a friend's reserve discloses a state of things not merely unsuspected but the reverse of what had been hoped and ingeniously conjectured. It is true that poor Hans had always cared chiefly to confide in Deronda, and had been quite incurious as to any confidence that might have been given in return; but what outpourer of his own affairs is not tempted to think any hint of his friend's affairs is an egotistic irrelevance? That was no reason why it was not rather a sore reflection to Hans that while he had been all along naively opening his heart about Mirah, Deronda had kept secret a feeling of rivalry which now revealed itself as the important determining fact. Moreover, it is always at their peril that our friends turn out to be something more than we were aware of. Hans must be excused for these promptings of bruised sensibility, since he had not allowed them to govern his substantial conduct: he had the consciousness of having done right by his fortunate friend; or, as he told himself, "his metal had given a better ring than he would have sworn to beforehand." For Hans had always said that in point of virtue he was a _dilettante_: which meant that he was very fond of it in other people, but if he meddled with it himself he cut a poor figure. Perhaps in reward of his good behavior he gave his tongue the more freedom; and he was too fully possessed by the notion of Deronda's happiness to have a conception of what he was feeling about Gwendolen, so that he spoke of her without hesitation. "When did you come down, Hans?" said Deronda, joining him in the grounds where he was making a study of the requisite bank and trees. "Oh, ten days ago; before the time Sir Hugo fixed. I ran down with Rex Gascoigne and stayed at the rectory a day or two. I'm up in all the gossip of these parts; I know the state of the wheelwright's interior, and have assisted at an infant school examination. Sister Anna, with the good upper lip, escorted me, else I should have been mobbed by three urchins and an idiot, because of my long hair and a general appearance which departs from the Pennicote type of the beautiful. Altogether, the village is idyllic. Its only fault is a dark curate with broad shoulders and broad trousers who ought to have gone into the heavy drapery line. The Gascoignes are perfect--besides being related to the Vandyke duchess. I caught a glimpse of her in her black robes at a distance, though she doesn't show to visitors." "She was not staying at the rectory?" said Deronda. "No; but I was taken to Offendene to see the old house, and as a consequence I saw the duchess' family. I suppose you have been there and know all about them?" "Yes, I have been there," said Deronda, quietly. "A fine old place. An excellent setting for a widow with romantic fortunes. And she seems to have had several romances. I think I have found out that there was one between her and my friend Rex." "Not long before her marriage, then?" said Deronda, really interested, "for they had only been a year at Offendene. How came you to know anything of it?" "Oh--not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, I learn to gloat on the signs of misery in others. I found out that Rex never goes to Offendene, and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and Miss Gascoigne let fall something in our talk about charade-acting--for I went through some of my nonsense to please the young ones--something that proved to me that Rex was once hovering about his fair cousin close enough to get singed. I don't know what was her part in the affair. Perhaps the duke came in and carried her off. That is always the way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an attachment. I understand now why Gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress and remaining a bachelor. But these are green resolves. Since the duke did not get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my friend Rex's sake. Who knows?" "Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?" said Deronda, ready to add that Hans's success in constructing her fortunes hitherto had not been enough to warrant a new attempt. "You monster!" retorted Hans, "do you want her to wear weeds for _you_ all her life--burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and merry?" Deronda could say nothing, but he looked so much annoyed that Hans turned the current of his chat, and when he was alone shrugged his shoulders a little over the thought that there really had been some stronger feeling between Deronda and the duchess than Mirah would like to know of. "Why didn't she fall in love with me?" thought Hans, laughing at himself. "She would have had no rivals. No woman ever wanted to discuss theology with me." No wonder that Deronda winced under that sort of joking with a whip-lash. It touched sensibilities that were already quivering with the anticipation of witnessing some of that pain to which even Hans's light words seemed to give more reality:--any sort of recognition by another giving emphasis to the subject of our anxiety. And now he had come down with the firm resolve that he would not again evade the trial. The next day he rode to Offendene. He had sent word that he intended to call and to ask if Gwendolen could receive him; and he found her awaiting him in the old drawing-room where some chief crises of her life had happened. She seemed less sad than he had seen her since her husband's death; there was no smile on her face, but a placid self-possession, in contrast with the mood in which he had last found her. She was all the more alive to the sadness perceptible in Deronda; and they were no sooner seated--he at a little distance opposite to her--than she said: "You were afraid of coming to see me, because I was so full of grief and despair the last time. But I am not so today. I have been sorry ever since. I have been making it a reason why I should keep up my hope and be as cheerful as I can, because I would not give you any pain about me." There was an unwonted sweetness in Gwendolen's tone and look as she uttered these words that seemed to Deronda to infuse the utmost cruelty into the task now laid upon him. But he felt obliged to make his answer a beginning of the task. "I _am_ in some trouble to-day," he said, looking at her rather mournfully; "but it is because I have things to tell you which you will almost think it a want of confidence on my part not to have spoken of before. They are things affecting my own life--my own future. I shall seem to have made an ill return to you for the trust you have placed in me--never to have given you an idea of events that make great changes for me. But when we have been together we have hardly had time to enter into subjects which at the moment were really less pressing to me than the trials you have been going through." There was a sort of timid tenderness in Deronda's deep tones, and he paused with a pleading look, as if it had been Gwendolen only who had conferred anything in her scenes of beseeching and confession. A thrill of surprise was visible in her. Such meaning as she found in his words had shaken her, but without causing fear. Her mind had flown at once to some change in his position with regard to Sir Hugo and Sir Hugo's property. She said, with a sense of comfort from Deronda's way of asking her pardon, "You never thought of anything but what you could do to help me; and I was so troublesome. How could you tell me things?" "It will perhaps astonish you," said Deronda, "that I have only quite lately known who were my parents." Gwendolen was not astonished: she felt the more assured that her expectations of what was coming were right. Deronda went on without check. "The reason why you found me in Italy was that I had gone there to learn that--in fact, to meet my mother. It was by her wish that I was brought up in ignorance of my parentage. She parted with me after my father's death, when I was a little creature. But she is now very ill, and she felt that the secrecy ought not to be any longer maintained. Her chief reason had been that she did not wish me to know I was a Jew." "_A Jew_!" Gwendolen exclaimed, in a low tone of amazement, with an utterly frustrated look, as if some confusing potion were creeping through her system. Deronda colored, and did not speak, while Gwendolen, with her eyes fixed on the floor, was struggling to find her way in the dark by the aid of various reminiscences. She seemed at last to have arrived at some judgment, for she looked up at Deronda again and said, as if remonstrating against the mother's conduct, "What difference need that have made?" "It has made a great difference to me that I have known it," said Deronda, emphatically; but he could not go on easily--the distance between her ideas and his acted like a difference of native language, making him uncertain what force his words would carry. Gwendolen meditated again, and then said feelingly, "I hope there is nothing to make you mind. _You_ are just the same as if you were not a Jew." She meant to assure him that nothing of that external sort could affect the way in which she regarded him, or the way in which he could influence her. Deronda was a little helped by this misunderstanding. "The discovery was far from being painful to me," he said, "I had been gradually prepared for it, and I was glad of it. I had been prepared for it by becoming intimate with a very remarkable Jew, whose ideas have attracted me so much that I think of devoting the best part of my life to some effort at giving them effect." Again Gwendolen seemed shaken--again there was a look of frustration, but this time it was mingled with alarm. She looked at Deronda with lips childishly parted. It was not that she had yet connected his words with Mirah and her brother, but that they had inspired her with a dreadful presentiment of mountainous travel for her mind before it could reach Deronda's. Great ideas in general which she had attributed to him seemed to make no great practical difference, and were not formidable in the same way as these mysteriously-shadowed particular ideas. He could not quite divine what was going on within her; he could only seek the least abrupt path of disclosure. "That is an object," he said, after a moment, "which will by-and-by force me to leave England for some time--for some years. I have purposes which will take me to the East." Here was something clearer, but all the more immediately agitating. Gwendolen's lips began to tremble. "But you will come back?" she said, tasting her own tears as they fell, before she thought of drying them. Deronda could not sit still. He rose, and went to prop himself against the corner of the mantel-piece, at a different angle from her face. But when she had pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned and looked up at him, awaiting an answer. "If I live," said Deronda--"_some time_." They were both silent. He could not persuade himself to say more unless she led up to it by a question; and she was apparently meditating something that she had to say. "What are you going to do?" she asked, at last, very mildly. "Can I understand the ideas, or am I too ignorant?" "I am going to the East to become better acquainted with the condition of my race in various countries there," said Deronda, gently--anxious to be as explanatory as he could on what was the impersonal part of their separateness from each other. "The idea that I am possessed with is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national center, such as the English have, though they too are scattered over the face of the globe. That is a task which presents itself to me as a duty; I am resolved to begin it, however feebly. I am resolved to devote my life to it. At the least, I may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my own." There was a long silence between them. The world seemed getting larger round poor Gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless in the midst. The thought that he might come back after going to the East, sank before the bewildering vision of these wild-stretching purposes in which she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives--where the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and gray fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the Invisible Power that had been the object of lip-worship and lip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the wind, till the mountains smoke and the plains shudder under the rolling fiery visitations. Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under the thunder of unrelenting force, the martyrs live reviled, they die, and no angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. Then it is that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something else than a private consolation. That was the sort of crisis which was at this moment beginning in Gwendolen's small life: she was for the first time feeling the pressure of a vast mysterious movement, for the first time being dislodged from her supremacy in her own world, and getting a sense that her horizon was but a dipping onward of an existence with which her own was revolving. All the troubles of her wifehood and widowhood had still left her with the implicit impression which had accompanied her from childhood, that whatever surrounded her was somehow specially for her, and it was because of this that no personal jealousy had been roused in her relation to Deronda: she could not spontaneously think of him as rightfully belonging to others more than to her. But here had come a shock which went deeper than personal jealousy--something spiritual and vaguely tremendous that thrust her away, and yet quelled all her anger into self-humiliation. There had been a long silence. Deronda had stood still, even thankful for an interval before he needed to say more, and Gwendolen had sat like a statue with her wrists lying over each other and her eyes fixed--the intensity of her mental action arresting all other excitation. At length something occurred to her that made her turn her face to Deronda and say in a trembling voice, "Is that all you can tell me?" The question was like a dart to him. "The Jew whom I mentioned just now," he answered, not without a certain tremor in his tones too, "the remarkable man who has greatly influenced my mind, has not perhaps been totally unheard of by you. He is the brother of Miss Lapidoth, whom you have often heard sing." A great wave of remembrance passed through Gwendolen and spread as a deep, painful flush over neck and face. It had come first at the scene of that morning when she had called on Mirah, and heard Deronda's voice reading, and been told, without then heeding it, that he was reading Hebrew with Mirah's brother. "He is very ill--very near death now," Deronda went on, nervously, and then stopped short. He felt that he must wait. Would she divine the rest? "Did she tell you that I went to her?" said Gwendolen, abruptly, looking up at him. "No," said Deronda. "I don't understand you." She turned away her eyes again, and sat thinking. Slowly the color dried out of face and neck, and she was as pale as before--with that almost withered paleness which is seen after a painful flush. At last she said--without turning toward him--in a low, measured voice, as if she were only thinking aloud in preparation for future speech, "But _can_ you marry?" "Yes," said Deronda, also in a low voice. "I am going to marry." At first there was no change in Gwendolen's attitude: she only began to tremble visibly; then she looked before her with dilated eyes, as at something lying in front of her, till she stretched her arms out straight, and cried with a smothered voice, "I said I should be forsaken. I have been a cruel woman. And I am forsaken." Deronda's anguish was intolerable. He could not help himself. He seized her outstretched hands and held them together, and kneeled at her feet. She was the victim of his happiness. "I am cruel, too, I am cruel," he repeated, with a sort of groan, looking up at her imploringly. His presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met his upward look of sorrow with something like the return of consciousness after fainting. Then she dwelt on it with that growing pathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some tender recollection. The look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very far-off moment--the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at the Abbey. Sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. Deronda would not let her hands go--held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her handkerchief against her eyes. She submitted like a half-soothed child, making an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. At last she succeeded in saying, brokenly, "I said--I said--it should be better--better with me--for having known you." His eyes too were larger with tears. She wrested one of her hands from his, and returned his action, pressing his tears away. "We shall not be quite parted," he said. "I will write to you always, when I can, and you will answer?" He waited till she said in a whisper, "I will try." "I shall be more with you than I used to be," Deronda said with gentle urgency, releasing her hands and rising from his kneeling posture. "If we had been much together before, we should have felt our differences more, and seemed to get farther apart. Now we can perhaps never see each other again. But our minds may get nearer." Gwendolen said nothing, but rose too, automatically. Her withered look of grief, such as the sun often shines on when the blinds are drawn up after the burial of life's joy, made him hate his own words: they seemed to have the hardness of easy consolation in them. She felt that he was going, and that nothing could hinder it. The sense of it was like a dreadful whisper in her ear, which dulled all other consciousness; and she had not known that she was rising. Deronda could not speak again. He thought that they must part in silence, but it was difficult to move toward the parting, till she looked at him with a sort of intention in her eyes, which helped him. He advanced to put out his hand silently, and when she had placed hers within it, she said what her mind had been laboring with, "You have been very good to me. I have deserved nothing. I will try--try to live. I shall think of you. What good have I been? Only harm. Don't let me be harm to _you_. It shall be the better for me--" She could not finish. It was not that she was sobbing, but that the intense effort with which she spoke made her too tremulous. The burden of that difficult rectitude toward him was a weight her frame tottered under. She bent forward to kiss his cheek, and he kissed hers. Then they looked at each other for an instant with clasped hands, and he turned away. When he was quite gone, her mother came in and found her sitting motionless. "Gwendolen, dearest, you look very ill," she said, bending over her and touching her cold hands. "Yes, mamma. But don't be afraid. I am going to live," said Gwendolen, bursting out hysterically. Her mother persuaded her to go to bed, and watched by her. Through the day and half the night she fell continually into fits of shrieking, but cried in the midst of them to her mother, "Don't be afraid. I shall live. I mean to live." After all, she slept; and when she waked in the morning light, she looked up fixedly at her mother and said tenderly, "Ah, poor mamma! You have been sitting up with me. Don't be unhappy. I shall live. I shall be better." CHAPTER LXX. In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the winepress. Nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields. Among the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the sense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its happiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of privation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy. Deronda's love for Mirah was strongly imbued with that blessed protectiveness. Even with infantine feet she had begun to tread among thorns; and the first time he had beheld her face it had seemed to him the girlish image of despair. But now she was glowing like a dark-tipped yet delicate ivory-tinted flower in the warm sunlight of content, thinking of any possible grief as part of that life with Deronda, which she could call by no other name than good. And he watched the sober gladness which gave new beauty to her movements; and her habitual attitudes of repose, with a delight which made him say to himself that it was enough of personal joy for him to save her from pain. She knew nothing of Hans's struggle or of Gwendolen's pang; for after the assurance that Deronda's hidden love had been for her, she easily explained Gwendolen's eager solicitude about him as part of a grateful dependence on his goodness, such as she herself had known. And all Deronda's words about Mrs. Grandcourt confirmed that view of their relation, though he never touched on it except in the most distant manner. Mirah was ready to believe that he had been a rescuing angel to many besides herself. The only wonder was, that she among them all was to have the bliss of being continually by his side. So, when the bridal veil was around Mirah it hid no doubtful tremors--only a thrill of awe at the acceptance of a great gift which required great uses. And the velvet canopy never covered a more goodly bride and bridegroom, to whom their people might more wisely wish offspring; more truthful lips never touched the sacrament marriage-wine; the marriage-blessing never gathered stronger promise of fulfillment than in the integrity of their mutual pledge. Naturally, they were married according to the Jewish rite. And since no religion seems yet to have demanded that when we make a feast we should invite only the highest rank of our acquaintances, few, it is to be hoped, will be offended to learn that among the guests at Deronda's little wedding-feast was the entire Cohen family, with the one exception of the baby who carried on her teething intelligently at home. How could Mordecai have borne that those friends of his adversity should have been shut out from rejoicing in common with him? Mrs. Meyrick so fully understood this that she had quite reconciled herself to meeting the Jewish pawnbroker, and was there with her three daughters--all of them enjoying the consciousness that Mirah's marriage to Deronda crowned a romance which would always make a sweet memory to them. For which of them, mother or girls, had not had a generous part in it--giving their best in feeling and in act to her who needed? If Hans could have been there, it would have been better; but Mab had already observed that men must suffer for being so inconvenient; suppose she, Kate, and Amy had all fallen in love with Mr. Deronda?--but being women they were not so ridiculous. The Meyricks were rewarded for conquering their prejudices by hearing a speech from Mr. Cohen, which had the rare quality among speeches of not being quite after the usual pattern. Jacob ate beyond his years, and contributed several small whinnying laughs as a free accompaniment of his father's speech, not irreverently, but from a lively sense that his family was distinguishing itself; while Adelaide Rebekah, in a new Sabbath frock, maintained throughout a grave air of responsibility. Mordecai's brilliant eyes, sunken in their large sockets, dwelt on the scene with the cherishing benignancy of a spirit already lifted into an aloofness which nullified only selfish requirements and left sympathy alive. But continually, after his gaze had been traveling round on the others, it returned to dwell on Deronda with a fresh gleam of trusting affection. The wedding-feast was humble, but Mirah was not without splendid wedding-gifts. As soon as the betrothal had been known, there were friends who had entertained graceful devices. Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger had taken trouble to provide a complete equipment for Eastern travel, as well as a precious locket containing an inscription--"_To the bride of our dear Daniel Deronda all blessings. H. and L. M._" The Klesmers sent a perfect watch, also with a pretty inscription. But something more precious than gold and gems came to Deronda from the neighborhood of Diplow on the morning of his marriage. It was a letter containing these words: Do not think of me sorrowfully on your wedding-day. I have remembered your words--that I may live to be one of the best of women, who make others glad that they were born. I do not yet see how that can be, but you know better than I. If it ever comes true, it will be because you helped me. I only thought of myself, and I made you grieve. It hurts me now to think of your grief. You must not grieve any more for me. It is better--it shall be better with me because I have known you. GWENDOLEN GRANDCOURT. The preparations for the departure of all three to the East began at once; for Deronda could not deny Ezra's wish that they should set out on the voyage forthwith, so that he might go with them, instead of detaining them to watch over him. He had no belief that Ezra's life would last through the voyage, for there were symptoms which seemed to show that the last stage of his malady had set in. But Ezra himself had said, "Never mind where I die, so that I am with you." He did not set out with them. One morning early he said to Deronda, "Do not quit me to-day. I shall die before it is ended." He chose to be dressed and sit up in his easy chair as usual, Deronda and Mirah on each side of him, and for some hours he was unusually silent, not even making the effort to speak, but looking at them occasionally with eyes full of some restful meaning, as if to assure them that while this remnant of breathing-time was difficult, he felt an ocean of peace beneath him. It was not till late in the afternoon, when the light was falling, that he took a hand of each in his and said, looking at Deronda, "Death is coming to me as the divine kiss which is both parting and reunion--which takes me from your bodily eyes and gives me full presence in your soul. Where thou goest, Daniel, I shall go. Is it not begun? Have I not breathed my soul into you? We shall live together." He paused, and Deronda waited, thinking that there might be another word for him. But slowly and with effort Ezra, pressing on their hands, raised himself and uttered in Hebrew the confession of the divine Unity, which long for generations has been on the lips of the dying Israelite. He sank back gently into his chair, and did not speak again. But it was some hours before he had ceased to breathe, with Mirah's and Deronda's arms around him. "Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble."