•>A7r.>WMr\V.V.\ l«l w 1 ,W'J iWPpf-' ■aii; illWI 'W« '"^^t THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE %^^ W0 >^,^^< €\ \i '^M. 'm ^;;*^ .^w / '^y^^-y xTi. A, ,U ■>^-T^ , -^;3 1 '^M\ 2v% ^^i^^^i :'-Sj^*;t^;^^ ■Ni»^?£s^^^ 'f0:M4. ■^^ ■ >i. A3C> GEOEGE ELIOT'S LIFE Vol. i.-UNKNOWN "OUR FINEST HOPE IS FINEST MEMORY" GEORGE ELIOT - 1864, Dr^wn by M-^ Frederic B'urton Etched by M^Paui Bajon. GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE AS EELATED IN HER LETTERS AND JOURNALS ^l;ot^ GeoR^&, pseud., ie ^^.a#!>a^ £"y«*««% a5ttRMJoAci& Cross. ARRANGED AND EDITED BY HER HUSBAND J. W. CEOSS IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXV P E E F A C E. With the materials in my hands I have endeav- oured to form an cndoMogrcqjhy (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 tliink, better than any other open to me, to show the develop- ment 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 pre- sentation of her daily life. On the intellectual side there remains little to be learnt 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 vi Preface. best and ripest thoughts. The letters now pub- lished 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 pre- sented itself, was so weighted with the sense of re- sponsibility, 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 be- neficent, effect of her writing, was no doubt the highest happiness, the reward of the artist which she greatly cherished : but the joys of the hearth- side, 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 endeavoured 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 Preface. vii 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 interest- ing, as reflected through George Eliot's mind. The remarks on works of art are only meant to be records of impressions. She would have depre- cated for herself the attitude of an art critic. Excepting a slight introductory sketch of the girlhood, up to the time when letters became avail- able, 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, viii Preface. and everything depends upon accuracy. EecoUec- tions 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 circu.mstances which gave rise to their utterance, that they often mislead as much as they enlighten, when, in the process of repetition, they have taken colour 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 acknow- ledgment 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 im- Preface. ix portant part of the life from 1842 to 1854 could not possibly have been written without their con- tribution. To Mr Charles Lewes, also, I am indebted for permission to make use of some valuable letters written by his father, besides the letters addressed to himself. He also obtained for me an important letter written by George Eliot to Mr E. H. Hutton ; and throughout the preparation of the book I have had the advantage of his sympathetic in- terest, 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 dis- posal 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 the Rev. Archer Gurney, — I owe thanks for leave to print letters written by them. X Preface. 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. Wliilst 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 manu- script, 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. As regards the illustrations, I owe thanks to Sir Frederic Burton for permitting me to repro- duce as a frontispiece M. Eajon's etching of the beautiful drawing, executed in 1864, now in the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington. The Geneva portrait was taken in the early part of 1850, by George Eliot's old friend M. d'Albert Preface xi Durade. He was good enough to allow me to become the j)ossessor of it m 1881. The view of the old house at Eosehill 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 draw- ing-room at The Priory, I am indebted to Messrs Harpers of New York. The size of the volumes has been determined by the desire to make this book uniform in appearance with the original editions of George Eliot's "Works. 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 short- comings no one can be so convinced as I am myself. J. W. C. Campden Hill, December 1884. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST YOLUME. PAGE Introductory Sketch of Childhood, 1819 to 1838, . I CHAPTER I. AUGUST 1838 TO MARCH 1841. Life at Griff, ...... 38 CHAPTER II. MARCH 1841 TO APRIL 1846. Coventry — Translation of Strauss, . . .84 CHAPTER III. MAY 1846 TO MAY 1849. Life in Coventry till Mr Evans's death, . . 146 CHAPTER IV. JUNK 1849 TO MARCH 1850. Geneva, ...... 207 xiv Contents. CHAPTER V. MARCH 1850 TO JULY 1854. Work in London — Union with Mr Lewes, . . 250 CHAPTER VL JULY 1854 TO MARCH 1855. Weimar and Berlin, ..... 332 CHAPTER VIL MARCH 1855 TO DECEMBER 1857. Richmond — ' Scenes of Clerical Life,' . . . 379 ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE FIRST YOLUME. Portrait of George Eliot. Etched by M. Rajon, .... Griff — Front View, Griff — The Farm Offices, House in Foleshill Road, Coventry, Portrait of Mr Robert Evans, rosehill, .... Frontispiece. To face 2}. 8 16 84 „ 204 250 GEOKGE ELIOT^S LIFE. INTRODUCTOEY SKETCH OF CHILDHOOD. "Nov. 22, 1819. — Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm/ at five o'clock this morning." This is an entry in ]\Ir Eobert Evans's hand- writmg on the page of an old diary that now lies before me, and records, with characteristic pre- cision, 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 1 The farm is also known as the South Farm, Arbury. VOL. I. A 2 Fathers Career. [griff, good Churchman, takes her, on the 29th November, to be baptised 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 — al- though, of course, neither of these is a portrait. He was born in 1773, at Ellaston, in Stafford- shire, 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. Eobert 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 Derby- shire, and became his agent. On Sir Koger 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 — Eobert, born 1802, at Ellaston, and Frances Lucy, born 1805, at Kirk Hallam. His first wife died in 1809; and on 8 th February 1813 he mar- 1819.] Removal to Grif. 3 ried Christiana Pearson, by whom he had three chikben — Christiana, born 1814; Isaac, born 1816 ; and Mary Ann, born 1819. Shortly after the last child's birth, Eobert, the son, became the agent, under his father, for the Kirk Hallam property, and Kved there with his sister Frances, who after- wards 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, i\y- covered house on the Arbury estate — "the warm little nest wdiere 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 beguming of the French Eevolution 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 impres- sionable 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 Eevolution began, and that mighty event, with all its consequences, had 4 Recollections of Fatlicr. [griff, left an indelible impression on him, and the con- victions and conclusions it had fostered in his mind permeated through to his children, and en- tered as an indestructible element into the sus- ceptible soul of his youngest daughter. There are bits in the paper " Looking Backward," in ' Theo- phrastus Such,' which are true autobiography. " In my earliest remembrance of my father his hair was already grey, 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 honour, that the men- tion 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 1819.] Influence of Fathers Ideas. 5 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 maintam order ; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word ' Govern- ment' 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 Ijy 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 Na- 6 Retrospect of Tear 1819. [griff, poleonic 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 pub- lished 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 Con- vent des Anglaises at Paris. That " Greater Bri- tain " (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 million where to-day it is fifty - five million. Including Great Britain, these English-speaking races have increased from thirty million in 1820 to one hun- dred million in 1884; and with the corresponding 1820.] Remoteness of Country Districts. 7 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 Grift' an exhilaratmg 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 oljserver is not inspiring, but "effective magic is transcen- dent 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 highroad 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 handlooms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here were powerful men walking queerly 8 Country about Bcdworth. [griff, witli 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 ale-house 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 ale-house, even in the hamlets. . . . Here was a population not convinced that old England was as good as pos- sible ; 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 cer- tainly more sinful. Yet there were the grey O 1823.] Mamifacturing Region. 9 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 Eng- lish 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 meet- ino-s, it would take him in another ten minutes into a rural region, where the neighbourhood 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.' " ^ 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 1 'Felix Holt' — Intro(Uictiou. 1 Coaching Days. [griff, hard ground, and then to see the gallant appear- ance of the four greys, 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 IMajesty'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 morn- ing, the other from Stamford at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. These were the chief connecting links between the hoiisehold at Griff and the outside world. Otherwise life went on with that mono- tonous 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 lit- erature. 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 ex- traordinary activity in scientific and mechanical discovery. Her genius was the outcome of these conditions. It could not have existed in the same form deprived of either influence. Her father was busy Ijoth with his own farm work and increasing agency business. He was already remarked in 1823.] Father's Position. 11 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 w^onderful 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 busi- ness, he had the good fortune to possess the warm friendship and consistent support of Colonel ISTew- digate of xlstley Castle, son of Mr Francis ISTewdi- gate 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 hunself from being an artisan to be a farmer : he raised himself from being an artisan to be a man whose extensive know- ledge in very varied practical departments made his services valued through several counties. He had large knowledge of building, of mines, of plantations, 1 2 Father's Position. [geiff, 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 amongst 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 inci- dent 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 — note- worthy 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 offen- sive. 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 1823.] Mother's Family. 13 iron hand for the remainder of the stage : and at Griff it is still remembered that the master hap- pening to pass one day whilst a conple of labourers were waiting for a third to help to move the high heavy ladder used for thatching ricks, braced him- self 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 iDody and of character, he seems to have combined a certain self-distrust, owing perhaps to his early imperfect education, which resulted in a general submissive- ness in his domestic relations, more or less por- trayed in the character of Mr Garth, His second wife was a woman with an unusual amount of natural force — a shrewd practical per- son, 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 Dod- sons in the ' Mill on the Floss.' There were three other sisters married and all living in the neigh- 1 4 Dames School. [gkiff, bourhood of Griff ^ — -Mrs Everard, Mrs Johnson, and Mrs Garner, — and proljably Mr Evans heard a good deal about " the traditions in tlie Pearson family." Mrs Evans was a very active hard-work- ing 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, — whilst 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 child- hood. Wlien 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 in to 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 pre- 1824.] Exclusive Disposition. 15 cocious 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, hut 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 thmk 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 keen- est 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 bud- ding 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 child- 16 Miss Lathom's School at Attlcboro. [GRIFF, hood'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 re- mained 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 nar- row 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 w^ere 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 < X r-' X H o 1824.] Hafpy Childhood. 17 of the supremely important influences dominating at times Lier future life. Mr Isaac Evans's chief re- collection 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 learnmg. The eldest child, who went by the name of Chrissey, was the chief favourite of the aunts, as she was always neat and tidy, and used to spend a great deal of her time with them, whilst 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 gener- ations of the milky mothers have stood patiently — the broad - shouldered barns where the old- fashioned flail once made resonant music," and where butter - niakino; and cheese - makini^ were carried on with great vigour by Mrs Evans. 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- VOL. I. B 1 8 Home Life. [griff, covered arm-chair, at tlie right-hand corner of the ruddy fireplace, witli 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 in- evitable click of the knitting-needles — accompanied by epigrammatic speech. The elder girl, prmi and tidy, with her work before her, is hj her mother's side ; and the brother, between the two groups, keeps assuring himself by perpetual search that none of his favourite means of amusement are escaping from his pockets. The father is already very proud of the astonishing and growing intelli- gence 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 neighbourhood, " standing be- tween 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. 1824.] iJarliest Reading. 19 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 re- member 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 dis- paragement of some of the books that the rising 20 First Journey to Stafioixlshire. [geiff, 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 liad 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 humour 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 l)y heart. One of them was a Joe Miller jest-book, witli the stories from which she used greatly to astonish the family cu'cle. But the beginning of her serious reading-days did not come till later. Meantime her talent for observa- tion gained a glorious new field for employment in her first journey from home, which took place m 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." ^ They were away only a week, from the 18th to the 24th of May ; but " wliat time is little " to an imaginative, observant child of seven on her first 1 See post, Journal, Aug. 25, 1859— vol. ii. p. 132. 1826.] Miss Wallingtons Scliool at Nuneaton. 21 journey ? About this time a deeply felt crisis occurred in her life, as lier brother had a pony given to him, to which he became passionately at- tached. He developed an absorbing interest in ridmg, 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 bemg 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 corre- spondent, and I am indebted to the letters addressed to her from 1836 to 1842 for most of the informa- tion 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' wliich is mentioned by Miss Simcox in her article in the 22 Writes out ' Waverley' [griff, June 1881 number of the ' Nineteenth Century Eeview.' 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 neighbour 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, begin- ning naturally where the story begins with Waver- ley '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 Toward 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." 1827.] Favourite Boohs. 23 Miss Simcox also mentions that " Elia divided her childish allegiance with Scott, and she remem- bered feasting with singular pleasure upon an ex- tract in some stray almanac from the essay in com- memoration of ' Captain Jackson and his slender ration of Sinoie Gloucester.' This is an extreme O example of the general rule that a wise child's taste in literature is sounder than adults generally ven- ture to believe." We know too from the ' Mill on the Floss ' that the ' History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe, was a favourite. The book is still religiously preserved at Grift', with its pictures just as Maggie looked at them, ' The Pilgrim's Progress ' also and ' Easselas ' had a large share of her aft'ections. 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. ]\Iiss Lewis was an ardent evangelical Churchwoman, and exerted a strong in- fluence 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 inti- macy she indulged in. 24 Miss Franklins School at Coventry, [griff. On coming home for their holidays the sister and brother began, about this time, the habft of actine; charades together before the Griff household and the aunts, who were greatly impressed with the cleverness of the performance ; and the girl was now recognised in the family circle as no ordinary child. Another epoch presently succeeded on her re- moval 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 lilind unconscious yearning for some- thing that would link together the wonderful im- pressions 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 particu- lars of the Miss Franklins, 1832,] Excels her Sclioolfellows. 25 " They were daughters of a Baptist minister, who had preached for many years in Coventry, and who inhabited during his pastorate a house n the Chapel- yard almost exactly resembling that of Eufus Lyon in ' Felix Holt,' For this venerable gentleman Miss Evans as a school girl had a great admiration, and I, who can remember him well, can trace in Eufus Lyon himself many slight resemblances, such as the ' little legs,' and the habit of w^alking up and down when composing. Miss Eebecca Franklin was a lady of considerable intellectual power, and remark- able for her elegance in writing and conversation, as well as for her beautiful caligraphy. In her classes for English Composition Mary Ann Evans was, from her first entering the school, far in ad- vance 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 en- joyment of tlie 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 in- cident 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 26 Extreme Sensibility. [griff, 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 parlour to play for their amusement, and though suft'erino; ao'onies 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 ven- ture to love one whom they felt to be so immeasur- ably superior to themselves, and she had playful nicknames for most of them. My mother, wlio 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 further 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 im- pressed 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 chame- leon-like nature, she soon adopted their religious views with intense eagerness and conviction, al- 1832.] Regard for Miss Franklins. 27 though she never formally jomed 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 amonList the f>irls. In addition to a sound English education, the Miss Franklins managed to procure for their pupils excellent masters for French, Ger- man, and nmsic ; 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 j\Iiss 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 j)erson " 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 ISTorth Warwickshire, after the passmg of the great Eeform Bill, and which sub- sequently furnished her with the incidents for the riot in ' Felix Holt.' Tt was an event to lay hold 28 Fdot at Nuneaton. [griff, on the imagination of an impressionable girl of thirteen, and it is thus described in the local news- paper of 29th December 1832 : — " On Friday the 21st December, at Nuneaton, from the commencement of the poll till nearly half- past two, the Hemingites^ occupied the poll; the numerous plumpers for Sir Eardley Wilmot and the adherents of Mr Dugdale being constantly inter- rupted in their endeavours 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 mili- tary force. A detachment of the Scots Greys ac- cordingly 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 absol- utely necessary. The tumult increasing, as the detachment of the Scots Greys were called in, the Eiot 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 per- sonal injuries. 1 A Mr Heming was the Radical eaiulid.ite. 1836.] George Eliofs First Letter. 29 " On Saturday the mob presented an appalling- appearance, and but for tlie forbearance of the sol- diery, 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 let- ters 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 enter- ing 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 con- test, 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 Eev. L. Harper, Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, she speaks of her mother hav- ing suffered a great increase of pain, and adds — " We dare not hope that there will be a perma- 30 Mothers Death. [geiff, nent improvement. Our anxieties on my mother's account, tliougli so great, have been since Thursday almost lost sight of in tlie more sudden, and con- sequently 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 tlie subsequent correspondence to what she suffered at this time, all summed iip 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 recollec- tions is that on the day of the marriage, after the bride's departure, he and his younger sister 1836.] Sisters Marridgc. 31 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 be- tween the sisters was somewhat like that described as existing between Dorothea and Celia in ' Mid- dlemarch ' — 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 Eloss.' No doubt the early part of Maggie's portraiture is the best autobiographi- cal 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 experi- ences of family life, but so mixed with fictitious elements and situations that it would be abso- lutely misleading to trust to it as a true history 32 Bclations loith Brother. [GKIFF, For instance, all that happened in real life be- tween 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 stead- ily, 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 ]\Iiss 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 sha]De 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 1837.] Head of House at Griff. 33 for her, in wliicli 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 mar- tyrdom and endurance, where the palm branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self -blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn."^ 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 per- mitted. She spent a great deal of time in visiting the poor, organising clothmg 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 lan- 1 ' Mill ou tlie Floss,' chap. iii. book iv, VOL. I. C 34 Monotony of Country Life. [gkiff, guages at Coventry, used to come over to Griff regularly to give her lessons in Italian and Ger- man. 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 evenmgs she was always in the habit of play- ing 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." ^ This is a point of view that must be distinctly recognised by any one attempting to follow the development of George Eliot's char- 1 ■' Daniel Derouda. ' 1837.] ^ff^'ci 071 Character. 35 acter, and it will always be corrected by the other point of view which she has made so prom- inent 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 amono' 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 which began when we were little ones," ^ — 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 Eev. Frederic Evans, the present Eector 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 surround- ings. And thougli the field of observation was 1 See vol. iii. p. 398. 36 Social Influences. [griff, narrow in one sense, it included very various grades of society. Sucli fine places as Arbury, and Pack- ington, 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 condi- tions, can understand how powerfully those minor accidents of rank which please the fastidious sense can preoccupy the imagination." ^ The tone of her mind will be seen from the letters written during the following years ; and 1 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 abso- lute despair I suffered from of ever being able to achieve anything. N"o one could ever have felt greater despair, and a knowledge of this might be 1 ' Felix Holt,' chai^. xxxviii. 1837.] Despair of Achievement. 37 a help to some other struggier" — addiug 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 chil- dren — Removal to Griff — Events at time of birth — Charac- ter of country about Griff — Coach communication — Father's position — Anecdotes of father — Character of mother — Mother's family and delicacy — Dame's school — Companion- ship 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 Walling- ton's school at Nuneaton — Miss Lewis, governess — Books read — Religious impressions — Charade acting — Miss Frank- lin'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. 38 CHAPTER I. In the foregoing introductory sketch, I have en- deavoured 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 title-page, that the life will l^e related in her own letters — or rather in extracts from her own letters, for no single letter is printed entire from the be- ginning to the end. I have not succeeded in ob- taining any between 6th January 1836 and 18th August 1838 ; but from the latter date the corre- spondence 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 explana- tion 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 1838.] First Visit to London. 39 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 : — Let me tell you, though, that I was not at all Letter to IVIiss Lpwi.s delighted with the stir of the great Babel, and the isth Aug. ,,,.,. 1838. less so probably owmg to the cn'cumstances attend- ing my visit thither. Isaac and I went alone (that seems rather Irish), and staid 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 nut 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 where her brother got 40 Desirability of Renunciation. [griff, her this, he bought for hmiself a pair of hunt- ing sketches. In the same letter, alhiding to the marriage of one of her friends, she' says : — Letter to For my part, when I hear of the marrying and Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. giving in marriage that is constantly being trans- 1838. acted, I can only sigh for those who are mul- tiplying 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 thaj 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 be- lieve that those are happiest who are not ferment- mg themselves by engaging m projects for earthly bliss, who are considering this life merely a pil- grimage, a scene calluig for diligence and watch- fulness, 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 enjoy- ments 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 1838. 1838.] On " Living for Eternity." 41 confess that in my short experience and narrow Letter to sphere of action I have never been able to attain isthAug. ' to this. I find, as Dr Johnson said respecting his wine, total abstinence much easier than modera- tion. I do not wonder you are pleased with Pascal ; ^ 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 valu- able admonition. I was once told that there w^as 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. Oh that we could live only for eternity ! that we could realise its nearness ! I know you do not 1 Given to her as a school prize when she was fourteen : see vol. iii. p. 326. 42 MicJiaelmas Giccsts. [geiff, Letter to Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. 1S38. Letter to Miss Lewis, 6th Nov. 1S38. 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 Eeclaimed,' begin- ning, " vain, vain, vain all else eternity," and do love tlie 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 rebel- lious 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 cross- ings 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. 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 hicns6ant as that I should set Are 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 com- pany (for us) and little reading, so that I am ill prepared for corresponding with profit or pleasure. 1838.] Emulation of Wilhcrforcc. 43 I am genemlly in the same predicament with books Letter to Miss Lewis, as a qlutton with his feast, hurrying through one tjtii no\ . 183S. 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 hesetonerits, and my own, that makes his experience very inter- esting to me. Oh 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 Chris- tianity a mere addendum to my pursuits, or with tacking it as a fringe to my garments ! May I seek to be sanctified wholly ! Mj nineteenth birth- day will soon l^e 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, 44 Condemns Oratorios. [griff, Letter to Brahaiii, Phillips, Mrs Knyvett, and Mrs Shaw — Miss Lewis, 6th Nov. the last, I think, I shall attend. I am not fitted 1838 ' to decide on the question of the propriety or law- fulness 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 Sep- tember 1840, previous to her brother's marriage, she was affected to an extraordinary degree, so much so that Mrs Isaac Evans — then Miss Eawlins — 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 especi- ally oratorio. 1839.] Wirksioorth Aunt. 45 " Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibihty to the supreme excite- ment of music was only one form of that passion- ate 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." ^ The next two letters, dated from Griff — February 6th and ]\Iarch 5th, 1839 — are addressed to Mrs Samuel Evans, a Methodist preacher, the wife of a younger brother of Mr Eobert Evans. They are the more interest- ing from the fact, which will appear later, that an anecdote related by this aunt during her visit to Griff in 18.39 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.' I am so unwilling to believe that you can forget Letter to Mrs Samuel a promise, or to entertain fears respectmg your Evans, oth Feb. 1S39. health, that I persuade myself I must have mis- 1 ' Mill on the Floss,' chap. v. book vi. 46 Religious Experiences. [griff, Letter to taken the terms of the agreeiiient between us, and Evans, 6th that I ought to havG 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 wellbeing in every way, that I can no longer rest satisfied without using my only means of ob- taining 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, ex- cept 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 tlie 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 su.ffer, but be delighted 1839.] Wirkswortli Aunt. 47 to receive, the word of exhortation, and I heg you Letter to not to withliold it. If I did not know how little Evans', oth 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 daresay 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 tlie summer : there is no place I would rather visit than Wirkswortli, or tlie inhabitants of which have a stronger hold on my affections. In the next letter the touch about ]\Irs Flet- cher's life is characteristic. My dear father is just now so plunged in business. Letter to and that of a fatiguing kind, that I should put your Evans, 5th confidence in my love and gratitude to an unreason- 1339. ably 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 yoii to derive so much benefit from its perusal. I am truly glad to hear that you are less 48 Beligious Experiences. [griff, Letter to embaiTassed with respect to your congregation, &c., Mrs Samuel - Evans, 5th than joii wcrc when we saw you. I must protest March 1839. . , . . i • n ^ • £ against your making apologies tor speaking oi your- self, for nothing that relates to you can be uninter- esting to me. The unprofitableness you lament in yourself, dur- ing 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 circum- stantial advantages. My soul seems for weeks to- gether 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 1839.] Condemns Fiction- Heading. 49 God who is struggling with worldly cares and occu- Letter to . ... Mrs Samuel pations. I leel that my besetting sm is the one Evans, stu p „ 1 -, . ..,„.„, March 1839. 01 all others most destroying, as it is the truittul 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 feel- ings, 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 : — I am this morning hardly myself, owing to the Letter to Miss Lewis, insuppressible rising of my animal spirits on a lotii March 1S39. deliverance from sick headache ; — and then the letter continues as to the expe- diency of reading works of fiction, in answer to a question ]\Iiss 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 VOL. I. D 1839. 50 Exceptional Fictions. [griff, Letter to worcls of Scripture without profaneness) tliey will Miss Lewis, 16th March gather to themselves all facts, and heap unto themselves all ideas. For such persons we can- not legislate. Again, I would put out of the question standard works, whose contents are mat- ter of constant reference, and the names of whose heroes and heroines briefly, and therefore con- veniently, describe characters and ideas : such are ' Don Quixote,' Butler's ' Hudibras,' ' Eobinson Crusoe,' ' Gil Bias,' Byron's Poetical Eomances, Southey's ditto, &c. 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, alioays providing our leisure is not circumscribed by duty within narrow bounds, we should, I think, qualify ourselves to understand. Shakspeare 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 ad- vantages designed for us by making us social beings, so in books. Having cleared our way of what 1839.] Bad Effect of Novels. 51 would otherwise have encumbered us, I would ask Letter to , . - . , . • n ^ yiliiii Lewis, why IS one engaged in tJie instruction or youth to loth March 1839 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 them- selves of a cup suspected poisonous, that they may deter another from risking life ; but it ap- pears to me a work of supererogation, since there are enough witnesses to its baneful effect on them- selves already to put an end to all strife in the matter. The Scriptural declaration, " As face an- swereth to face in a glass, so the heart of man to man," will exonerate me from the charge of un- charitableness, 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 ro- mances 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 1S39. 52 Why not Bead Truth ?' [geiff, Letter to the culprits a grudge for injuries inflicted on my- Miss Lewis, , 16th March Self. Wlieu I was quite a little child, I could not be satisfied with the things around me : I was con- stantly 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 read- ing, 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 recommend- ing children to read them : all this does not apply to persons come to years of discretion, whose judg- ments 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 pcrsonm 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 1839.] Kurtfid Novels. 53 from tlie perusal of fictions, I can conceive none Letter to . Miss Lewis, that is beneficial but may be attanied by that of letii March „ . . , . 1839. history. It is the merit of fictions to come withm 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 enter- taining than the transactions of real specimens of human nature from which we may safely draw in- ferences. I daresay Mr James's ' Huguenot ' would be recommended as giving an idea of the times of which he writes ; but as well may one be recom- mended 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. Eeligious 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. Domes- 54 Rcligio7is Controversies. [geiff, Letter to Miss Lewis, 20tli May 1839. Letter to tic fictioiis, as tliey come more within the range Miss Lewis, 16th March of imitation, seem more dangerous. For my part, 1830. I am ready to sit down and weep at the impossi- bility of my understanding or barely knowing a fraction of the sum of objects that present them- selves for our contemplation in books and in life. Have I, then, any time to spend on things that never existed ? 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 contro- verted 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 liaving made their election of a class of senti- ments. The other day Montaigne's motto came to my mind (it is mentioned by Pascal) as an appro- priate one for me — " Que sais-je ? " — beneath a pair of balances, though, by the by, 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 1839.] Religious Controversies. 55 do not refer. I use it in a limited sense as a repre- Letter to Miss Lewis, sentation of my oscillating judgment. On no sub- 2otii May issy. ject 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-asser- tions shake me from my position. T 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, conserpiently, to be 1)inding on Christians ; the latter, you know, exhibits the views of a moderate Evangelical Episcopalian on the in- ferences 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 favour of Episcopacy, of a moderate kind both in power and extent of diocese, as well as the benefit of a national estab- lishment. I have been skimming the ' Portrait of 1839. 56 Ileligiotis Controversies. [gkiff, Letter to an Eiiglisli Cliurclimaii ' by the Eev. W. Gresley : 20th May ' tliis contaiiis ail 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 reprehen- sible a spirit T 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 farther, and evince by their compliments to Rome, as a dear though erring sister, and their attempts to give a Eomish colour to our ordinance, with a very confused and un- scriptural statement of the great doctrine of justifi- cation, a disposition rather to fraternise 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 1839.] First Anthorshij). 57 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 sen- tence, the poem referred to has evidently not been a first attempt. I send you some doggerel lines, the crude fruit of Letter to a lonely walk last evennig, when the words ot one nt^ juiy of our martyrs occurred to me. You must be ac- quainted 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. '"Knoiving that shortly Imustpid 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 mtist to this bright, lovely world soon say Farewell ! " The mandate I'd obey, my lamp prepare, Gird lip 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 ! 58 Poem Printed. [griff, Ye verdant meads, fair blossoms, stately trees, Sweet song of birds and soothing hum of bees, Eefreshing odours wafted on the breeze, Farewell ! " Ye patient servants of creation's Lord, AVliose 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, fi-iendship, peace have sold. Farewell ! " Blest volume ! whose clear truth-writ page once known, Fades not l^efore 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 some- where. 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." 1839.] Poem in ' Cliristiaii Observer .' 59 " Ye feebler, freer tribes tliat 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 w^ritten 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 : — I have lately led so unsettled a life, and have Letter to been so desultory in my employments, that my 4tiisept. ' mind, never of the most highly organised genus, is more than usually chaotic ; or rather it is like a stratum of conglomerated fragments, that shows 1839. 60 Various Beading. [gpjff, Letter to lieiG R jaw aiicl rib of some ponderous quadruped, Miss Lewis, 4tii Sept. there a delicate alto-relievo of some fern-like plant, tiny shells, and mysterious nondescripts encrusted 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 Shakspeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Mil- ton ; newspaper topics ; morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, and chemistry ; Eeviews and metaphysics, — all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast-thicken- ing everyday 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. Eemember Michaelmas is com- ing, and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseat- ing to me that it will be a charity to console me ; to reprove and advise me no less. 1839.] Buys WordswortJis Poeyns. 61 I have emerged from the slough of domestic Letter to .,, ^, , , '.ii 1 Miss Lewis, troubles, or rather, to speak quite clearly, "mal- 22dNov. 1839 heurs de cuisine," and am beginning to take a deep breath in my own element, though with a mortify- ing 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 vols., 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 neighbourhood 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 ]\Iyers's ' Wordsworth ' in the " English Men of Letters," which she "^ Letter to heartily enjoyed. Miss Lewis, "^ "^ -^ 23d March. I have just received my second lesson in German. is4o. 62 Plan of Chart. [geiff, Letter to I kiiow you Will \)Q glad to tliiiik of me as Miss Lewis, , , , , , . _ - •jd May 1S40, thoroughly employed, as indeed 1 am to an extent i„g.' that makes me fear I shall not be able to accom- plish everything well. I have engaged, if possible, to complete the Chart,^ the plan of which I sketched out last year, by November next, and I am encour- aged 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 favourite 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 Eeformation, if my tune and resources will enable me to do so. We are going to have a clothing clulj, the ar- rangement 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. Letter to Miss Lewis, Our liousc is uow, aiid will be for the next two iJlst May is-io. months, miserably noisy and disorderly with the J Of ecclesiastical history. 1S40. 1840.] Alterations in House. 63 musical operations of masons, carpenters, and Letter to ,, , . . Miss Lewis, pamters. Yon know now abhorrent all this is to 21st May my tastes and feelings, taking all the spice out of my favourite 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 treas- ure up, has quite satisfied me that Dr Pearson at least has not realised 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 Eomaii emperors with their dates, the political and religious state of the Jews, the Bishops, re- markable 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, scliisms and heresies. General Councils, eras of corruption (under which head the remarks would be general), and I thought possibly 64 Chart of Ecclesiastical History. [gkiff, Letter to ail application of the apocalyptic prophecies, which 21st May ' would merely require a few figures and not take 1840. 1 T • 1 up room, i thmk there must be a break in the Chart, after the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, and 1 ha^'e come to a de- termination not to carry it beyond the first acknow- ledgment of the supremacy of the Pope by Phocas in 606, when ]\Iahoiiimedaiiisni became a besom of destruction in the hand of the Lord, and com- pletely 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 ^ lent me a little time ago a work by the Eev. 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 cur- sorily read ; and as they are both likely to be seen liy 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 shal- 1 The Squire of Cotou. 1840.] Religious Controversies. 6.5 low thinkers, as from the simplicity and clearness Letter to 11-7 Miss Lewis, With which the author, by his oeau idial characters, 21st Jiay enunciates his sentiments, they furnish a magazine of easily wielded weapons for morning -mlling 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 reli- gious parties. But it appears to me that there is unfairness in arbitrarily selecting a train of cir- cumstances and a set of cliaracters as a develop- ment 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/ I was considerably shaken by the im- pression that religion was not a requisite to moral excellence. Have you not alternating seasons of mental stag- nation and activity? — just such as the political economists say there must be in a nation's pecu- niary 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 ' When she wonhl be thirteen years old. VOL. I. E 66 Oxford Tracts — ' Christicm Year.' [griff, Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st May 1840. Letter to Miss Lewis, 2Cth May 1840. 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 labour of conning, but the other I confess I am attracted towards by some highly poetical extracts that I have picked uj) 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. ^ 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 inti- mation respecting my worthy self is one that, I confess, I impart without one sigh, though per- haps you will think my callousness discreditable. It is that Seeley & Burnside have just published 1 Written probably in view of lier brother's marriage. 1840.] Italian Studies. 67 a Chart of Ecclesiastical History, doubtless giving Letter to Miss Lewis, to my airy vision a local habitation and a name. 26th May •^ -^ 1840. 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 labori- ously 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. May I trouble you to procure for me an Italian Letter to Miss Lewis book recommended by Mr Brezzi, Silvio Pellico's in London, Whit-Wed- ' Le mie Prigioni ' — if not, ' Storia d'ltalia '' ? If nesday, June 1840. they are cheap I should like both. I shall have, I hope, a little trip with iny father next week into Derbyshire, and this "lark" will probably be beneficial to me ; so that do not imagine I am inviting you to come and hear moaning, when you need all attainable relaxation. Your letter greeted me last night on my arri- Letter to Miss Lewis, val from Staffordshire. The prospectus of Mr 2:^1 .June 1840. 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. 68 Trip to Staffordshire. [griff, Letter to I liope Ml' H. lias iiot imitated certain sliow- Miss Lewis, , i . 23d June keepers, who give so exaggerated a representa- 1840. tioii of their giantess, on the outside, that the spectators have disappointment for their casli within. If I do not see you, how shall I send your ' Don Quixote,' which 1 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 Spen- ser'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 chil- dren of the earth — fine healthy trees — as indepen- dent 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 in- terior ; 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 Lich- field Cathedral, where, besides the exquisite archi- tectural beauties both external and internal, I saw 1840.] Beads Mrs Somerville. 69 Chantrey's faiiions monument of the Sleeping Chil- Letter u. Miss Lewis, dren. There is a tasteless monument to the learned 23d June 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.' I write with a very tremulous hand, as you will Letter to Miss Lewis, perceive : both this, and many other defects in my juiy, Mon- day morn- letter, are attributable to a very mighty cause — no iug, i84o. 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 70 Faery Queen ' and 'Don Quixote' [geiff, Letter to Miss Lewis, July, Mon- day morn- ing, 1S40. Letter to Miss Lewis, Stli July 1840. Letter to Miss Lewis, 12th Aug. 1840. all, even the most trifling, duty as the Lord de- mands. My mind is consequently run all wild, and bears nothing but dog-roses. I am truly ob- liged to you for getting me Spenser. How shall I send to you ' Don Quixote/ which I have quite finished ? I belie"S'e it is decided that father and I should leave Griff and take up our residence somewhere in the neighbourhood 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, pre- serves, and sundry importa7it 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. The Epistle to the Colossians is pre-eminently rich in the colouring with which it portrays the divine fulness contained in the Saviour, contrasted with the beggarly elements that a spirit of self -righteous- ness would, in some way, mingle with the light of life, the filthy rags it would tack round the " fine 1840.] Beads Isaac Taylor. 71 raiment " of His righteousness. I have been read- Letter to IVTiss Lewis ing it in connection with a train of thought suggested 12th Aug. ' by the reading of ' Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts/ by Isaac Taylor, one of the most eloquent, acute, and pious of writers. Five num- bers 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 instinc- tively cluster. Mrs John Cash of Coventry, who was then Miss Mary Sibree, daughter of a Nonconfor- mist minister there, and whose acquaintance Miss Evans made a year or two later in Cov- entry, writes in regard to this book of Isaac Taylor's : " In her lirst 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 72 Infi'UG7ice of Isaac Taylor. [griff, thought stie was a little disappointed on hear- ing 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 lead- ing 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 unfavourable 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 Chris- tianity." Letter to I have tliouglit of you as the one who has ever 17th Sept. ' shown herself so capable of consideration for my weakness and sympathy in iny 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 sackclotli " 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- 1S40. 1840.] Shelley's ' Cloud.' 73 day price. The beautiful heavens that we have Letter to lately enjoyed awaken in me an indescribalile sen- irtii Sept. ' „ , . . . , . . 1840. sation of exultation m existence, and aspiration after all that is suited to enoaae 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 cogno- men of Clematis, which, in the floral language, means mental beauty. I cannot find in my heart to refuse it, though, like many other appella- tions, 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. My dear Veronica, — which, being interpreted, is Letter to Miss Lewis, fidelity in friendship, — Last week I was absent istoct.i84o. 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 74 Oratorios at Bii'minghain. [geiff, Letter to feeliiig.^ I heard the "Messiah" on Thursday morn- Miss Lewii^, ... istOL't.i84o. mg at Birmingham, and some beautiful selections from other oratorios 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 em- ployment for every interstice of time. There seems a greater affinity between German and iny 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 learnt 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 repre- sent the beautiful simplicity and nature of the original, but yet, I hope, will give you sufficiently its sense to screen the odiousness of the transla- tion. Eccola : — 1 Visit to Miss Rawlius, lier hroih^v a fiancie. 1840.] German Translation. 75 QUESTION AND ANSWER. M^Iewis, " ' Where blooms, 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.' ' AVould 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, 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 attract- ing much interest in the Griff household, as valuation was a large part of Mr Evans's busi- ness. 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 labour, 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 1S40. 76 First Bailway. [geiff, 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." Letter t<> My Only reason for writing is to obtain a timely Miss Lewis, 27th Oct. 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 ffroivn in to my affections. Carlyle says that to the artisans of Glasgow the w^orld is not one of blue skies and a green carpet, but a world of copperas-fumes, low cellars, hard wages, "striking," and whisky ; and if the recollection of this pic- ture 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 fertilisation for my soul, I should give a lachrymose parody of the said description, and tell you ail-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 thereof is often what I suppose must be designated the intelligent ; but I deny tliat 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 1840.] Wallcd-in World. 77 but ask it, while some hiiinan beings have the Letter to . . . Miss Lewis odious power or contaminating the very images that 2vth oct. 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 colour. how luxuriously joyous to have the wind of heaven blow on one after being stivcd, in a human atmosphere — to feel one's lieart leap up after the pressure that Shakspeare 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, 1 am reminded of Corinne's, or rather Oswald's, reproof — " La vie est un combat, pas un liymnc" 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. Soci- ety 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 wdiole weight were once to drop on them, they would break and burst their 1840. 78 Social Dangers. [griff, Letter to tenements. How long will this continue ? The Miss Lewis, n ^ i iioixion 27tii0et. cry or the martyrs heard by St John nnds 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 criti- cal a state, that a drop seems enough to change its whole form. I am reading Harris's ' Great Teacher,' and am innig hevjegt, 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. Wlien it is so, I hope to reperuse it. Since I wrote to you I have had Aime Martin's work, ' L'Education des Meres,' lent to me, and I have found it to be the real Greece whence " AVoman'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, (J ma mere ; ton fils t'obeira tou- jours." I am reading eclectically Mrs Hemans's poems, and venture to recommend to your perusal, if unknown to you, one of the longest ones — 1840.] Sensitiveness. 79 " The Forest Saiictuaiy." I can give it my pet ad- Letter to Miss Lewis, jective — Exquisite. 2rth oct. ,, 1S40. I have adopted as iny motto/' Certum pete Jimm — Seek a sure end.^ Come when you would best like to do so : if Letter to Miss Lewis, my heart beat at all at the time, it will be with stiiDec 1840. 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 sensi- tiveness 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 anil goodness, is gold, though it come to us all molten and burning, and we know not our treasure until we have had long smarting. It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in Letter to Miss Lewis, cold weather. I understand the Icelanders have 21st Dec. 1840. much national poetry, but I guess it was written in the neighbourhood of the boiling springs. I 1 By n, curious coincidence, when she became Mrs Cross, this actually was her motto. 80 Furnisliing JVew House. [griff, Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st Dec. 1840. Letter to Miss Lewis, 2Ttli .Jan. 1841. Letter to Miss Lewis, nth Feb. 1841. 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 characterising young enterprise or effort. Happily, the moody, melancholy temperament has some counterbalancing advantages to those of tlie sanguine : it does sometimes meet with results more favourable than it expected, and by its knack of imagining the pessimus, cheats the world of its power to disappoint. The very worm-like origin- ator 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. 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 com- merce 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. 1841.] Wm^'s Purgations. 81 I have been reading the three vokinies of the Letter to Miss Lewis, ' Life and Times of Lonis the Fourteenth, and am nth Feb. 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 Cond^, losmg 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 pas- sions 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 humours, that are growing to so alarming a head. What do you tliink of the Progress of Archi- Letter to Miss Lews, tecture as a subject for Poetry ? . sth March I am just about to set out on a purchasing expedition to Coventry : you may therefore con- YOL. I. F 1841. 82 Removal to Folesliill. [gkiff, Letter to ceivG that I am full of little plans and anxieties, Miss Lewis, i-n i iixiitii-ct sth March 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 Toleshill, 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 un- reasonableness you must grant me — the request for a letter from yourself within that time. SUMMARY. AUGUST 18, 1838, TO MAKCH 8, 1841. Letters to Miss Lewis — First visit to London — Eeligious asceticism — Pascal — Hannali IMore's letters — Young's ' Infi- del Reclaimed ' — Micliaelmas visitors — Life of Wilberforce — Nineteenth birthday — Oratorio at Coventry — Religious ob- jections 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 His- tory forestalled — Italian begun— Trip to Derbyshire and Staf- fordshire — 'Don Quixote' — Spenser's 'Faery Queen' — Mrs 1841.] Summary of Chapter I. 83 Somerville's ' Connection of the Physical Sciences ' — Dislike of housekeeping work — Removal to Coventry decided — ' An- cient 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 " Messiah "—Reading Schiller's ' Maria Stuart ' and Tasso — Translation of German poem — Depression of sur- roundings at Griff— Reading Harris's ' Great Teacher, ' Aime Martin's ' L'Education des Meres,' and Mrs Hemans's Poems — Buying furniture at new house — Sewing — Reading Life and Times of Louis XIV.'— Removal to Foleshill Road, Coventry. 84 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 Grifif. This led to the removal in March 1841 of Mr Eobert Evans and his daughter to a house on the Foleshill Eoad, in the immediate neighbour- hood 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 ■A > O 'J D -/" _) -I -J o U4 O 1841.] Coventry Clicmge. 85 letters. The friendsliip.s now formed with Mr and Mrs Bray and Miss Sara Hennell particu- larly, 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 neighbourhood 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 impres- sions of Coventry life:— Last evening I mentioned you to my neighbour Letter to Miss Lewis, (Mrs Pears), who is growing into the more precious satm-day evening, character of a friend, I have seriously to be thank- April is4i. ful 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 feel- ings. 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 86 Satisfaction vnth Neio Life, [foleshill, Letter to Miss Lewis, Satmxlay evening, April 1S41. Letter to Miss Lewis, April 1841. prosperity. Solomon says, " In tlie day of pros- perity be joyfnl, bnt in the day of adversity con- sider." It seems to me that a transposition, vice versd, of the admonitions wonld be equally salu- tary and just. Truly, as the prophet of Selwyn has told us, " Heaven is formidable in its favours," 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 perish- able as to their actual existence, will be embalmed to eternity in the precious spices of gratitude) that is distinct from levity and ^'oluptuousness. I am really crowded with engagements just now, and I have added one to the number of my correspondents. The whole of last week was devoted to a brides- maid's ^ duties, and each day of this has been parti- ally occupied in paying or recei\dng 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 har- 1 Brother's marriage. 1841.] Religious Aspirations. 87 mony) would leave us destitute of one of the marks Letter to . Miss Lewis, that invariably accompany salvation, and of that April i84i. fellowship in the sufferings of the Eedeemer which can alone work in us a resemblance to one of the most prominent parts of His divinely perfect char- acter, and enable us to obey the injunction, "In patience possess your souls." I have often observed how, in secular things, active occupation in procur- ing the necessaries of life renders the character indifferent to trials not affectmg that one object. There is an analogous influence produced in the Christian by a vigorous pursuit of duty, a deter- mmation to work while it is day. One of the penalties women must pay for modern Letter to n „ , . . . Miss Lewis, deference to their intellect is, i suppose, that they 2stii April 1841. must give reasons for tlieir conduct after the fashion of men. The days are past for pleading a woman's reason. The truth is, that the hindrances 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 sejours at home than formerly, and multiplied acquaintances and engagements, are really valid excuses for me hitherto, but I do not 88 Depression. [foleshill, Letter to Miss Lewis, 28th April 1841. Letter to Miss Lewis, Thiu-sday niomiiig, June 1841. 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 T 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 lab- ours 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 ! I have of late felt a depression that has disordered the vision of my mind's eye and made me alite 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 favourable 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 1841.] NichoVs 'Architecture of tlic Heavens' 89 my soul, no one with the same yearnings, the same Letter to Miss Lews, temptations, the same delights as myself. I merely Thursday morning, mention this as the impression that obtrudes itself june i84i. when my body tramples on its keeper — (a metaphor borrowed from a menagerie of wild beasts if it should happen to puzzle you !)— mysterious " con- nection exquisite of distant worlds" that we pre- sent ! A few drops of steel will perhaps make me laugh at the simple objects that, in gloom and mist, I conjure mto stalking apparitions. I am begmning to be interlaced with multiplying Letter to '^ Miss Lews ties of duty and afiection that, while they render at Margate, 31st July my new home happier, forbid me to leave it on a is4i. pleasure-seeking expedition. I think, indeed, that both my heart and limbs would leap to behold the o-reat and wide sea — that old ocean on which man can leave no trace. I have been revelling in Nichol's 'Architecture Letter to Miss Le'"'''^ of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar Sys- 3d sept tem,' and have been in imagination winging my flight from system to system, from universe to universe, trymg 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 1841. 90 Mind requires Best. [foleshill, Letter to " Behold an infinite of floating worlds Miss Lewis, Divide the crystal waves of ether pure 3d Sept. •' ^ 1S41. In endless voyage without port." " Hospitable infinity ! " Nichol beautifully says. How should I love to have a thoroughgoing 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 beauti- fully expressed in ' Woman's Mission ' — " Learning is only so far valuable as it serves to enlarge and enliohten 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 culti- vate 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 : "Fmally, my brethren, whatsoever things are hon- est" (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-woo'Jdng mind — it recpiires frequent rest. I am violently in love with the Italian fashion of j repeating an adjective or adverb, and even noun, to give force to expression : there is so nnich more fire in it than in our circumlocutory phrases, our 1841.] Desire for Brai7i Waves. 91 dull " verys " and " exceedinglys " and " extremelys." Letter to Miss Lewis, I strongly recommend Hallani to you. I shall read sd sept. 1841. it again if I live. When a sort of haziness conies 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 per- ception approaching more nearly to intuition, seem attractive ? Nathless, I love words : they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gym- nasium of the mind. Without them, in our present condition, our intellectual strength would have no im- plements. I have been rather humbled in thinking that if I were thrown on an uncivilised 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 prev- alence of misery and want in this boasted nation of prosperity and glory is appalling, and really seems to call us away from mental luxury. Oh to be doing some little toward the regeneration of this groaning, travailing creation ! I am supine , and stupid — overfed with favours, wlide the hag- | Letter to Miss Lewis, Ist Oct. 1841. Letter to Miss Lewis, 2d Nov. 1841. 92 Love of Autumn. [foleshill, I gard looks and piercing glance of want and con- j scions hopelessness are to be seen in the streets. Is not this a trne autnmn day ? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and natnre harmonise. 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 liird I would fly about the earth seekino- the successive autumns. I am going, I hope, to-day to effect a l)reach 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's; but although they were at once mutu- ally attracted, the acquaintance does not seem to have been immediately prosecuted further. Now, however, any time lost in the begin- ning was quickly made up, and it is astonish- ing how rapidly the most intimate relations 1841.] Friendship with the Brays. 93 were formed. Mr Bray was a ribbon-manu- facturer, well-to-do at that time, and had a charming house, Eosehill, with a beautiful lawn and garden, in the outskirts of Coventry. Only a part of his time was occupied with his busi- ness, and he had nmch 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 pub- lished a work on the ' Education of the Feel- ings,' viewed from the phrenological standpoint ; and in this year, 1841, appeared his most im- portant 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 Chris- tianity ' — a remarkable book, whicli was trans- lated into German, Strauss contributing a pre- face 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 94 Brays' Influence on Opinions, [foleshill, Mrs Bray's sympathy in her brother's critical and sceptical standpoint — no donbt hastened the change in her attitude towards the dogmas of the old religion. In the Analytical Cata- logue of Mr Chapman's publications, issued in 1852, there is an analysis of Hennell's ' In- quiry ' done by Miss Evans, which may be in- serted here, as giving her idea of the book eleven years later: — " The first edition of this worlc appeared in 1838, when the present strong current of public opinion in favour 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 con- sidering questions of Biblical criticism and the phil- osophy of Christianity, combine Iiigh refinement, purity of aim, and candour, with the utmost free- dom 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 a 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 mir- 1841.] Charles HennelVs 'Inquiry.' 95 aculous, or any speciality of divine influence, the gradual development of certain elements in Jewish character, and the train of events in Jewish his- tory, 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 render- ing 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 resur- rection, with a great moral and religious revolution. This historical sketch, which is under the disadvan- tage of presenting, synthetically, ideas based on a subsequent analysis, is intended to meet the diffi- culty so often urged, and which might be held to nul- lify the value of a critical investigation, that Chris- tianity is a fact, for which, if the supposition of a miraculous origin be rejected, no adequate and pro- bable causes can be assigned, and that thus, how- ever defective may be the evidence of the New 96 Charles HennelVs 'Inquiry.' [foleshill, Testament history, its acceptance is the least diffi- cult 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 jDurity of life which belonged to this sect, he united the ardent patriotic ideas which had previously animated Judas of Galilee, who re- sisted the Eoman authority on the ground that God was the only ruler and lord of the Jews. The pro- found consciousness of genius, a religious fervour 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 pro- duce 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 1841.] Charles HenneWs 'Inquiry.' 97 the expected Son of David, His public entrance into Jerusalem in ^tlie guise which tradition associ- ated with tlie 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 enthu- siasm, 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 ]\Iessianic reign throu \ 102 Charles HennelVs 'Inqidry! [foleshill, 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 Eng- lishman, to whom most of the means at our com- mand 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 prob- lems over which the German flutters with many circuits of learned formulae, our English author often succeeds in seizmg at one spring. ... To the learned he often presents things under a sur- prisingly new aspect ; to the unlearned, invariably under that which is the most comprehensible and attractive.' " Tlie 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 1841.] Religious Doubts and Dijjiadties. 103 Miss Lewis, dated 13th November 1841, accu- rately fixes the date of the first acknowledgment by herself that her opinions were undergoing so momentous a change. My whole soul has been engrossed in the most Letter to Mi.ss Lewis, iuterestmg of all inquiries for the last few days, istiiNov. 1S41. 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 coriceivaUe 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 unburthen every thought and difficulty — for I am still a soli- tary, though near a city. But we have the uni- verse 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. What a pity that while mathematics are indub- Letter to Miss Lewis, itable, mimutable, and no one doubts the properties sthcec. of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely impor- 104 Father's Disapjjroval. [foleshill, Letter to taiit to man are buried in a charnel-heap of bones Miss Lewis, 8tii Dec. over which nothing is heard but the barks and 1841. growls of contention ! " Unto their assembly, mine honour, 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 equivo- cal 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 Eoad, with the intention of going to live with his married daughter. Upon this. Miss Evans made u]j 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: — Letter to My guardiaii angel Mrs Pears has just sent for Mrs Bray, Jan. 1842. me to hear your kind note, which has done my aching limbs a little good. I shall be most thank- ful 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, 1842.] Heligious Difficulties. 105 doleful lodgings, scanty meals, and gazing-stoddsm, Letter to Mrs Bray, are quite indifferent to me. Therefore do not fear Jan. is42. for me when I am once settled in my home — wherever it may be — and freed from wretched suspense. Ear from being weary of your dear little Henry, Letter to ... . Mrs Pears, his matin visits are as cheering to me as those of Friday even any little bird 1842. " 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 mc 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 forgive- ness for speaking or writing to me on subjects to me more interesting than aught else ; on the con- trary, 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 ; 106 Desire for Truth. [foleshill, Letter to iior will I quairel with the million who, I am per- Mrs Pears, Friday even- suadecl, are with me in intention, though our dia- ing, Feb. 1842. lects differ. Of course I must desire the ultimate downfall of error, for no error is innocuous ; but this assuredly will occur without my proselytising aid, and the best proof of a real love of the truth — that freshest stamp of divinity — is a calm con- fidence 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 what- ever. 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. 1842.] Gratitude to Mrs Bray. 107 is to be found in conformity with the will of the Letter to ... . :\Ir.s Pears, Supreme ; a continual aiming at the attainment Friday even- ing, Feb. of the perfect ideal, the true logos that dwells in 1342. 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 — A heart full of love and gratitude to you for all Letter to Mrs Bray, your kindness in thought and act to me undeserv- Feb. is42. ing. I daresay 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. I daresay you have added, subtracted, and divided Letter to Miss Lewis, suppositions until you think you have a sure pro- lotii Feb. duct — VIZ., a good quantum, or rather, a bad one, 01 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 1842. 108 Phrenological Indications, [foleshill, Letter to my propensities, sentiments, and intellect gauged a Miss Lewis, 19th Feb. secoiid time, I am pronounced to possess a large organ of " adhesiveness," a still larger one of " firm- ness," and as large of " conscientiousness " — hence if I should turn out a very weather-cock 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 thj^ best image, sympathy. Beautiful ego-ism, 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 1842.] Effects of Non-conformity. 109 beauty of tlie two egos. People absurdly talk of Letter to IP 1 • 1 ^TT^ ^ • • -vt- • Jliss Lewis, selr-clenial. Why, there is none m Virtue to a Ijeiiig lotu Feb. 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 1st chap, 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 tempo- rary 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 slie writes to Mrs Bray— I must relieve my conscience before I go to bed by Letter to Mrs Bray, entering a protest against every word or accent of end of Feb. 1S42 discontent that 1 uttered this morning. If I have ever complained of any person or circumstance, I do penance by eating my own words. When my 110 Visit to Brother at Griff. [gkiff, Letter to real self has regained its place, I can shake off my Mrs Bray, end of Feb. troubles " like clewdrops from the lion's mane," and 1S42. 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 indigna- tion 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 : — I have just been climbing up some favourite 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 my- self 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 Letter to Mrs Pears, Thursday, March 1S42. 1842.] Independence of External Good. Ill without a beseeching letter from me, I snatch half an Letter to Mrs Pears, hour from a too short day for the generous purpose Tiiursday, March 1842. 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 unlocked - 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 neighbourhood 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 offlierent not wiherent, and without any affectation I feel myself to be acquiring what I must hold to be a precious possession, an independence of what is baptised by the world external good. There are externals (at least, they are such in common thought) that I could HI part with — the deep, blue, glorious heavens, bending as they do over all, presenting the same arch, emblem of a truer omni- presence, wherever we may be chased, and all the sweet peace-breathmg sights and sounds of this love- ly 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 112 Regrets her Impetuosity. [griff, Letter to great mind that has laid open to us these treasures Mrs Pears, Timrsday, is the suu that warins and fructifies it. I am more March 1S42. . i • i , i c ^ t ^ and more impressed with the duty of finding hap- piness. On a retrospection of the past month, I re- gret nothing so much as my own impetuosity both of feeling and judging. I am not inclined to he sangu- ine 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 liome, 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 ahnost walk hither. I am becoming very hurried, for most welcome tea is in the vicinity, and I must be busy after I have 1842.] Return to Folesliill. 113 imbibed its inspiration. You will write to nie to- Letter to Mrs Pears, morrow, will you not ? and pray insist on ]\Ir Pears Thursday, March 1842. writing an appendix. I had a note from Mrs Bray tins morning, and I liked it better than my break- fast. 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 benefac- tors ; but real feeling, you know, will sometimes slip into a hackneyed guise. Miss Evans remained for about three weeks at G-riff, at the end of which time, through the intervention of her brother, the Brays, and Miss Eebecca 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 circum- stances 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 by a little management. VOL. I. H 114 Meets Miss Sara Hcnndl. [foleshill, In July of this year (1842) Miss Sara Hennell —the gifted sister of Mrs Bray — came to Eose- liill, and completed the trio destined to exert the most important influence over the life of George Eliot. Tlie 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 durin" all the remainder of George Eliot's life. To us Miss Sara Hennell is the most import- ant correspondent, for it is to her that Miss Evans mainly turns now for intellectual sym- pathy; to Mrs Bray when she is in pain or trouble, and wants affectionate companionship : with ]\Ir 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 1842.] Intwiacy laith Miss Henndl and the Brays. 115 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 :— How I have delighted in the thought that there are Letter to Miss Sara beings who are better than their promises beyond Hemieii, 30th Aug. the regions of waking and sleeping dreams. i842. I have not yet accounted for my tardiness in Letter to Jliss Sara writing, which, I assure you, is no representation Henneii, Friday, of my usual habit, and has been occasioned only Sept. is42. by a week's indisposition, the foster-parent to the ill-favoured offspring of my character and circum- stances, gloom and stolidity, and I could not WTite to you with such companions to my thought. I am anxious that you should not imagine me un- ■ happy 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 116 Earth not the Home of the Spirit, [foleshill, Letter to of creatioii ; and evils are the shadows that are Miss Sara . Henueii, the oiily coiiditions of light in the picture, and I Sept. 1842. hve in much, much enjoyment, I am beginning to enjoy the ' Eneid,' though, I suppose, much in the same way as the un- initiated enjoy wine compared with the connois- seurs. Letter to I havc been in high displeasure with myself, Miss Sara Henneii, 3d liavo tliouglit my soul Only fit for limbo to keep Nov. 1S42. 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 realisation of particular desires. 1843.] Miss Mary HennelVs Death. 117 The next letter refers to Miss Mary Hennell's^ last illness. I cannot help wishing to tell yon, now that yon Letter to Miss Sara are in trouble and anxiety, how dear yon are to me, Henneii, 7tii Jan. 1843. and how the recollection of you is ever freshening ill 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. We always find that our stock of appreciated good Letter to Miss Sara can never be really diminished. When the chief iienneii, . /-.. T AiirillS43. 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 desiral')le that you should. It would not be well for us to overleap one grade of 1 Miss Mary Hennell was the autlior of ' An Ontline of the Varions Social Systems founded on the Principle of Co-operation,' published in 1841. 118 Excursions with Brays. [foleshill, joy or suffering : our life would lose its complete- ness and beauty. Eoseliill 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 amongst other places. This trip is chiefly menioral:)le 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 ]\Iiss Evans. In the next two letters to Miss Sara Hennell there are allusions to the approaching marriage, 1843.] Charles HenneWs Marriage. 119 which took place in London on 1st November 1843 — the Brays and Miss Evans being present. Many thanks for procuring me the hymns and Letter to Miss Sara anthems. I was right glad to play " Ancient of Heuneii, Ititli Sept. Ages " again, and I shall like still better to sing isis. it with you when we meet. That that is to be so soon, and under circumstances so joyful, are among the viirahilia 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 ho'mic bouchc. I saw Eobert 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 Eosehill to play concerted pieces. I only wish you would change houses with the lietterto Mrs Bi'ay, mayor, that I might get to you when I would. I no date, 1S43. 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 1843. 120 Beading vjith Mrs Bray, [foleshill, Letter to Aic/ 111}' graiid favourite, as a honne bouchc when no date, ' yoii liave got through ' Walleiisteiii,' 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. ]\Iiss 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 Bias,' 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 unnBk Violin and Mute, unless a postponement would be 1843.] Music vnth Mrs Bray. 121 in every way as agreeable to you and them. If yon Letter to Mrs Bray, have them, yon will give them mncli more pleasnre no date, as Piano than I, so do not think or me m the matter for a moment. Good-bye ; and remember to treat yonr 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 : — The first thing I have to say to yon is to entreat Letter to Miss Sai'a that yon and Mrs Hennell will not perplex your- Henneii, 19th Oct. selves for a moment about my accommodation dur- is43. in" the night. I am so well now that a hearthrucr 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 brietiy 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 122 Truth of Feeling. [foleshill, Letter to and ino'eiiuous mind is to withhold the sliQ;htest Miss Sara • n n i Henueii, sanction from all that contains even a mixture of 19th Oct. ^ • ■ 1843, 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 tlie 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 w^ell worth offering to others, that we may venture to proselytise 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. Specu- lative truth begins to appear but a shadow of indi- vidual 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 1843.] Quackery of Infidelity. 123 only safe revolution is one arising out of the wants Letter to Miss Sara which their own progress has generated. It is the nenneii, 19th Oct. quackery of infidelity to suppose that it has a nos- 1343. trum 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 reorganise opinions, are we to remain aloof from our fellow-creatures on occasions when we may fully sympathise with the feelings exercised, althouoh 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 124 Dangers of Non-covformity. [foleshill, Letter to wliicli toolv tlie fomi of principles. But, it may be Miss Sara • i i Henneii, saicl, liow then are we to do anything towards the lOth Oct. f. 1 • T 1843. advancement or mankmd ? Are we to go on cher- ishing superstitions out of a fear that seems incon- sistent with any faith in a Supreme Being ? I think the best and tlie 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 coTif ession (far better than ^9?'of ession). St Paul's reasoning about the conduct of the strong towards the weak, in the 14th and 15th chapters of Eomans, is just in point. But I liave not said half what I meant to say. Tliere are so many aspects in which the subject might be presented, that it is use- less 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 1844.] • Strauss Translation, 125 about the beginning of January 1844 tlie propo- sition 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. To begin with business, I send you on the other Letter to side the translations you wished (Strauss), but they Heuneu, Sunday, are perhaps no improvements on what you had iMayis44 done. I sliall be very glad to learn from you the particulars as to tlie 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 126 Child's Real Feelings. [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Heniiell, Sunday, May 1844. 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 miser- able 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 ! Child- hood is only the beautiful and happy time in con- templation 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 plum-cake. 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 comfort- able 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 Liver- 1844.] Strauss Translation. 127 pool, and on reaching lionie about the beginmng of August there is the following letter : — Can I have the remaining volumes of Strauss, Letter to excepting any part that you may choose to keep Heiineii, for your own use ? If you could also send me such Aug. 1844. 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 labour. Thank you for the en- couragement 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 under- taken 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. I'ray tell Mrs C. Hennell that no apology was Letter to Miss Sfti'ti needed for the very good translation she has sent nenneii, me. I shall be glad to avail myself of it to the 1344. last word, for I am thoroughly tired of my own garb for Strauss's thoughts. I hope the introduc- tion, &c., will be ready by the end of November, when I hope to have put the last words to the first 128 Poetry of Christianity. [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 31st Oct. 1844. Letter to Mrs Bray, end of 1844. volume. I am awfully afraid of my own transla- tion, and I want you to come and comfort me. I am relapsing into heathen darkness about every- thing 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 ? 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 1845.] Harriet Martineau. 129 quite liappy, only sometimes feeling " the weight of all this unintelligible world." Your books are come for the school, and I have Letter to Mrs Bray, covered them — at least those that I think you will suu.iay, beginning like for the children; two or three are quite for of 1345. 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' yester- day 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 1 7th 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. Letter to Miss Sara If you think any of my future manuscript too iienneii, •^ J J ^ 20th April untidy for the printer, only mark it to that effect, 1545. VOL. I. I 130 Strauss Translation. [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29tli April 1845. Letter tn Miss Sara Hennell, end of June (?) 1S45. 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 in- crease 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. 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 labour 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 Eev. Mr Davis, and print it myself. At the very best, if we go on 1845.] Delay in PuUication of Strauss. 131 according to the rate of procedure hitherto, the Letter to book will not be published within the next two Henn'eii,' ^f^^ • i i i , , end of June years, ihis seems dolorous enough to me, whose 1345. 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 trivial- ity 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 sec- tions were written under anything but favourable 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 benin asiain. In July 1845, there seems to have arisen some difficulty in getting in the cash subscrip- tions for the publication. Mr Charles Hennell and Mr Joseph Parkes, however, exerted them- selves in the matter, and £300 was collected, and the following letter shows the relief it was to Miss Evans. Thank you for sending me the good news so 132 Strauss Translation Printing, [foleshill, Letter to Charles Hennell, Fi-iclay even- ing, July 1845. Letter to Miss Sara Hennell Auk. ls-15. soon, and for sympathising in my need of encour- agement, 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 honourable 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 Eng- lish, 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 : — 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 in- debted 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 1845.] Strauss Difficulties-. 1 3 Q Testament for the scape-goat : now I imagine there Letter to Miss Sara is some dubiousness about the meaning, and that Heimeii, Aug. 1845. Strauss would not think it right to translate scape- goat, 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 1 Your letter describes what I hare 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 feelinsjf. I do not think this is man's best estate, but it is better than what I have sometimes known. I am not ashamed to confess that I should like Letter to -, . T, . 1 T 1 ^ •^ 1 Miss Sara to be idle with you tor a little while, more than Henneii, ,. ,-r ,.,„. -nil Friday even- any thing else 1 can think or just now. But alas ' i,ig, autumn leathery brain must work at leathery Strauss for a short time before my butterfly days come. Oh how I shall spread my wings then. Anent the Greek, it would produce very dreadful cold perspirations in- deed in me, if there were anything amounting to a serious error; l)ut this, I trust, there will not be. 134 Strauss "Proofs!" [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Heiiiiell, Friday even- ing, autumn of 1S45. Letter to Miss Sara Heunell, no date, 1845. Letter to Miss Sara Henncll, 25tli Sept. 1845. You must really expect me, if not to sleep and snore aliqucmdo, 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. 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. 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 seein" 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 trans- figured 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 1845.] Tri}') to l^cotland. 135 self, and not some aerial creation that I call by your name, yon mnst make yonr appearance. In October " the misty vision " took palpable shape, and the Brays, Miss Hennell, and Miss Evans had a delightful fortnight in Scotland — visitins 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. Please to tell Mr Hennell that "habits of thought" Letter to Miss Sura is not a translation of the word particularismiis. nenneii, Nov. 1S45. This does not mean national idiosyncrasy, but is a word which characterises that idiosyncrasy. If he decidedly ojijects to particularism, ask him to be so good as substitute exdusiveness, though there is a shade of meaning in jMrticularismus which even that does not express. It was because the word could only be translated by a circumlocution that I ventured to anglicise it. Letter to I have been idle, and have not done a stroke to Miss sara Hennell, the prefaces, but they shall be sent as soon as Tuesday morning, possible. Thanks for the copy of the Latin pre- Dec.(?)is45. 136 Title of Translation. [foleshill, Letter to face aiicl letter. They are in preconceived harmony Henneii,' with my icleas of the appropriate. moTOiny-, I will leave the title-page 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 title-page. Strauss means it to be so : and yet I do not know how we can put anything better than what you say. Letter to I scud you to-day the conclusion of the chapter Miss Sara _, Hennell, you are reading, and, unless you find anything of Dec. 1845. . 1 . n 1 1 1 • 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 a&original enough in the life of Jesus ; but I know of no other word 1846.] Translators Difficulties. 137 that can be substituted. I have altered passover to Letter to . Miss Sara paschal meal, but to Trdaxa. is used m the New Henneii, Dee. 1845. Testament of the eating of the lamb jj«?' 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. " Dog- matik" 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 ]\IS. 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. I do pity you with the drunken Christmas work- Letter to . . , . s^ ^ ^ • yVissi Sara men keeping you in this uncomfortable interreg- Henneii, ist num. 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 138 Father's Illness. [foleshill, Letter to ill oiiG placG aiid iiot ill aiiotlier where there is no Henneii, 1st leasoii for such a distinction, — and there is not Jan. 1S46. ^ p ^ • ^ ■ p 1 • here, tor the note m tins proor sounds just as fee- fo-fum-ish as the other without any translation. I could not alter the " troublesome," beca^^se it is the nearest usable adjective for schtvierig, which stands in the German. I ain tired of inevitable importants, and cannot bear to put tliein when they do not represent the German. Letter to I liavc becu sadly occupied for the last ten days. Miss Sara Henueii, My father has been ill, and has required much 20tli Jan. 1S46. attention, and my own head was very middling for some days, so that I send you but a poor cargo of new ]\IS. Indeed on looking through the last quire of paper this morning for the purpose of put- ting ill the Greek, it seemed all very poor to me ; Ijut 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 dread- fully 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 w^oful pain and am in a desperate hurry. 184G.] Strauss-sick 139 On 14th February 1846, Mrs Bray writes to Miss Sara Hennell that ]\Iiss 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 ^ and picture make her endure it. Moreover, as her work ad- vances nearer its public appearance, she grows dreadfully nervous. Poor thing, I do pity her sometmies, with her pale sickly face and dread- ful 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 : — Health and greeting, my Achates, in this veritable Letter to ., - , Miss Sara sprmg month. I shall send you a parcel on Mon- Henneii, day with 64 new pages of German for your intel- is4g. lectual 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 1 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. 140 Finishing Translation. [foleshill, Letter to you tliiiilv it desirable, send the whole to me. Your Henneii, dull ass does iiot lueud his pace for beating ; but end of Feb. . i • ^ i n i i i • 1S4G. he does mend it when he hnds out tliat 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 100 pages. 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 faiix 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 1846.] Longing for Idleness. 141 do thou enquire and see that the right thing is done. The tears are streaming from my smarting eyes — so farewell. I wish we could get the liook out in IVIay — why Letter to Miss Sara not ? I suppose the binding could not be all got Henneu, Jlarch 1846. 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 Aufi — 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 be- lieve 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. My soul kisses thee, dear Sara, in gratitude for Letter to Miss Sara those dewy thoughts of tliine in this morning's Henneii, March 1846. 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 interrup- tion, alas ! I cannot write more, but I should not 142 Miss HenneWs Help in Translation, [foleshill, be happy to let the day pass without saying one word to thee. Letter to The last 100 pages have certainly been totally Heiiiieii,' uninteresting to me, considered as matter for trans- lation. 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 Eesurrection 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 sub- jective maladies. Father is pretty well, and I have not a single excuse for discontent through the livelong day. Letter to As I believe that even your kindness cannot over- Miss Sara Henneii.end couic your sincerity, I Will cast aside my fear that of Marcli . i • i 184(5. your Wish to see me in your own home is rather a 1846.] J/is.s HcnncWs Help in Translation. 143 plan for my enjoyment than for yours. I believe Letter to Miss Sara it would be an unmixed pleasure to me to be your Henneii, end (if March visitor, and one that 1 would choose among a whole is4g. bouquet of agreeable possibilities ; so 1 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 title-page, and have voted for critically examined, from an entire conviction of its preferableness. See whal: it is to have a person en rapport with Letter to Miss Sara you, that knows all your thoughts without the Hennell, be- ginning of trouble of communication ! I am especially grate- April is46. ful to you for restoring the "therefore" to its right i)lace. I was about to wTite to you to get you to remonstrate about this and the " dispassion- ate 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 read- 144 Strauss Finished. [foleshill, Letter to ing oiir Straiiss — he is so Idar und idccnvoll ; but Miss Sara Henneii, be- I cIo iiot kiiow ouc persoii WHO is likely to read the ginning oi April 1S46. 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 Shakspeare 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 him- self." SUMMAR Y. 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 ac- quaintance with Mr and ]\Irs Bray — Reads Charles Hennell's Book, 'An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity' 1846.] Summarij of Chapter II. lib — Effect of this book — Gives up going to cliiircli — Family difficulties — Letters to Mrs Pears — Visit to Griff — Returns to Folesliill and resumes going to cliurch. — Acquaintance with ]\Iiss Sara Hennell, and development of friendship with her and Mr and ]\Irs Bray — Letters to Miss Sara Hennell describing mental characteristics — Attitude towards immor- tality — 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 ^\'ith 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 — Ar- rangement for translation of Strauss's ' Leben Jesu ' — Excur- sion with Brays to the Cumberland lakes, returning by Man- chester and Liverpool — Weary of Strauss — Letter to Mrs Bray — Poetry of Christianity — Admiration of Harriet Mar- tineau's 'The Crofton Boys' — Trip to London — Despair about publication of Strauss — Sx;bscription of £300 for the work — In better heart — Minutiae 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. VOL. I. K 146 CHAPTEE 111. 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 left home on a visit, and the next letter is addressed to her. Letter to Do uot Stay longer than is necessary to do you Mrs Bray, Sunday (pro- good, Icst I sliould losc the plcasurc of loving you, balaly about r -. • 6tii May), lor my anections are always the warmest when my 1846. 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 can- not 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 ^ : they are so totally without ^ Ora-ans of Cloinbativeuess. [1846.] Visit to Hennells at Hackney. 147 exercise. I had a lecture from Mr Pears on Friday, Letter to as well as a sermon this mornnig, so you need be sumiay(jiro- in no alarm for my moral health. Do you never otuMay), 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. I cannot deny that I am very happy without you. Letter to Mrs Bray, but perhaps I shall be happier with you, so do not end of May p ., . 18-1(5. tail to try the experiment. "We have been to town only once, and are saving all our strength to " rake " with you ; l3ut we are as ignorant as Primitive IMethodists about any of the amusements that are going. Please to come in a very mischievous, un- conscientious, theatre-loving humour. 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 148 Visit to Dover tvitJi Father, [foleshill, pitch of amiability that makes sucli magnanimity easy. Don't bring ns any bad news or any pains, but only nods and becks and wreathed smiles. They staid in London till the 5 th 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 fort- night." In passing through Dover on our way to the Continent in 1880 after our marriage, we visited the house they staid 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 Coven- try there is the following letter referring to Wicksteed's review of the translation of Strauss, which was advertised for the forthcoming num- ber of the ' Prospective Eeview.' Letter to Do you think it worth my while to buy the ' Pros- Miss Sara Hennell, pcctivc ' for the Sake of Wicksteed's review — is there Thursday, Aug. (?) 1S46. anything new in it ? Do you know if Mr Chap- man 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 1846.] Belief from Worh. 149 the ' MemoralDilia ' and ' Cyropgedia' in a cheaper way Letter to Miss Sai'ii than by orderinQ- them directly from our own book- nenneii, ■^ Thursday, seller. I have been reading the ' Fawn of Sertorius.' ^ Aug. (?) isie. 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 \dsited 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 follow- ing letters, written in October and November : — All the world is bathed m glory and beauty to Letter to m n Miss Sara me now, and thou sharest in the radiance. Tell Henneii, 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 1 Afterwards acknowledged by the author, Robert Lander (brother of Walter Savage Lander), who also wi-ote the ' Fountain ef Arethusa,' &c. Oct. 1846. 150 TVicksteed's Bevieiv [folesiiill, Letter to Miss Sara Heimell, Oct. 184(5. Letter to Miss Sara Ilennell, 29tli Oct. 1840. Letter to Jliss Sara Hennell, 1st Nov. 1846. 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. 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. Wlien does the ' Prospective ' come out ? 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 inter- polations, or rather paraphrases, to dilate on. The expression "granite," applied to the sayings of Jesus, is nowhere used by Strauss, but is an im- pudent addition of mine to eke out his metaphor. Did you notice the review of Foster's Life ? ^ I am reading the life, and thinking all the time how you 1 John Foster, Baptist minister, born 1770, died 1843. 1846.] of Strauss Translation in ' Prospective' 151 would like it. It is deeply interesting to study the Letter to .Miss Sara life of a oeuius under circumstances amid which iienneii, ist genius is so seldom to be found. Some ot the thoughts in his journal are perfect gems. The words of the Eeviewer of the Strauss translation in the ' Prospective ' are worth pre- serving: "A faithful, elegant, and scholarlike translation. Wlioever reads these volumes without any reference to the German must he pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiom- atic, and harmonious force of the English style. But he will be still more satisfied when, on turning to the origmal, lie finds that the ren- dering is word for word, thought for thought, and sentence for sentence. In preparing so beautiful a rendering as the present, the diffi- culties can have been neither few nor small in the way of preserving, in various parts of the work, the exactness of the translation, com- bined with that uniform harmony and clear- ness of style which imparts to the volumes before us the air and spirit of an origmal. Thoudi the translator never obtrudes himself upon the reader with any notes or comments of his own, yet he is e\ddently a man who has a familiar knowledge of the whole suliject ; and 152 TlioughU on Jesus [foleshill, if the work he tlie 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 wliich he writes for the English edition, that, as far as he has examined it, the translation is ' et ac- curata et perspicua.' " Letter to Many things, both outward and inward, have con- Henneii.end currcd to make this November far happier than or Nov. 1846. the last. One's thoughts o " Are widened with the process of the snns ; " 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 signi- ficance ! 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 1846.] at Emmaus — ' Heliados! 15.") triumphant— and the soul learns that this is the Leturto Miss Sava true way to conquest and dory. And then there Henneii.end ■^ of Nov. 1846. 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. I have been at Griff for the last week, or I Letter to Miss Sara should have written before. I thank you most nenneii, 20tli Deo. heartily for sending me ' Heliados ' — first, because I is46. 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, tliat others may have the pleasure of reading it. Lying in bed this morning grievously tormented. Letter to Miss Sara your ' Heliados ' visited me and revealed itself to Henneii, 18th Fel). me more completely than it had ever done before. i847. How true that " it is only when all portions of an individual nature, or all members of society, move 154 Child's Idea of God. [foleshill, Letter to forwaid liariiioniously together, that religious pro- Miss Sara Henneii, gress is cahii and beneficial ! " I imagine the 18th Feb. 1847. sorrowful amaze of a child who had been dwellino' 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 Clod, 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 Cov- entry she writes — 1847.] The Sibrce Family. 155 I did so long to see you after hearing "Elijah," just Letter to Miss Sara to exchange an exclamation of delight. Last night Henneii, . , 30th April I had a perfect treat, too, in "I Puntani. Cas- 1347. tellar was admirable as Elvira, and Gardoni as a seraph. N.B. — I liked the Babel less — another sign of age. ]\Ieution 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 Taney and other Ehymes.' The subjoined extract from a com- munication 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 Eoad — about a mile and a half from Coventry — to tell her, as a piece of most interesting news, that an old pupil, of 15G 3Irs John Caslis Recollections [foleshill, whom she herself and lier sister Eebecca 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 21 years of age. Miss Franklin dwelt with much pride on Miss Evans's mental power, on her skill in music, &c. ; 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 ^dsit to us I well remember she told us of a clulj for clothing, set going by herself and her neighbour 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 1847.] of Miss Evans at Coventry. 157 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.' IMy 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 see- ing 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 i^athetic speech to my mother, ' Now, Mrs Sibree, you won't care to have any- thing more to do with me,' my mother rejoined. 158 Mrs John Cash's Becollcctions [foleshill, ' 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 7iccd of sympathising 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 in- terest 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 impor- tant 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 pos- session 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 liad great inter- 1847.] of Miss Evans at Coventry. 159 est, she said, ' He is a perfect model of manly excellence.' " On one occasion at Mr Bray's house at Eose- hill, roused by a remark of his on the beneficial influence exercised by evangelical behefs on the moral feelings, she said energetically, ' I say it now, and I say it once for all, that I am influ- enced 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 evan- gelical beliefs.' When at length, after my brother's year's residence at the Halle 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 jpretended to teach ; and the request that I would specially give attention to this study and get my con- science 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 licr during those years, and too much in 160 Mrs John Gash's llccollcctions. [foleshill, 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, profit- less talk ; another, the debt (so frequently ac- knowledged 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." Letter to It is wortli whilc to forget a friend for a week or Miss Mary sibree, loth tcu days, just for the sake of the agreeable kind May 1847. of startle it tjives one to be reminded that one has 1847.] Prcficnt of Purse from Miss Mary Sibree. 161 such a treasure in reserve — the same sort of plea- Letter to Miss Mary sure, I suppose, that a poor body feels who happens sibree, loth May 1847. to lay his hand on an undreamt 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 Men- delssohn 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 coin- ages 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, VOL. I. L 162 Old Peoples Judgments. [foleshill, Letter to go to olcl people as oracles on matters which date Miss Mary sibree, loth aiij later than their thirty-fifth year. Only trust May 1S47. 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 in their j5?'mcip/cs 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 imag- ine that a worn-out, dried-up organisation 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 Men- delssohn's new oratorio " Elijah " when I was in t London, It has been performed four times in Exeter Hall to as large an audience as the build- ing would hold — ]\Iendelssohn himself the con- 1847.] " Elijah " at Exeter Hall. 1 6 3 ductor. It is a glorious production, and altogether Letter to . ^ . Jliss Mary I look upon it as a kmd of sacramental purification snu-ee, lotu r.-1-i -TTii 1 ^ • p-ii May 1S47. of Exeter Hall, and a proclamation or 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 lier mind with French novels. This is the imper- tinent expression of DTsraeli, 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 success- ful ill 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 per- fect 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 pos- terities for ever more." Ask me not why I have never written all this Letter to Miss Sara weary time. I can only answer, " All things are Henneii, 15th Jiuie full of labour — man cannot utter it" — ct seq. See 1847. the 1st chapter of Ecclesiastes for my experience. 164 Rc-rcading of HcnndVs' Inquiry.' [foleshill, Letter to I liavG read the ' Inqiiiiy ' again with more than Henn'eii, interest — with delight and high admiration. My 1847. present impression from it far surpasses the one I had retained from my two readings about live years ago. With the exception of a few expressions which seem too httle discriminating in the Introductory sketch, there is notliing in its whole tone from beginning to end that jars on my moral sense ; and apart from any opinion of the book as an explana- tion of the existence of Christianity and the Chris- tian 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. ]\Ir 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 %vit to me. It gives me that exquisite kind of laughter which comes from the OTatification of the reason- t3" ing faculties. For instance : " If some of those who 1847.] HenncWs 'Inquiry! 165 were actually at tlie mountain doubted whether Letter to IVT 1 Q^ Sji I'T they saw Jesus or not, we may reasonably doubt nenneii, whether he was to be seen at all there : especially is47. 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 be- lieved 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 follow- ing letter : — 1 6 G Trip to Isle of Wir/Jit. [foleshill, Letter to I heartily wish yon had been with* me to see all Miss Sara Henneii, the beauties which have gladdened my soul, and 13th Oct. . 1847. made me reel that this earth is as good a heaven as I ought to dream of. I liave 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 suchlike 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 1847.] Sir Charles Ghrindison. 1G7 myself up by the ears and inspect myself like any Letter to Miss Sara other queer monster on a small scale. I have had Henneii, 13th Oct. many thoughts, especially on a subject that I should 1347. like to work out — " The superiority of the consola- tions 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 Eichardson was worth so much. I have had more pleasure from him than from all the Swedish novels together. The morality is per- fect — there is nothing for the new lights to correct. How do you like ' Leila,' of which you have never Letter to Miss Sara spoken one word ? I am provoked with you for Henneii, 27tliNov. being in the least pleased with ' Tancred ' ; but if 1347. 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 168 Live and Teach. [foleshill, Letter to ^mcommou foundation. The book will certainly Henneii, give liiiu a lift in the right direction from its 2TthNov. ..,,.,, . , . „ - . 1847. 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 Wliite 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 1848.] ' Lctircs cVan Voyagcur.' 169 to be knocked down one after the other — until all Letter to Miss Sara is subdued into a universal kingdom over which the nenneii, •J~tlr Nov. Ancient of Days presides — the spirit of love — the 3847. Catholicism of the Universe — if you can attach any meaning to such a phrase. It has a meaning for my sage noddle. I am reading George Sand's ' Lettres d'un Voya- Letter to ° ° _ Miss Sara ceur ' with oreat delight, and hoping that they will Henneii, *=> '^ ^ Jan. 1848. some time do you as much good as they do me. In the meantime, I think the short letter about ' Leila' 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-zz 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 deter- mine people's fate while they are young. It is so impossible to admire — " sentJwtisiasmer" of — an individual as one gets older. Here follows the interesting correspondence, referred to before, with Mr John Sibree. Begin your letter by abusing me according to Letter to J. Sibree, mv example. There is nothing like a little gun- beginning J ^ ° _ of 1848. powder for a damp chimney ; and an explosion of 170 Tancrcd! [foleshill, Letter to J. Siliree, lii'ginniiig oflS4S. that sort will set the fire of your ideas burning to aclmhation. 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 iinorG meo, without taking pains or labouring to be sinritudle 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 inflic- tion. 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 disagree- able 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 al- most as remote from my sjTnpathies as Jacobitism, as far as its force is concerned, though I love and of 1848. 1848.] U Israeli on the Jeios. 171 respect it as an effort on behalf of the people. Letter to J. Sibree, D'Israeli is iinquestionably an able man, and 1 beginning 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 inter- marriage, 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 l>ecomes a portion of the common mind of humanity. Looking at tlie matter sesthetically, our idea of beauty is never formed on the characteristics of a single race. of 1S48. 172 Race Characteristics. [foleshill, Letter to I coiifess the types of the pure races, however beginning haiiclsome, always mipress 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 neuroes are too im- portant, 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 interest- ing ? I should like to know who are the originals. The fellowship of race, to which D'Israeli so exult- ingly refers the munificence of Sidonia, is so evi- dently 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 1848.] Dislike of Jeios. 173 almost all their history, is utterly revolting. Their Letter to J. Siliree, stock has produced a IMoses and a Jesus ; but IMoses beginning of 1S4S. 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. Every- thing specifically Jewish is of a low grade. And do you really think tliat sculpture and paintmg 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 dowries 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 ideal- ising of our actual existence. Music arches over this existence with another and a diviner. Amen, too, to that idecnvoll 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 174 Religion and Art. [foleshill, Letter to gliost of our siii : we are doubly conscious that J. Sibree, beginning wc liave 06611 uiitiue to oui' part in the great oflS48. Till 1^ T 1 • 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 ticfstc der Sinne is to be a substitute for all the rest. I can- not recognise the truth of all that is said about the necessity of religious fervour to high art. I am sceptical as to the real existence of such fervour in any of the greatest artists. Artistic power seems to me to resemble dramatic power — to be an inti- mate 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 civilisation 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 1848.] Sculpture and Paintiwj. 175 another work of his, said to be very sublime, of the Letter to J. Sibiee, Archangel waiting for the command to sound the beginning 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 Eoberts and Creswick bring a whole world of thought and bhss — "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. I have tired myself with trying to write cleverly. Letter to J. Sibree, invitd Minervd, and having in vain endeavoured to re- be; fresh 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 mallieur, Nous vieniient du iiieme auteiir, Voila la ressemblance. Le bonlieur nous rend lieureux, Et le malheur malheureux, Voila la difference." inning of 1848. 176 Cure for Egotism. [rOLESHILL, Letter to J. Sibree, beginning of 1S4S. Ah, here comes a cup of coffee to console me ! Wlien 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 I'homme infor- tune demande comj)te de ses maux et qu'il ohtient cette reponse ? Qu'y a-t-il de plus ? Eien." But I am not a mocking pen, and if I were talking to you instead of writing, you would detect some fal- sity 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 endeavouring 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 tipon by hope's perpetiial breath." Evils, even sorrows, are they not all negations ? of 184S. 1848.] Desire for Confidences. 177 Thus matter is in a perpetual state of decomposi- Letter to tion, — superadd the principle of life, and the tend- beginning ency to decomposition is overcome. Add to this consciousness, and there is a power of self-ameliora- tion. The passions and senses decompose, so to speak. The intellect by its analytic power restrains the fury with which they rush to their own destruc- tion ; the moral nature purifies, beautifies, and at length transmutes them. But to whom am I talk- ing ? You know far more siir 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 spirit- ualities as well as for beeves and cheese and tallow VOL. I. M 178 FreTicli Revolution. [foleshill, Letter to J. Sibreo, beginning of 184S. Letter to J. Sibree, Feb. 1S4S. 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 ? Write and tell you that I join you in your hap- piness about the French Eevolution ? Very fine, my good friend. If I made you wait for a letter as long as you do me, our little ichantillon of a mil- lennium would be over : Satan would be let loose again : and I should have to share 3'our humilia- tion 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 grandc 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 ardour. But no — you are just as sans-cidottish and rash as I 1848.] Sympathy ivith Ecvolution, 179 would have you. You are not one of those sages Letter to J. Sibree, whose reason keeps so tight a rein on their emotions Feb. is4s. that they are too constantly occupied in calculating consequences to rejoice in any great manifestation of the forces that underlie our everyday 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 beQ'in to be olad of my date. I would consent, however, to have a year dipt 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 news- paper critics have been compelled into a tone of genuine respect for the French people and the Pro- 180 Louis Pldlippe and his Sons, [foleshill, Letter to visioiial Government. Lamartine can act a poem J. Sibree, Feb. 1848. if lie cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pic- torial 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 liis moustachioed sons. Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pen- sioned 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 sentimentalising 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 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 imita- tive movement at home. Our working classes are 1848.] Contrast hetiocen France and England. 181 eminently inferior to the nia.ss of the French people. Letter to J. Sibree, In France the mind of the people is highly electri- Feb. is4s. fied ; they are full of ideas on social subjects ; they really desire social reform — not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favourite proverb, " Yester- day for you, to-day for me." The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and em- braced 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. Be- sides, it would be put down. Our military have no notion of " fraternising." They have the same sort of inveteracy as dogs have for the ill-drest 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 j^olitical 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 crawders. The sym- pathy in Ireland seems at present only of the 182 Necessity of Uttc7'ance. [foleshill, Letter to watei'-toRst kind. The Glasgow riots are more J. Sibree, . , , . . Feb. 184S. senous ; but one cannot believe m a Scotcli Eeign 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 smiply to he. but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends, Wliat is it to me that I think the same thoughts ? I tliink 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 blest, for I shall be a safety-valve for your communicativeness, and prevent it from splitting honest peoples' brains who don't understand you ; and, more- 1848.] Symixtthy vnth Non-co7iformity. 183 over, it will be fraught with ghostly comfort to me. I might make a very plausible excuse for not Letter to j. Sibree, Suu- acknowledging your kind note earlier, by telling day evening, Inter in 1848. 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 idle- ness, I have heard and thought of you with great interest, however. You have my hearty and not in- experienced sympathy ; for, to speak in the style of Jonathan Oldbuck, I am liciud ignara mali. I have gone through a trial of the same genus as yours, though rather differing in species. I sin- cerely rejoice in the step you have taken ; it is an absolutely necessary condition for any true de- velopment 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 184 Desire for an Attic in Geneva, [foleshill, Letter to J. to sleep, aiicl so resign all care for ourselves every Sibree, S«n- • -, -, t i ii s i. day evening, Higlit, lay ourselves gently on the bosom oi 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 cU omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, and then to return to life, and work for poor stricken humanity, and never think of self again ! ^ 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 Lebeioohl. Letter to lu my vicw there are but two kinds of regular Henneii, i.st correspoudeuce 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 1 An Ahmmg—a presentiment — of her owu future. 1848.] Concerning Correspondence. 185 to put salt on the tails of all sorts of ideas on all Letter to Miss Sara sorts of subjects, in order to send a weekly or fort- Hemieii, ist Feb. 1848. nightly packet, as so much duty and self-castiga- tion. I have always been given to understand that such Lady-Jane-G-rey-like works were your abhor- rence. 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 neces- sarily irregular as the Northern lights. I am a miserable wretch, with aching limbs and Letter to Miss Sara sinking spirits, but still alive enough to feel the nenneii, ^ 14th April kindness of your last note. I thoroughly enjoyed i848. 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 186 Father III. [ST LEONARDS, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th April 184S. Letter to Chas. Bray, May 1848. plans for my own pleasure. Eest is the only thing I can think of with pleasure now. Dear father is so decicledly progressing towards recovery that I am full of quiet joy — a gentle dawn- ing 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 Wliite 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. Sometime in May, Mr Evans and his daughter went to St Leonards, and remained there till near the end of June. His mortal illness had now taken hold of him, and tliis was a deiiressing time botli for him and for her, as will be seen from the foUowino; letters : — 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 1848.] Depression. 187 difficult to live for the last week — conscious all the Letter to ' . Chas. Bray, time that the only additions to my lot worth havmg May is48. 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 sensi- tiveness upon me, which after all is but egotism and mental idleness. The enthusiasm without which one cannot even pour out breakfast well (at least / 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 Eiver of Gloom, in the Valley of Dolour. I was amused to find that Castle Camp- bell in Scotland was called so. Truly for many seasons in my life I should have been an appro- priate 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." Wliere tJwugJit and love 188 Depression. [ST LEONARDS, Letter to Chas. Bray, May 1848. Letter to Chas. Bray, 31st May 1848. Letter to Miss Sara Henucll, 4th June 1848. are active — thought the formative power, love the vitalising — there can be no sadness. They are in themselves a more intense and extended partici- pation 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. Father has done wonders in the way of walking and eating — for him — but he makes not tlie slight- est 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. 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 1848.] Zouis Blanc. 189 staring at them in all its naked prose ! It is so Letter to Jliss Sara in all the stages of life: the poetry of girlhood nenneu, 4th June goes — the poetry of love and marriage — the poetry is4s. of maternity— and at last the very poetry of duty forsakes us for a season, and we see ourselves, and all ahout us, as nothing more than miserable ag- glomerations of atoms — poor tentative efforts of the Natur Prindp 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 agam 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 mathe- matical abstraction, a pomt. But I am wasting this "good Sunday morning" in grumblings. Poor Louis Blanc! The newspapers make me Letter to „ Chas. Bray, melancholy ; but shame upon me that I say " poor, stii June 184S 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 190 Revolutionary Sijirit. [sT Leonards, Letter to wlio lias had a deep Ahmmg, a presentiment, a 8th June ' 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'inegalit^ des talents doit ahoutir non a I'inegalite des retributions mais a I'inegalite 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. Letter to AH creaturcs about to moult, or to cast off an Miss Sara Henneii, 23d old skiu, Or cutcr ou auy new metamorphosis, have June 1S4S. 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 ardour in a greater degree 1848.] Jane Eyre. 191 than I have ever known, and yet I never felt my Letter to p • Miss Sara own msignificance and imperfection so completely. Henneii, PI) • • • -3d June My heart bleeds for dear father s pams, but it is is48. blessed to be at hand to give the soothmg word and act needed. I should not have written this descrip- tion of myself but that I felt your afiectionate letter demanded some I-ism, which, after all, is often humility rather than pride. Paris, poor Paris — alas ! alas ! I have read ' Jane Eyre,' and shall be glad to Letter to Chas. Bray, know what you admire in it. All self-sacrifice is Jmiei848. 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 carcase. 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 \dsit the Brays, and she went with them to Strat- ford. All she says herself about it is in this note. I have seen Emerson — the first mem I have ever Letter to PI- Miss Sara seen. But you have seen still more of him, so Henneii, I need not tell you what he is. I shall leave juiyis4s. Cara to tell how the day — the Emerson day — was 192 The " Bomantidst." [foleshill, Letter to speiit, for I have a swimmmg head from hang- Miss Sara . i i t • i • i Heniieii, iiig ovei' the clesK to write business letters for July 1848. father. Have you seen the review of Strauss's pamphlet in the ' Edinburgh ' ? The title is ' Der Eomantiker auf deiii Throne der Casaren, oder Julian der Abtrllnnige' — a sort of erudite satire on the King of Prussia; but the reviewer pro- nounces it to have a permanent value quite apart from this fugitive mterest. The " Eomantiker," or Eomanticist, is one who, in literature, in the arts, in religion or politics, endeavours 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 ex- claiming, Thou hast conquered, Galilean, ' vevLKr]Ka<; TaXtXau ' ! 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 1848.] Carhjlc on Emerson. 193 died, will infallibly be vanquished by the Galilean — for the Galilean is nothing less than the genius of the future ! " Father's tongue has just given utterance to a Letter to Miss Sara thought which has been very visibly radiating from Heuueii, Dec. 1S48. 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.^ 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 x3rison of stupid- ity and barrenness, with a yawning trap-door 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. Thank you for a sight of our blessed St Francis's ^ Letter to letter. There is no imagmable moment m whicli iienneu, the thought of such a being could be an intrusion. 1 On Emerson. - Francis Newman. VOL. I. N eud of 1848. 194 Francis Nevjman. [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of lS-18. Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Jan. 1849. His soul is a blessed yea. There is a sort of blas- phemy 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. I think of you perpetually, but my thoughts are all aqueous ; they will not crystallise — they are as fleeting as ripples on the sea. I am suffermg per- haps 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 tliis half-sister 1849.] Contrition for Evil l^j)caMng. 195 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. I have been holding a conrt of conscience, and I Letter to . . . i^fi's Hciugli- cannot enjoy my Sunday's music without restoring ton, sunrtHy ^ evening, harmony, without entering a protest against that is4o. superficial soul of mine which is perpetually con- tradicting 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 nothincr. 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 thougiit while there is honey in the feeling, yet the evil speaking is wrong. We may satirise character and qualities in the abstract without injury to our moral nature, 196 Reading Macaulay. [foleshill, Letter to Mrs Hough- toil, Siiiulay evening, 1S41I. Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Huiulny morning, 4th Feb. 1849. 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 others' eyes to find out the motes there. 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, asldng for noth- ing again, like a true disciple of Jesus. T am still feeling rather shattered in brain and limbs, but do not suj)pose that I lack inward peace and strength. ]\Iy 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 hiuL 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 ex- plicitly that it does. Think of Babylon being un- earthed 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 1849.] Bodily Suffering. 197 of Jacques tlie morn's morning, — only beware there Letter to . . Miss Sara are not too many blasphemies against my divinity. Hemieii, Sunday Paint soap-bubbles — and never fear but I will morning, 4tli Feb. find a meaning, though very likely not your mean- is40. ing. 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 paren- thetical 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 wo- ful aches which take up half my nervous strength. My life is a perpetual nightmare, and always Letter to haunted by something to be done, which I have never iienneii.'otu 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 thor- oughly to understand that the writers who have most profoundly influenced me — who have rolled away the waters from their bed, raised new moun- tains and spread delicious valleys for me — are not 198 Rousseau and George Sand, [foleshill, Letter to ill the least oracles to me. It is just possible that Miss Sara p , i • • • j.i j. t Heniieu, stii I iiiay not embrace one ot 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 hassesses that have degraded civilised man. I might admit all this : and it would be not the less true that Eousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill through my in- tellectual 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 inspira- tion 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 1849.] Tnfiuence of George Sand. 199 of her plot correct, or tliat she had no precise design Letter to Miss Sara at all, but began to write as the spirit moved her, Heimeu, otii Feb. 1S49. and trusted to Providence for the catastrophe, which I think the more probable case. It is suffi- cient 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 humour, 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 Fer- nando 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 everyday tragedy ; but I will not dilate on the book or on your criticism, for I am so sleepy that I should write nothing but hetises. I have at last the most delightful 'De Imitatione Christi,' with quaint 200 Hevicws the' Mmesis of Faith.' [foleshill, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Wednesday, April 1849. 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 particu- lar 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, naively and prettily requesting her to reveal herself. He says he recognised 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 Fronde's books. Tell me not that I am a mere prater — that feeling never talks. I will talk, and caress, and 1849.] Need of Utterance. 201 look lovingly, until death makes me as stony as Letter to Miss Sara the Gorgon-like heads of all the judicious people Henneii, . . Wednesday, I know. "What is anything worth until it is Apriusio. uttered ? Is not the universe one great utter- ance ? 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 oppor- tunities 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 aprojDOS — 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 o-reater bore than ever. It is a con- sciousness 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 enjoy- ing the ' Nemesis of Faith.' I quote Keats's sonnet , apropos of that book. It has made me feel — 202 Froude' s ' Shadmos of the Clouds.' [foleshill, Letter to " Like Some watclier of the skies Miss Sara When a new planet swims into his ken ; Heiinell, _ '^ ' Wednesday, Or like stout Cortez — when with eagle eyes April 184ft. jjg g^^^g^ ^^ ^j^g Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild snrraise — 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 grow- ing, just in proportion as the individual satisfactions are lessening. IMiserable 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 stuffs — 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 1849.] ' Tractatus Thcologico-Politicus' 203 mind than your own sees precisely where and what Letter to Miss Sara is the difficnlty — and can exactly appreciate the Henneii, Wednesday, success with which it is overcome. One know^s — April is+o. scd longo intervcdlo — 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. I know it will gladden your heart to hear that Letter to Mrs Pears, father spoke of you the other day with affection lotiiMay 1840. and gratitude. He remembers you as one wdio helped to strengthen that beautiful spirit of resig- nation 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 prec- ious 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 204 End of Father's Illness. [foleshill, 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 her- self, and Mrs Congreve (who was then Miss Bury, daughter of the doctor who was attend- ing Mr Evans — and who, it will be seen, subse- quently 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 thor- oughly 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 Spin- oza to do : she says it is such a rest for her mind." The next letter to Eosehill pathetically de- scribes how the end came at last to Mr Evans's sufferings : — Letter to i • i i i the nrays, Dear friends, Mr Bury told us last night that he half-past . nine, Wed- tliouglit father would not last till morning. I sat iiioniins, by him with my hand in his till four o'clock, and he 31st May 1S4H. then became quieter and has had some comfortable ^^.U-O'U/U^. G^toAji''^' ¥^ ROBERT I c^^'U^z^iy.'Ci^ cl:i€'(^t^i.e/ (£l^'C<^^. z-^un^ny^ay c^y^Zi^ni^z^UAe^ ^u>!}a-eyh>iyy>'iy. ^Aypoa . 1849.] Fathers Death. 205 sleep. He is obviously weaker this morning, and Letter to the Brays, has been for the last two or three days so painfully iiaif-past nine, Wed- reduced, that I dread to think what his dear frame nesday inorning, may become before life gives way. My brother sistMay 1S40. 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 evenmg. Mr Evans died during that night, 31st May 1849. SUM MAR Y. MAY 1846 TO MAY 1849. Visit to Mrs Hennell at Hackney — Letters to Mrs Bray — Strauss Translation published — Visit to Dover -witli 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 {aprojws 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 — 206 Suynmary of Chapter III. [1849.] Letters to Miss Sara Hennell — Mental depression — Opinion of Charles Hennell's ' Intpirj' ' — 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 Sibi"ee in religious difficulties — Longing for a high attic in Geneva — Letters to Miss Sara Hennell — Views on cor- respondence — Mental depression — Father's illness — Father better — Goes Avith him to St Leonards — 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 eulo- gium on Emerson — Francis Newman — Suffering from de- pression — Letter to Mrs Houghton — Self-condemnation for evil speaking — Letters to Miss Hennell — ]\Iacaulay'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 nurs- ing — Strain of father's illness — Father's death. 207 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 deso- late 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, ar- riving at Geneva in the third week of July. Here Miss Evans determmed to remain for some months, the Brays returning home. Be- fore 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 2^c7ision selected in the first in- stance was the Campagne Plongeon, which stands on a slight eminence a few hundred 208 Continental Trip vnth Brays, [geneva, yards back from the road on the route d'Her- mance, some ten minutes' walk from the Hotel Metropole. From the Hotel 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 charm- ingly 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 Eng- lish 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 ac- 1849.] Life at Gampagnc Plongeon. 209 quaintances, 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. About my comfort here, I find no disagreeables. Letter to the and have every physical comfort that I care about, juiy 1849. The family seems well-ordered and happy. I have made another friend too — an elderly English lady, a j\Irs Locke, who used to live at Eyde — 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 news- papers 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 insufi'erable. She is obliged to talk to all, and cap their niaiseries with some suitable observation. She has been very kind and motherly VOL. I. 210 Acquaintances at Cariipagne Plongeon. [geneva, Letter to the to iiiG. I like lier better every time I see lier. I Brays, 27tli July 1849. nave 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. Letter to tiic I liope my imagination paints truly when it Brays, 5tli Aug. 1S49. shows me all of you seated with beaming faces round the tea-tal)le at Eosehill. I shall be yearn- ing 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 Mar- quise 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 1849.] Acquaintances at Campagne Plongeon. 211 vivement a Mademoiselle." The Marquis is the Letter to the Brays, 5th most well-bred, harmless of men. He talks very Aug. is49. little — every sentence seems a terrible gestation, and comes forth fortissimo; but he generally be- stows 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 grey - 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 tliink he is not more than two or three and twenty, very good-natured, but a most determined enemy to all gallantr}'. 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 expedi- tion to Monte Eosa. He is expecting his brother to join him here on his return, but I fear they will not stay long. The gouvernantc is a German, with a moral region tliat would rejoice Mr Bray's eyes. Poor soul, she is in a land of strangers, and often 212 Genevese Preachers. [geneva, Letter to the seeiiis to feel her loneliness. Her situation is a I3ray8, 5tli i7-y))i Aug. i84!i. 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 what- ever. 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 indif- ferent to the world that comes or goes if once I had my boxes with all my books. Last Sunday I went with Lladame to a small church near Plongeon, and I could easily have fancied myself in an Indepen- dent 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, ]\I. Meunier. His sermon was really eloquent — all written down, but de- livered with so much energy and feeling that you never thought of the book. It is curious to notice how patriotism — cUvouement a la 'patric — 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 1849.] Life at Cam]jagne Plongcon. 213 o-oes with his family and servants, all nicely clrest, Letter to the ^ Brays, 5th to the Catholic Church. They are a most orderly Aug. 1549. 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 aristo- cratic 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 hap- pens to you at Kosehill as you are in what happens to me at Plongeon. Pray that the motto of Geneva may become mine — " Post tenchras lux." I have no head for writing to-day, for I have Letter to tiie Brays, 20tli been keeping my bed for the last three days ; but Aug. as49. I must remember that writing to you is like ring- ing 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 bed I had the whole female world of Plongeon in my bedroom, and talked so 214 Life at Ca7iiparjne Plongcon. [geneva, Letter to the iiicessaiitly that I was unable to sleep after it : Bravs, 20tli , . . , ^ Aug. 1S4D. the consequence, as you may imagine, was that the next day I was very much worse ; but I am oettiiiCT 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 lier children. She is the daughter of the richest banker in Frank- furt, 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 tetcs-a-tete have lately turned on religious matters. She says I am in a " mauvaise voie sous le rapport de la religion. Pent - etre vous vous inarierez, et le mariage, chere 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 feehngs of others towards me — that I do not believe how deep an interest she has conceived in my lot. She says Signer Goldrini (tlie young Italian who was here for a week) told lier, when he 1849.] Life at Campagnc Plongeon. 215 had been talking to me one evening, " Vous aimerez Letter to the cette demoiselle, j 'en suis sur" — and she has found Aug^^i849/ 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 rememljer me lono' enouoh for me to venture on paying her a visit if ever 1 should go to Italy again, she shakes her head at my incred- ulity. She was born at Genoa. Her father was three years Sardinian Minister at Constantinople before she was married, and she speaks with enthu- siasm of her life there — " C'est la le pays de la \Taie poesie ou Ton sent ce que c'est que de vivre par le coeur." M. de H. is returned from Monte Eosa. 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 ad- dress, 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 216 Life at Campagne Plongcon. [GENEVA, Letter to the disadvantage of wanting all on which I chiefly Brays, 20th Alls. 1840. depend — my books, &c. 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 fcimne dc chambre and drest 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 pos- sible. 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. De&x 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 remem- bered — if even I have only seen them in England, 1849.] Fete of Navigation. 217 Mme.de Liidwigsdorff, the wife of an Austrian Letter to tue baron, has been here for two days, and is coming Aug. 1849. 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 com- fortable when I have all my little matters about me. This place looks more lovely to me every day, — the lake, the town, the eamimgncs with their stately trees and pretty houses, the glorious moun- tains 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 labour or sorrow. The perpetual presence of all this beauty has some- what 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 fete held on the lake — the fete 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 218 Chameleon-like Nature. [GENEVA, Letter to the tJie silvci' aiitl the golden rays on the rippled lake, Aug. 1849. the bright colonrs 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 humour 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 dis- position always makes the world that lives in my thoughts the dearer of the two — the one in which 1849.] Anxiety ahout Friends at Home. 219 I more truly dwell. So, after all, I enjoy my Letter to the Brays, 28th friends most when I am away from them. I shall Aug. is49. not say so, though, if I should live to rejoin you six or seven months hence. Keep me for seven ^ years longer and you will find out the use of me, like all other pieces of trumpery. Have I confided too much in your generosity in Letter to Mrs Hough- supposing that you would write to me first ? or is ton, eth there some other reason for your silence ? I sufter 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 ]\Ir Bray convey to you my earnest request that you would write to me ? You know of my where- abouts and circumstances from my good friends at Eosehill, 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 your- self 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 1 feel that I have a share ; for that angelic little being had great interest for me — she promised 1 It may be noted as a curious verification of this presentiment tliat 'Scenes of Clerical Life' were pulilislied in 1856 — ^jnst seven years later. 220 Effect of Change of Life. [GENEVA, Letter to to pay SO woll for any care spent on her. I can Mrs Hougli- . . ton, 6th imagine poor Edward's almost irantic grief, and 1 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 amongst 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 allow- ance 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 daresay, re- maining 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 particu- 1849.] Plans for Lessons. 221 larlv healthy, — I suppose from the ^•icinity of the Letter to J - ' ^^ '' Mrs Hough- lake, which, however, becomes so dear to me that ton, eth «ept. a84;». 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. ]My boxes arriyed last Friday. The expense was Letter to the fr. 150 — perfectly horrible! Clearly I must give sept. ]S49. 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 conversible people than here. Do you think any one would buy my 'Encyclopaedia 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 Encyclopedia is the last edition, and cost £42, and the globes £8, 10s. 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 9 9 O Letters from Brother and Sisters, [geneva, Letter to tiie it SO tliaii feel that the debt was on my side. Wlien Brays, 13 th . Sept. 1849. will you coiiie 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 o-iven 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 affirma- tions. Slie says, " You won't find any kindred spirits at Plongeon, my dear." Letter to the I aiii feeliiig particularly happy because I have Brays, 20tb Sept. 1849. had very kind letters from my brother and sisters. I am ashamed to fill sheets about myself, liut I imagined that this was precisely what you wished. I'ray correct my mistake, if it Ije one, and then I 1849.] Madame Ludwigsdorff. 223 will look over the Calvin MSS., and give you some Letter to the Brays, 20tli information of really general interest, suited to our Sept. 1849. 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 w\ait 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, &c. 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 so- cially and morally. She is tall and handsome — a striking-looking person, but with a sweet femi- 224 Orthodox Friends. [geneva, Letter to the iiiiie expressioii when she is with those she likes — Brays, 20th sei-t. 1849. 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 else- where. 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 fear- ful infidel who will not believe, and hates all who do, &c., &c. 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 affec- tion under false pretences ; so I told ]\Iiss 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 scdo7i 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 1849.] Old Friends. 225 execrable ; or rather, as Mrs A. says, " How glad Letter to the Brays, 20th we ought to 136 that it has no taste at all — it might Sept. is49. 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 re- gards" her caps — always wearing the brightest rose- colour or intensest blue — with a complexion not un- like a dirty primrose glove. The rest of the people are nothing to me, except, indeed, dear old Mile, 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 bet- ter 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 com- parison with you ; not in kindness to me — get 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 seripta 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 T am afraid to VOL. I. • P 226 Anxiety f 07' Letters. [geneva, Letter to the imagine. I shall be length without breadth. Cara's Brays, 20tli Sept. 1849. 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 every- thing seems easy to me when I am not disturbed about the health or wellbeing 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 wel- come 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 Frank- lins, give my love to them ; my remembrances to Mr and Mrs Whittem ; love to Miss Sibree always. 1849.] TuJccs mi '' a'p'partemcnt" in Geneva. 22 Hearty love to Clapton ^ and Woodford ; - and a Letter to tiie Brays 20t]i very diffusive benevolence to the world in general, sept. is49 without any particular attachment to A. or B. I am trying to please Mr Bray. Good-bye, dear souls. Bominus vobiseum. I am anxious for you to know my new address. Letter to as I shall leave here on Tuesday. I think I have Thursday,' 4th Oct at last found the very thing. I shall be the only is49. lodger. The ajJjJarteme?^ is assez joli, with an alcove, so tliat it looks like a sitting-room in the day-time — the people, an artist of great respecta- bility, and his wife, a most kind-looking ladylike person, with two boys, w^ho 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 heauconp eVesprit. I hope this will not ex- ceed my means for four or five months. There is a nice large srdon and a good salle a manger. 1 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. 1 Mrs Hennell. 2 Mr and Mrs Charles Heiinell. 228 Need of Encouragement. [geneva, Letter to the Brays, Thursday, 4th Oct. 1849. Letter to Mrs Hough- ton, 4th Oct. 1840. 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 checkmg. 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 most good l;)y saying to me the kindest things truth will permit ; and really I can- not 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 rede, be in no anxiety about me. Nothing is going wrong that I know of. I am not an absolute fool and weak- ling. When I am fairly settled in my new home, I will write again. My address will be— M. d'Albert Durade, Paie des Chanoines, No. 107. 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 1849.] '' Tangible Sufferings:' 229 to move to my new home on Tuesday the 9th. I Letter to jMrs Hough- shall not at all regret leaving here ; the season is ton, 4tii . Oct. 1S49. 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 Eose- hill. The dear little old maid, Mile, de I'haisan, 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, 1>ut 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 soirees sont longues : nioi, je ne consols pas comment on pent s'ennuyer quand on a de I'ouvrage ou des jeux on 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 230 The D' Alberts Household. [GENEVA, Letter to tumed towarcls many whose sufferings are of a Mrs Hougli- ton, 4th more tangible character, and I have really felt all Oct. 1S49. the old commonplaces about the equality of human destinies, always excepting those spiritual differ- ences 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. Letter to the M. and Mme. d' Albert are really clever people — Brays, 11th ... Oct. 1S49. people worth sitting up an hour longer to talk to. This does not hinder Madame from being an excel- lent 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 1849.] M. cV Albert Durade. 231 breakfast in my own room at half -past eight, hmch Letter to the Brays, 11th at half-past twelve, and dine at four or a little after, oct. 1849. and take tea at eight. From the tea-table I have gone into the salon and chatted until bed - time. It would really have been a pity to have stayed at Plongeon, out of reach of everythmg, and with people so little worth talking to. I have not found out the desagrdmens 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 Athenee — a permanent exhibition of works of art in Geneva; and he published only last year (1883) a French translation of the ' Scenes of Cleri- cal Life,' having already previously published translations of ' Adam Bede,' ' Felix Holt,' ' Silas Marner,' and ' Eomola.' The description of his personal appearance, in the following letter, still holds good, save that the gTey hair has become quite white. He lost his wife in 1873 ; and it will be seen from subsequent letters that George 232 iVb. 107 Rue des Chanoines. [geneva, 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 Eue des Chanoines, and is occupied as the printing-office of the ' Journal de Geneve.' 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 bed-room 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 Eue des Chanoines, and she was nnich interested in it. It will be seen that she did some work in physics under Professor de la Eive ; 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. 1849.] 3f. and Mme. d' Albert 233 I languished for your letter before it came, and Letter to the Brays, 26th read it three times running — ^judge whether I care oct. isio. 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 see- ing things. But I will give you some v6riUs posi- tives, in which, alas ! poor imagination has hitherto been able to do little for the world. Mme. d'x^lbert 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 hien etre 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 grey hair indicate the temperament of the artist. I have not heard a word or seen a gesture 234 Life m Geneva. [geneva, Letter to the of his yet that was not perfectly in harmony with Oct 1849. 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 delight- ful 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'Al- hert 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 ^ — 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 possi- ble for as much as possible. Their whole behaviour to me is as if I were a guest whom they delighted to honour. Last nidit 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 1 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. 1849.] Home Rememhrances. 235 friends and their friends to like me. The people Letter to the and the evening would have been just after your oct. is49. own hearts. In fact, I have not the slightest pretext for beincf discontented — not the shadow of a discom- fort. 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-incd without being told — cleans my rooms most conscientiously. There — I promise to weary you less for the future with my descrip- tions. 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 tlie new word at Manchester, I hope he will preach it so as to do without an after ex- planation, and not bewilder his hearers in the man- ner of Mephistopheles when he dons the doctor's gown of Faust. I congratulate you on the new edition,^ and promise to read it with a disposition to admire when I am at Eosehill once more. I am beginning to lose respect for the petty acumen that ' Philosopliy of Necessity,' by Charles Bray. 236 BemUies of Scenery. [geneva, Letter to the sees difficulties. I love the souls that rush along Brays, 20tli , . , . Oct. 1840. 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 : shan'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 colouring. Coventry is a fool to it — but then you are at Coventry, and you are better than lake, trees, and mountains. Letter to the Wc liavc had some delicious autumn days here. Oct. 1849. If the fine weather last, I am going up the Saleve 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 Mile, de Phaisan ; " nous avons un beau pays si nous n'avions pas ces Kadicaux ! " The election of the Conseil d'Etat is to take place in November, and an dmeute is expected. The actual Government is Eadical, and thoroughly detested by all the "respectable" classes. The Vice-President of the Conseil, and the virtual head 1849.] Delight in Town life. 237 of the C4overnment, is an unprincipled clever fellow, horribly in debt himself, and on the way to reduce the Government to the same position, I like my town life vastly. I shall like it still Letter to Miss Sara better in the winter. There is an mdescribable Henneii, charm to me m this form of human nest-makmg. is49. 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 reacli 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 con- Dec. 1849. 238 Spinoza Trmislations. [geneva, stantly I love you — how, the longer I live and the more I have felt, the better I know how to value you. Letter to I wrlte at once to answer your questions about Charles Bray, 4ti. busiuess. Spiiioza and I have been divorced for several months. ]\Iy want of healtli 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 com- pany ; but I confess to you that I think you would do better to abstain from printing a transla- tion. What is wanted in English is not a trans- lation 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 difhcult 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 an- alysis. 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 1849.] Affection to the D' Alberts. 239 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. Your letter is very sweet to me, giving me a Letter to Mrs Bray, picture of your quiet life. How shall I enable you 4th Dec 1S49. to imagine mine, since you know nothing of the localities ? My good friends here only change for the better. ]\Ime. d' Albert is all affection ; M. d'Al- bert 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, &c. 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 jMadame 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 ; 1 am a sort of supernum- erary 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 240 Yearning for a Woman's Duty, [geneva, Letter to wlioiii I cau be a comforter, a lielj), I long to be Mrs Bray, • i i 4th Dec. With them again. Otherwise, I can only think with 1S49. 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. Letter to How do you look ? I liopc that handcau of sil- Miss Sara ii- •!• c iiit Henneii, 4th vcry locKS IS iiot 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 any- thing 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 preoccupa- tions ? In all these matters I am the chief of sin- ners, and I am tempted to rejoice in the offences of my friends, because they make me feel less humilia- 1849.] Christmas Wishes. 241 tion, I am quite satisfied to be at Geneva instead Letter to . . , Miss Sara of Paris ; m fact, I am becomnig passionately at- Henneii, 4th tacned to the mountains, the lake, the streets, my own room, and, above all, the dear people with whom I live. A thousand Christmas pleasures and blessings to Letter to the you — good resolutions and bright hopes for the dp<\ is49. 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 CL 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 com- VOL. I. Q 242 Profcsscur de la Rive^ Lectures. [GENEVA, Letter to the f oitable, that busiiiess is promising, that men begin Dec. 1S49. to speak well of yon, &c. " I am comforted in your comfort," as saith St Panl to the tronblesome Corinthians. When one is cabined, cribbed, con- fined 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 soiils 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 sucrd. Dear Mr Hennell, we shall never look upon his like. I am attending a course of lectures on Experi- mental Physics by M. le Professeur de la Eive, the inventor, amongst other things, of the 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 liave so many things to do that I go to bed every niglit 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. 1850.] Severe Winter — Alboni. 243 You leave me a long time without news of you, Letter to the Brays, 28th though I told you they were necessary as a coun- jan. isso. teractive 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 slcy 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 my- self with that. The fact is, I am much of Touch- stone'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 yearnmgs to ex- change lake and mountains for Bishop Street and the Eadford Fields, l)ut 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 under- take the journey before the end of March. 1 look forward to it with great dread. I see myself look- ing 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 syren. There has been some capital acting of comedies by friends of M. dAlbert^one of them is superior to any professional actor of comedy I have ever seen. He reads vaudevilles so marvel- Feb. 1850. 244 Yearning for Old Friends. [geneva, loiisly, 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. Letter to It is oue of the provoking contrarieties of des- ton, 9th ° " tiny 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 Hcim/weli "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 view^s, they understand my character, and have a real interest in me. I have infinite tenderness from Mme. d' Albert. I call her always " manian " ; and she is just the creature one loves to lean on 1850.] Bondage of Luxuries. 245 and be petted by. In fact, I am too much in- Letter to Mrs Hough- dubed, and shall go back to England as undiscip- ton, sth ° Feb. 1850. lined as ever. This terribly severe winter has been a drawback on my recovering my strength. I have lost whole weeks from headache, &c., 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 soirees, which are as stupid and unprofitable at Geneva as in England. I save all more interestmg details, that I may have them to tell you when I am with you. I am going now to a s4ance on Experimental Physics by the celebrated Professor de la Ptive. This letter will at least convince you that I am not eaten up by wolves, as they have been fearing at Ptosehill. The Eng- lish papers tell of wolves descending from the 246 Snoio on the Jura. [geneva, Jura and devourino' the inhabitants of the vil- lages, but we have been in happy ignorance of these editors' horrors. Letter to the If jou saw the Jura to-day ! The snow reveals Bi-ays, 15th . . . . Feb. isoo. its forests, ravines, and precipices, and it stands m relief against a pure blue sky. The snow is on the mountains only now, and one is tempted to walk all day, particularly wlien 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, Init 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 " FrauQois le Chanipi — une Comedie," is sim- plicity 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 soirees quite brilliant. You will be amused to hear that I am sitting for my portrait — at M. d' Albert's 1850.] Portmit hy M. cV Albert. 247 request, not mine. If it turns out well, I shall Letter to the Brays, 15tli long to steal it to give to you ; Ijut M. d' Albert Feb. isso. 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 Eosehill. Something has been said of M. d'Albert accom- panying 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 shoe- makers ; that is the way to make them Messiahs and Jacob Boehms. As forvus 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 w^ith orthodox sermons. However, there are some clever men here in tlie Church, and I am fortunate in being here at a tune when the very cleverest is giving a series of con- ferences. 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 248 Last Days at Geneva. [geneva, Letter to the veiy iiaively, when I reproached him for not talking- Brays, 15th 11, • / 1 1 Feb. 1850. to a German young lady at a soiree, when he was seated next her at table — " Je ne savais que faire de mes jambes." They had placed the poor gargon against one of those card-tables — all legs, like himself. Letter to the The wcather is so glorious that I think I may set Brays, 1st , ^ -. , ~f March 1850. out Oil my joumcy soon after the loth, 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 Constan- tinople, 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 epi- sode in George Eliot's life, and one she was always fond of recurring to, in our talk, up to the end of her life. 1850.] Summary of Chapter IV. 249 SUMMARY. JUNE 1849 TO MAECH 1850. Goes abroad witli jMi- and Mrs Bray — Geneva — Life at Campagne Plongeon — Letters to Brays describing surround- ings — Mrs Locke — The St Germain family — Anxiety about her boxes with books, &c. — Hears M. Meunier preach — Patriotism the first of virtues — Mme. Cornelius — Mme. de Ludwigsdorflf — "i^eie 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. Ludwigsdoi'ff wishes her to spend winter in Paris — Mile, de Phaisan — Finds apartment in Geneva, No. 107 Kue 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 — Leaving Geneva. 250 CHAPTEE V. M. d'Albert and his charge left Geneva towards the end of March, and as tlie railway was not yet opened all the way to France, they had to cross the Jura in sledges, and suffered ter- ribly 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 Eosehill, where she stayed for a few days before going on to Griff. It will have l^een seen that she had set her hopes high on the delights of home-coming, and with her too sen- sitive, 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 recognise in ' fmrnm '■'Mm 1850.] Return to England. 251 the next letters the actual presence of the east wind, the leaden sky, the gritty dust, and le spleen. No ; I am not in England — I am only nearer the Letter to Jlis.s Sara beings I love best. I try to forget all geography, Heimeii.end of March and that I have placed myself irretrievably out of isso, from Rosehill. 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 dear face and voice are wantmg to me. But I must wait with patience, and perhaps by the time I have finished my \Tisits to my relations, you will be ready to come to Kosehill again. I want you to scold me, and make me good. I am idle and naughty — on nc jKut plus — sinking into heathenish ignorance and woman's frivolity. Eemember, you are one of my guardian angels. Will you send the enclosed note to ]\Irs C. Hen- Letter to Miss Sara nell ? I am not rpiite sure about her direction, but Henneu, beginning of I am anxious to thank her for her kindness in Apriiisso, 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, &c., in London ? Will you tell me what you can ? I am not asking you merely for the sake of giving you trouble. I from Grift'. 252 Hnffcring from Climate. [rosehill, Letter to am really anxious to know. Oh the dismal weather, Miss Sara Henneii, and the dismal country, and the dismal people. It April 1850, was some envious demon that drove me across the from Grifl'. . Jura. However, i am determined to sell every- thing 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 : — Letter to Havc you any engagement for the week after next ? Mrs Bray, 24th April 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 burthening 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 Eng- land that I am quite discouraged. Dear Chrissey is J generous and sympathising, and really cares for my happiness. On the 4tli of Ma}^ Miss Evans went to Eose- 1851.] Mackay's' Progress of the Intellect! 253 hill, and on the 7th M. d'Albert joined the party for a three days' \dsit. The strong affection existing between Mr and Mrs Bray and their guest, and the more congenial intellectual atmo- sphere surrounding them, led Miss Evans to make her home practically at Eosehill for the next sixteen months. She stayed there con- tinuously till the 18th November, and, among other things, wrote a review of Mackay's ' Pro- gress of the Intellect.' In October Mr Mackay and Mr Chapman, the editor of the 'West- minster Eeview,' came to stay at Eosehill, and there was probably some talk then about her assistina; in the editorial work of the ' Eeview,' 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 civilisation, and yet more, our religion, are an anomalous blending of lifeless barbarisms, which have descended to us like so many petri- factions from distant ages, with living ideas, the offspring of a true process of development. We are in bondage to terms and conceptions, which, 254 EevieiDs Mackay's 'Progress of the [roseiiill, having had their roots in conditions of thought no longer existing, have ceased to possess any vitahty, and are for us as spells which have lost their virtue. The endeavour to spread en- lightened ideas is perpetually counteracted by these idola thcatri, 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 teach- ing of positive truth is the grand means of ex- pelling 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 eacli 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 embalm- ing 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 co-extensive with the history of human development, and is perpetually unfolding 1851.] Intellect' in the 'Westminster.' 255 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 acknow- ledged to be the basis of physical science, but which is still perversely ignored in our social organisation, 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 unpressed on human deeds and aspira- tions, 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 wliich we are sharing; every mistake. 256 Machay's 'Progress of the Intellect! [rosehill, 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 generalisation 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 Eosehill 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 Eeview' 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 Devon- 1851.] Visit to BisJiop Sfcignton and London. 257 shire. Mrs Bray had some slight illness there, and Miss Evans writes : — I am grieved indeed if anything might have been Letter to Miss Sara written, which has not been written, to allay your Henneu, 5th Aug. anxiety about Cara. Her letter yesterday ex- i85i. plained 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 morn- ing about the going to London or to Eosehill. 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 be- fore the rest and have a bath. They went to London on the 13th of August, saw the Crystal Palace, and returned to Eose- hill on the 16th. At the end of that month, Mr George Combe (the distinguished phrenologist) arrived on a visit, and he and Mrs Combe be- came good friends to Miss Evans, as will be seen from the subsequent correspondence. They came on a second visit to Eosehill the follow- ing month — Mr Chapman being also m the house at the same time, — and at the end of VOL. I. R 258 Assistant Editor of ' Westminster ' [i42 strand, September Miss Evans went to stay with the Chapmans at No. 142 Strand, as a boarder, and as assistant editor of the ' Westminster Eeview.' 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 Her- bert Spencer, and with a number of writers then representing the most fearless and advanced thought of the day. Miss Erederica Bremer, the authoress, was also boarding with the Chapmans at this time, as will be seen from the following letters : — Letter to the Mr Mackay has been very kind in coming and sept!"i85i ° walking out with me, and that is the only variety I have had. Last night, however, we had an agree- able enough gathering. Foxton^ 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 Eeview') as a guarantee that I ; have been trying to work. Again, I proposed to 1 Frederick Foxton, author of ' Popular Christianity : its Transi- tion State and Probable Development.' 1851.] Meets Herbert Spencer. 259 write a re"vdew of Greg for the ' Westminster,' not Letter to the Brays, end of for money, but for love of the subject as connected septissi. 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 oliliged 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. Dr Brabant returned to Bath yesterday. He very Letter to Mr politely took me to the Crystal Palace, the theatre, sept.'i85i. and the Overland Eoute. On Friday we had Fox- ton, 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 sub- ject. You must see the book if possible. Mr Chapman is going to send you INIiss Martineau's work, or rather Mr Atkinson's,^ which you must review in the 'Herald.' Wliatever 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 — more- 1 ' Man's Nature and Develojiment,' by Martiueau ami Atkinson. 260 George Henry Lewes. [142 stkand, Letter to Mr over I have hardly been well a day since I came. Bray, end of Sept. 1851. I Wish I were rich enough to go to the coast, and have some plunges in the sea to brace me. Never- theless do not suppose that I don't enjoy being here. I like seeing the new people, &c., 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 per- sonal 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 His- tory of Philosophy,' his two novels, ' Eanthorpe,' and ' Eose, Blanche, and Violet ' — all of which had been published five or six years before — and his voluminous contributions to the period- ical literature of the day. He was also at this time the literary editor of the ' Leader ' news- '• paper, so that any criticism of his would carry weight, and be talked about. Much has al- ready been written about his extraordinary 1851.] Article Writers. 261 versatility, the variety of his literary produc- tions, his social charms, Ms 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 char- acter, which will be seen, in its development, in the followmg pages. I don't know how long Miss Bremer will stay, but Letter to Mr Bray, end of you need not wish to see her. She is to me equally sept. isoi. 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 improve- ment 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 Jeffs shop — a sort of miniature Mirabeau in appearance.^ ^ This was a merely formal aud 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. 262 Carlyles' Life of Sterling.' [l42 steand, Letter to tiie Professoi Forbes is to write us a capital scientific Oct. (?) 1851. article, whereat I rejoice greatly. Tlie 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 Ster- ling ' 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 characterisations of living men too — of Francis Newman for example — "a man of fine university and other attain- ments, 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." Letter to All the world is doing its devoir to the great Miss Sara Henneii, little autliorcss (Miss Bremer). I went to the Ex- 15th Oct. 1851. hibition on Saturday to hear the final " God save the Queen" and the three tunes three — "C'etait 1851.] Tlie Chapmand Soirdes. 263 im beau moment." j\Ir Greg tliouglit the review Letter to 111 !• I'll ••))! 1 1 Miss Sara " well done, and in a kmdly spirit, but tliougnt Heimeu, there was not much in it — dreadfully true, since issi. there was only all his book. I think he did not like the apology for his want of theological learn- ing, which, however, was just the thing most needed, for the ' Eclectic ' trips him up on that score. Caiiyle was very amusing the other morn- ing 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 them- selves by twos and threes in his study, saying, "Here we are," &c., &c. I wish you could see Miss Bremer's albums, Letter to • 1 111 n 1 Miss Sara full of portraits, flowers, and landscapes, all done Heimeu, by herself. A portrait of Emerson, marvellously isoi. like ; one of Jenny Lind, &c. Last night we had quite a charming soirie — Sir David Brewster and his daughter ; Mackay, author of a work on popular education, you may remember to have seen re- viewed in the ' Leader ; ' the EUises, 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 264 Mr Mackay — Carlyle. [142 STEAND, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Oct. 1851. Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Nov. 1851. 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 Protest- antism." 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. 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, &c., — 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 1851.] Martineau and Newman. 265 with some truth in its general remarks about Letter to Miss Sara Carlyle. There is an article, e\ddently by James Henneu, 3d Nov. 1851. Martineau, in the ' Prospective, which you must read, " On the Unity of the Logical and Intuitive in the ultimate grounds of Eeligious 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. JMy table is groaning with books, and I have done very little with them yet, but I trust in my star, which has liitherto helped me, to do all I lla^'e engaged to do. Pray, remember to send the MS. translation of Schleiermacher's little book, and also the book itself. When Mr Noel had finished his farewell visit Letter to the Brays, 15th to-day, Mr Flower was announced, so my morning Nov. issi. 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 be- yond 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. 266 Mecis Lcwcs at the Theatre. [142 strand, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Monday, 23cl Nov. 1851. Letter to C'lias. Bray, 27th 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 Car- lyle'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 Mac- kay's, Dr Brabant being there. Carlyle called the other day, strongly recom- mending Browning, the poet, as a writer for the 'Eeview,' and saying, "We shall see," about him- self. 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 Krlidener"^ will be glorious. He sat in the same box with us at the " ]\Ierry Wives of Windsor," and helped to carry off' the dolorousness of the play. 1 Ajipeared in January 1852 No. of the 'Westminster Review,' No. 1 of the New Series. 1852.] Visit to Rosehill. 267 Alas! the work is so heavy just for the next Letter to the Brays, Tues- three days, all the re\ases being yet to come in, and day, 22d the proof of my own article ;^ and ]\Ir 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 sliall 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 Eosehill, and stayed there till 12th January, when she returned to London, and writes : — I had a comfortable journey all alone, except from Letter to Mrs Bray, "Weedon to Blisworth. "When I saw a coated ani- 12th Jan. mal getting into my carriage, I thought of all horrible stories of madmen in railways ; but his white neckcloth and thin mincinQ- voice soon con- vinced me that he was one of those exceedingly tame animals, the clergy, A kmd welcome and a good dinner — that is the 1 Review of Carlyle'.^ ' Life of Sterling' iu ' Westminster,' Jau. 1852. 1S52. 268 Harriet Martineau— Pierre Leroux. [l42 STRAND, Letter to Mrs Bray, 12th Jan. 1852. Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Jan. 1852. whole of my history at present. I am m any- thing but company trim, or spirits. I can do nothing in retnrn for all yonr kindness, dear Cara, bnt love you, as I do most heartily. You and all yours, for their own sake first, but if it were not so, for yours. Harriet Martineau called on Monday morning with Mr Atkinson. Very kind and cordial. I honour 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 soir4es. Last Monday I was talking and listen- ing 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 syntMse which combines all three. He has found the true 2^ont which is to unite the love of self with the love of one's neighbour. 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 1852.] Pierre Leroux's Theoi^ies. 269 he has not shown the identity of the teaching of Letter to 77 f 1 -n rrn-'T TAiss Sara Jesus with that of the Essenes. This is Lerouxs Henneii, 21.st J "111 favourite idea. I told him of your brother. He, 1852. moreover, traces Essenism back to Egypt, and thence to India — the cradle of all religions, &c. &c., with much more, which he uttered with an unction rather amusing in a soir6e tete-a-tete. " Est ce que nous sommes faits pour chercher le bonheur ? Est ce la votre idee — dites moi." " Mais non — nous sommes faits, je pense, pour nous developper le plus possible." " Ah ! c'est ga." He is in utter poverty, going to lecture — atitrement il faut movrir. 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 Char- lotte. " 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," ^ i.e., " Physical 1 Published in the April 1852 number of the ' Westminster.' 270 Acqtiainfance with Miss Parlxcs. [l42 strand, Letter to Puritanism," from Dr Browne, the chemist of Miss Sara Henneii, Edinburgh, which, I think, will go in the next 21st Jan. 1S52. 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 iKtit Jiomme 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." Letter to the We wcut to (piitc a gay party at Mrs Mackay's JBi'tivs 2tl Feb. 1852. on Saturday. Good Mr Mackay has been taking trouble to get me to Hastings for my health — calling on Miss Eellowes, daughter of the ' Eeligion 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', to meet Cobden on Saturday evening. I was sorry to miss that. Miss Parkes^ 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 1 Now Madame Belloc, who remained to the end one of George Eliot's closest friends. 1852.] Acquaintance ivith Mrs Fetcr Ta^ylor. 271 ' Times ' to - day — " To gentlemen. A converted i^etter to the Brays, 2cl medical man, of gentlemanly habits and fond of Feb. 1552. Scriptural conversation, wishes to meet with a gentleman of Calvinistic views, thirsty after truth, in want of a daily companion. A little tem- poral aid will be expected in return. Address, Verax"! We are going to Mr Ellis's, at Champion Hill, Letter to JIrs Bray, to-morrow evening. I am better now. Have rid stiiFeb. 1852 myself of all distasteful work, and am trying to love the glorious destination of humanity, look- ing 1 Sara. ing before and after. We shall be glad to have Miss Sara Hennell arrived on a visit to the Strand next day — the 9th February — and stayed till the 17th. I have not merely had a headache, — I have been Letter to Mr Bray, 16tb really ill, and feel very much shattered. We (Miss Feb. 1852. Evans and Miss Sara Hennell) dined yesterday at Mrs Peter Taylor's,^ at Sydenham. I was not fit to go, especially to make my dihut at a strange place ; 1 Mrs Peter Taylor remained a lifelong and a valued friend of George Eliot's, and many interesting letters in this volume are addressed to lier. I am glad also to take this opportunity of ex- pressing 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. 272 Buffering from Languor. [142 strand, Iietter to Mrs Bray, 20tli Feb. 1852. Letter to Mr but the countiy air was a temptation. The thick Feb. 1852. of the woik is just beginning, and I am bound in honour not to run away from it, as I have shirked all labour but what is strictly editorial this quarter. We went to the meeting of the Association for the Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge on Wed- nesday, 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 vigour. 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. Letter to I caii Sympathise with you in your troubles, Mrs Peter ^ • t Taylor, 6th haviug bceii a housekeeper myself, and known March 1852. , . . disappointment m trusted servants. Ah, well ! we have a good share of the benefits of our civilisa- 1852.] " William Tell " and tJie " Creation." 273 tion; it is but fair that we should feel some of the Letter to Mrs Peter burthen of its unperfections. Taylor, eth . . March 1852. Thank you a thousand times tor 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 MaccoU himself wrote it. I have not seen it, but had been told of its ill-nature. How- ever, 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 ! I had two offers last night — not of marriage, but Letter to Mrs Bray, of music — which I find it hnpossible to resist. Mr 25tii Marcii 1S52. Herbert Spencer proposed to take me on Thursday to hear " AVilliam 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 w^arni for me until Saturday, VOL. I. s March 1852. 274 Help in Despondency. [i42 strand, 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. Letter to I am gricvecl to find that you have to pay for lVTi*s Pptpi' Taylor, 27th that fiiic temperament of yours in attacks of neural- gia. Your silence did not surprise me, after the account you had given me of your domestic circum- stances, 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 des- tiny 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 ! my God ! shall that never be sweet ? " I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was sweet at last. 1852.] Mazzinis Speaking. 275 But I am running on about feelings when I ought Letter to Mrs Peter to tell you facts. I am going on Wednesday to my Taylor, 27tii March 1S52. friends in Warwickshire for about ten days or a fortnight. Wlieii 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 demand- ing my immediate attention, so I must end this hasty scribble. On the 3d April Miss Evans went to Kose- hill, and stayed till the 14th. On her return she writes : — There was an article on the bookselling affair in Letter to Mr Bray, 17th the ' Times ' of yesterday, which must be the knell April is52, of the Association. Dickens is to preside at a meet- ing ill this house on the subject some day next week. The opinions on the various articles in the ' Eeview ' are, as before, ridiculously various. The ' Economist ' calls the article on Quakerism " admir- ably written." Greg says the article on India is " very masterly ; " while he calls Mazzini's " sad stuff — mere verbiage." Letter to Miss Sara If there is any change in my affection for you, Henneu, 21st April it is that I love you more than ever, not less. I 1802. 276 Friendsliip for Miss Sara Hcnndl. [l42 strand, Letter to liave as perfect a friendship for you as my im- Miss Sara Henneii, perfect iiaturc can feel — a friendship in which deep 21st April 1852. respect and admiration are sweetened by a sort of flesh-and-blood sisterly feeling and the happy con- sciousness that I have your affection, however un- deservedly, 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 grati- tude. 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 depend- ent not on any accidents of manner but on long experience, which has confirmed the instinctive attraction of earlier days. 1852.] W. R. Greg and Forstcr. 277 Our fortunes here are as usual cliequerecl — Letter to the Brays, 22(1 " Twist ye, twine ye, even so April 1852. Mingle human weal and woe." Grote is very friendly, and has propitiated J. S. Mni, who will write for us when we want him. We had quite a brilliant soirie yesterday even- ing. W. E. Greg, Forster (of Eawdon), 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." For- ster, 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', 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 chan(j6 tout ccla. I went to the opera on Saturday — "I Martiri," 278 Intimacy with Hcrhert Spc7iccr. [142 stPiAND, Letter to tiie at Coveiit Garden — with my "excellent friend, Brays, 22d April 1852. Herbert Spencer," as Lewes calls him. We have agreed 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. Letter to the I like to remind you of me on Sunday morn- Brays, 2d jiayi852. iug, wliBu 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 Com- merce of Literature, and it is thus described in the following letter : — Letter to the -pi^g meeting last night went off' triumphantly. Brays, 5th ^ *" May 1852. and I salutcd Mr Chapman with " See the Con- quering 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 1852.] Cliarles Dickens as Chairman. 279 door for a short time, but soon got a chair Letter to the Brays, 5th within it, and heard and saw everytliing. Mayi852. Dickens in the chair — a position he fills re- markably well, preserving a courteous neutrality of eyebrows, and speaking with clearness and decision. His appearance is certainly disappoint- ing — 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. Bab- bage 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 si- lenced one or two vulgar, ignorant Ijooksellers who had got into the meeting by mistake. One of these began by complimenting Dickens — " views held by such worthy and important gentlemen, ivhich 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. Professor 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 280 Meeting in the Strand. [142 strand, Letter to the liis owii experience in illustration. Speaking of May 1852. tlie slow ancl small sale of scientific books of a high class, he said, in his silvery bland way, al- luding 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, tak- ing it for a hond fide compliment, cheered enthusi- astically. Dr Lankester, Prof. Newman, Eobert Bell, and others, spoke well. Owen has a tre- mendous 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 get- ting as haggard as an old witch under London atmosphere and influences. I shall be glad to have sent me my Shakspeare, Goethe, Byron, and Wordsworth, if you will be so good as to take the trouble of packing them. 1852.] Admiration of Prince Albert . 281 My days have slipt away in a most mysterious Letter to the Brays, Mon- fashion lately — chiefly, I suppose, in long walks day, 12th (?) May 1852. and long talks. Our Monday evenings are dymg off^not universally regretted — but we are expect- ing one or two people to-night. I have nothing to tell except that I went to the opera on Thurs- day, and heard " La Juive," and, moreover, fell in love with Prince Albert, who was unusually ani- mated 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. My brightest spot, next to my love of old friends, Letter to Miss Sara is the deliciously calm new friendship that Herbert Henneii, 27th May Spencer gives me. We see each other every day, 1852. and have a delightful camerctderie in everything. But for him my life would be desolate enoiiglL 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 282 Dislike of Scrcq^^corl. [i42 strand, Letter to Miss Sara Heuiiell, Wednesday, 2d June 1852. feel ffratefnl to have sucli a heart rememberinsj and lovinu' me on the other side of the Jura. They are very well and flourishing. 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 circum- stances ; hut 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 trumiJ — 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 1852.] George Comhe on the ' Westminster' 283 — the 'Edinburgh,' under Jeffrey, nothing to it, &c. ! ! ! I wish / thought so too. Your joint assurance of welcome strengthens the Letter to the Brays, 21st centripetal force that would carry me to you ; but, June is52. on the other hand, sundry considerations are in favour of the centrifugal force, which, I suppose, will carry me to Broadstairs or Eamsgate. On the whole, 1 prefer to keep my visit to you as a honne houclie, 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 tlie latest. I think the third number of the ' Eeview ' will be capital — thoroughly readable, and yet not frothy. I have assured Herbert Spencer that you will Letter to think it a sufficiently formal answer to the invita- 23d juue 1852. tion you sent him through Mr Lewes, if I tell you that he will j^refer 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, liighly-informed man, with a certain quaintness and simplicity, alto- gether very pleasing. After all, I begin to hope that our next number Letter to Miss Sara will be the best yet. Forbes is good. Froude Henneii, 25tli June ditto; and James Martineau, if I may judge from (?)is52. 284 Acquaintance with Miss B. Smith. [142 strand, Letter to a glance at a few of his pages, admirable. Lewes Miss Sara . i i • i t i -^-r i Henneii, lias writteii US ail agreeable article on Lady Novel- 25th June . _-, . . •^ • (?) 1852. ists. 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. Letter to the The opcra, Chiswick Flower Show, the French Bniys, eiid of Juneis52. play, and the Lyceum, all in one week, brought their natural consequences of headache and hys- terics — 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 ? Letter to I aiii busy packing to-day, and am going to Mr Miss Sara ti ir- -r^ ^ Heuueii, ParlvCS s to dinner. Miss Parkes has introduced Fridtiy morning, 2ii iiic to Barbara Smith, ^ whose expression I like - ' exceedingly, and hope to know more of her. I go to Broadstairs on Saturday. I am sadly in want of tlie change, and would much rather present myself to you all when I can do you more credit as a friend. 1 Afterwards Madame Bodichon — one of the three or four most inti- mate friends of George Eliot, whose name will very often appear in subsetpient pages. 1852.] Ddiijht with change to Broadstairs. 285 I warn you against Eamsgate, wliich is a strip Letter to Mrs Bniy, of London come out for an airing. Broadstairs is 4thjuiy 1852. perfect ; and I have the snuggest little lodging con- ceivable, 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, Init lodgings are plentiful in the place. I have a sitting-room about 8 feet by 9, and a bed-room 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 com- mit excesses in coffee and sugar. I am thinking whether it w^ould 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. I thought of you last night, when I was in a Letter tu Miss Sara state of mingled rapture and torture — rapture at Henneii, loth July the sight of a glorious evening sky, torture at the is52. sight and hearing of the belabouring given to the poor donkey which was drawing me from Eamsgate 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 286 Delight ivith change of Life, [broadstairs, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, lOtli Jiily 1852. Letter to Clias. Bray, 21st July 1852. expressed by her form and manner. Glad yon 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. 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 " Eest-harrow," and other pretty things ; pick- ing 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 1852.] Visit from Mrs Bray. 287 would rather not, for it is the grand wish and Letter to Chas. Bray, object of my hfe to get rid of them as far as sistJiiiy 1S52. possible, seemg they have already had more than theii' 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. Are you really the better for having been here ? Letter to Mrs Bray, Since you left, I have been contmually regretting Thm-sday, -^ ' . . 14th (?) Aug. that I could not make your visit pleasanter. I is52. was irritable and out of sorts ; but you have an apparatus for secreting happiness — that's it. Pro- vidence, 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 w^ell and "plucky" — a word which I propose to substitute for happy, as more truthful. For the last two months I have been at this Letter to Mrs Peter pretty, quiet place, which ' Da^dd Copperfield ' has Taylor, lotu Aug. 1852. made classic — far awayfrom London noise and smoke. 288 Admiration of Haiothornc. [beoadstairs, Letter to I aiii soiiy HOW that I brought with me Fox's Taylor, lotii Lectuies, 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 ' Blithe- dale Eomance,' except through the reviews, which have whetted my curiosity more than usual. Haw- thorne is a grand favourite 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. Letter to Thinking of you this morning — as I often do, Mrs Hough- ton, 22d 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 con- sider 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 sympathise with each other, that I find positive communication with Aus. 1852. 1852.] Return to London. 289 you difficult. But I am not unfaithful to old Letter to Mrs Hough- loves — they were sincere, and they are lasting, ton, 22d Aug. 1852. 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. I celebrated my return to London by the usual Letter to , , . • 1 1 T 1 ^iT-^^ Sara observance — that is to say, a violent headache, nenneii, . 1 . 1 . , p T • 29th Aug. which IS not yet gone, and or course i am m i,s52. 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. Somehow my letters — except those which come Letter to Miss Sara under the inexorable imperative must (the " ought Henneii, 2a Sept. 1S52. I manage well enough to shirk) — will not get writ- ten. 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 VOL. I. T 290 Lewes on Comte. [142 STRAND, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Sept. 1852. Letter to Mrs Bray, 11th Sept. 1852. 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 'psycliology 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. The week has really yielded nothing worth telling you. I am a few degrees more wizened and mud- dle-headed ; and the articles for the ' Eeview ' 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 patron- ising us well at present. Scarcely a day passes 1852.] Fimction of the Cerebellum. 291 that some one does not write to order the ' Eeview ' Letter to Mrs Bray, as a permanent subscriber. You may as well ex- iitu Sept. 1852. pect news from an old spider or bat as from me. I can only tell you what I think of the ' Blithedale Eomance,' 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. Lewes called on me the other day, and told me of Letter to Chas. Bray, a conversation with Professor Owen, in which the isthsept." 1852. 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. We shall make a respectable figure after all — Letter to Miss Sara nine articles, and two or three of them good, the Henneii, Saturday, rest not bad. The ' Review ' has been selling well Sept. i852. 292 Visit to Edinburgh. [EDINBURGH, Letter to lately, in spite of its being the end of the quarter. Miss Sara i t i • • Henneii, We liave made splendid provision for January — Sept. 1852. Fronde, Harriet Martineau, Theodore Parker, Samuel Brown, &c., &c. The autumnal freshness of the morninos makes me dream of mellowino- woods and gossamer threads. I am really longing for my journey. Bessie Parkes spent last evening with me chatting of experience. Letter to tiie Pity iiie — I liavc had the headache for four days Brays, 2d Oct. 1852. 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 ]\Iartiiieau. Letter to the Hcrc I am ill tliis beautiful Auld Reekie once Brays, 7th Oct. 1852, more — hardly recognising myself for the same person as the damozel who left it b}' 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 i nourish sleek optimism, convince one that this is le meilleur dcs mondcs 2Jossihlcs, and make one shud- der at the impiety of all who doubt it. Last even- 1852.] Enjoyment of Edinhurgh. 293 ing Mr Eobert Cox came to tea to be introduced Letter to the Brays, 7th to me as my cicerone through tlie lions of Edin- oct. is52. burgh. The talk last night was pleasant enough, though of course all the interlocutors Ijesides Mr Combe have little to do Ijut shape elegant modes of negation and affirmation, like the people who are talked to by Socrates in Plato's dialogues — " Certainly," " that I firmlv believe," &c. I have a beautiful ^dew from my room window — masses of wood, distant hills, the Firth, and four splendid buildings, dotted far apart — not an ugly object to be seen. "V\lien 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 jpaar Wortc, but I may have still less time to-morrow. Between the beautv of the weather and the seen- Letter to the Brays, 12th ery, and the kindness of good people, I am tipsy with oct. is52. 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, honour bright ? I enjoy talking 294 Tlic Conibcs. [edinbuegh, Letter to the to Mr Combe — he can tell me many things, espe- Brays, 12tli Oct. 1852. cially 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, w^ith 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 25tli. 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 ! Those who know the article on Wliewell to be Mill's, generally think it good, but I confess to me it is unsatisfactory. The sun docs shine here, albeit this is the 12th October. I wish you could see the view from Salisbury Crag. 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 1 did not determine to pay Letter to Miss Sara Heniiell, 12tli Oct. 1852. Letter to Miss Sara Henuell, 19th Oct. 1852. 1852.] Visit to Miss Martineau. 295 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. The coach brought me to Miss Martineau's gate Letter to at half-past six yesterday evening, and she was there Thur/dTy' with a beaming face, to welcome me. Mr Atkin- oct. 1852. son 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." We had a fine day yesterday, and went to Letter to the . Brays, 24th Borrowdale. I have not been well smce I have oct. i852. 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. 296 Return to London. [i42 strand, Letter to tlie 'Po Brays, 6th Nov. 1852. Letter to the Brays, iSaturday, Nov. (?) 1852. After a pleasant ten days' visit to Eoseliill, Miss Evans returned to London on the 3d November. get into a first-class carriage, fall asleep, and awake to find oneself 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 '). Oh this liideous 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; l)ut of what use are brains and friends when one lives in a light such as might be got in the chimney ? ' Esmond ' is the 1852.] 'EsmoiuV — Lord BroHghatii. 297 most uncomfortable book you can imagine. You Letter to . , the Brays, remember how you disliked ' rran(}ois le Cliampi. Saturday, Nov. (?) 1852. 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. " ]\Iy Lords, I believe that any disturbance of the repose of the world is very remote, hecansc it is our undcniahlc right and an unqucstionahlc duty to be prepared witli the means of defence, should such an event occur." These be thy gods, Israel ! I perceive your reading of the golden rule is Letter to the Brays, Mon- " Do as you are done bv ; " and I shall be wiser iiay, 20th Nov. 1852. than to expect a letter from you another Monday morning, when I have not earned it b}' my Satur- day's billet. The fact is, both callers and work thicken — the former sadly interfering with the latter. I will just tell y(.)u how it was last Satur- day, 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 lieap of newspaper articles, and all that J. S. Mill says on the same subject. Wlien T liad got some way into this 298 Editors Life. [l42 stkand, Letter to the mcignum mavc, in comes Mr Chapman, with a Brays, Mon- -itt-h i i day, 20th thick German volume. " Will you read enough Nov. 1852. „ , . . . . f -^ o>y n^^ of this to give me your opinion oi it f ineii 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 Disraeli, detected by the ' Morning Chronicle ' ? ^ It is worth sending for its cool impudence. Write me some news about trade, at all events. I could toler- ate even Louis Napoleon, if somehow or other he could have a favourable influence on the Coventry trade ! Letter to the Another week almost "with the years beyond Brays, -Ith a m Dec. 1852. tlic flood " ! What has it brought you? lo 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 1 Funeral oration on the Duke of Wellington. 1852.] Women to Pay Incomc-Tax. 299 invited to go to the Leigh Smiths on Monday Letter to the Brays, 4th evening to meet Mr Eobert Noel. Herbert Spencer Dec. 1352. is invited too, because Mr Noel wants especially to see him. Barbara Smith speaks of Mr E. 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 Labourers' 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 prin- ciple. I am not well — all out of sorts, — and what do Letter to the Brays, 10th you think I am minded to do ? Take a return Dec. i852. ticket, and set off by the train to-morrow 12 o'clock, have a tallv 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. 300 Mr Edward Clarkcs Death. [l42 STRAND, Letter to Chas. Br;iy, Iflth (?) Dec. 1S52. Letter to Clias. Bray, 21st Dec. 1852. Letter to the Brayti, ChristiiKis Day, '25t]i Dee. 185'2, from Jlerideii. This visit to Eosehill lasted only from the 11th to 13th December, and the following sliort note is the next communication : — 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 tliat Mr Clarke is dan- gerously ill. Poor Chrissey and her children. Thank you for your kind letter. I daresay you will have heard, before you re- ceive this, that Edward Clarke is dead. I am to go to the funeral, wliich 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. Your love and goodness are a comforting pres- ence to me everywhere, whether I am ninety or only nine miles away from you. Chrissey bears her trouble much lietter than T expected. We ho23e that an advantageous arrangement may be made about the practice ; and there is a consider- able 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 1853 ] Anxiety for Mrs Clarke. 301 tlTere are many reasons for not doing so. I am satisfied now that my duties do not lie here, though the dear creatures here will he a constant motive for work and economy. I arrived here only yesterday. I had agreed Letter to the Brays, 31st with Chrissey that, all things considered, it was Dec is52. 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. I am out of spirits about the ' Eeview.' I should Letter to the Brays, Ttli be glad to run away from it altogether. But one Jau. is53. 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 Chris- sey '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 daresay, as good people have a right to be. Tell me as much of your happi- ness as you can, that I may rejoice in your joy, having none of my own. 302 /// vnth Rheumatism. [l42 strand, Letter to tiie I begin to feel for other people's wants and 1853. ' ' sorrows a little more than I used to do. Heaven help lis ! 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. Letter to Praj do uot lay the sins of the article on the Miss Sara . t > i tx Henneii, Atomic theory to poor Lewes s cliarge. How you 1853. ' could take it for his I cannot conceive. It is as remote from his style, both of thmking and writing, as anything can be. Letter to the This wcck lias yielded nothing to me but a crop Brays, IStli . Jan. 1853. of vcry large headaches. The pam has gone from my head at last; but I am feeling very much shattered, and find it easier to cry than to do any- thing else. Letter to My compkiiit, of which I am now happily rid, Taylor, 1st was rlieumatism in the right arm — a sufficient rea- son, 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. Feb. 1853. 1853.] TV. E. Forstcr on Slavery. 303 Francis Newman is likely to come once or twice Letter to in the season — not more. He has, of course, a Tayioi^ilt multitude of engagements, and many more attrac- tive ones than a soirdc 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 manu- facturer, 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 ques- tion, and in America generally — that cradle of the future. I used resolutely to turn away from Ameri- can 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 co77imon American type of character. But I am converted to a pro- found interest in the history, the laws, the social and religious phases of North America, and long for some knowledge of them. 304 Interest in America. [142 strand, Letter to Is it iiot clieeiing' to think of the youthfuhiess of Taylor, 1st this little planet, and the immensely greater youth- fulness 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 tlvat great Western Continent, with its infant cities, its huge uncleared forests, and its unamalgamated races. I daresay you have guessed that the article on Ireland is Harriet Martineau's. Herbert Spencer did 7iot contribute to the last number. Apropos of articles, do you see the ' Prospective Eeview ' ? 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 'Paitli' 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. ' Euth,' with all its merits, will not be an enduring or classical fiction — will it ? Mrs Gaskell seems to me to be constantly misled Feb. 1S53. 1853.] Mrs GasheWs ' Ruth! 305 by a love of sharp contrasts — of " dramatic " effects. Letter to Mrs Peter She is not contented with the subdued colouring — Taylor, ist 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 humour 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.' " En- franchisement of women" only makes creepnig 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 VOL. I. u 306 ' Villettc ' — Mr Huxley. [142 STRAND, to the Brays and to Mrs Clarke at Attleboro, and on returning to London Miss Evans writes : — Letter to I am Only just returned to a sense of the real 15th Feb.' world about me, for I have been reading ' Villette,' 1S53. a still more wonderful book than 'Jane- Eyre.' There is something almost preternatural in its power. Letter to the Mrs Folleu sliowed me a delightful letter which Feb. 1S53. she has had from Mrs Stowe, telling all about her- self. 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 fasci- nating, and makes one love her. ' Villette,' ' Villette '—have you read it ? Letter to the Wc had an agreeable evening on Wednesday — Brays, 25th Feb. 1S53. 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 2StIi Marcli 1S53. 1853.] Growing intimacy with Mr Lewes. 307 work next quarter, l)ut I shall nut tell you wliat I am going to do. I have been ready to tear my hair with dis- Letter to tiie 11 1 c j_i -n Brays, lOtli appointment about the next number or the He- March isss. view.' 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. On Saturday I was correcting proofs literally Letter to from morning till nigiit ; yesterday ditto. The Henneii,' 'Eeview' 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 nunc. 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 ap- proves 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 QO there aoain to-night to meet the Smiths. Lewes was describing Currer Bell to me yesterday as a little, plain, provincial, sickly - looking ohl maid. Yet what passion, what fire in her ! Quite 308 Admiration of Helen Faucit. [142 strand, Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th April 1853. Letter to Mrs Bray, 16th April 1853. as much as in George Sand, only tlie clothing is less voluptuous. Wliat 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. We had an agreeable soir6e 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. Wlien the warm days come, and the bearskin is under the acacia, you must have me again. 6tli May. — Went to Eosehill and returned on 23d to Strand. 1853.] Sir James Clarh—Rachd. 309 On Wednesday I dined at Sir James Clark's, Letter to where the Combes are staying, and had a very nth June 1853 pleasant evening. The Combes have taken lodg- ings 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 Eachel 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 theat- rical splendour. I have not yet seen the "Vashti" of Currer Bell in Eachel, though there was some approach to it in Adrienne Lecouvreur. On Saturday we will go to Ockley, near Dorking, Letter to where are staying Miss Julia Smith, Barbara Smith, Henneu,' and Bessie Parkes. I shall write to the Ockley 1353. party to-day and tell them of the probability that they will see you. I never felt the delight of the thorough change Letter to Mrs Bray, that the coast gives one so much as now, and I 3d Aug. T ,, , . r • 1 • 1853, from shall be longing to be off with you again in st Leonards. October. I am on a delightful hill looking over the heads of the houses, and having a vast ex- panse of sea and sky for my only view. The bright weather and genial air — so different from 310 Visit to Si Leonards. [st Leonards, 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 hicn etre. Letter to It would liavc becu a satisfaction to your ben- Aug.'is53. ' evolence to see me sitting on the beach laughing at the 'Herald's' many jokes, and sympathising with your indignation against Judge Maule. It always lielps me to be happy when I know that you are so ; but 1 do not choose to vindicate myself against doubts of that, liecause 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 feel- ings 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 ! Letter to For the first time in my experience, I am posi- Miss Sara . Heniieii, tivcly revellmg m the ' Prospective. James Mar- ISthAug. . ^ 1 1 • in • 1 1853. tmeau transcends himself m beauty of imagery in the article on Sir William Hamilton, but I have not finished him yet. Yesterday it rained sans 1853.] ' ProsjHxtive Review' on Goethe. 311 intermission, and of course I said cui bono ? and Letter to' Miss Sara found my troubles almost more than I could bear ; Henneii, but to-day the sun shines, and there is blue above isss. and blue below, consequently I find life very glori- ous, and myself a particularly fortunate cliavolessa. 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 3fr Schiller and 3fr Goethe. Ajjrojws of Goethe, there is a most true, discrimmating passage about him in the article on Shakspeare in the ' Prospective.' 3fr 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 ' Prospec- tive Eeview ' of August 1853 : — " Goethe's works are too much in the nature of literary studies ; the mind is often deeply im- pressed 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 meta- morphosis. 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 liveli- 312 ' Prospective Review' on Goethe. [l42 strand, ness. . . . Aiid 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." Letter to As for me, I am in the best health and spirits. I Miss Sara Henneu, havB had a letter from Mr Combe to-day urging 19th Sept. 1853. me to go to Edinburgh, but I have made an en- gagement with Mr Chapman to do work, which will oblige me to remain in London. Mrs P. is 1853.] Change of Lodgings. 313 a very bonny, pleasant looking -woman, with a Letter to Miss Sara smart drawing-room and liberal opinions — in short, Henneii, lOth Sept. such a friend as self-interest, well understood, would is53. 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 ' Eeview ' 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. I have been busied about my lodgings all after- Letter to Miss Sara noon. I am not going to Albion Street, but to 21 Henneu, ist Oct. 1S53. 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 humour 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 Oct. 1S53. 314 '■Pidigion of the Heart.' [21 cambeidge ST., to-night and to-morrow for a person ^ who is rather more idle than mvself, so I have not a moment to spare. Letter to I am reading 'The Eehgion of the Heart' (Leigh Miss Sara Heuneii, 22d Hunt s), and am far more pleased with it than I expected to he. I have just fallen on two passages with which you will agree. " Parker ... is full of the poetry of religion ; JMartineau equally so, wdth a closer style and incessant eloquence of expression, perhaps a perilous superabundance of it as regards the claims of matter over manner ; and his assump- tions 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 recon- ciling 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 1 Correcting ' Leader ' proofs for Mr Lewes. 1853.] HcrJjcrt Spencer's " Universal Postidate." 315 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. Last night I saw the first fine specimen of a man Letter to Mr Bray, 29th in the shape of a clergyman that I ever met with — oct. isss. 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 Mar- tineau called yesterday. She is. going to her brother's at Birmingham soon. Mr Lewes was at Cambridge about a fortnidit Letter to Miss Sara ago, and found that Herbert Spencer was a great Heimeii, 3d Nov. 1S53. deal talked of there for the article on the Univer- sal 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. I think you would find some capital extracts for Letter to Mr Bray, &tli the ' Herald ' (Coventry), in the article on Church Nov. isss. Parties in the 'Edinburgh.' The 'Pecord' is at- 316 Benefit from Change. [21 Cambridge ST., Letter to tempting a reply to it, in which it talks of the Mr Bray, 5th . . , Nov. 1853. truculent infidelity of Voltmre and Eobespierre ! 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. Letter to Chrisscy has just sent me a letter, which tells Mrs Hougli- ton, 7th 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 sor- row, and in this present sad affliction my thoughts Nov. 1853. 1853.] Harriet Martineau — Comic. 317 and love are with you. I shall teaze you with no words about myself now — perhaps hy-and-Ly it will amuse you to have a longer letter. Hitherto I have been spending £9 per month — at Letter to Mr I5rav, 8th least after that rate — but I have had frequent guests. Nov. issa. 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 d desirable bit of peacemaking. I begin this year more happily than I have done Letter to „ , . „ -KT 1 • 1 • / J) ^^is^ Sara most years or my nre. JN otre vi'aie destmee, Henneii, 22d says Comte, " se compose de resignation et cVacti- (tiurty- vitd" — and I seem more disposed to both than I day). 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 liell of conscious moral and intellectual weakness. Still there is a possibility — even a probability — tlie other way. I have not seen Harriet Martineau's ' Comte ' yet, — she is going to give me a copy, — q 18 'Idea of a Future Life.' [21 Cambridge st., Letter to but Mr LewGS tells me it seems to him admirably Miss Sara ni TiiT«r/-(i Henneii, 22d Well cloiie. I told Mr Chapman yesterday that (tiih'ty- I wished to give up any connection with the fourth birth- . n i -ttt . • ; > tt • i day). editorship oi 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,' ^ for which I am to have " half profits " =%\ I hope you will appreciate this hon mot as I do — " C'est iin honime admirable — il se tait en sept langues ! " "^ Letter to I am goiug to detail all my troubles to you. In 2