Feb. 7.—A week of February already gone! I have been obliged to be very moderate in work from feebleness of head and body; but I have rewritten, with additions, the first chapter of my book.

I am wondering whether you could spare me, for a few weeks, the Tempest music, and any other vocal music of that or of a kindred species? I don't want to buy it until our singers have experimented upon it. Don't think of sending me anything that you are using at all, but if said music be lying idle, I should be grateful for the loan. We have several operas—Don Giovanni, Figaro, the Barbiere, Flauto Magico, and also the music of Macbeth; but I think that is all our stock of concerted vocal music.

Feb. 11.—We set off to Dorking. The day was lovely, and we walked through Mr. Hope's park to Betchworth. In the evening I read aloud Sybel's "Lectures on the Crusades."

Feb. 12.—The day was gray, but the air was fresh and pleasant. We walked to Wootton Park—Evelyn's Wootton—lunched at a little roadside inn there, and returned to Dorking to dine. During stay at Dorking finished the first twelve cantos of Pulci.

Feb. 13.—Returned home.

I think it is a reasonable law that the one who takes wing should be the first to write—not the bird that stays in the old cage, and may be supposed to be eating the usual seed and groundsel, and looking at the same slice of the world through the same wires.

I think the highest and best thing is rather to suffer with real suffering than to be happy in the imagination of an unreal good. I would rather know that the beings I love are in some trouble, and suffer because of it, even though I can't help them, than be fancying them happy when they are not so, and making myself comfortable on the strength of that false belief. And so I am impatient of all ignorance and concealment. I don't say "that is wise," but simply "that is my nature." I can enter into what you have felt, for serious illness, such as seems to bring death near, makes one feel the simple human brother and sisterhood so strongly that those we were apt to think almost indifferent to us before, touch the very quick of our hearts. I suppose if we happened only to hold the hand of a hospital patient when she was dying, her face, and all the memories along with it, would seem to lie deeper in our experience than all we knew of many old friends and blood relations.

We have had no troubles but the public troubles—anxiety about the war with America and sympathy with the poor Queen. My best consolation is that an example on so tremendous a scale (as the war) of the need for the education of mankind through the affections and sentiments, as a basis for true development, will have a strong influence on all thinkers, and be a check to the arid, narrow antagonism which, in some quarters, is held to be the only form of liberal thought.

George has fairly begun what we have long contemplated as a happiness for him—a History of Science, and has written so thorough an analysis and investigation of Aristotle's Natural Science that he feels it will make an epoch for the men who are interested at once in the progress of modern science and in the question how far Aristotle went both in the observation of facts and in their theoretic combination—a question never yet cleared up after all these ages. This work makes him "very jolly," but his dear face looks very pale and narrow. Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love.

God bless you—that is not a false word, however many false ideas may have been hidden under it. No—not false ideas, but temporary ones—caterpillars and chrysalids of future ideas.

Feb. 17.—I have written only the two first chapters of my novel besides the Proem, and I have an oppressive sense of the far-stretching task before me, health being feeble just now. I have lately read again with great delight Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows." It contains, amongst other admirable things, a very noble expression of what I believe to be the true relation of the religious mind to the past.

Feb. 26.—I have been very ailing all this last week, and have worked under impeding discouragement. I have a distrust in myself, in my work, in others' loving acceptance of it, which robs my otherwise happy life of all joy. I ask myself, without being able to answer, whether I have ever before felt so chilled and oppressed. I have written now about sixty pages of my romance. Will it ever be finished? Ever be worth anything?

Feb. 27.—George Smith, the publisher, brought the proof of G.'s book, "Animal Studies," and laid before him a proposition to give me £10,000 for my new novel—i.e., for its appearance in the Cornhill, and the entire copyright at home and abroad.

March 1.—The idea of my novel appearing in the Cornhill is given up, as G. Smith wishes to have it commenced in May, and I cannot consent to begin publication until I have seen nearly to the end of the work.

We had agreeable weather until yesterday, which was wet and blustering, so that we could only snatch two short walks. Pater is better, I think; and I, as usual, am impudently flourishing in country air and idleness. On Friday Mr. Bone, our landlord, drove us out in his pony carriage to see the "meet" of the stag-hounds, and on Saturday ditto to see the fox-hunters; so you perceive we have been leading rather a grand life.

March 11.—On Wednesday last, the 5th, G. and I set off to Englefield Green, where we have spent a delightful week at the Barley Mow Inn. I have finished Pulci there, and read aloud the "Château d'If."

We returned from our flight into the country yesterday, not without a sigh at parting with the pure air and the notes of the blackbirds for the usual canopy of smoke and the sound of cab-wheels. I am not going out again, and our life will have its old routine—lunch at half-past one, walk till four, dinner at five.

March 24.—After enjoying our week at Egham, I returned to protracted headache. Last Saturday we received as usual, and our party was joined by Mr. and Mrs. Noel. I have begun the fourth chapter of my novel, but have been working under a weight.

I congratulate you on being out of London, which is more like a pandemonium than usual. The fog and rain have been the more oppressive because I have seen them through Mr. Lewes's almost constant discomfort. I think he has had at least five days of sick headache since you saw him. But then he is better tempered and more cheerful with headache than most people are without it; and in that way he lightens his burden. Have you noticed in the Times Mr. Peabody's magnificent deed?—the gift of £150,000 for the amelioration (body and soul, I suppose) of the poorer classes in London. That is a pleasant association to have with an American name.

April 1.—Much headache this last week.

April 2.—Better this morning; writing with enjoyment. At the seventy-seventh page. Read Juvenal this morning and Nisard.

April 16.—As I had been ailing for a fortnight or more, we resolved to go to Dorking, and set off to-day.

May 6.—We returned from Dorking after a stay of three weeks, during which we have had delicious weather.

Our life is the old accustomed duet this month. We enjoy an interval of our double solitude. Doesn't the spring look lovelier every year to eyes that want more and more light? It was rather saddening to leave the larks and all the fresh leaves to come back to the rolling of cabs and "the blacks;" but in compensation we have all our conveniences about us.

May 23.—Since I wrote last, very important decisions have been made. I am to publish my novel of "Romola" in the Cornhill Magazine for £7000, paid in twelve monthly payments. There has been the regret of leaving Blackwood, who has written me a letter in the most perfect spirit of gentlemanliness and good-feeling.

May 27.—Mr. Helps, Mr. Burton, and Mr. T. A. Trollope dined with us.

May 31.—Finished the second part, extending to page 183.

June 30.—I have at present written only the scene between Romola and her brother in San Marco towards Part IV. This morning I had a delightful, generous letter from Mr. Anthony Trollope about "Romola."

July 6.—The past week has been unfruitful from various causes. The consequence is that I am no further on in my MS., and have lost the excellent start my early completion of the third part had given me.

July 10.—A dreadful palsy has beset me for the last few days. I have scarcely made any progress. Yet I have been very well in body. I have been reading a book often referred to by Hallam—Meiners's "Lives of Mirandula and Politian." They are excellent. They have German industry, and are succinctly and clearly written.

Imagine me—not fuming in imperfect resignation under London smoke, but—with the wide sky of the coast above me, and every comfort positive and negative around me, even to the absence of staring eyes and crinolines. Worthing was so full that it rejected us, and, to our great good-fortune, sent us here. We were pleased to hear that you had seen Mr. Spencer. We always feel him particularly welcome when he comes back to town; there is no one like him for talking to about certain things.

You will come and dine or walk with us whenever you have nothing better to do in your visit to town. I take that for granted. We lie, you know, on the way between the Exhibition and Mr. Noel's.

Sept. 23.—Returned from our stay in the country, first at the Beach Hotel, Littlehampton, and for the last three days at Dorking.

Sept. 26.—At page 62, Part VI. Yesterday a letter came from Mr. T. A. Trollope, full of encouragement for me. Ebenezer.

Oct. 2.—At page 85. Scene between Tito and Romola.

Welcome to your letter, and welcome to the hope of seeing you again! I have an engagement on Monday from lunch till dinner. Apart from that, I know of nothing that will take us farther than for our daily walk, which, you know, begins at two. But we will alter the order of any day for the sake of seeing you. Mr. Lewes's absence of a fortnight at Spa was a great success. He has been quite brilliant ever since. Ten days ago we returned from a stay of three weeks in the country—chiefly at Littlehampton, and we are both very well. Everything is prosperous with us; and we are so far from griefs that if we had a wonderful emerald ring we should perhaps be wise to throw it away as a propitiation of the envious gods.

So much in immediate reply to your kind anxiety. Everything else when we meet.

Oct. 31.—Finished Part VII., having determined to end at the point where Romola has left Florence.

Nov. 14.—Finished reading "Boccaccio" through for the second time.

Nov. 17.—Read the "Orfeo and Stanze" of Poliziano. The latter are wonderfully fine for a youth of sixteen. They contain a description of a Palace of Venus, which seems the suggestion of Tennyson's Palace of Art in many points.

I wish I knew that this birthday has found you happier than any that went before. There are so many things—best things—that only come when youth is past that it may well happen to many of us to find ourselves happier and happier to the last. We have been to a Monday Pop. this week to hear Beethoven's Septett, and an amazing thing of Bach's, played by the amazing Joachim. But there is too much "Pop." for the thorough enjoyment of the chamber music they give. You will be interested to know that there is a new muster of scientific and philosophic men lately established, for the sake of bringing people who care to know and speak the truth, as well as they can, into regular communication. Mr. Lewes was at the first meeting at Clunn's Hotel on Friday last. The plan is to meet and dine moderately and cheaply, and no one is to be admitted who is not "thorough" in the sense of being free from the suspicion of temporizing and professing opinions on official grounds. The plan was started at Cambridge. Mr. Huxley is president and Charles Kingsley is vice. If they are sufficiently rigid about admissions, the club may come to good—bringing together men who think variously, but have more hearty feelings in common than they give each other credit for. Mr. Robert Chambers (who lives in London now) is very warm about the matter. Mr. Spencer, too, is a member.

Pray don't ever ask me again not to rob a man of his religious belief, as if you thought my mind tended to such robbery. I have too profound a conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative propagandism in me. In fact I have very little sympathy with Freethinkers as a class, and have lost all interest in mere antagonism to religious doctrines. I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now. That speech of Carlyle's,[35] which sounds so odious, must, I think, have been provoked by something in the manner of the statement to which it came as an answer—else it would hurt me very much that he should have uttered it.

You left a handkerchief at our house. I will take care of it till next summer. I look forward with some longing to that time when I shall have lightened my soul of one chief thing I wanted to do, and be freer to think and feel about other people's work. We shall see you oftener, I hope, and have a great deal more talk than ever we have had before to make amends for our stinted enjoyment of you this summer.

God bless you, dear Barbara. You are very precious to us.

Nov. 30 (Sunday).—Finished Part VIII. Mr. Burton came.

Dec. 16.—In the evening Browning paid us a visit for the first time.

Dec. 17.—At page 22 only. I am extremely spiritless, dead, and hopeless about my writing. The long state of headache has left me in depression and incapacity. The constantly heavy-clouded and often wet weather tend to increase the depression. I am inwardly irritable, and unvisited by good thoughts. Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola. After this record I read aloud what I had written of Part IX. to George, and he, to my surprise, entirely approved of it.

Dec. 24.—Mrs. F. Malleson brought me a beautiful plant as a Christmas offering. In the evening we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's Theatre.

I am very sensitive to words and looks and all signs of sympathy, so you may be sure that your kind wishes are not lost upon me.

As you will have your house full, the wish for a "Merry Christmas" may be literally fulfilled for you. We shall be quieter, with none but our family trio, but that is always a happy one. We are going to usher in the day by hearing the Messiah to-night at Her Majesty's.

Evening will be a pleasanter time for a little genial talk than "calling hours;" and if you will come to us without ceremony, you will hardly run the risk of not finding us. We go nowhere except to concerts.

We are longing to run away from London, but I dare say we shall not do so before March. Winter is probably yet to come, and one would not like to be caught by frost and snow away from one's own hearth.

Always believe, without my saying it, that it gladdens me to know when anything I do has value for you.

It is very sweet to me to have any proof of loving remembrance. That would have made the book-marker precious even if it had been ugly. But it is perfectly beautiful—in color, words, and symbols. Hitherto I have been discontented with the Coventry book-marks; for at the shop where we habitually see them they have all got—"Let the people praise Thee, O God," on them, and nothing else. But I can think of no motto better than those three words. I suppose no wisdom the world will ever find out will make Paul's words obsolete—"Now abide, etc., but the greatest of these is Charity." Our Christmas, too, has been quiet. Mr. Lewes, who talks much less about goodness than I do, but is always readier to do the right thing, thinks it rather wicked for us to eat our turkey and plum-pudding without asking some forlorn person to eat it with us. But I'm afraid we were glad, after all, to find ourselves alone with "the boy." On Christmas-eve a sweet woman, remembering me as you have done, left a beautiful plant at the door, and after that we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's. We felt a considerable minus from the absence of the organ, contrary to advertisement: nevertheless it was good to be there. What pitiable people those are who feel no poetry in Christianity! Surely the acme of poetry hitherto is the conception of the suffering Messiah and the final triumph, "He shall reign for ever and for ever." The Prometheus is a very imperfect fore-shadowing of that symbol wrought out in the long history of the Jewish and Christian ages.

Mr. Lewes and I have both been in miserable health during all this month. I have had a fortnight's incessant malaise and feebleness; but as I had had many months of tolerable health, it was my turn to be uncomfortable. If my book-marker were just a little longer, I should keep it in my beautiful Bible in large print, which Mr. Lewes bought for me in prevision for my old age. He is not fond of reading the Bible himself, but "sees no harm" in my reading it.

I am not quite sure what you mean by "charity" when you call it humbug. If you mean that attitude of mind which says "I forgive my fellow-men for not being as good as I am," I agree with you in hoping that it will vanish, as also the circumstantial form of alms-giving. But if you are alluding to anything in my letter, I meant what charity meant in the elder English, and what the translators of the Bible meant in their rendering of the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians—Caritas, the highest love or fellowship, which I am happy to believe that no philosophy will expel from the world.

Dec. 31 (Last day of the kind old year).—Clear and pleasantly mild. Yesterday a pleasant message from Mr. Hannay about "Romola." We have had many blessings this year. Opportunities which have enabled us to acquire an abundant independence; the satisfactory progress of our two eldest boys; various grounds of happiness in our work; and ever-growing happiness in each other. I hope with trembling that the coming year may be as comforting a retrospect—with trembling because my work is not yet done. Besides the finishing of "Romola," we have to think of Thornie's passing his final examination, and, in case of success, his going out to India; of Bertie's leaving Hofwyl, and of our finding a new residence. I have had more than my average amount of comfortable health until this last month, in which I have been constantly ailing, and my work has suffered proportionately.

The letter with the one word in it, like a whisper of sympathy, lay on my plate when I went down to lunch this morning. The generous movement that made you send it has gladdened me all day. I have had a great deal of pretty encouragement from immense big-wigs—some of them saying "Romola" is the finest book they ever read; but the opinion of big-wigs has one sort of value, and the fellow-feeling of a long known friend has another. One can't do quite well without both. En revanche, I am a feeble wretch, with eyes that threaten to get bloodshot on the slightest provocation. We made a rush to Dorking for a day or two, and the quiet and fresh air seemed to make a new creature of me; but when we get back to town, town sensations return.

That scheme of a sort of Philosophical Club that I told you of went to pieces before it was finished, like a house of cards. So it will be to the end, I fancy, with all attempts at combinations that are not based either on material interests or on opinions that are not merely opinions but religion. Doubtless you have been interested in the Colenso correspondence, and perhaps in Miss Cobbe's rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe's remonstrating answer to the women of England. I was glad to see how free the answer was from all tartness or conceit. Miss Cobbe's introduction to the new edition of Theodore Parker is also very honorable to her—a little too metaphorical here and there, but with real thought and good feeling.

It is a comfort to hear of you again, and to know that there is no serious trouble to mar the spring weather for you. I must carry that thought as my consolation for not seeing you on Tuesday—not quite a sufficient consolation, for my eyes desire you very much after these long months of almost total separation. The reason I cannot have that pleasure on Tuesday is that, according to a long arranged plan, I am going on Monday to Dorking again for a fortnight. I should be still more vexed to miss you if I were in better condition, but at present I am rather like a shell-less lobster, and inclined to creep out of sight. I shall write to you, or try to see you, as soon as I can after my return. I wish you could have told me of a more decided return to ordinary health in Mr. Congreve, but I am inclined to hope that the lecturing may rather benefit than injure him, by being a moral tonic. How much there is for us to talk about! But only to look at dear faces that one has seen so little of for a long while seems reason enough for wanting to meet. Mr. Lewes is better than usual just now, and you must not suppose that there is anything worse the matter with me than you have been used to seeing in me. Please give my highest regards to Mr. Congreve, and love to Emily, who, I hope, has quite got back the roses which had somewhat paled. My pen straggles as if it had a stronger will than I.

Glad you enjoyed "Esmond." It is a fine book. Since you have been interested in the historical suggestions, I recommend you to read Thackeray's "Lectures on the English Humorists," which are all about the men of the same period. There is a more exaggerated estimate of Swift and Addison than is implied in "Esmond;" and the excessive laudation of men who are considerably below the tip-top of human nature, both in their lives and genius, rather vitiates the Lectures, which are otherwise admirable, and are delightful reading.

The wind is high and cold, making the sunshine seem hard and unsympathetic.

May 6.—We have just returned from Dorking, whither I went a fortnight ago to have solitude while George took his journey to Hofwyl to see Bertie. The weather was severely cold for several days of my stay, and I was often ailing. That has been the way with me for a month and more, and in consequence I am backward with my July number of "Romola"—the last part but one.

I remember my wife telling me, at Witley, how cruelly she had suffered at Dorking from working under a leaden weight at this time. The writing of "Romola" ploughed into her more than any of her other books. She told me she could put her finger on it as marking a well-defined transition in her life. In her own words, "I began it a young woman—I finished it an old woman."

Yes! we shall be in town in June. Your coming would be reason good enough, but we have others—chiefly, that we are up to the ears in boydom and imperious parental duties. All is as happy and prosperous with us as heart can lawfully desire, except my health. I have been a mere wretch for several months past. You will come to me like the morning sunlight, and make me a little less of a flaccid cabbage-plant.

It is a very pretty life you are leading at Hastings, with your painting all morning, and fair mothers and children to look at the rest of the day.

I am terribly frightened about Mrs. ——. She wrote to me, telling me that we were sure to suit each other, neither of us holding the opinions of the Moutons de Panurge. Nothing could have been more decisive of the opposite prospect to me. If there is one attitude more odious to me than any other of the many attitudes of "knowingness," it is that air of lofty superiority to the vulgar. However, she will soon find out that I am a very commonplace woman.

May 16.—Finished Part XIII. Killed Tito in great excitement.

May 18.—Began Part XIV.—the last! Yesterday George saw Count Arrivabene, who wishes to translate "Romola," and says the Italians are indebted to me.

Health seems, to those who want it, enough to make daylight a gladness. But the explanation of evils is never consoling except to the explainer. We are just as we were, thinking about the questionable house (The Priory), and wondering what would be the right thing to do; hardly liking to lock up any money in land and bricks, and yet frightened lest we should not get a quiet place just when we want it. But I dare say we shall have it after all.

June 6.—We had a little evening party with music, intended to celebrate the completion of "Romola," which, however, is not absolutely completed, for I have still to alter the epilogue.

June 9.—Put the last stroke to "Romola." Ebenezer! Went in the evening to hear La Gazza Ladra.

The manuscript of "Romola" bears the following inscription:

"To the Husband whose perfect love has been the best source of her insight and strength, this manuscript is given by his devoted wife, the writer."

How impossible it is for strong, healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true—the religion that is strength to the healthy—is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

June 16.—George and I set off to-day to the Isle of Wight, where we had a delightful holiday. On Friday, the 19th, we settled for a week at Niton, which, I think, is the prettiest place in all the island. On the following Friday we went on to Freshwater, and failed, from threatening rain, in an attempt to walk to Alum Bay, so that we rather repented of our choice. The consolation was that we shall know better than to go to Freshwater another time. On the Saturday morning we drove to Ryde, and remained there until Monday the 29th.

Your letter was a welcome addition to our sunshine this Sabbath morning. For in this particular we seem to have been more fortunate than you, having had almost constant sunshine since we arrived at Sandown, on Tuesday evening.

This place is perfect, reminding me of Jersey, in its combination of luxuriant greenth with the delights of a sandy beach. At the end of our week, if the weather is warmer, we shall go on to Freshwater for our remaining few days. But the wind at present is a little colder than one desires it, when the object is to get rid of a cough, and unless it gets milder we shall go back to Shanklin. I am enjoying the hedge-row grasses and flowers with something like a released prisoner's feeling—it is so long since I had a bit of real English country.

I am very happy in my holiday, finding quite a fresh charm in the hedge-row grasses and flowers after my long banishment from them. We have a flower-garden just round us, and then a sheltered grassy walk, on which the sun shines through the best part of the day; and then a wide meadow, and beyond that trees and the sea. Moreover, our landlady has cows, and we get the quintessence of cream—excellent bread and butter also, and a young lady, with a large crinoline, to wait upon us—all for 25s. per week; or, rather, we get the apartment in which we enjoy those primitive and modern blessings for that moderate sum.

July 4.—Went to see Ristori in Adrienne Lecouvreur and did not like it. I have had hemicrania for several days, and have been almost idle since my return home.

Constant languor from the new heat has made me shirk all exertion not imperative. And just now there are not only those excitements of the season, which even we quiet people get our share of, but there is an additional boy to be cared for—Thornie, who is this week passing his momentous examination.

A pretty thing has happened to an acquaintance of mine, which is quite a tonic to one's hope. She has all her life been working hard in various ways, as house-keeper, governess, and several et ceteras that I can't think of at this moment—a dear little dot, about four feet eleven in height; pleasant to look at, and clever; a working-woman, without any of those epicene queernesses that belong to the class. Her life has been a history of family troubles, and she has that susceptible nature which makes such troubles hard to bear. More than once she has told me that courage quite forsook her. She felt as if there were no good in living and striving; it was difficult to discern or believe in any results for others, and there seemed none worth having for herself. Well! a man of fortune and accomplishments has just fallen in love with her, now she is thirty-three. It is the prettiest story of a swift decided passion, and made me cry for joy. Madame Bodichon and I went with her to buy her wedding-clothes. The future husband is also thirty-three—old enough to make his selection an honor. Fond of travelling and science and other good things, such as a man deserves to be fond of who chooses a poor woman in the teeth of grand relatives: brought up a Unitarian, just turned Catholic. If you will only imagine everything I have not said, you will think this a very charming fairy tale.

We are going this evening to see the French actress in Juliet (Stella Colas), who is astonishing the town. Last week we saw Ristori, the other night heard the Faust, and next week we are going to hear the Elisir d'Amore and Faust again! So you see we are trying to get some compensation for the necessity of living among bricks in this sweet summer time. I can bear the opera better than any other evening entertainment, because the house is airy and the stalls are comfortable. The opera is a great, great product—pity we can't always have fine Weltgeschichtliche dramatic motives wedded with fine music, instead of trivialities or hideousnesses. Perhaps this last is too strong a word for anything except the Traviata. Rigoletto is unpleasant, but it is a superlatively fine tragedy in the Nemesis. I think I don't know a finer.

We are really going to buy the Priory after all. You would think it very pretty if you saw it now, with the roses blooming about it.

July 12.—I am now in the middle of G.'s "Aristotle," which gives me great delight.

July 23.—Reading Mommsen and Story's "Roba di Roma;" also Liddell's "Rome," for a narrative to accompany Mommsen's analysis.

July 29.—In the evening we went to Covent Garden to hear Faust for the third time. On our return we found a letter from Frederick Maurice—the greatest, most generous tribute ever given to me in my life.[36]

I have wanted for several days to make some feeble sign in writing that I think of your trouble. But one claim after another has arisen as a hinderance. Conceive us, please, with three boys at home, all bigger than their father! It is a congestion of youthfulness on our mature brains that disturbs the course of our lives a little, and makes us think of most things as good to be deferred till the boys are settled again. I tell you so much to make you understand that "omission" is not with me equivalent to "neglect," and that I do care for what happens to you.

Renan is a favorite with me. I feel more kinship with his mind than with that of any other living French author. But I think I shall not do more than look through the Introduction to his "Vie de Jésus"—unless I happen to be more fascinated by the constructive part than I expect to be from the specimens I have seen. For minds acquainted with the European culture of this last half-century, Renan's book can furnish no new result; and they are likely to set little store by the too facile construction of a life from materials of which the biographical significance becomes more dubious as they are more closely examined. It seems to me the soul of Christianity lies not at all in the facts of an individual life, but in the ideas of which that life was the meeting-point and the new starting-point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ either in its historical influence or its great symbolic meanings. Still, such books as Renan's have their value in helping the popular imagination to feel that the sacred past is, of one woof with that human present, which ought to be sacred too.

You mention Renan in your note, and the mention has sent me off into rather gratuitous remarks, you perceive. But such scrappy talk about great subjects may have a better excuse than usual, if it just serves to divert your mind from the sad things that must be importuning you now.

After reading your article on "Romola," with careful reference to the questions you put to me in your letter, I can answer sincerely that I find nothing fanciful in your interpretation. On the contrary, I am confirmed in the satisfaction I felt, when I first listened to the article, at finding that certain chief elements of my intention have impressed themselves so strongly on your mind, notwithstanding the imperfect degree in which I have been able to give form to my ideas. Of course, if I had been called on to expound my own book, there are other things that I should want to say, or things that I should say somewhat otherwise; but I can point to nothing in your exposition of which my consciousness tells me that it is erroneous, in the sense of saying something which I neither thought nor felt. You have seized with a fulness which I had hardly hoped that my book could suggest, what it was my effort to express in the presentation of Bardo and Baldasarre; and also the relation of the Florentine political life to the development of Tito's nature. Perhaps even a judge so discerning as yourself could not infer from the imperfect result how strict a self-control and selection were exercised in the presentation of details. I believe there is scarcely a phrase, an incident, an allusion, that did not gather its value to me from its supposed subservience to my main artistic objects. But it is likely enough that my mental constitution would always render the issue of my labor something excessive—wanting due proportion. It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given, are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in "Silas Marner," or the "Dodson" life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie. But you have correctly pointed out the reason why my tendency to excess in this effort after artistic vision makes the impression of a fault in "Romola" much more perceptibly than in my previous books. And I am not surprised at your dissatisfaction with Romola herself. I can well believe that the many difficulties belonging to the treatment of such a character have not been overcome, and that I have failed to bring out my conception with adequate fulness. I am sorry she has attracted you so little; for the great problem of her life, which essentially coincides with a chief problem in Savonarola's, is one that readers need helping to understand. But with regard to that and to my whole book, my predominant feeling is—not that I have achieved anything, but—that great, great facts have struggled to find a voice through me, and have only been able to speak brokenly. That consciousness makes me cherish the more any proof that my work has been seen to have some true significance by minds prepared not simply by instruction, but by that religious and moral sympathy with the historical life of man which is the larger half of culture.

Aug. 10.—Went to Worthing. A sweet letter from Mrs. Hare, wife of Julius Hare, and Maurice's sister.

Aug. 18.—Returned home much invigorated by the week of change, but my spirits seem to droop as usual now I am in London again.

I was at Worthing when your letter came, spending all my daylight hours out-of-doors, and trying with all my might to get health and cheerfulness. I will tell you the true reason why I did not go to Hastings. I thought you would be all the better for not having that solicitation of your kindness that the fact of my presence there might have caused. What you needed was precisely to get away from people to whom you would inevitably want to be doing something friendly, instead of giving yourself up to passive enjoyment. Else, of course, I should have liked everything you write about and invite me to.

We only got home last night, and I suppose we shall hardly be able to leave town again till after the two younger boys have left us, and after we have moved into the new house.

Since I saw you I have had some sweet woman's tenderness shown me by Mrs. Hare, the widow of Archdeacon Hare, and the sister of Frederick Maurice.

I know how you are enjoying the country. I have just been having the joy myself. The wide sky, the not London, makes a new creature of me in half an hour. I wonder, then, why I am ever depressed—why I am so shaken by agitations. I come back to London, and again the air is full of demons.

I think I get a little freshness from the breeze that blows on you—a little lifting of heart from your wide sky and Welsh mountains. And the edge of autumn on the morning air makes even London a place in which one can believe in beauty and delight. Delicate scent of dried rose-leaves and the coming on of the autumnal airs are two things that make me feel happy before I know why.

The Priory is all scaffolding and paint; and we are still in a nightmare of uncertainty about our boys. But then I have by my side a dear companion, who is a perpetual fountain of courage and cheerfulness, and of considerate tenderness for my lack of those virtues. And besides that I have Roman history! Perhaps that sounds like a bitter joke to you, who are looking at the sea and sky and not thinking of Roman history at all. But this too, read aright, has its gospel and revelation. I read it much as I used to read a chapter in the Acts or Epistles. Mommsen's "History of Rome" is so fine that I count all minds graceless who read it without the deepest stirrings.

I cannot be quite easy without sending this little sign of love and good wishes on the eve of your journey. I shall think of you with all the more delight, because I shall imagine you winding along the Riviera and then settling in sight of beautiful things not quite unknown to me. I hope your life will be enriched very much by these coming months; but above all, I hope that Mr. Congreve will come back strong. Tell him I have been greatly moved by the "Discours Préliminaire."[37]