Your letter is an agreeable tonic, very much needed, for that wretched hinderance of a cold last week has trailed after it a series of headaches worse than itself. An additional impression, like Mr. Langford's, of the two volumes is really valuable, as a sign that I have not so far failed in relation to a variety of readers. But you know that in one sense I count nothing done as long as anything remains to do; and it always seems to me that the worst difficulty is still to come. In the sanest, soberest judgment, however, I think the third volume (which I have not yet finished) would be regarded as the difficult bridge. I will not send you any more MS. until I can send the whole of vol. iii.
We think that Mr. Simpson has conducted our Australian business admirably. Remembering that but for his judgment and consequent activity we might have got no publication at all in that quarter, we may well be content with £200.
Mr. Lewes has not got the Life of Heine, and will be much pleased and obliged by your gift.
Major Lockhart's lively letter gives one a longing for the fresh, breezy life and fine scenery it conjures up. You must let me know when there is a book of his, because when I have done my own I shall like to read something else by him. I got much pleasure out of the two books I did read. But when I am writing, or only thinking of writing, fiction of my own, I cannot risk the reading of other English fiction. I was obliged to tell Anthony Trollope so when he sent me the first part of his "Prime Minister," though this must seem sadly ungracious to those who don't share my susceptibilities.
Apparently there are wild reports about the subject-matter of "Deronda"—among the rest, that it represents French life! But that is hardly more ridiculous than the supposition that after refusing to go to America, I should undertake to describe society there! It is wonderful how "Middlemarch" keeps afloat in people's minds. Somebody told me that Mr. Henry Sidgwick said it was a bold thing to write another book after "Middlemarch," and we must prepare ourselves for the incalculableness of the public reception in the first instance. I think I have heard you say that the chief result of your ample experience has been to convince you of that incalculableness.
What a blow for Miss Thackeray—the death of that sister to whom she was so closely bound in affection.
Dec. 25.—After our return from Wales in October I grew better and wrote with some success. For the last three weeks, however, I have been suffering from a cold and its effects so as to be unable to make any progress. Meanwhile the two first volumes of "Daniel Deronda" are in print, and the first book is to be published on February 1st. I have thought very poorly of it myself throughout, but George and the Blackwoods are full of satisfaction in it. Each part as I see it before me im werden seems less likely to be anything else than a failure; but I see on looking back this morning—Christmas Day—that I really was in worse health and suffered equal depression about "Romola;" and, so far as I have recorded, the same thing seems to be true of "Middlemarch."
I have finished the fifth book, but am not far on in the sixth, as I hoped to have been; the oppression under which I have been laboring having positively suspended my power of writing anything that I could feel satisfaction in.
SUMMARY.
JANUARY, 1873, TO DECEMBER, 1875.
Reception of "Middlemarch"—Letter to John Blackwood—Mr. Anthony Trollope—Dutch translation of George Eliot's novels—Letter to Mrs. Cross—Evening drives at Weybridge—Letter to John Blackwood—German reprint of "Spanish Gypsy"—"The Lifted Veil"—"Kenelm Chillingly"—Letter to Mrs. William Smith on her Memoir of her husband—Pleasure in young life—Letter to John Blackwood—Want of a Conservative leader—Letter to Mr. Burne-Jones—The function of art—Purpose in art—"Iphigenia in Aulis"—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Welcoming her home—Letter to Mrs. William Smith on women at Cambridge—Visit to Mr. Frederic Myers at Cambridge—Meets Mr. Henry Sidgwick, Mr. Jebb, Mr. Edmund Gurney, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. Lyttelton, and Mrs. and Miss Huth—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Death of Miss Rebecca Franklin—Visit to the Master of Balliol—Meets Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roundell—Professor Green—Max Müller—Thomson, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge—Nine-weeks' trip to the Continent—Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Homburg—Fontainebleau, Plombières, and Luxeuil—Two months' stay at Bickley—Letter to Mrs. Cross on journey abroad and Blackbrook—Letter to John Blackwood—New edition of "Middlemarch"—A real Lowick in a Midland county—Cheap editions—Letter to Mrs. Cross on the pleasures of the country and on Mr. Henry Sidgwick—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—House in the country—Letter to J. W. Cross on conformity—Letter to John Blackwood—Interruptions of town life—Simmering towards another book—Berlin reading "Middlemarch"—Ashantee war—Letter to Madame Bodichon—The George Howards—John Stuart Mill's Autobiography—Letter to Mrs. Cross on Christmas invitation—Dr. Andrew Clark—Letter to Mrs. Bray on stupidity of readers—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Retrospect of 1873—Sales of "Middlemarch" and "Spanish Gypsy"—Letter to Mrs. William Smith—"Plain living and high thinking"—Letter to John Blackwood—Conservative reaction—Cheaper edition of novels—Lord Lytton's "Fables"—Dickens's Life and biography in general—Letter to John Blackwood—Volume of poems—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Motives for children—Letter to Miss Hennell—Francis Newman—George Dawson—"The Legend of Jubal and other Poems" published—"Symposium" written—Letter to Miss Mary Cross thanking her for a vase—Letter to Mrs. Cross—Delight in country—Letter to John Blackwood—Threatened restoration of the empire in France—"Brewing" "Deronda"—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on Mrs. Nassau Senior's report—Letter to Mrs. William Smith on consolations in loss—Letter to Madame Bodichon—No disposition to melancholy—Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones—The serious view of life—Letter to John Blackwood—Justifications for writing—Dean Liddell—Letter to Mrs. Stowe—Goethe's mysticism—Letter to Miss Hennell—Visit to Six-Mile Bottom—Paris and the Ardennes—Bank of England and Woolwich Arsenal—Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby—The idea of God an exaltation of human goodness—Vision of others' needs—Ground of moral action—Need of altruism—The power of the will—Difficulties of thought—Sales of books—Retrospect of 1874—Letter to Francis Otter on his engagement—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Note-writing—Home for girls—Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby—Value of early religious experience—Limitations of scientists—Letter to John Blackwood—Kinglake's "Crimea"—Discipline of war—"Rasselas"—Miss Thackeray—Anthony Trollope—Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby—Desire to know the difficulties of others—Companion in the struggle of thought—Mr. Spencer's teaching—The value of poets—Emotion blending with thought—Letter to Mrs. William Smith—Her memoir—Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones—The world of light and speech—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Rickmansworth—Letter to F. Harrison asking for consultation—Letter to J. W. Cross—"The Elms"—Depression—Letter to Mrs. Ponsonby—The Brewing interest—Conciliation of necessitarianism with will—Innate ideas—Death of Herbert Lewes—Trip to Wales—Letter to John Blackwood—Not satisfied with "Deronda"—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Mode of publication of books—Letter to John Blackwood—Gwendolen—Letter to Miss Hennell—Miss Lewis—Letter to John Blackwood—Impressions of "Deronda"—Major Lockhart—Depression about "Deronda."
We have just come in from Weybridge, but are going to take refuge there again on Monday for a few days more of fresh air and long, breezy afternoon walks. Many thanks for your thoughtfulness in sending me the cheering account of sales.
Mr. Lewes has not heard any complaints of not understanding Gwendolen, but a strong partisanship for and against her. My correspondence about the misquotation of Tennyson has quieted itself since the fifth letter. But one gentleman has written me a very pretty note, taxing me with having wanted insight into the technicalities of Newmarket, when I made Lush say, "I will take odds." He judges that I should have written, "I will lay odds." On the other hand, another expert contends that the case is one in which Lush would be more likely to say, "I will take odds." What do you think? I told my correspondent that I had a dread of being righteously pelted with mistakes that would make a cairn above me—a monument and a warning to people who write novels without being omniscient and infallible.
Mr. Lewes is agitating himself over a fifth reading of revise, Book VI., and says he finds it more interesting than on any former reading. It is agreeable to have a home criticism of this kind! But I am deep in the fourth volume, and cannot any longer care about what is past and done for—the passion of the moment is as much as I can live in.
We had beautiful skies with our cold, and only now and then a snow shower. It is grievous to read of the suffering elsewhere from floods.
I am well pleased that "Deronda" touches you. I wanted you to prefer the chapter about Mirah's finding, and I hope you will also like her history in Part III., which has just been published.
We want very much to get away, but I fear we shall hardly be able to start till the end of May. At present we think of the Maritime Alps as a destination for the warm summer—if we have such a season this year; but we shall wander a little on our way thither, and not feel bound to accomplish anything in particular. Meanwhile we are hearing some nice music occasionally, and we are going to see Tennyson's play, which is to be given on the 15th. The occasion will be very interesting, and I should be very sorry to miss it.
We have been getting a little refreshment from two flights between Sundays to Weybridge. But we have had the good a little drained from us by going out to dinner two days in succession. At Sir James Paget's I was much interested to find that a gentle-looking, clear-eyed, neatly-made man was Sir Garnet Wolseley; and I had some talk with him, which quite confirmed the impression of him as one of those men who have a power of command by dint of their sweet temper, calm demeanor, and unswerving resolution. The next subject that has filled our chat lately has been the Blue Book on Vivisection, which you would like to look into. There is a great deal of matter for reflection in the evidence on the subject, and some good points have been lately put in print, and conversation that I should like to tell you of if I had time. Professor Clifford told us the other Sunday that Huxley complained of his sufferings from "the profligate lying of virtuous women."
April 12.—On February 1st began the publication of "Deronda," and the interest of the public, strong from the first, appears to have increased with Book III. The day before yesterday I sent off Book VII. The success of the work at present is greater than that of "Middlemarch" up to the corresponding point of publication. What will be the feeling of the public as the story advances I am entirely doubtful. The Jewish element seems to me likely to satisfy nobody. I am in rather better health—having, perhaps, profited by some eight days' change at Weybridge.
Your sympathetic letter is a welcome support to me in the rather depressed condition which has come upon me from the effect, I imagine, of a chill taken in the sudden change from mildness to renewed winter. You can understand how trying it is to have a week of incompetence at the present stage of affairs. I am rather concerned to see that the part is nearly a sheet smaller than any of the other parts. But Books V. and VI. are proportionately thick. It seemed inadmissible to add anything after the scene with Gwendolen; and to stick anything in not necessary to development between the foregoing chapters is a form of "matter in the wrong place" particularly repulsive to my authorship's sensibility.
People tell us that the book is enormously discussed, and I must share with you rather a neat coincidence which pleased us last week. Perhaps you saw what Mr. Lewes told me of—namely, that [a critic] opined that the scenes between Lush and Grandcourt were not vraisemblable—were of the imperious feminine, not the masculine, character. Just afterwards Mr. Lewes was chatting with a friend who, without having read the [criticism] or having the subject in the least led up to by Mr. Lewes, said that he had been at Lady Waldegraves', where the subject of discussion had been "Deronda;" and Bernal Osborne, delivering himself on the book, said that the very best parts were the scenes between Grandcourt and Lush. Don't you think that Bernal Osborne has seen more of the Grandcourt and Lush life than that critic has seen? But several men of experience have put their fingers on those scenes as having surprising verisimilitude; and I naturally was peculiarly anxious about such testimony, where my construction was founded on a less direct knowledge.
We are rather vexed, now it is too late, that I did not carry out a sort of incipient intention to expunge a motto from Walt Whitman which I inserted in Book IV. Of course the whole is irrevocable by this time; but I should have otherwise thought it worth while to have a new page, not because the motto itself is objectionable to me—it was one of the finer things which had clung to me from among his writings—but because, since I quote so few poets, my selection of a motto from Walt Whitman might be taken as a sign of a special admiration, which I am very far from feeling. How imperfectly one's mind acts in proof-reading! Mr. Lewes had taken up Book IV. yesterday to re-read it for his pleasure merely; and though he had read it several times before, he never till yesterday made a remark against taking a motto from Walt Whitman. I, again, had continually had an appetency towards removing the motto, and had never carried it out—perhaps from that sort of flaccidity which comes over me about what has been done, when I am occupied with what is being done.
People in their eagerness about my characters are quite angry, it appears, when their own expectations are not fulfilled—angry, for example, that Gwendolen accepts Grandcourt, etc., etc.
One reader is sure that Mirah is going to die very soon, and, I suppose, will be disgusted at her remaining alive. Such are the reproaches to which I make myself liable. However, that you seem to share Mr. Lewes's strong feeling of Book VII. being no falling off in intensity makes me brave. Only endings are inevitably the least satisfactory part of any work in which there is any merit of development.
I forgot to say that the "tephillin" are the small leather bands or phylacteries, inscribed with supremely sacred words, which the Jew binds on his arms and head during prayer.
Any periphrasis which would be generally intelligible would be undramatic; and I don't much like explanatory foot-notes in a poem or story. But I must consider what I can do to remedy the unintelligibility.
The printers have sadly spoiled the beautiful Greek name Kalonymos, which was the name of a celebrated family of scholarly Jews, transplanted from Italy into Germany in mediæval times. But my writing was in fault.
Your letter was one of the best cordials I could have. Is there anything that cheers and strengthens more than the sense of another's worth and tenderness? And it was that sense that your letter stirred in me, not only by the words of fellowship and encouragement you give directly to me, but by all you tell me of your own feeling under your late painful experience. I had felt it long since I had heard of your and the Professor's well being; but I need not say one word to you of the reasons why I am not active towards my distant friends except in thought. I do think of them, and have a tenacious memory of every little sign they have given me. Please offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am ruthlessly proud that I kept him out of his bed. I hope that both you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children. My cares for them are nearly at an end, and in a few weeks we expect to set out on a Continental journey, as the sort of relaxation which carries one most thoroughly away from studies and social claims. You rightly divine that I am a little overdone, but my fatigue is due not to any excess of work so much as to the vicissitudes of our long winter, which have affected me severely as they have done all delicate people. It is true that some nervous wear, such as you know well, from the excitement of writing, may have made me more susceptible to knife-like winds and sudden chills.
Though you tenderly forbade me to write in answer to your letter, I like to do it in these minutes when I happen to be free, lest hinderances should come in the indefinite future. I am the happier for thinking that you will have had this little bit of a letter to assure you that the sweet rain of your affection did not fall on a sandy place.
I make a delightful picture of your life in your orange-grove—taken care of by dear daughters. Climate enters into my life with an influence the reverse of what I like to think of in yours. Sunlight and sweet air make a new creature of me. But we cannot bear now to exile ourselves from our own country, which holds the roots of our moral and social life. One fears to become selfish and emotionally withered by living abroad, and giving up the numerous connections with fellow countrymen and women whom one can further a little towards both public and private good.
I wonder whether you ever suffered much from false writing (about your biography and motives) in the newspapers. I dare say that pro-slavery prints did not spare you. But I should be glad to think that there was less impudent romancing about you as a citoyenne of the States than there appears to be about me as a stranger. But it is difficult for us English, who have not spent any time in the United States, to know the rank that is given to the various newspapers; and we may make the mistake of giving emphasis to some American journalism which is with you as unknown to respectable minds as any low-class newspaper with us.
When we come back from our journeying, I shall be interesting myself in the MS. and proofs of my husband's third volume of his Problems, which will then go to press, and shall plunge myself into the mysteries of our nervous tissue as the Professor has been doing into the mysteries of the Middle Ages. I have a cousinship with him in that taste—but how to find space in one's life for all the subjects that solicit one? My studies have lately kept me away from the track of my husband's researches, and I feel behindhand in my wifely sympathies. You know the pleasure of such interchange—husband and wife each keeping to their own work, but loving to have cognizance of the other's course.
God bless you, dear friend. Beg the Professor to accept my affectionate respect, and believe me always yours with love.
June 3.—Book V. published a week ago. Growing interest in the public, and growing sale, which has from the beginning exceeded that of "Middlemarch;" the Jewish part apparently creating strong interest.
The useful "companion," which your loving care has had marked with my initials, will go with me, and be a constant sign of the giver's precious affection, which you have expressed in words such as I most value.
Even success needs its consolations. Wide effects are rarely other than superficial, and would breed a miserable scepticism about one's work if it were not now and then for an earnest assurance such as you give me that there are lives in which the work has done something "to strengthen the good and mitigate the evil."
I am pursued to the last with some bodily trouble—this week it has been sore throat. But I am emerging, and you may think of me next week as raising my "Ebenezer."
Love and blessings to you all.
The manuscript of "Daniel Deronda" bears the following inscription:
"To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes.
June 10.—We set off on our journey, intending to go to San Martino Lantosc in the Maritime Alps. But I was ill at Aix, where the heat had become oppressive, and we turned northwards after making a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes—stayed a few days at Lausanne, then at Vevey, where again I was ill; then by Berne and Zurich to Ragatz, where we were both set up sufficiently to enjoy our life. After Ragatz to Heidelberg, the Klönthal, Schaffhausen, St. Blasien in the Black Forest, and then home by Strasburg, Nancy, and Amiens, arriving September 1.
After much travelling we seem to have reached the right place for our health and comfort, and as we hope to stay here for at least a fortnight, I have begun to entertain selfish thoughts about you and the possibility of having news from you. Our month's absence seems long to us—filled with various scenes and various ailments—but to you, I dare say, the request for a letter to tell us what has happened will seem to have come before there is anything particular to tell.
On our arriving at Aix the effect of railway travelling and heat on me warned us to renounce our project of going to the Maritime Alps and to turn northward; so after resting at Aix we went to Chambéry, just to make a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes, and then set our faces northward, staying at beautiful Lausanne and Vevey for a week, and then coming on by easy stages to this nook in the mountains. In spite of illness we have had much enjoyment of the lovely scenery we have been dwelling in ever since we entered Savoy, where one gets what I most delight in—the combination of rich, well-cultivated land, friendly to man, and the grand outline and atmospheric effect of mountains near and distant.
This place seems to be one of the quietest baths possible. Such fashion as there is, is of a German, unimposing kind; and the King of Saxony, who is at the twin hotel with this, is, I imagine, a much quieter kind of eminence than a London stock-broker. At present the company seems to be almost exclusively Swiss and German, but all the appliances for living and carrying on the "cure" are thoroughly generous and agreeable. We rose at five this morning, drank our glasses of warm water, and walked till a quarter to seven, then breakfasted; and from half-past eight to eleven walked to Bad Pfeffers and back again, along a magnificent ravine where the Tamine boils down beneath a tremendous wall of rock, and where it is interesting to see the electric telegraph leaping from the summit, crossing the gulf, and then quietly running by the roadside till it leaps upward again to the opposite summit.
You may consider us as generally ill-informed, and as ready to make much of a little news as any old provincial folk in the days when the stage-coach brought a single London paper to the village Crown or Red Lion. We have known that Servia has declared war against Turkey, and that Harriet Martineau is dead as well as George Sand.
Our weather has been uniformly splendid since we left Paris, with the exception of some storms, which have conveniently laid the dust.
We reached home only last night, and had scarcely taken our much-needed dinner before a parcel was brought in which proved to be "Daniel Deronda" in the four bound volumes, and various letters with other "missiles"—as an acquaintance of mine once quite naively called his own favors to his correspondents—which have at present only gone to swell a heap that I mean to make acquaintance with very slowly. Mr. Lewes, however, is more eager than I, and he has just brought up to me a letter which has certainly gratified me more than anything else of the sort I ever received. It is from Dr. Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi here, expressing his "warm appreciation of the fidelity with which some of the best traits of the Jewish character have been depicted by" etc., etc. I think this will gratify you.
We are both the better for our journey, and I consider myself in as good case as I can ever reasonably expect. We can't be made young again, and must not be surprised that infirmities recur in spite of mineral waters and air 3000 feet above the sea-level. After Ragatz, we stayed at Stachelberg and Klönthal—two lovely places, where an English face is seldom seen. Another delicious spot, where the air is fit for the gods of Epicurus, is St. Blasien, in the Schwarzwald, where also we saw no English or American visitors, except such as übernachten there and pass on. We have done exploits in walking, usually taking four or five hours of it daily.
I hope that you and yours have kept well and have enjoyed the heat rather than suffered from it. I confess myself glad to think that this planet has not become hopelessly chilly. Draughts and chills are my enemies, and but for them I should hardly ever be ailing.
The four volumes look very handsome on the outside. Please thank Mr. William Blackwood for many kind notes he wrote me in the days of MS. and proofs—not one of which I ever answered or took notice of except for my own behoof.
We got home again last Friday, much strengthened by our journey, notwithstanding vicissitudes. I suppose you will not be in town for ages to come, but I let you know that I am here in case you have anything to say to me by letter—about "objects."
After leaving Ragatz we still kept in eastern Switzerland, in high valleys unvisited by the English; and in our homeward line of travel we paused in the Schwarzwald at St. Blasien, which is a Luft-kur, all green hills and pines, with their tops as still as if it were the abode of the gods.
But imagine how we enjoy being at home again in our own chairs, with the familiar faces giving us smiles which are not expecting change in franc pieces!
We are both pretty well, but of course not cured of all infirmities. Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years. Still we are thoroughly lively and "spry."
I hope that the hot summer has passed agreeably for you and not been unfavorable to your health or comfort. Of course a little news of you will be welcome, even if you don't particularly want to say anything to me.
My blessing on you for your sweet letter, which I count among the blessings given to me. Yes. Women can do much for the other women (and men) to come. My impression of the good there is in all unselfish efforts is continually strengthened. Doubtless many a ship is drowned on expeditions of discovery or rescue, and precious freights lie buried. But there was the good of manning and furnishing the ship with a great purpose before it set out.
We are going into Cambridgeshire this week, and are watching the weather with private views.[28]
I have had some very interesting letters both from Jews and from Christians about "Deronda." Part of the scene at the club is translated into Hebrew in a German-Jewish newspaper. On the other hand, a Christian (highly accomplished) thanks me for embodying the principles by which Christ wrought and will conquer. This is better than the laudation of readers who cut the book up into scraps, and talk of nothing in it but Gwendolen. I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else there.
I quite enter into Miss Jekyll's view of negative beauty. Life tends to accumulate "messes" about one, and it is hard to rid one's self of them because of the associations attached. I get impatient sometimes, and long, as Andrew Fairservice would say, to "kaim off the fleas," as one does in a cathedral spoiled by monuments out of keeping with the pillars and walls.
I had felt it long before you let me have some news of you. How could you repeat deliberately that bad dream of your having made yourself "objectionable?" I will answer for it that you were never objectionable to any creature except perhaps to your own self—a too modest and shrinking self. I trusted in your understanding last spring that I was glad to hear from my friends without having to make the effort of answering, when answering was not demanded for practical purposes. My health was not good, and I was absorbed as to my working power, though not as to my interest and sympathy.
You have been in my mind of late, not only on your own account but in affectionate association with our dear Mrs. Ruck, whose acquaintance I owe to you.
On my return from abroad I found among my heap of letters a delightful one from her, written, I think, at the end of June, as bright and cheering as the hills under the summer sky. And only a day or two after we saw that sad news in the Times. I think of her beautiful, open face, with the marks of grief upon it. Why did you write me such a brief letter, telling me nothing about your own life? I am a poor correspondent, and have to answer many letters from people less interesting to me than you are. Will you not indulge me by writing more to me than you expect me to write to you? That would be generous. We both came back the better for our three months' journeying, though I was so ill after we had got to the south that we thought of returning, and went northward in that expectation. But Ragatz set me up, so far as I expect to be set up, and we greatly enjoyed our fresh glimpses of Swiss scenery.
Mr. Lewes is now printing his third volume of "Problems of Life and Mind," and is, as usual, very happy over his work. He shares my interest in everything that relates to you; and be assured—will you not?—that such interest will always be warm in us. I shall not, while I live, cease to be yours affectionately.
Oct. 20.—Looking into accounts apropos of an offer from Blackwood for another ten years of copyright, I find that before last Christmas there had been distributed 24,577 copies of "Middlemarch."
"Evermore thanks" for your last letter, full of generous sympathy that can afford to be frank. The lovely photograph of the grandson will be carefully preserved. It has the sort of beauty which seems to be peculiarly abundant in America, at once rounded and delicate in form.
I do hope you will be able to carry out your wish to visit your son at Bonn, notwithstanding that heavy crown of years that your dear Rabbi has to carry. If the sea voyage could be borne without much disturbance, the land journey might be made easy by taking it in short stages—the plan we always pursue in travelling. You see I have an interested motive in wishing you to come to Europe again, since I can't go to America. But I enter thoroughly into the disinclination to move when there are studies that make each day too short. If we were neighbors, I should be in danger of getting troublesome to the revered Orientalist, with all kinds of questions.
As to the Jewish element in "Deronda," I expected from first to last, in writing it, that it would create much stronger resistance, and even repulsion, than it has actually met with. But precisely because I felt that the usual attitude of Christians towards Jews is—I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid when viewed in the light of their professed principles, I therefore felt urged to treat Jews with such sympathy and understanding as my nature and knowledge could attain to. Moreover, not only towards the Jews, but towards all Oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national disgrace to us. There is nothing I should care more to do, if it were possible, than to rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs. But towards the Hebrews we western people, who have been reared in Christianity, have a peculiar debt, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, a peculiar thoroughness of fellowship in religious and moral sentiment. Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called "educated" making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? They hardly know that Christ was a Jew. And I find men, educated, supposing that Christ spoke Greek. To my feeling, this deadness to the history which has prepared half our world for us, this inability to find interest in any form of life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounces as our own, lies very close to the worst kind of irreligion. The best that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity—which is still the average mark of our culture.
Yes, I expected more aversion than I have found. But I was happily independent in material things, and felt no temptation to accommodate my writing to any standard except that of trying to do my best in what seemed to me most needful to be done, and I sum up with the writer of the Book of Maccabees—"If I have done well and as befits the subject, it is what I desired; and if I have done ill, it is what I could attain unto."
You are in the middle of a more glorious autumn than ours, but we, too, are having now and then a little sunshine on the changing woods. I hope that I am right in putting the address from which you wrote to me on the 25th September, so that my note may not linger away from you, and leave you to imagine me indifferent or negligent.
Please offer my reverent regard to Mr. Stowe.
We spent three months in East Switzerland, and are the better for it.
Any one who knows from experience what bodily infirmity is—how it spoils life even for those who have no other trouble—gets a little impatient of healthy complainants, strong enough for extra work and ignorant of indigestion. I at least should be inclined to scold the discontented young people who tell me in one breath that they never have anything the matter with them, and that life is not worth having, if I did not remember my own young discontent. It is remarkable to me that I have entirely lost my personal melancholy. I often, of course, have melancholy thoughts about the destinies of my fellow creatures, but I am never in that mood of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant even in the midst of external happiness; and this, notwithstanding a very vivid sense that life is declining and death close at hand. We are waiting with some expectation for Miss Martineau's Autobiography, which, I fancy, will be charming so far as her younger and less renowned life extends. All biography diminishes in interest when the subject has won celebrity—or some reputation that hardly comes up to celebrity. But autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called "Memoirs." It would be nice if we could be a trio—I mean you, Cara, and I—chatting together for an hour as we used to do when I had walked over the hill to see you. But that pleasure belongs to "the days that are no more." Will you believe that an accomplished man some years ago said to me that he saw no place for the exercise of resignation when there was no personal divine will contemplated as ordaining sorrow or privation? He is not yet aware that he is getting old and needing that unembittered compliance of soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough meaning for the word "resignation."
Dec. 1.—Since we came home at the beginning of September I have been made aware of much repugnance or else indifference towards the Jewish part of "Deronda," and of some hostile as well as adverse reviewing. On the other hand, there have been the strongest expressions of interest, some persons adhering to the opinion, started during the early numbers, that the book is my best. Delightful letters have here and there been sent to me; and the sale both in America and in England has been an unmistakable guarantee that the public has been touched. Words of gratitude have come from Jews and Jewesses, and these are certain signs that I may have contributed my mite to a good result. The sale hitherto has exceeded that of "Middlemarch," as to the £2 2s. four-volume form, but we do not expect an equal success for the guinea edition which has lately been issued.
Dec. 11.—We have just bought a house in Surrey, and think of it as making a serious change in our life—namely, that we shall finally settle there and give up town.
This was a charming house—The Heights, Witley, near Godalming. It stands on a gentle hill overlooking a lovely bit of characteristic English scenery. In the foreground green fields, prettily timbered, undulate up to the high ground of Haslemere in front, with Blackdown (where Tennyson lives) on the left hand, and Hind Head on the right—"Heights that laugh with corn in August, or lift the plough-team against the sky in September." Below, the white steam-pennon flies along in the hollow. The walks and drives in the neighborhood are enchanting. A land of pine-woods and copses, village greens and heather-covered hills, with the most delicious old red or gray brick, timbered cottages nestling among creeping roses; the sober-colored tiles of their roofs, covered with lichen, offering a perpetual harmony to the eye. The only want in the landscape is the want of flowing water. About the house there are some eight or nine acres of pleasure ground and gardens. It quite fulfilled all expectations, as regards beauty and convenience of situation, though I am not quite sure that it was bracing enough for health.
Dec. 15.—At the beginning of this week I had deep satisfaction from reading in the Times the report of a lecture on "Daniel Deronda," delivered by Dr. Hermann Adler to the Jewish working-men—a lecture showing much insight and implying an expectation of serious benefit. Since then I have had a delightful letter from the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, written by an American Jew named Isaacs, who excuses himself for expressing his feeling of gratitude on reading "Deronda," and assures me of his belief that it has even already had an elevating effect on the minds of some among his people—predicting that the effect will spread.
I have also had a request from Signor Bartolommeo Aquarone, of Siena, for leave to translate "Romola," and declaring that as one who has given special study to the history of San Marco, and has written a life of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, he cares that "Romola" should be known to his countrymen, for their good. Magnificat anima mea! And last night I had a letter from Dr. Benisch, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, announcing a copy of the paper containing an article written by himself on reading "Deronda" (there have long ago been two articles in the same journal reviewing the book), and using strong words as to the effect the book is producing. I record these signs, that I may look back on them if they come to be confirmed.
Dec. 31.—We have spent the Christmas with our friends at Weybridge, but the greater part of the time I was not well enough to enjoy greatly the pleasures their affection prepared for us.
Farewell 1876.
The Heights, Witley,
From a Sketch by Mrs. Allingham.
Jan. 1.—The year opens with public anxieties. First, about the threatening war in the East; and next, about the calamities consequent on the continued rains. As to our private life, all is happiness, perfect love, and undiminished intellectual interest. G.'s third volume is about half-way in print.
I don't know that I ever heard anybody use the word "meliorist" except myself. But I begin to think that there is no good invention or discovery that has not been made by more than one person.
The only good reason for referring to the "source" would be that you found it useful for the doctrine of meliorism to cite one unfashionable confessor of it in the face of the fashionable extremes.
What are we to do about "Romola?" It ought to range with the cheap edition of my books—which, exceptis excipiendis, is a beautiful edition—as well as with any handsomer series which the world's affairs may encourage us to publish. The only difficulty lies in the illustrations required for uniformity. The illustrations in the other volumes are, as Mr. Lewes says, not queerer than those which amuse us in Scott and Miss Austin, with one exception—namely, that where Adam is making love to Dinah, which really enrages me with its unctuousness. I would gladly pay something to be rid of it. The next worst is that of Adam in the wood with Arthur Donnithorne. The rest are endurable to a mind well accustomed to resignation. And the vignettes on the title-pages are charming. But if an illustrator is wanted, I know one whose work is exquisite—Mrs. Allingham.
This is not a moment for new ventures, but it will take some time to prepare "Romola." I should like to see proofs, feeling bound to take care of my text; and I have lately been glancing into a book on Italian things, where almost every citation I alighted on was incorrectly printed. I have just read through the cheap edition of "Romola," and though I have only made a few alterations of an unimportant kind—the printing being unusually correct—it would be well for me to send this copy to be printed from. I think it must be nearly ten years since I read the book before, but there is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I could swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood, such as it is, and with the most ardent care for veracity of which my nature is capable. It has made me often sob with a sort of painful joy as I have read the sentences which had faded from my memory. This helps one to bear false representations with patience; for I really don't love any gentleman who undertakes to state my opinions well enough to desire that I should find myself all wrong in order to justify his statement.
I wish, whenever it is expedient, to add "The Lifted Veil" and "Brother Jacob," and so fatten the volume containing "Silas Marner," which would thus become about 100 pages thicker.