George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 3 (of 3)

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.

Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 14th Oct. 1876.

I had felt it long before you let me have some news of you. How could you repeat deliberately that bad dream of your having made yourself "objectionable?" I will answer for it that you were never objectionable to any creature except perhaps to your own self – a too modest and shrinking self. I trusted in your understanding last spring that I was glad to hear from my friends without having to make the effort of answering, when answering was not demanded for practical purposes. My health was not good, and I was absorbed as to my working power, though not as to my interest and sympathy.

You have been in my mind of late, not only on your own account but in affectionate association with our dear Mrs. Ruck, whose acquaintance I owe to you.

On my return from abroad I found among my heap of letters a delightful one from her, written, I think, at the end of June, as bright and cheering as the hills under the summer sky. And only a day or two after we saw that sad news in the Times. I think of her beautiful, open face, with the marks of grief upon it. Why did you write me such a brief letter, telling me nothing about your own life? I am a poor correspondent, and have to answer many letters from people less interesting to me than you are. Will you not indulge me by writing more to me than you expect me to write to you? That would be generous. We both came back the better for our three months' journeying, though I was so ill after we had got to the south that we thought of returning, and went northward in that expectation. But Ragatz set me up, so far as I expect to be set up, and we greatly enjoyed our fresh glimpses of Swiss scenery.

Mr. Lewes is now printing his third volume of "Problems of Life and Mind," and is, as usual, very happy over his work. He shares my interest in everything that relates to you; and be assured – will you not? – that such interest will always be warm in us. I shall not, while I live, cease to be yours affectionately.

Journal, 1876.

Oct. 20.– Looking into accounts apropos of an offer from Blackwood for another ten years of copyright, I find that before last Christmas there had been distributed 24,577 copies of "Middlemarch."

Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe,²⁹ 29th Oct. 1876.

"Evermore thanks" for your last letter, full of generous sympathy that can afford to be frank. The lovely photograph of the grandson will be carefully preserved. It has the sort of beauty which seems to be peculiarly abundant in America, at once rounded and delicate in form.

I do hope you will be able to carry out your wish to visit your son at Bonn, notwithstanding that heavy crown of years that your dear Rabbi has to carry. If the sea voyage could be borne without much disturbance, the land journey might be made easy by taking it in short stages – the plan we always pursue in travelling. You see I have an interested motive in wishing you to come to Europe again, since I can't go to America. But I enter thoroughly into the disinclination to move when there are studies that make each day too short. If we were neighbors, I should be in danger of getting troublesome to the revered Orientalist, with all kinds of questions.

As to the Jewish element in "Deronda," I expected from first to last, in writing it, that it would create much stronger resistance, and even repulsion, than it has actually met with. But precisely because I felt that the usual attitude of Christians towards Jews is – I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid when viewed in the light of their professed principles, I therefore felt urged to treat Jews with such sympathy and understanding as my nature and knowledge could attain to. Moreover, not only towards the Jews, but towards all Oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national disgrace to us. There is nothing I should care more to do, if it were possible, than to rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs. But towards the Hebrews we western people, who have been reared in Christianity, have a peculiar debt, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, a peculiar thoroughness of fellowship in religious and moral sentiment. Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called "educated" making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? They hardly know that Christ was a Jew. And I find men, educated, supposing that Christ spoke Greek. To my feeling, this deadness to the history which has prepared half our world for us, this inability to find interest in any form of life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounces as our own, lies very close to the worst kind of irreligion. The best that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness – in plain English, the stupidity – which is still the average mark of our culture.

Yes, I expected more aversion than I have found. But I was happily independent in material things, and felt no temptation to accommodate my writing to any standard except that of trying to do my best in what seemed to me most needful to be done, and I sum up with the writer of the Book of Maccabees – "If I have done well and as befits the subject, it is what I desired; and if I have done ill, it is what I could attain unto."

You are in the middle of a more glorious autumn than ours, but we, too, are having now and then a little sunshine on the changing woods. I hope that I am right in putting the address from which you wrote to me on the 25th September, so that my note may not linger away from you, and leave you to imagine me indifferent or negligent.

Please offer my reverent regard to Mr. Stowe.

We spent three months in East Switzerland, and are the better for it.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1876.

Any one who knows from experience what bodily infirmity is – how it spoils life even for those who have no other trouble – gets a little impatient of healthy complainants, strong enough for extra work and ignorant of indigestion. I at least should be inclined to scold the discontented young people who tell me in one breath that they never have anything the matter with them, and that life is not worth having, if I did not remember my own young discontent. It is remarkable to me that I have entirely lost my personal melancholy. I often, of course, have melancholy thoughts about the destinies of my fellow creatures, but I am never in that mood of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant even in the midst of external happiness; and this, notwithstanding a very vivid sense that life is declining and death close at hand. We are waiting with some expectation for Miss Martineau's Autobiography, which, I fancy, will be charming so far as her younger and less renowned life extends. All biography diminishes in interest when the subject has won celebrity – or some reputation that hardly comes up to celebrity. But autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called "Memoirs." It would be nice if we could be a trio – I mean you, Cara, and I – chatting together for an hour as we used to do when I had walked over the hill to see you. But that pleasure belongs to "the days that are no more." Will you believe that an accomplished man some years ago said to me that he saw no place for the exercise of resignation when there was no personal divine will contemplated as ordaining sorrow or privation? He is not yet aware that he is getting old and needing that unembittered compliance of soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough meaning for the word "resignation."

Journal, 1876.

Dec. 1.– Since we came home at the beginning of September I have been made aware of much repugnance or else indifference towards the Jewish part of "Deronda," and of some hostile as well as adverse reviewing. On the other hand, there have been the strongest expressions of interest, some persons adhering to the opinion, started during the early numbers, that the book is my best. Delightful letters have here and there been sent to me; and the sale both in America and in England has been an unmistakable guarantee that the public has been touched. Words of gratitude have come from Jews and Jewesses, and these are certain signs that I may have contributed my mite to a good result. The sale hitherto has exceeded that of "Middlemarch," as to the £2 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.

Journal, 1876.

Dec. 15.– At the beginning of this week I had deep satisfaction from reading in the Times the report of a lecture on "Daniel Deronda," delivered by Dr. Hermann Adler to the Jewish working-men – a lecture showing much insight and implying an expectation of serious benefit. Since then I have had a delightful letter from the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, written by an American Jew named Isaacs, who excuses himself for expressing his feeling of gratitude on reading "Deronda," and assures me of his belief that it has even already had an elevating effect on the minds of some among his people – predicting that the effect will spread.

I have also had a request from Signor Bartolommeo Aquarone, of Siena, for leave to translate "Romola," and declaring that as one who has given special study to the history of San Marco, and has written a life of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, he cares that "Romola" should be known to his countrymen, for their good. Magnificat anima mea! And last night I had a letter from Dr. Benisch, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, announcing a copy of the paper containing an article written by himself on reading "Deronda" (there have long ago been two articles in the same journal reviewing the book), and using strong words as to the effect the book is producing. I record these signs, that I may look back on them if they come to be confirmed.

Dec. 31.– We have spent the Christmas with our friends at Weybridge, but the greater part of the time I was not well enough to enjoy greatly the pleasures their affection prepared for us.

Farewell 1876.

Journal, 1877.

Jan. 1.– The year opens with public anxieties. First, about the threatening war in the East; and next, about the calamities consequent on the continued rains. As to our private life, all is happiness, perfect love, and undiminished intellectual interest. G.'s third volume is about half-way in print.

Letter to James Sully, 19th Jan. 1877.

I don't know that I ever heard anybody use the word "meliorist" except myself. But I begin to think that there is no good invention or discovery that has not been made by more than one person.

The only good reason for referring to the "source" would be that you found it useful for the doctrine of meliorism to cite one unfashionable confessor of it in the face of the fashionable extremes.

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Jan. 1877.

What are we to do about "Romola?" It ought to range with the cheap edition of my books – which, exceptis excipiendis, is a beautiful edition – as well as with any handsomer series which the world's affairs may encourage us to publish. The only difficulty lies in the illustrations required for uniformity. The illustrations in the other volumes are, as Mr. Lewes says, not queerer than those which amuse us in Scott and Miss Austin, with one exception – namely, that where Adam is making love to Dinah, which really enrages me with its unctuousness. I would gladly pay something to be rid of it. The next worst is that of Adam in the wood with Arthur Donnithorne. The rest are endurable to a mind well accustomed to resignation. And the vignettes on the title-pages are charming. But if an illustrator is wanted, I know one whose work is exquisite – Mrs. Allingham.

This is not a moment for new ventures, but it will take some time to prepare "Romola." I should like to see proofs, feeling bound to take care of my text; and I have lately been glancing into a book on Italian things, where almost every citation I alighted on was incorrectly printed. I have just read through the cheap edition of "Romola," and though I have only made a few alterations of an unimportant kind – the printing being unusually correct – it would be well for me to send this copy to be printed from. I think it must be nearly ten years since I read the book before, but there is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I could swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood, such as it is, and with the most ardent care for veracity of which my nature is capable. It has made me often sob with a sort of painful joy as I have read the sentences which had faded from my memory. This helps one to bear false representations with patience; for I really don't love any gentleman who undertakes to state my opinions well enough to desire that I should find myself all wrong in order to justify his statement.

I wish, whenever it is expedient, to add "The Lifted Veil" and "Brother Jacob," and so fatten the volume containing "Silas Marner," which would thus become about 100 pages thicker.

Letter to William Allingham, 8th March, 1877.

Mr. Lewes feels himself innocent of dialect in general, and of Midland dialect in especial. Hence I presume to take your reference on the subject as if it had been addressed to me. I was born and bred in Warwickshire, and heard the Leicestershire, North Staffordshire, and Derbyshire dialects during visits made in my childhood and youth. These last are represented (mildly) in "Adam Bede." The Warwickshire talk is broader, and has characteristics which it shares with other Mercian districts. Moreover, dialect, like other living things, tends to become mongrel, especially in a central, fertile, and manufacturing region, attractive of migration; and hence the Midland talk presents less interesting relics of elder grammar than the more northerly dialects.

Perhaps, unless a poet has a dialect ringing in his ears, so as to shape his metre and rhymes according to it at one jet, it is better to be content with a few suggestive touches; and, I fear, that the stupid public is not half grateful for studies in dialect beyond such suggestions.

I have made a few notes, which may perhaps be not unacceptable to you in the absence of more accomplished aid:

1. The vowel always a double sound, the y sometimes present, sometimes not; either aäl or yaäl. Hither not heard except in c'moother, addressed to horses.

2. Thou never heard. In general, the 2d person singular not used in Warwickshire except occasionally to young members of a family, and then always in the form of thee—i. e., 'ee. For the emphatic nominative, yo, like the Lancashire. For the accusative, yer, without any sound of the r. The demonstrative those never heard among the common people (unless when caught by infection from the parson, etc.). Self pronounced sen. The f never heard in of, nor the n in in.

3. Not year but 'ear. On the other hand, with the usual "compensation," head is pronounced yead.

4. "A gallows little chap as e'er ye see."

5. Here's to you, maäster.

Saäm to yo.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 20th March, 1877.

You must read Harriet Martineau's "Autobiography." The account of her childhood and early youth is most pathetic and interesting; but as in all books of the kind, the charm departs as the life advances, and the writer has to tell of her own triumphs. One regrets continually that she felt it necessary not only to tell of her intercourse with many more or less distinguished persons – which would have been quite pleasant to everybody – but also to pronounce upon their entire merits and demerits, especially when, if she had died as soon as she expected, these persons would nearly all have been living to read her gratuitous rudenesses. Still I hope the book will do more good than harm. Many of the most interesting little stories in it about herself and others she had told me (and Mr. Atkinson) when I was staying with her, almost in the very same words. But they were all the better for being told in her silvery voice. She was a charming talker, and a perfect lady in her manners as a hostess.

We are only going to bivouac in our Surrey home for a few months, to try what alterations are necessary. We shall come back to this corner in the autumn. We don't think of giving up London altogether at present, but we may have to give up life before we come to any decision on that minor point.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th May, 1877.

Pray bring Madame Mario to see us again. But bear in mind that on Sunday the 27th – which probably will be our last Sunday in London – Holmes the violinist is coming to play, with Mrs. Vernon Lushington to accompany him. Don't mention to any one else that they are coming, lest the audience should be larger than he wishes.

We are working a little too hard at "pleasure" just now. This morning we are going for the third time to a Wagner rehearsal at 10 o'clock.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th May, 1877.

I have not read, and do not mean to read, Mrs. Chapman's volume, so that I can judge of it only by report. You seem to me to make a very good case for removing the weight of blame from her shoulders and transferring it to the already burdened back of Harriet Martineau. But I confess that the more I think of the book and all connected with it, the more it deepens my repugnance – or, rather, creates a new repugnance in me – to autobiography, unless it can be so written as to involve neither self-glorification nor impeachment of others. I like that the "He, being dead, yet speaketh," should have quite another meaning than that. But however the blame may be distributed, it remains a grievously pitiable thing to me that man, or woman, who has cared about a future life in the minds of a coming generation or generations, should have deliberately, persistently mingled with that prospect the ignoble desire to perpetuate personal animosities, which can never be rightly judged by those immediately engaged in them. And Harriet Martineau, according to the witness of those well acquainted with facts which she represents in her Autobiography, was quite remarkably apt to have a false view of her relations with others. In some cases she gives a ridiculously inaccurate account of the tenor or bearing of correspondence held with her. One would not for a moment want to dwell on the weakness of a character on the whole valuable and beneficent, if it were not made needful by the ready harshness with which she has inflicted pain on others.

No; I did not agree with you about the Byron case. I understand by the teaching of my own egoism – and therefore I can sympathize with – any act of self-vindicating or vindictive rage under the immediate infliction of what is felt to be a wrong or injustice. But I have no sympathy with self-vindication, or the becoming a proxy in vindication, deliberately bought at such a price as that of vitiating revelations – which may even possibly be false. To write a letter in a rage is very pardonable – even a letter full of gall and bitterness, meant as a sort of poisoned dagger. We poor mortals can hardly escape these sins of passion. But I have no pity to spare for the rancor that corrects its proofs and revises, and lays it by chuckling with the sense of its future publicity.

Letter to Professor Dr. David Kaufmann, 31st May, 1877.

Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction – I may say, a more heartfelt joy – than you have given me in your estimate of "Daniel Deronda."

I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.

Certainly if I had been asked to choose what should be written about my books, and who should write it, I should have sketched – well, not anything so good as what you have written, but an article which must be written by a Jew who showed not merely a sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind.

Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions.

Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is," but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative narrow perception of what one has been intending and profoundly feeling in one's work, impresses one with the sense that it must be poor perishable stuff, without roots to take any lasting hold in the minds of men; while any instance of complete comprehension encourages one to hope that the creative prompting has foreshadowed and will continue to satisfy a need in other minds.

Excuse me that I write but imperfectly, and perhaps dimly, what I have felt in reading your article. It has affected me deeply, and though the prejudice and ignorant obtuseness which has met my effort to contribute something towards the ennobling of Judaism in the conceptions of the Christian community, and in the consciousness of the Jewish community, has never for a moment made me repent my choice, but rather has been added proof that the effort was needed – yet I confess that I had an unsatisfied hunger for certain signs of sympathetic discernment which you only have given.

I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish elements and those of English social life.

I write under the pressure of small hurries; for we are just moving into the country for the summer, and all things are in a vagrant condition around me. But I wished not to defer answering your letter to an uncertain opportunity.

Letter to Frederic Harrison, 14th June, 1877.

I am greatly indebted to you for your letter. It has done something towards rousing me from what I will not call self-despair but resignation to being of no use.

I wonder whether you at all imagine the terrible pressure of disbelief in my own {duty⁄right} to speak to the public, which is apt with me to make all beginnings of work like a rowing against tide. Not that I am without more than my fair ounce of self-conceit and confidence that I know better than the critics, whom I don't take the trouble to read, but who seem to fill the air as with the smoke of bad tobacco.

But I will not dwell on my antithetic experiences. I only mention them to show why your letter has done me a service, and also to help in the explanation of my mental attitude towards your requests or suggestions.

I do not quite understand whether you have in your mind any plan of straightway constructing a liturgy to which you wish me to contribute in a direct way. That form of contribution would hardly be within my powers. But your words of trust in me as possibly an organ of feelings which have not yet found their due expression is as likely as any external call could be to prompt such perfectly unfettered productions as that which you say has been found acceptable.

I wasted some time, three years ago, in writing (what I do not mean to print) a poetic dialogue embodying or rather shadowing very imperfectly the actual contest of ideas. Perhaps what you have written to me may promote and influence a different kind of presentation. At any rate all the words of your letter will be borne in mind, and will enter into my motives.

We are tolerably settled now in our camping, experimental fashion. Perhaps, before the summer is far advanced, you may be in our neighborhood, and come to look at us. I trust that Mrs. Harrison is by this time in her usual health. Please give my love to her, and believe me always, with many grateful memories, yours sincerely.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1877.

It was a draught of real comfort and pleasure to have a letter written by your own hand, and one altogether cheerful.³⁰ I trust that you will by-and-by be able to write me word of continued progress. Hardly any bit of the kingdom, I fancy, would suit your taste better than your neighborhood of the Land's End. You are not fond of bushy midland-fashioned scenery. We are enjoying the mixture of wildness and culture extremely, and so far as landscape and air go we would not choose a different home from this. But we have not yet made up our minds whether we shall keep our house or sell it.

Some London friends are also occasional dwellers in these parts. The day before yesterday we had Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Harrison, whose parents have a fine old Tudor house – Sutton Place – some three miles beyond Guildford. And do you remember Edmund Gurney? He and his graceful bride lunched with us the other day. And Miss Thackeray is married to-day to young Ritchie. I saw him at Cambridge, and felt that the nearly twenty years' difference between them was bridged hopefully by his solidity and gravity. This is one of several instances that I have known of lately, showing that young men with even brilliant advantages will often choose as their life's companion a woman whose attractions are chiefly of the spiritual order.

I often see you enjoying your sunsets and the wayside flowers.

Letter to William Allingham, 26th Aug. 1877.

I hope that this letter may be sent on to you in some delicious nook where your dear wife is by your side preparing to make us all richer with store of new sketches. I almost fear that I am implying unbecoming claims in asking you to send me a word or two of news about your twofold, nay, fourfold self. But you must excuse in me a presumption which is simply a feeling of spiritual kinship, bred by reading in the volume you gave me before we left town.

That tremendous tramp – "Life, Death; Life, Death"³¹ – makes me care the more, as age makes it the more audible to me, for those younger ones who are keeping step behind me.

Letter to Professor Kaufmann, 12th Oct. 1877.

I trust it will not be otherwise than gratifying to you to know that your stirring article on "Daniel Deronda" is now translated into English by a son of Professor Ferrier, who was a philosophical writer of considerable mark. It will be issued in a handsomer form than that of the pamphlet, and will appear within this autumnal publishing season, Messrs. Blackwood having already advertised it. Whenever a copy is ready we shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. There is often something to be borne with in reading one's own writing in a translation, but I hope that in this case you will not be made to wince severely.

In waiting to send you this news, I seem to have deferred too long the expression of my warm thanks for your kindness in sending me the Hebrew translations of Lessing and the collection of Hebrew poems – a kindness which I felt myself rather presumptuous in asking for, since your time must be well filled with more important demands. Yet I must further beg you, when you have an opportunity, to assure Herr Bacher that I was most gratefully touched by the sympathetic verses with which he enriched the gift of his work.