George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Letter to John Blackwood, 2d June, 1857

I send you by the same post with this the first part of my third story, which I hope will not disappoint you. The part is, I think, rather longer than my parts have usually been, but it would have been injurious to the effect of the story to pause earlier.

Pleasant letters like yours are the best possible stimulus to an author's powers, and if I don't write better and better the fault will certainly not lie in my editor, who seems to have been created in pre-established harmony with the organization of a susceptible contributor.

This island, too, with its grassy valleys and pretty, indented coast is not at all a bad haunt for the Muses, if, as one may suppose, they have dropped their too scanty classical attire, and appear in long dresses and brown hats, like decent Christian women likely to inspire "Clerical Scenes."

Moreover, having myself a slight zoological weakness, I am less alarmed than most people at the society of a zoological maniac. So that, altogether, your contributor is in promising circumstances, and if he doesn't behave like an animal in good condition, is clearly unworthy of his keep.

I am much gratified to have made the conquest of Professor Aytoun; but with a parent's love for the depreciated child, I can't help standing up for "Amos" as better than "Gilfil."

Lewes seems to have higher expectations from the third story than from either of the preceding; but I can form no judgment myself until I have quite finished a thing, and see it aloof from my actual self. I can only go on writing what I feel, and waiting for the proof that I have been able to make others feel.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th June, 1857

Richmond is not fascinating in "the season" or through the summer. It is hot, noisy, and haunted with Cockneys; but at other times we love the Park with an increasing love, and we have such a kind, good landlady there, that it always seems like going home when we return to Park Shot. She writes to us: "I hope you will make your fortune – but you must always live with me," which, considering that she gets less out of us than other lodgers, is a proof of affection in a landlady. Yes! we like our wandering life at present, and it is fructifying, and brings us material in many ways; but we keep in perspective the idea of a cottage among green fields and cows, where we mean to settle down (after we have once been to Italy), and buy pots and kettles and keep a dog. Wherever we are we work hard – and at work which brings present money; for we have too many depending on us to be dilettanti or idlers.

I wish it to be understood that I should never invite any one to come and see me who did not ask for the invitation.

You wonder how my face has changed in the last three years. Doubtless it is older and uglier, but it ought not to have a bad expression, for I never have anything to call out my ill-humor or discontent, which you know were always ready enough to come on slight call, and I have everything to call out love and gratitude.

Letter to Mrs. John Cash (Miss Mary Sibree), 6th June, 1857

Your letter was very sweet to me. The sense of my deficiencies in the past often presses on me with a discouraging weight, and to know that any one can remember me lovingly, helps me to believe that there has been some good to balance the evil. I like to think of you as a happy wife and mother; and since Rosehill must have new tenants, I like to think that you and yours are there rather than any one else, not only because of my own confidence in your nature, but because our dear friends love you so much as a neighbor. You know I can never feel otherwise than sorry that they should not have ended their days in that pretty home; but the inevitable regret is softened as much as possible by the fact that the home has become yours.

It is very nice to hear that Mrs. Sibree can relish anything of my writing. She was always a favorite with me; and I remember very vividly many pleasant little conversations with her. Seventy-two! How happy you are to have a dear, aged mother, whose heart you can gladden.

I was a good deal touched by the letter your brother wrote to you about accepting, or, rather, declining, more pupils. I feel sure that his sensitive nature has its peculiar trials and struggles in this strange life of ours, which some thick-skinned mortals take so easily.

I am very happy – happy in the highest blessing life can give us, the perfect love and sympathy of a nature that stimulates my own to healthful activity. I feel, too, that all the terrible pain I have gone through in past years, partly from the defects of my own nature, partly from outward things, has probably been a preparation for some special work that I may do before I die. That is a blessed hope, to be rejoiced in with trembling. But even if that hope should be unfulfilled, I am contented to have lived and suffered for the sake of what has already been. You see your kind letter has made me inclined to talk about myself, but, as we do not often have any communication with each other, I know it will be a gratification to your sympathetic nature to have a few direct words from me that will assure you of my moral well-being.

I hope your little ones are just like you – just as fair and sweet-tempered.

Journal, June, 1857

I sent off the first part of "Janet's Repentance," but to my disappointment Blackwood did not like it so well – seemed to misunderstand the characters, and to be doubtful about the treatment of clerical matters. I wrote at once to beg him to give up printing the story if he felt uncomfortable about it, and he immediately sent a very anxious, cordial letter, saying the thought of putting a stop to the series "gave him quite a turn: " he "did not meet with George Eliots every day" – and so on.

Letter to John Blackwood, 11th June, 1857

I am not much surprised and not at all hurt by your letter received to-day with the proof. It is a great satisfaction – in fact, my only satisfaction – that you should give me your judgment with perfect frankness. I am able, I think, to enter into an editor's doubts and difficulties, and to see my stories in some degree from your point of view as well as my own. My answer is written after considering the question as far as possible on all sides, and as I feel that I shall not be able to make any other than superficial alterations in the proof, I will, first of all, say what I can in explanation of the spirit and future course of the present story.

The collision in the drama is not at all between "bigoted churchmanship" and evangelicalism, but between irreligion and religion. Religion in this case happens to be represented by evangelicalism; and the story, so far as regards the persecution, is a real bit in the religious history of England, that happened about eight-and-twenty years ago. I thought I had made it apparent in my sketch of Milby feelings, on the advent of Mr. Tryan, that the conflict lay between immorality and morality – irreligion and religion. Mr. Tryan will carry the reader's sympathy. It is through him that Janet is brought to repentance. Dempster's vices have their natural evolution in deeper and deeper moral deterioration (though not without softening touches), and death from intemperance. Everything is softened from the fact, so far as art is permitted to soften and yet to remain essentially true.

My sketches, both of Churchmen and Dissenters, with whom I am almost equally acquainted, are drawn from close observation of them in real life, and not at all from hearsay or from the descriptions of novelists. If I were to undertake to alter language or character. I should be attempting to represent some vague conception of what may possibly exist in other people's minds, but has no existence in my own. Such of your marginal objections as relate to a mere detail I can meet without difficulty by alteration; but as an artist I should be utterly powerless if I departed from my own conceptions of life and character. There is nothing to be done with the story, but either to let Dempster and Janet and the rest be as I see them, or to renounce it as too painful. I am keenly alive at once to the scruples and alarms an editor may feel, and to my own utter inability to write under cramping influence, and on this double ground I should like you to consider whether it will not be better to close the series for the Magazine now. I dare say you will feel no difficulty about publishing a volume containing the story of "Janet's Repentance," and I shall accept that plan with no other feeling than that you have been to me the most liberal and agreeable of editors, and are the man of all others I would choose for a publisher.

My irony, so far as I understand myself, is not directed against opinions – against any class of religious views – but against the vices and weaknesses that belong to human nature in every sort of clothing. But it is possible that I may not affect other minds as I intend and wish to affect them, and you are a better judge than I can be of the degree in which I may occasionally be offensive. I should like not to be offensive – I should like to touch every heart among my readers with nothing but loving humor, with tenderness, with belief in goodness. But I may have failed in this case of "Janet," at least so far as to have made you feel its publication in the Magazine a disagreeable risk. If so, there will be no harm done by closing the series with No. 2, as I have suggested. If, however, I take your objections to be deeper than they really are – if you prefer inserting the story in spite of your partial dissatisfaction, I shall, of course, be happy to appear under "Maga's" wing still.

When I remember what have been the successes in fiction, even as republications from "Maga," I can hardly believe that the public will regard my pictures as exceptionally coarse. But in any case there are too many prolific writers who devote themselves to the production of pleasing pictures, to the exclusion of all disagreeable truths, for me to desire to add to their number. In this respect, at least, I may have some resemblance to Thackeray, though I am not conscious of being in any way a disciple of his, unless it constitute discipleship to think him, as I suppose the majority of people with any intellect do, on the whole the most powerful of living novelists.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 8th June, 1857

I feel every day a greater disinclination for theories and arguments about the origin of things in the presence of all this mystery and beauty and pain and ugliness that floods one with conflicting emotions.

We are reading "Aurora Leigh" for the third time, with more enjoyment than ever. I know no book that gives me a deeper sense of communion with a large as well as beautiful mind. It is in process of appearing in a third edition, and no wonder.

If I live five years longer the positive result of my existence on the side of truth and goodness will outweigh the small negative good that would have consisted in my not doing anything to shock others, and I can conceive no consequences that will make me repent the past. Do not misunderstand me, and suppose that I think myself heroic or great in any way. Far enough from that! Faulty, miserably faulty I am – but least of all faulty where others most blame.

On the 24th July the pleasant sojourn at Jersey came to an end. The travellers returned to 8 Park Shot, Richmond, where Miss Sara Hennell paid them a visit at the end of the month, and Dr. and Mrs. Bodichon (née Miss Barbara L. Smith) came on the 4th of August. On the 12th August there is an entry in the Journal, "Finished the 'Electra' of Sophocles, and began Æschylus's 'Agamemnon,'" and then come the following letters:

Letter to John Blackwood, Tuesday, 17th Aug. 1857

Lewes has just given me your letter of the 15th, with the accompanying one from the Rev. W. P. Jones.

Mr. Tryan is not a portrait of any clergyman, living or dead. He is an ideal character, but I hope probable enough to resemble more than one evangelical clergyman of his day.

If Mr. Jones's deceased brother was like Mr. Tryan so much the better, for in that case he was made of human nature's finer clay. I think you will agree with me that there are few clergymen who would be depreciated by an identification with Mr. Tryan. But I should rather suppose that the old gentleman, misled by some similarity in outward circumstances, is blind to the discrepancies which must exist where no portrait was intended. As to the rest of my story, so far as its elements were suggested by real persons, those persons have been, to use good Mr. Jones's phrase, "long in eternity."

I think I told you that a persecution of the kind I have described did actually take place, and belongs as much to the common store of our religious history as the Gorham Controversy, or as Bishop Blomfield's decision about wax candles. But I only know the outline of the real persecution. The details have been filled in from my imagination. I should consider it a fault which would cause me lasting regret if I had used reality in any other than the legitimate way common to all artists, who draw their materials from their observation and experience. It would be a melancholy result of my fictions if I gave just cause of annoyance to any good and sensible person. But I suppose there is no perfect safeguard against erroneous impressions or a mistaken susceptibility. We are all apt to forget how little there is about us that is unique, and how very strongly we resemble many other insignificant people who have lived before us. I shouldn't wonder if several nieces of pedantic maiden ladies saw a portrait of their aunt in Miss Pratt, but I hope they will not think it necessary, on that ground, to increase the already troublesome number of your correspondents.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Aug. 1857

We went to see Rosa Bonheur's picture the other day. What power! That is the way women should assert their rights. Writing is part of my religion, and I can write no word that is not prompted from within. At the same time I believe that almost all the best books in the world have been written with the hope of getting money for them.

Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Sept. 1857

Unless there be any strong reason to the contrary, I should like to close the series with this story. According to my calculation, which, however, may be an erroneous one, the three stories will make two good volumes —i. e., good as to bulk.

I have a subject in my mind which will not come under the limitations of the title "Clerical Life," and I am inclined to take a large canvas for it and write a novel.

In case of my writing fiction for "Maga" again, I should like to be considerably beforehand with my work, so that you can read a thoroughly decisive portion before beginning to print.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1857

The days are very peaceful – peacefully busy. One always feels a deeper calm as autumn comes on. I should be satisfied to look forward to a heaven made up of long autumn afternoon walks, quite delivered from any necessity of giving a judgment on the woman question, or of reading newspapers about Indian mutinies. I am so glad there are thousands of good people in the world who have very decided opinions, and are fond of working hard to enforce them. I like to feel and think everything and do nothing, a pool of the "deep contemplative" kind.

Some people do prosper – that is a comfort. The rest of us must fall back on the beatitudes – "Blessed are the poor" – that is Luke's version, you know, and it is really, on the whole, more comforting than Matthew's. I'm afraid there are few of us who can appropriate the blessings of the "poor in spirit."

We are reading one of the most wonderful books in French or any other literature – Monteil's "Histoire des Français des divers États" – a history written on an original plan. If you see any account of it, read that account.

Letter to John Blackwood, Saturday, 17th Oct. 1857

I am very much gratified that my Janet has won your heart and kept up your interest in her to the end.

My new story haunts me a good deal, and I shall set about it without delay. It will be a country story – full of the breath of cows and the scent of hay. But I shall not ask you to look at it till I have written a volume or more, and then you will be able to judge whether you will prefer printing it in the Magazine, or publishing it as a separate novel when it is completed.

By the way, the sheets of the "Clerical Scenes" are not come, but I shall not want to make any other than verbal and literal corrections, so that it will hardly be necessary for me to go through the sheets and the proofs, which I must, of course, see.

I enclose a titlepage with a motto. But if you don't like the motto, I give it up. I've not set my heart on it.

I leave the number of copies to be published, and the style of getting up, entirely to your discretion. As to the terms, I wish to retain the copyright, according to the stipulation made for me by Lewes when he sent "Amos Barton;" and whatever you can afford to give me for the first edition I shall prefer having as a definite payment rather than as half profits.

You stated, in a letter about "Amos Barton," your willingness to accede to either plan, so I have no hesitation in expressing my wishes.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Oct. 1857

"Open to conviction," indeed! I should think so. I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid. These are my only prejudices.

I was pleased with Mr. Call.⁵⁶ He is a man one really cares to talk to – has thoughts, says what he means, and listens to what others say. We should quite like to see him often. And I cannot tell you how much I have felt Mrs. Call's graceful as well as kind behavior to me. Some months ago, before the new edition of the "Biographical History of Philosophy" came out, Mr. Lewes had a letter from a working-man at Leicester, I think, who said that he and some fellow-students met together, on a Sunday, to read the book aloud and discuss it. He had marked some errors of the press and sent them to Mr. Lewes for his new edition. Wasn't that pretty?

Letter to the Brays, 30th Oct. 1857

"Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails" is my gospel. There can be no harm in preaching that to women at any rate. But I should be sorry to undertake any more specific enunciation of doctrine on a question so entangled as the "woman question." The part of the Epicurean gods is always an easy one; but because I prefer it so strongly myself, I the more highly venerate those who are struggling in the thick of the contest. "La carrière ouverte aux taléns," whether the talents be feminine or masculine, I am quite confident is a right maxim. Whether "La carrière ouverte à la Sottise" be equally just when made equally universal, it would be too much like "taking sides" for me to say.

There are only three entries in the journal for October.

Journal, Oct. 1857

Oct. 9.– Finished "Janet's Repentance." I had meant to carry on the series, and especially I longed to tell the story of the "Clerical Tutor," but my annoyance at Blackwood's want of sympathy in the first part (although he came round to admiration at the third part) determined me to close the series and republish them in two volumes.

Oct. 22.– Began my new novel, "Adam Bede."

Oct. 29.– Received a letter from Blackwood offering me £120 for the first edition of "Scenes of Clerical Life."

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Oct. 1857

I am quite contented with the sum (£120) you offer me for the edition, being thoroughly confident of your disposition to do the best you can for me. I perceive your hope of success for the "Scenes" is not strong, and you certainly have excellent means of knowing the probabilities in such a case.

I am not aware that the motto has been used before, but if you suspect it, we had better leave it out altogether. A stale motto would hardly be an ornament to the titlepage.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1st Nov. 1857

How I wish I could get to you by some magic, and have one walk over the hill with you again. Letters are poor things compared with five minutes of looking and speaking, and one kiss. Nevertheless, I do like to have a little letter now and then, though I don't for a moment ask it if you have no spontaneous impulse to give it. I can't help losing belief that people love me – the unbelief is in my nature, and no sort of fork will drive it finally out. I can't help wondering that you can think of me in the past with much pleasure. It all seems so painful to me – made up of blunders and selfishness – and it only comes back upon me as a thing to be forgiven. That is honest, painful truth, and not sentimentality. But I am thankful if others found more good than I am able to remember.

Letter to John Blackwood, 7th Nov. 1857

It is pleasant to have the first sheet of one's proof – to see one's paragraphs released from the tight-lacing of double columns, and expanding themselves at their ease.

I perceive clearly the desirableness of the short number – for my observation of literary affairs has gone far enough to convince me that neither critical judgment nor practical experience can guarantee any opinion as to rapidity of sale in the case of an unknown author; and I shudder at the prospect of encumbering my publisher's bookshelves.

My new story is in progress – slow progress at present. A little sunshine of success would stimulate its growth, I dare say. Unhappily, I am as impressionable as I am obstinate, and as much in need of sympathy from my readers as I am incapable of bending myself to their tastes. But if I can only find a public as cordial and agreeable in its treatment of me as my editor, I shall have nothing to wish. Even my thin skin will be comfortable then. The page is not a shabby one, after all; but I fear the fact of two volumes instead of three is a fatal feature in my style in the eyes of librarians.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Nov. 1857

One is glad to have one's book (à propos of review of Lewes's "History of Philosophy") spoken well of by papers of good circulation, because it is possible, though not certain, that such praise may help the sale; but otherwise it is hardly worth while to trouble one's self about newspaper reviews, unless they point out some error, or present that very rare phenomenon, a true appreciation, which is the most delicious form in which sympathy can reach one. So much sectarian feeling usually arises in discussions on the subject of phrenology that I confess the associations of the word are not agreeable to me. The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant; and I am often in danger of secreting that sort of venom.

Letter to Charles Bray, 15th Nov. 1857

It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then, when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand. It is an old weakness of mine to have no faith in affection that does not express itself; and when friends take no notice of me for a long while I generally settle down into the belief that they have become indifferent or have begun to dislike me. That is not the best mental constitution; but it might be worse – for I don't feel obliged to dislike them in consequence. I, for one, ought not to complain if people think worse of me than I deserve, for I have very often reason to be ashamed of my thoughts about others. They almost always turn out to be better than I expected – fuller of kindness towards me at least. In the fundamental doctrine of your book (the philosophy of necessity) – that mind presents itself under the same conditions of invariableness of antecedent and consequent as all other phenomena (the only difference being that the true antecedent and consequent are proportionately difficult to discover as the phenomena are more complex) – I think you know that I agree. And every one who knows what science means must also agree with you that there can be no social science without the admission of that doctrine. I dislike extremely a passage in which you appear to consider the disregard of individuals as a lofty condition of mind. My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. The fact that in the scheme of things we see a constant and tremendous sacrifice of individuals, is, it seems to me, only one of the many proofs that urge upon us our total inability to find in our own natures a key to the Divine mystery. I could more readily turn Christian, and worship Jesus again, than embrace a Theism which professes to explain the proceedings of God. But I don't feel at all wise in these matters. I have a few strong impressions which serve me for my own support and guidance, but do not in the least qualify me to speak as a theorist.

Mr. Lewes sends you his kind remembrances, and will not like you any the worse for cutting him up. He has had to perform that office for his own friends sometimes. I suppose phrenology is an open question, on which everybody has a right to speak his mind. Mr. Lewes, feeling the importance of the subject, desired to give it its due place in his "History of Philosophy," and, doing so, he must, of course, say what he believes to be the truth, not what other people believe to be the truth. If you will show where he is mistaken, you will be doing him a service as well as phrenology. His arguments may be bad; but I will answer for him that he has not been guilty of any intentional unfairness. With regard to their system, phrenologists seem to me to be animated by the same sort of spirit as that of religious dogmatists, and especially in this – that in proportion as a man approximates to their opinions without identifying himself with them, they think him offensive and contemptible. It is amusing to read from the opposite side complaints against Mr. Lewes for giving too high a position to phrenology, and a confident opinion that "phrenologists, by their ridiculous pretensions, merit all the contempt that has been thrown on them." Thus doctors differ! But I am much less interested in crusades for or against phrenology than in your happiness at Ivy Cottage.⁵⁷ Happiness means all sorts of love and good feeling; and that is the best result that can ever come out of science. Do you know Buckle's "History of Civilization"? I think you would find it a suggestive book.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 24th Nov. 1857

Anniversaries are sad things – to one who has lived long and done little. Herbert Spencer dined with us the other day – looks well, and is brimful of clever talk as usual. His volume of "Essays" is to come out soon. He is just now on a crusade against the notion of "species." We are reading Harriet Martineau's history with edification, and otherwise feeding our souls, which flourish very well, notwithstanding November weather.

Journal, 1857

Nov. 28.– A glorious day, still autumnal and not wintry. We have had a delicious walk in the Park, and I think the coloring of the scenery is more beautiful than ever. Many of the oaks are still thickly covered with leaves of a rich yellow-brown; the elms, golden sometimes, still with lingering patches of green. On our way to the Park the view from Richmond hill had a delicate blue mist over it, that seemed to hang like a veil before the sober brownish-yellow of the distant elms. As we came home, the sun was setting on a fog-bank, and we saw him sink into that purple ocean – the orange and gold passing into green above the fog-bank, the gold and orange reflected in the river in more sombre tints. The other day, as we were coming home through the Park, after having walked under a sombre, heavily clouded sky, the western sun shone out from under the curtain, and lit up the trees and grass, thrown into relief on a background of dark purple cloud. Then, as we advanced towards the Richmond end of the Park, the level, reddening rays shone on the dry fern and the distant oaks, and threw a crimson light on them. I have especially enjoyed this autumn, the delicious greenness of the turf, in contrast with the red and yellow of the dying leaves.

Dec. 6 (Sunday). – Finished the "Agamemnon" to-day. In the evenings of late we have been reading Harriet Martineau's "Sketch of the British Empire in India," and are now following it up with Macaulay's articles on Clive and Hastings. We have lately read Harriet Martineau's Introduction to the "History of the Peace."

Dec. 8.– I am reading "Die Familie," by Riehl, forming the third volume of the series, the two first of which, "Land und Volk" and "Die Bürgerliche Gesellschaft," I reviewed for the Westminster.

A letter from Blackwood to-day tells us that Major Blackwood, during his brother's absence in England, having some reasons, not specified, for being more hopeful about the "Clerical Scenes," resolved to publish 1000 instead of 750; and in consequence of this Blackwood promises to pay me an additional £60 when 750 shall have been sold off. He reports that an elderly clergyman has written to him to say that "Janet's Repentance" is exquisite – another vote to register along with that of Mrs. Nutt's rector, who "cried over the story like a child."

Dec. 10.– Major Blackwood called – an unaffected, agreeable man. It was evident to us, when he had only been in the room a few minutes, that he knew I was George Eliot.

Letter to John Blackwood, 11th Dec. 1857

Lewes has read to me your last kind letter, and I am not insensible to the "practical cheerer" it contains. But I rejoice with trembling at the additional 250, lest you should have to repent of them.

I have certainly had a good deal of encouragement to believe that there are many minds, both of the more cultured sort and of the common novel-reading class, likely to be touched by my stories; but the word "many" is very elastic, and often shrinks frightfully when measured by a financial standard.