Chapter XIX (2)

I am very grateful to you for your kind letter. News about you all had been much desired by me; but I have now so many business letters to write that I am apt to defer such as are not absolutely necessary. The careful index is a sign of your effective industry, and I have no doubt that it will be a great help to yourself as well as to your readers. One very often needs an index to one's own writing. My chief objects are quite completed now. The Dr. Roy appointed to the studentship is held by competent persons to be the most hopeful of our young physiologists: and there is a volume of 501 pages (the last) of "Problems of Life and Mind" ready to appear next month. I am quite recovered from the ailment which made me good for little in the summer, and indeed am stronger than I ever expected to be again. People are very good to me, and I am exceptionally blessed in many ways; but more blessed are the dead who rest from their labors, and have not to dread a barren, useless survival.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th Dec. 1879, from the Priory.]

I am very well, dear kind friend, all things considered. One cannot help getting occasional chills and headaches in this hard, wintry time.

Oh, yes, I read the _Times_ with great interest, and am much concerned to know what my contemporaries are doing. My time is very fully occupied, for I have now to write a great many letters, such as used to be written for me, and I would willingly spend the time thus taken up in another sort of reading and writing.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 5th Jan. 1880.]

Thank you a thousand times, my dear friend, for your tender New Year's greeting and inquiries. I have passed well from "under the saws and harrows" of the severe cold, and am better, both in apparent organic soundness and in strength for all occupation, than I once thought was possible for me.

Our dear Barbara is painting in water colors again from her window--just as of old. I know you will be glad to hear of this. And I am now seeing many other friends, who interest me and bring me reports of their several worlds. The great public calamities of the past year have helped to quiet one's murmuring spirit in relation to private sorrows, and the prospect for the future is not yet very bright. One thinks of mothers like Mrs. Ruck, whose best-loved sons are in Afghanistan. But we must live as much as we can for human joy, dwelling on sorrow and pain only so far as the consciousness of it may help us in striving to remedy them.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 19th Jan. 1880.]

Life has seemed worse without my glimpses of you. And now I have not the amends of thinking that you are out of our Egyptian darkness and getting health in the country. I must drive over to ask about you as soon as I can.

As the year went on, George Eliot began to see all her old
friends again. But her life was nevertheless a life of
heart-loneliness. Accustomed as she had been for so many
years to solitude _à deux_, the want of close companionship
continued to be very bitterly felt. She was in the habit of
going with me very frequently to the National Gallery, and to
other exhibitions of pictures, to the British Museum
sculptures, and to South Kensington. This constant
association engrossed me completely, and was a new interest
to her. A bond of mutual dependence had been formed between
us. On the 28th March she came down to Weybridge and stayed
till the 30th; and on the 9th April it was finally decided
that our marriage should take place as soon, and as
privately, as might be found practicable.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 13th April, 1880.]

You can hardly think how sweet the name sister is to me, that I have not been called by for so many, many years.

Without your tenderness I do not believe it would have been possible for me to accept this wonderful renewal of my life. Nothing less than the prospect of being loved and welcomed by you all could have sustained me. But now I cherish the thought that the family life will be the richer and not the poorer through your brother's great gift of love to me.

Yet I quail a little in facing what has to be gone through--the hurting of many whom I care for. You are doing everything you can to help me, and I am full of gratitude to you all for his sake as well as my own. The springs of affection are reopened in me, and it will make me better to be among you--more loving and trustful.

I valued Florence's little visit very much. You and she will come again--will you not?--to your sister.

[Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 19th April, 1880.]

I have found the spot in "The Prelude" where the passage I mentioned occurs. It is in book viii., "The Retrospect," towards the end:

"The human nature unto which I felt
That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit
Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
Of evidence from monuments, erect,
Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest
In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
Of vanished nations."

The bit of brickwork in the rock is

"With aid derived from evidence."

I think you would find much to suit your purpose in "The Prelude," such as--

"There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble Living and the noble Dead."

Except for travelling, and for popular distribution, I prefer Moxon's one-volumed edition of Wordsworth to any selection. No selection gives you the perfect gems to be found in single lines, or in half a dozen lines which are to be found in the "dull" poems.

I am sorry Matthew Arnold has not included the sonnet beginning--

"I griev'd for Buonaparté with a vain
And an unthinking grief--"

and which has these precious lines,

"'Tis not in battles that from youth we train
The governor who must be wise and good,
And temper with the sternness of the brain
Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood.
_Wisdom doth live with children round her knees._"

Has he the magnificent sonnet on Toussaint l'Ouverture? I don't know where there is anything finer than the last eight lines of it.

Please don't acknowledge this note, else you will neutralize my pleasure in sending it by making me feel that I have given you trouble.

[Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Lady Lytton, 24th April, 1880.]

The beautiful photograph has reached me safely, and I am very grateful to you for your kindness in sending it to me. In comparing it with the photograph which you gave me seven or eight years ago I see the effect of a saddening experience which the years must bring to us all, but, to my feeling, the face is the more endearing because of that effect.

You have been very often in my thoughts, because I have associated you with public affairs, and have imagined sympathetically how they must have affected your private life. I am sure that this momentous experience in India has been a hard discipline both for you and for Lord Lytton. I can imagine he has often been sick at heart with the near vision, which his post forces on him, of human meanness and rancor. You, too, must have gathered some melancholy knowledge of that sort, which has perhaps changed a little the curves of the mouth and the glance of the eyes since those Vienna days, when the delightful M. de Villers helped to make the hours pleasant to us.

I saw the photographs of your daughters, which gave me an idea how fast the dramatic authoress has developed physically as well as mentally. When I first saw her at Vienna she was the prettiest little rosebud.

Mrs. Strachey called the other day when I was out, and among other reasons for my being sorry not to have seen her, was the having missed some authentic news about your probable movements. What happens to you will always have interest for me, since I have long been, with sincere regard, yours most truly.

On the 24th April George Eliot came down to Weybridge, and
stayed till the 26th.

[Sidenote: Letter to James Sully, 26th April, 1880.]

I am deeply obliged to you for the care with which you have treated the final volume of "The Problems" in the _Academy_, which you have kindly sent me. I think you could hardly have written more effectively towards exciting an interest in the work in the minds of the comparatively few who really care for the study of psychology. You have added one more to the obligations which will make me always yours gratefully.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th May, 1880.]

I have something to tell you which will doubtless be a great surprise to you; but since I have found that other friends, less acquainted with me and my life than you are, have given me their sympathy, I think that I can count on yours. I am going to do what not very long ago I should myself have pronounced impossible for me, and therefore I should not wonder at any one else who found my action incomprehensible. By the time you receive this letter I shall (so far as the future can be matter of assertion) have been married to Mr. J. W. Cross, who, you know, is a friend of years, a friend much loved and trusted by Mr. Lewes, and who, now that I am alone, sees his happiness in the dedication of his life to me. This change in my position will make no change in my care for Mr. Lewes's family, and in the ultimate disposition of my property. Mr. Cross has a sufficient fortune of his own. We are going abroad for a few months, and I shall not return to live at this house. Mr. Cross has taken the lease of a house, No. 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where we shall spend the winter and early spring, making Witley our summer home.

I indulge the hope that you will some day look at the river from the windows of our Chelsea house, which is rather quaint and picturesque.

Please tell Bessie[41] for me, with my love to her. I cannot write to more than two or three persons.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 5th May, 1880.]

A great, momentous change is going to take place in my life. My indisposition last week and several other subsequent circumstances have hindered me from communicating it to you, and the time has been but short since the decision was come to. But with your permission Charles will call on you and tell you what he can on Saturday.

Yours and Emily's ever, with unchanging love.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1880.]

_May 6._--Married this day at 10.15 to John Walter Cross, at St. George's, Hanover Square. Present, Charles, who gave me away, Mr. and Mrs. Druce, Mr. Hall, William, Mary, Eleanor, and Florence Cross. We went back to the Priory, where we signed our wills. Then we started for Dover and arrived there a little after five o'clock.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 9th May, 1880.]

Your letter was a sweet greeting to us on our arrival here yesterday.

We had a millennial cabin on the deck of the Calais-Douvres, and floated over the strait as easily as the saints float upward to heaven (in the pictures). At Amiens we were very comfortably housed, and paid two enraptured visits, evening and morning, to the cathedral. I was delighted with J.'s delight in it. And we read our dear old cantos of the "Inferno" that we were reading a year ago, declining afterwards on "Eugénie Grandet." The nice woman who waited on us made herself very memorable to me by her sketch of her own life. She went to England when she was nineteen as a lady's maid--had been much _ennuyée de sa mère_, detested _les plaisirs_, liked only her regular every-day work and _la paix_.

Here we have a very fair _appartement_, and plenty of sunlight, _au premier_. Before dinner we walked up to the Arc de l'Étoile and back again, enjoying the lovely greenth and blossoms of the horse-chestnuts, which are in their first glory, innocent of dust or of one withered petal. This morning at twelve o'clock we are going to the Russian church, where J. has never been, and where I hope we shall hear the wonderful intoning and singing as I heard it years ago.

This is the chronicle of our happy married life, three days long--all its happiness conscious of a dear background in those who are loving us at Weybridge, at Thornhill, and at Ranby.

You are all inwoven into the pattern of my thoughts, which would have a sad lack without you. I like to go over again in imagination all the scene in the church and in the vestry, and to feel every loving look from the eyes of those who were rejoicing for us. Besides Professor Sellar's letter, which touched J. with grateful surprise, we have had one to him from Mr. Frederic Harrison, saying everything affectionate, and two very finely felt letters from Edith Simcox--one to him enclosing the one to me. Certainly, she has a rare generosity and elevation which find their easy channel in writing. My love to Henry and to the gentle Berthe,[42] who was an invisible presence at our wedding.

I think I must thank Florence, too, for her letter to J.; for we accept to the full the principle of "what is mine is thine" on each side. What most comforted him this morning was a letter from Albert Druce about the Chelsea house. His usual exclamation over anything from Albert is that his brother-in-law is the most satisfactory of men!

Write us word about everything, and consider yourselves all very much loved and spiritually petted by your loving sister.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st May, 1880, from Grenoble.]

This place is so magnificently situated, in a smiling valley, with the Isère flowing through it, and surrounded by grand and various lines of mountains, and we were so enraptured by our expedition yesterday to the Grande Chartreuse that we congratulate ourselves greatly on our choice of route. I think it unlikely that we shall want to wander beyond the second week in July. We shall begin to long for home just when the rest of the London world are longing for travel. We are seeing nature in her happiest moment now--the foliage on all the tremendous heights, the soft slopes, and the richly clad valleys on the way to the Chartreuse is all fresh and tender, shone through by a sunlight which cherishes and does not burn us. I had but one regret in seeing the sublime beauty of the Grande Chartreuse. It was that the Pater had not seen it. I would still give up my own life willingly if he could have the happiness instead of me. But marriage has seemed to restore me to my old self. I was getting hard, and if I had decided differently, I think I should have become very selfish. To feel daily the loveliness of a nature close to me, and to feel grateful for it, is the fountain of tenderness and strength to endure.

Glorious weather always, and I am very well--quite amazingly able to go through fatigue.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Florence Cross, 25th May, 1880.]

Our life since we wrote to you has been a chapter of delights--Grenoble--Grande Chartreuse--Chambéry--paradisiacal walk to Les Charmettes--roses gathered in Jean Jacques' garden--Mont Cenis Tunnel and emergence into Italian sunshine. Milan, comfortable _appartement_, delicious privacy, and great minds condescending to relax themselves! We got here yesterday, and of course our first walk was to the post, where we found your delightful budget and other letters, which we took to a _café_ in the grand _galleria_ and read at our ease to the accompaniment of tea.

Two of my letters yesterday touched me very gratefully. One was from "Brother Jimmy"--the prettiest letter possible. The other letter that moved me was one from my own brother. Then J. had a graceful letter of congratulation from Mr. Henry James, who is still at Florence. I think you did not send that letter of Mr. Edmund Gurney's which you mention. I am fond of seeing the letters which put my friends in an amiable light for my imagination. And now that I have had that charming letter from my new brother in America, I feel that my family initiation is complete. No woman was ever more sweetly received by brothers and sisters than I have been; and it is a happy, new longing in my life that I may return into their bosoms some of the gladness they have poured into mine.

I have been uninterruptedly well, and feel quite strong with all sorts of strength except strong-mindedness. We are going to hear the music in the Duomo at eleven, and after that we intend to pay our first visit to the Brera gallery. It is our present plan to stay here for some days, and we enjoy the thought of a little stationary life such as we have not had since we left Paris. We often talk of our sisters, oftener think of them. You are our children, you know.

[Sidenote: Letter to Isaac P. Evans, 26th May, 1880.]

Your letter was forwarded to me here, and it was a great joy to me to have your kind words of sympathy, for our long silence has never broken the affection for you which began when we were little ones. My husband, too, was much pleased to read your letter. I have known his family for eleven years, and they have received me among them very lovingly. The only point to be regretted in our marriage is that I am much older than he; but his affection has made him choose this lot of caring for me rather than any other of the various lots open to him.

Emily Clarke has lately sent me rather a sad account of Sarah's[43] health. I trust that it is now better, for I think it is her lungs that chiefly trouble her, and summer may act beneficently on them. Please give my love to her, and tell her that I like the assurance of her share in the good wishes you send me.

I have often heard of Frederick[44] through the admiration of those who have heard him preach; and it has been a happy thought to me that you and Sarah must feel it a great comfort to have him as well as Walter settled near you.

Edith is the only one of your children whom I have seen since they have been grown up, and I thought her a noble-looking woman.

We are going to remain abroad until some time in July, and shall then return to the Heights, Witley, Surrey. Our home in London will be 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, looking on a very picturesque bit of the river.

I hope that your own health is quite good now, and that you are able to enjoy the active life which I know you are fond of. Always your affectionate sister.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 28th May, 1880.]

Many thanks for your delightful letter, which came to me yesterday, with a loving though brief letter from Mrs. Congreve to keep it company in making the day agreeable.

We arrived here on Monday, and have been induced by a nice quiet apartment and pleasant attendance to carry out our plan of resting here and deliberately seeing what is to be seen in this cheerful, prosperous city. I am glad to find that the Luini pictures come up to my remembrance, and that J. is much impressed by his introduction to them. I continue remarkably well, and am every day surprising myself by the amount of walking, standing, and looking that I can go through. To-morrow or the next day we intend to go on to Verona, then, after a sufficient pause to enjoy that glorious place, we shall move on to Padua and Venice, where it will be best for you to send anything you may have to send. I like to see the letters. They make one realize the fact of one's home and little world there amid the dreaminess of foreign travel. We take our meals in our own apartment and see nothing of our fellow-guests in the hotel--only hear their British and American voices when they air themselves in the _cortile_ after their dinner.

The weather has hitherto been delicious, not excessively warm, always with a pleasant movement in the air; but this morning there is a decided advance in heat, and we shall both have our theory of great heat being the best thing for us well tested in the next month.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 29th May and 1st June, 1880, from Verona.]

The change I make in the date of this letter is a sign of the difficulty you well know that one finds in writing all the letters one wants to write while travelling. Ever since Charles forwarded to me your dear letter while I was in Paris I have been meaning to write to you. That letter was doubly sweet to me because it was written before you received mine, _intended_ to inform you of my marriage before it appeared in the newspapers. Charles says that my friends are chiefly hurt because I did not tell them of the approaching change in my life. But I really did not finally, absolutely, decide--I was in a state of doubt and struggle--until only a fortnight before the event took place, so that at last everything was done in the utmost haste. However, there were four or five friends, of whom you were one, to whom I was resolved to write, so that they should at least get my letter on the morning of the 6th.

I had more than once said to Mr. Cross that you were that one of my friends who required the least explanation on the subject--who would spontaneously understand our marriage. But Charles sends me word that my friends in general are very sympathetic, and I should like to mention to you that Bessie[45] is one whose very kind words he has sent to me, for you may have an opportunity of giving my love to her, and telling her that it is very sweet to me to feel that her affection is constant to me in this as it was in other crises of my life. I wish, since you can no longer come in and out among us as you used to do, that you already knew my husband better. His family welcome me with the uttermost tenderness. All this is wonderful blessing falling to me beyond my share, after I had thought that my life was ended, and that, so to speak, my coffin was ready for me in the next room. Deep down below there is a hidden river of sadness, but this must always be with those who have lived long--and I am able to enjoy my newly reopened life. I shall be a better, more loving creature than I could have been in solitude. To be constantly, lovingly grateful for the gift of a perfect love is the best illumination of one's mind to all the possible good there may be in store for man on this troublous little planet.

We leave Verona to-day, and stay a little at Padua on our way to Venice. Hitherto we have had delightful weather, and just the temperature we rejoice in. We are both fond of warmth, and could bear more heat than we have the prospect of at present.

Yesterday we had a drive on the skirting heights of Verona, and saw the vast fertile plain around, with the Euganean hills, blue in the distance, and the Apennines just dimly visible on the clear margin of the horizon. I am always made happier by seeing well-cultivated land.

We came into Italy by way of Grenoble (seeing the Grande Chartreuse), Chambéry, and the Mont Cenis Tunnel; since then we have been staying at Milan and enjoying the Luini frescoes and a few other great things there. The great things are always by comparison few, and there is much everywhere one would like to help seeing, after it has once served to give one a notion of historical progression.

We shall stay at Venice for ten days or a fortnight; so if you have a scribe, or would write yourself, to tell me that all is going on well with you, the letter would not, as the Scotch say, "go amissing."

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 9th June, 1880, from Venice.]

We both enjoyed reading your letter on the morning after our arrival at this enchanting city, where the glorious light, with comparative stillness and total absence of dust, makes a paradise much more desirable than that painted by Tintoretto on the wall of the Consiglio Maggiore. Nothing but the advent of mosquitoes would make it easy for us to tear ourselves away from this place, where every prospect pleases, but also where one is obliged to admit that man is somewhat vile. I am sadly disappointed in the aspect of the Venetian populace. Even physically they look less endowed than I thought them when we were here under the Austrian dominion. We have hardly seen a sweet or noble woman's face since we arrived; but the men are not quite so ill-looking as the women. The singing here (by itinerant performers in gondolas) is disgraceful to Venice and to Italy. Coarse voices, much out of tune, make one shudder when they strike suddenly under the window.

Our days here are passed quite deliciously. We see a few beautiful pictures or other objects of interest, and dwell on them sufficiently every morning, not hurrying ourselves to do much; and afterwards we have a _giro_ in our gondola, enjoying the air and the sight of marvellous Venice from various points of view and under various aspects. Hitherto we have had no _heat_, only warmth, with a light breeze. To-day, for the first time, one thinks that violent exercise must be terribly trying for our red-skinned fellow-mortals at work on the gondolas and the barges. But for us it is only pleasant to find the air warm enough for sitting out in the evening. We shall not soon run away from Venice unless some plague--_e.g._, mosquitoes--should arise to drive us. We edify ourselves with what Ruskin has written about Venice, in an agreeable pamphlet shape, using his knowledge gratefully, and shutting our ears to his wrathful innuendoes against the whole modern world. And we are now nearly at the end of Alfieri's autobiography, which is a deeply interesting study of character.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 10th June, 1880.]

It may well seem incredible to you, for it is hardly credible to myself, that while I have been longing to write to you ever since I received your dear letter, I have not found the time to satisfy my longing. Perhaps you are more able than most people to conceive the difficulty of getting a clear half-hour between the business of travelling and the attention to little details of packing and toilet, over and above the companionship of talk and reading. Certainly I have thought of you all the more, but you have not known that, and I have lost my claim to hear about you--a use and wont which I would not willingly part with.

I wonder whether you have imagined--I believe that you are quick to imagine for the benefit of others--all the reasons why it was left at last to Charles to tell you of the great, once undreamed-of change in my life. The momentous decision, in fact, was not made till scarcely more than a fortnight before my marriage; and even if opportunity had lent itself to my confiding everything to you, I think I could hardly have done it at a time when your presence filled me rather with a sense of your and Emily's trouble[46] than with my own affairs. Perhaps Charles will have told you that the marriage deprives no one of any good I felt bound to render before--it only gives me a more strenuous position, in which I cannot sink into the self-absorption and laziness I was in danger of before. The whole history is something like a miracle-legend. But instead of any former affection being displaced in my mind, I seem to have recovered the loving sympathy that I was in danger of losing. I mean, that I had been conscious of a certain drying-up of tenderness in me, and that now the spring seems to have risen again. Who could take your place within me or make me amends for the loss of you? And yet I should not take it bitterly if you felt some alienation from me. Such alienation is very natural where a friend does not fulfil expectations of long standing.

We have already been ten days at Venice, but we hope to remain as long again, not fearing the heat, which has hitherto been only a false alarm in the minds of English travellers. If you could find time to send me word how you all are--yourself, Dr. Congreve after his holiday, and Emily, with all her cares about removal--a letter sent to the _Poste Restante_ here would reach me, even if we had left before the next ten days were over. We shall hardly be at Witley before the middle of July: but the sense of neighborhood to you at Witley is sadly ended now.

We thought too little of the heat, and rather laughed at
English people's dread of the sun. But the mode of life at
Venice has its peculiar dangers. It is one thing to enjoy
heat when leading an active life, getting plenty of exercise
in riding or rowing in the evenings; it is another thing to
spend all one's days in a gondola--a delicious, dreamy
existence--going from one church to another--from palaces to
picture-galleries--sight-seeing of the most exhaustively
interesting kind--traversing constantly the _piccoli rei_,
which are nothing more than drains, and with bedroom-windows
always open on the great drain of the Grand Canal. The effect
of this continual bad air, and the complete and sudden
deprivation of all bodily exercise, made me thoroughly ill.
As soon as I could be moved we left Venice, on the 23d of
June, and went to Innspruck, where we stayed for a week, and
in the change to the pure, sweet, mountain air I soon
regained strength.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 7th July, 1880, from Stuttgart.]

I was made very glad by Gertrude's letter, which assured me that Witley had been enjoyed by you and the little ones. We stayed six days at Innspruck, finding it more and more beautiful under the sunshine which had been wanting to it during our first two days. Then we went on to Munich, and yesterday we arrived here, as a temporary resting-place on our way to Wildbad, which, we hope, will put the finishing-touch to J.'s recovery of his usual health.

I wish I had been able to let you know in time that you could have remained a little longer at Witley, as I think we shall hardly be at home before the 20th if we find Wildbad what we want. Your _Mutter_ is marvellously well and strong. It seems more natural to her to have anxiety than to be free from it. Let us hope that she will not run down like a jelly-fish now that her anxiety is over.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 13th July, 1880, from Wildbad.]

I received your welcome letter yesterday morning, and felt inclined to answer it the next minute. J. is quite well again, but is inclined to linger a little in the sweet air of the Schwarzwald, which comes to one on gently stirred wings, laden with the scent of the pine forests. We mean to drive from here to Baden, which is within easy distance.

Yesterday we sallied forth for a walk over the mountain, to a place where we could rest and lunch, returning in the afternoon. The sky was brilliant. But in half an hour the clouds gathered and threatened a storm. We were prudent enough to turn back, and by the time we were in the hotel again the thunder was rolling and the rain pouring down. This continued till about two o'clock, and then again the sky became clear. I never saw so incalculable a state of weather as we have in this valley. One quarter of an hour the blue sky is only flecked by lightest cirrus clouds, the next it is almost hidden by dark rain clouds. But we are going to start on our promised expedition this morning, the sunshine flattering us that it is quite confirmed.

I think you had better address your next letter _Poste Restante_, Strasburg, as I am uncertain how long we shall rest at Baden.

Left Wildbad on the 17th July, and had a delightful drive
through the Black Forest by Herrenalb to Baden, and thence by
Strasburg, Metz, Luxemburg, and Brussels, arriving at Witley
on Monday the 26th of July.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st Aug. 1880.]

We arrived here in all safety last Monday, and if I had not had your welcome little note this morning I think I should soon have written to you without any such extra stimulus.

Mr. Cross had a sharp but brief attack at Venice, due to the unsanitary influences of that wondrous city in the later weeks of June. We stayed a little too long there, with a continuous sirocco blowing, and bad smells under the windows of the hotel; and these conditions found him a little below par from long protracted anxiety before our marriage. But ever since we left Venice (on the 23d of June) he has been getting strong again, and we have enjoyed a leisurely journey through Germany in constant warmth and sunshine, save for an occasional thunderstorm. The climate in this beloved country of ours is a sad exchange, and makes one think of a second bad harvest, with all its consequences. Still, it is a delight to be at home and enjoy perfect stillness, after the noisiness of foreign bells and foreign voices indoors and out. It would be very pretty to pay you a visit next April, if we are all alive, and I think Mr. Cross would like it very much. He sends you, hoping you will accept them, his best remembrances, which have been kept up by our often talking about you. I have been amazingly well through all the exertion of our travels, and in the latter half of the time have done a great deal of walking.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 2d Aug. 1880.]

How sweet of you to write me a little welcome as soon as you knew that I was at home again.

Yes, we are both well now, and _glad_ to be at home again, though the change of climate is not of the exhilarating sort. One is so sorry for all the holiday-makers, whose best enjoyment of these three days would have been in the clear air and sunshine.

Do not reproach me for not telling you of my marriage beforehand. It is difficult to speak of what surprises ourselves, and the decision was sudden, though not the friendship which led to the decision.

My heart thoroughly responds to your remembrance of our long--our thirty-years' relation to each other. Let me tell you this once what I have said to others--that I value you as one of the purest-minded, gentlest-hearted women I have ever known, and where such a feeling exists, friendship can live without much aid from sight.

We shall probably not be in town again till the beginning of November. Our address then will be 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where we shall have an outlook on the river and meadows beyond. Just now we have the prospect of going on family visits to married sisters, which prevents us from feeling quite settled.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 12th Aug. 1880.]

I expected your letter, and expected, too, just the sort of letter I have received, telling me everything delightfully. I can follow you everywhere in your journeying except to Ober Wesel. I hope you will have enjoyed St. Blasien and some of the walks there consecrated by the beloved Pater's footsteps. We reversed your drive and went to Freiburg, so that I can enter into your enjoyment of the Höllenthal. I am glad that your weather has been temperate. Here we have now had four sunny and really hot days, and this morning promises to be the fifth. That is consolatory as to the harvest, and is very agreeable as to our private life. The last two evenings we have walked in the garden after eight o'clock--the first time by starlight, the second under a vapory sky, with the red moon setting. The air was perfectly still and warm, and I felt no need of extra clothing.

Our life has had no more important events than calls from neighbors and our calls in return. To-morrow we pay our visit to the Druces at Sevenoaks, where, you may remember, Mr. Druce has built a beautiful house. At the beginning of September we are to visit Mr. and Mrs. Otter at Ranby, and after that we shall go to Six-Mile Bottom for a day or two. Then our wanderings will be over.

I went to the Priory the other day, and found a treatise on Blood Pressure, by Dr. Roy, which he had sent me there, and which he has published as the "George Henry Lewes Student." I imagine that he has come to pursue his studies in England, as he intended to do. Delbeuf's article on the last volume of the "Problems" (in the Belgian _Athenæum_) is very nicely done. He has read the book.

I am pretty well, but find myself more languid than I was when abroad. I think the cause is perhaps the moisture of the climate. There is something languorous in this climate, or, rather, in its effects. J. gets a little better every day, and so each day is more enjoyable.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 9th Sept. 1880.]

We have just come home after paying family visits in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, else I should have answered your letter earlier. The former one reached me in Venice, when I was in great trouble on account of Mr. Cross's illness. I had had reason to believe that my letters, ordered to be posted on the 5th of May, had not been delivered; so I asked Charles to inquire about the letter I wrote to you--not because it demanded an answer, but because I wished you to know that I had written.

I am so glad to know that you have been enjoying our brief English summer. The good harvest makes the country everywhere cheerful, and we have been in great, even districts where the fields, full of sheaves or studded with ricks, stretch wide as a prairie. Now, we hope not to leave this place again till November, when we intend to go to Chelsea for the winter and earliest spring.

I almost envy you the opportunity of seeing Wombwell's Menagerie. I suppose I got more delight out of that itinerant institution when I was nine or ten years old than I have ever got out of the Zoological Gardens. The smells and the sawdust mingled themselves with my rapture. Everything was good.

It was very dear of you to write to me before you finished your holiday. My love attends you all.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 14th Sept. 1880.]

Your letter this morning is a welcome assurance about you. We have been away in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, paying visits to the Otters and the Halls. The weather, which is now broken, was glorious through all our wandering, which we made very interesting by pausing to see Ely, Peterborough, and Lincoln cathedrals. The Otters have a very pretty, happy household. He is a country gentleman now, acting as a magistrate, and glancing towards Parliament. But he keeps up his reading, and is delightful to talk to. Emily looks very pretty in her matronly position, with three little children. The Halls, too, are very pleasant to behold in their home life. He has done wonders in building nice cottages and schools, and sinking wells where they were wanted, and founding a co-operative store--and, in general, doing whatever opportunity allows towards slowly improving this confused world. We saw (at Six-Mile Bottom) Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick. Perhaps you know that they have had, and have, the admirable public spirit to let their house and arrange to live for a year in the new Newnham House, in order to facilitate matters for the double institution.

We are very well. Mr. Cross gets stronger and brighter every day. We often mention you, because you are associated with so many of my memories.

Our only bugbear--it is a very little one--is the having to make preliminary arrangements towards settling ourselves in the new house (4 Cheyne Walk). It is a quaint house; and a Mr. Armitage of Manchester, of whom you may have heard, has been superintending the decoration and furnishing, but not to the exclusion of old things, which we must carry and stow, especially wallings of books. I am become so lazy that I shrink from all such practical work.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 23d Sept. 1880.]

I have been and am suffering under an attack of a comparatively mild sort, but I expect to be well in two or three days, and am just going to drive to Godalming to meet my husband. Hence I write this hurriedly. We should like to see you and Gertrude from Saturday to Monday some week next month if it would be pleasant to you.

This attack was a recurrence of the renal disorder of the
previous year. On the 29th September we went for ten days to
Brighton as the most accessible place for a bracing change.
The first effects of the sea breezes were encouraging, but
the improvement was not maintained. Shortly after our return
to Witley Dr. Andrew Clark,[47] "the beloved physician," came
down to consult with Mr. Parsons of Godalming--on 22d
October. From that time there was gradual but slow
improvement, and, during November, a decided recovery of
strength. But an English autumn was not favorable to the
invalid. Her sensibility to climatic influences was extreme.
It will have been noticed in the preceding letters how
constantly change of air and scene was required. I had never
seen my wife out of England, previous to our marriage, except
the first time at Rome, when she was suffering. My general
impression, therefore, had been that her health was always
very low, and that she was almost constantly ailing.
Moreover, I had been with her very frequently during her
long, severe illness at Witley in 1879. I was the more
surprised, after our marriage, to find that from the day she
set her foot on Continental soil till the day she returned to
Witley she was never ill--never even unwell. She began at
once to look many years younger. During the eleven years of
our acquaintance I had never seen her so strong in health.
The greater dryness and lightness of the atmosphere seemed to
have a magical effect. At Paris we spent our mornings at the
Louvre or the Luxembourg, looking at pictures or sculpture,
or seeing other sights--always fatiguing work. In the
afternoons we took long walks in the Bois, and very often
went to the theatre in the evening. Reading and writing
filled in all the interstices of time; yet there was no
consciousness of fatigue. And we had the same experience at
all the places we stayed at in Italy. On our way home she was
able to take a great deal of walking exercise at Wildbad and
Baden. Decrease of physical strength coincided exactly with
the time of our return to the damper climate of England. The
specific form of illness did not declare itself until two
months later, but her health was never again the same as it
had been on the Continent. Towards the middle of October she
was obliged to keep her bed, but without restriction as to
amount of reading and talking, which she was always able to
enjoy, except in moments of acute pain.

During her illness I read aloud, among other books, Comte's
"Discours Préliminaire," translated by Dr. Bridges. This
volume was one of her especial favorites, and she delighted
in making me acquainted with it. For all Comte's writing she
had a feeling of high admiration, intense interest, and very
deep sympathy. I do not think I ever heard her speak of any
writer with a more grateful sense of obligation for
enlightenment. Her great debt to him was always thankfully
acknowledged. But the appreciation was thoroughly selective,
so far as I was able to judge. Parts of his teaching were
accepted and other parts rejected. Her attitude towards him,
as the founder of a new religion, may be gathered from the
references and allusions in the foregoing correspondence, and
from the fact that for many years, and up to the time of her
death, she subscribed to the Comtist Fund, but never, so far
as I am aware, more directly associated herself with the
members of the Positivist Church. It was a limited adherence.

We generally began our reading at Witley with some chapters
of the Bible, which was a very precious and sacred book to
her, not only from early associations, but also from the
profound conviction of its importance in the development of
the religious life of man. She particularly enjoyed reading
aloud some of the finest chapters of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
St. Paul's Epistles. With a naturally rich, deep voice,
rendered completely flexible by constant practice; with the
keenest perception of the requirements of emphasis, and with
the most subtile modulations of tone, her reading threw a
glamour over indifferent writing, and gave to the greatest
writing fresh meanings and beauty. The Bible and our elder
English poets best suited the organ-like tones of her voice,
which required, for their full effect, a certain solemnity
and majesty of rhythm. Her reading of Milton was especially
fine; and I shall never forget four great lines of the
"Samson Agonistes" to which it did perfect justice--

"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty."

The delighted conviction of justice in the thought--the sense
of perfect accord between thought, language, and
rhythm--stimulated the voice of the reader to find the
exactly right tone. Such reading requires for its perfection
a rare union of intellectual, moral, and physical qualities.
It cannot be imitated. It is an art, like singing--a personal
possession that dies with the possessor, and leaves nothing
behind except a memory. Immediately before her illness we had
read, together, the first part of "Faust." Reading the poem
in the original with such an interpreter was the opening of a
new world to me. Nothing in all literature moved her more
than the pathetic situation and the whole character of
Gretchen. It touched her more than anything in Shakespeare.
During the time that we were reading the "Faust" we were also
constantly reading, together, Shakespeare, Milton, and
Wordsworth: some of Scott's novels and Lamb's essays too, in
which she greatly delighted. For graver study we read through
Professor Sayce's "Introduction to the Science of Language."
Philology was a subject in which she was most deeply
interested; and this was my first experience of what seemed
to me a limitless persistency in application. I had noticed
the persistency before, while looking at pictures, or while
hearing her play difficult music; for it was characteristic
of her nature that she took just as great pains to play her
very best to a single unlearned listener as most performers
would do to a room full of critical _cognoscenti_. Professor
Sayce's book was the first which we had read together
requiring very sustained attention ("The Divina Commedia" we
had read in very short bits at a time), and it revealed to me
more clearly the depth of George Eliot's mental
concentration. Continuous thought did not fatigue her. She
could keep her mind on the stretch hour after hour: the body
might give way, but the brain remained unwearied.

Her memory held securely her great stores of reading. Even of
light books her recollections were always crisp, definite,
and vivid. On our way home from Venice, after my illness, we
were reading French novels of Cherbuliez, Alphonse Daudet,
Gustave Droz, George Sand. Most of these books she had read
years before, and I was astonished to find what clear-cut,
accurate impressions had been retained, not only of all the
principal characters, but also of all the subsidiary
personages--even their names were generally remembered. But,
on the other hand, her verbal memory was not always to be
depended on. She never could trust herself to write a
quotation without verifying it.

In foreign languages George Eliot had an experience more
unusual among women than among men. With a complete literary
and scholarly knowledge of French, German, Italian, and
Spanish, she _spoke_ all four languages with difficulty,
though accurately and grammatically; but the mimetic power of
catching intonation and accent was wanting. Greek and Latin
she could read with thorough delight to herself; and Hebrew
was a favorite study to the end of her life. In her younger
days, especially at Geneva, inspired by Professor de la
Rive's lectures, she had been greatly interested in
mathematical studies. At one time she applied herself
heartily and with keen enjoyment to geometry, and she thought
that she might have attained to some excellence in that
branch if she had been able to pursue it. In later days the
map of the heavens lay constantly on her table at Witley, and
she longed for deeper astronomical knowledge. She had a
passion for the stars; and one of the things to which we
looked forward on returning to London was a possible visit to
Greenwich Observatory, as she had never looked through a
great telescope of the first class. Her knowledge of
wild-flowers gave a fresh interest each day to our walks in
the Surrey lanes, as every hedgerow is full of wonders--to
"those who know;" but she would, I think, have disclaimed for
herself real botanical knowledge, except of an elementary
sort.

This wide and varied culture was accompanied with an
unaffected distrust of her own knowledge, with the sense of
how little she really knew, compared with what it was
possible for her to have known, in the world. Her standard
was always abnormally high--it was the standard of an expert;
and she believed in the aphorism that to know any subject
well we must know the details of it.

During our short married life our time was so much divided
between travelling and illness that George Eliot wrote very
little, so that I have but slight personal experience of how
the creative effort affected her. But she told me that, in
all that she considered her best writing, there was a "not
herself," which took possession of her, and that she felt her
own personality to be merely the instrument through which
this spirit, as it were, was acting. Particularly she dwelt
on this in regard to the scene in "Middlemarch" between
Dorothea and Rosamond, saying that, although she always knew
they had, sooner or later, to come together, she kept the
idea resolutely out of her mind until Dorothea was in
Rosamond's drawing-room. Then, abandoning herself to the
inspiration of the moment, she wrote the whole scene exactly
as it stands, without alteration or erasure, in an intense
state of excitement and agitation, feeling herself entirely
possessed by the feelings of the two women. Of all the
characters she had attempted she found Rosamond's the most
difficult to sustain. With this sense of "possession" it is
easy to imagine what the cost to the author must have been of
writing books, each of which has its tragedy. We have seen
the suffering alluded to in the letters on the "Mill on the
Floss," "Felix Holt," and "Romola."