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

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.

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.

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.

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 Bessie⁴¹ for me, with my love to her. I cannot write to more than two or three persons.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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's⁴³ 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 Frederick⁴⁴ 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.

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.

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 Bessie⁴⁵ 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."

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.

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 trouble⁴⁶ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.