For in authorship I hold carelessness to be a mortal sin.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Mr. Lewes's return from Bonn – First visit to Cambridge – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Month's visit to Torquay – Letter to Miss Hennell – Reading the "Iliad" – Letter to John Blackwood – Title of "Spanish Gypsy" – Letter to Madame Bodichon – Women's work – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – England and Ireland – Translation of the "Politique" – Return to London from Torquay – Letter to John Blackwood – Ending of "Spanish Gypsy" – The poem finished – George Eliot's "Notes on the Spanish Gypsy and Tragedy in general" – Suggestion of the poem an Annunciation by Titian, at Venice – Motive – Hereditary conditions – Gypsy race – Determination of conduct – Nature of tragedy – Collision between the individual and the general – Greek tragedy – Hereditary misfortunes – Growth of human sympathy – Moral sanction is obedience to facts – Duty what tends to human good – Letter to Mrs. Bray on the writing of poetry instead of novels – Letter to F. Harrison presenting copy of "Spanish Gypsy" – Inscription on MS. of "Spanish Gypsy" – Letter to F. Harrison on suggestion of a poem – Six weeks' journey to Baden, etc. – Letter to John Blackwood from St. Märgen – Catholic worship – Return to London – Letters to John Blackwood —Pall Mall review of "Spanish Gypsy" – Saying of Balzac – Letter to William Blackwood – Versification – Reading Lucretius, Homer, Milton, Warton, Marcus Aurelius, Dante, Comte, Guest, Maurice – Visit to Dr. Clifford Allbut at Leeds – Visit to Newark – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Letters to John Blackwood – Second edition of "Spanish Gypsy" – "Kinglake" – Criticisms on "Spanish Gypsy" – Visit to the Congreves – Visit to Sheffield with Mr. Benzon – Matlock – Letters to Madame Bodichon and Miss Hennell on Sheffield journey – Herbert Spencer – Meditating subject of Timoleon – Letter to Mrs. Bray – Physiological charts – Letter to Madame Bodichon on influence of friends – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Positivism in "Spanish Gypsy" – Letter to Charles Bray on vote by ballot – Retrospect of 1868 – Letter to John Blackwood – The cheap edition of novels – Letter to the Hon. Robert Lytton – Pronunciation in "Spanish Gypsy" – Cervantes' "La Gitanélla."
CHAPTER XVI
Journal, 1869.
Jan. 1.– I have set myself many tasks for the year – I wonder how many will be accomplished? – a novel called "Middlemarch," a long poem on Timoleon, and several minor poems.
Jan. 23.– Since I wrote last I have finished a little poem on old Agatha. But the last week or two I have been so disturbed in health that no work prospers. I have made a little way in constructing my new tale; have been reading a little on philology; have finished the 24th Book of the "Iliad," the 1st Book of the "Faery Queene," Clough's poems, and a little about Etruscan things, in Mrs. Grey and Dennis. Aloud to G. I have been reading some Italian, Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" and "Volpone," and Bright's speeches, which I am still reading, besides the first four cantos of "Don Juan." But the last two or three days I have seemed to live under a leaden pressure – all movement, mental or bodily, is grievous to me. In the evening read aloud Bright's fourth speech on India, and a story in Italian. In the Spectator some interesting facts about loss of memory and "double life." In the Revue des Cours, a lecture by Sir W. Thomson, of Edinburgh, on the retardation of the earth's motion round its axis.
Jan. 27.– The last two days I have been writing a rhymed poem on Boccaccio's story of "Lisa." Aloud I have read Bright's speeches, and "I Promessi Sposi." To myself I have read Mommsen's "Rome."
Feb. 6.– We went to the third concert. Madame Schumann played finely in Mendelssohn's quintet, and a trio of Beethoven's. As a solo she played the sonata in D minor. In the evening I read aloud a short speech of Bright's on Ireland, delivered twenty years ago, in which he insists that nothing will be a remedy for the woes of that country unless the Church Establishment be annulled: after the lapse of twenty years the measure is going to be adopted. Then I read aloud a bit of the "Promessi Sposi," and afterwards the Spectator, in which there is a deservedly high appreciation of Lowell's poems.
Feb. 14.– Finished the poem from Boccaccio. We had rather a numerous gathering of friends to-day, and among the rest came Browning, who talked and quoted admirably à propos of versification. The Rector of Lincoln thinks the French have the most perfect system of versification in these modern times!
Feb. 15.– I prepared and sent off "How Lisa Loved the King" to Edinburgh.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Feb. 1869.
I have looked back to the verses in Browning's poem about Elisha, and I find no mystery in them. The foregoing context for three pages describes that function of genius which revivifies the past. Man, says Browning (I am writing from recollection of his general meaning), cannot create, but he can restore: the poet gives forth of his own spirit, and reanimates the forms that lie breathless. His use of Elisha's story is manifestly symbolical, as his mention of Faust is – the illustration which he abandons the moment before to take up that of the Hebrew seer. I presume you did not read the context yourself, but only had the two concluding verses pointed out or quoted to you by your friends. It is one of the afflictions of authorship to know that the brains which should be used in understanding a book are wasted in discussing the hastiest misconceptions about it; and I am sure you will sympathize enough in this affliction to set any one right, when you can, about this quotation from Browning.
Journal, 1869.
Feb. 20.– A glorious concert: Hallé, Joachim, and Piatti winding up with Schubert's trio.
Feb. 21.– Mr. Deutsch and Mrs. Pattison lunched with us – he in farewell before going to the East. A rather pleasant gathering of friends afterwards.
Feb. 24.– I am reading about plants, and Helmholtz on music. A new idea of a poem came to me yesterday.
March 3.– We started on our fourth visit to Italy, viâ France and the Cornice.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1869, from Paris.
I found your letter at Florence on our arrival there (on the 23d); but until now bodily ease and leisure enough to write to you have never happened to me in the same moments. Our long journey since we left home on the 3d March, seen from a point of view which, happily, no one shares with me, has been a history of ailments. In shunning the English March, we found one quite as disagreeable, without the mitigation of home comforts; and though we went even as far as Naples in search of warmth, we never found it until we settled in Rome, at the beginning of April. Here we had many days of unbroken sunshine, and enjoyed what we were never able to enjoy during our month's stay in 1860 – the many glorious views of the city and the mountains. The chief novelty to us in our long route has been the sight of Assisi and Ravenna; the rest has been a revisiting of scenes already in our memories; and to most of them we have probably said our last good-bye. Enough of us and our travels. The only remarkable thing people can tell of their doings in these days is that they have stayed at home.
The Fortnightly lay uncut at Mr. Trollope's, and Mr. Lewes had nothing more pressing to do than to cut it open at the reply to Professor Huxley.6 He presently came to me, and said it was excellent. It delighted him the more because he had just before, at Rome, alighted on the Pall Mall account of the article, which falsely represented it as entirely apologetic. At the first spare moment I plunged into an easy-chair, and read, with thorough satisfaction in the admirable temper and the force of the reply. We intend to start for Calais this evening; and as the rain prevents us from doing anything agreeable out of doors, I have nothing to hinder me from sitting, with my knees up to my chin, and scribbling, now that I am become a little sounder
Dr. Congreve's article, "Mr. Huxley on M. Comte," in
