his "Polyolbion." Re-read Grote, v. – vii., on Sicilian affairs, down to rise of Dionysius.
July 18.– Miss Nannie Smith came, after a long absence from England; Professor Masson and Dr. Bastian, Madame Bodichon, and Dr. Payne. Some conversation about Saint-Simonism, à propos of the meeting on Woman's Suffrage the day before, M. Arles Dufour being uneasy because Mill did not in his speech recognize what women owed to Saint-Simonism.
July 19.– Writing an introduction to "Middlemarch." I have just re-read the 15th Idyll of Theocritus, and have written three more sonnets. My head uneasy. We went in the afternoon to the old water-colors, finding that the exhibition was to close at the end of the week. Burne-Jones's Circe and St. George affected me, by their colors, more than any of the other pictures – they are poems. In the evening read Nisard on Rabelais and Marot.
July 22.– Read Reybaud's book on "Les Réformateurs Modernes." In the afternoon Mrs. P. Taylor came and saw Thornie, who has been more uneasy this week, and unwilling to move or come out on the lawn.
July 23.– Read Theocritus, Id. 16. Meditated characters for "Middlemarch." Mrs. F. Malleson came.
July 24.– Still not quite well and clear-headed, so that little progress is made. I read aloud Fourier and Owen, and thought of writing something about Utopists.
July 25.– Read Plato's "Republic" in various parts. After lunch Miss Nannie Smith, Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Deutsch. In the evening I read Nisard, and Littré on Comte.
Aug. 1.– Since last Sunday I have had an uncomfortable week from mental and bodily disturbance. I have finished eleven sonnets on "Brother and Sister," read Littré, Nisard, part of 22d Idyll of Theocritus, Sainte-Beuve, aloud to G. two evenings. Monday evening looked through Dickson's "Fallacies of the Faculty." On Tuesday afternoon we went to the British Museum to see a new bronze, and I was enchanted with some fragments of glass in the Slade collection, with dyes of sunset in them. Yesterday, sitting in Thornie's room, I read through all Shakespeare's "Sonnets." Poor Thornie has had a miserably unsatisfactory week, making no progress. After lunch came Miss N. Smith and Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones, and Mr. Sanderson.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 1st Aug. 1869.
My last words to you might appear to imply something laughably opposed to my real meaning. "Think of me only as an example" meant – an example to be avoided. It was an allusion in my mind to the servant-girl who, being arrested for theft, said to her fellow-servant, "Take example by me, Sally." With the usual caprice of language, we say. "Make an example of her," in that sense of holding up for a warning, which the poor girl and I intended.
Journal, 1869.
Aug. 2.– Began "Middlemarch" (the Vincy and Featherstone parts).
Aug. 5.– Thornie during the last two or three days gives much more hopeful signs: has been much more lively, with more regular appetite and quieter nights. This morning I finished the first chapter of "Middlemarch." I am reading Renouard's "History of Medicine."
Aug. 31.– We went to Weybridge, walked on St. George's Hill, and lunched with Mrs. Cross and her family.
This visit to Weybridge is a very memorable one to me, because there my own first intimacy with George Eliot began, and the bonds with my family were knitted very much closer. Mr. and Mrs. Bullock were staying with us; and my sister, who had some gift for music, had set one or two of the songs from the "Spanish Gypsy." She sang one of them – "On through the woods, the pillared pines" – and it affected George Eliot deeply. She moved quickly to the piano, and kissed Mrs. Bullock very warmly, in her tears. Mr. and Mrs. Lewes were in deep trouble owing to the illness of Thornton Lewes; we were also in much anxiety as to the approaching confinement of my sister with her first child; and I was on the eve of departure for America. Sympathetic feelings were strong enough to overleap the barrier (often hard to pass) which separates acquaintanceship from friendship. A day did the work of years. Our visitors had come to the house as acquaintances, they left it as lifelong friends. And the sequel of that day greatly intensified the intimacy. For within a month my sister had died in childbirth, and her death called forth one of the most beautiful of George Eliot's letters. A month later Thornton Lewes died.
Journal, 1869.
Sept. 1.– I meditated characters and conditions for "Middlemarch," which stands still in the beginning of chapter iii.
Sept. 2.– We spent the morning in Hatfield Park, arriving at home again at half-past three.
Sept. 10.– I have achieved little during the last week, except reading on medical subjects – Encyclopædia about the "Medical Colleges," "Cullen's Life," Russell's "Heroes of Medicine," etc. I have also read Aristophanes' "Ecclesiazusœ," and "Macbeth."
Sept. 11.– I do not feel very confident that I can make anything satisfactory of "Middlemarch." I have need to remember that other things which have been accomplished by me were begun under the same cloud. G. has been reading "Romola" again, and expresses profound admiration. This is encouraging.
Sept. 15.– George and I went to Sevenoaks for a couple of nights, and had some delicious walks.
Sept. 21.– Finished studying again Bekker's "Charikles." I am reading Mandeville's Travels. As to my work, im Stiche gerathen. Mrs. Congreve and Miss Bury came; and I asked Mrs. Congreve to get me some information about provincial hospitals, which is necessary to my imagining the conditions of my hero.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1869.
As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poetry, I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most vulgar-minded genius that ever produced a great effect in literature.
Journal, 1869.
Sept. 22.– We went down to Watford for a change.
Sept. 24.– Returned home this morning because of the unpromising weather. It is worth while to record my great depression of spirits, that I may remember one more resurrection from the pit of melancholy. And yet what love is given to me! What abundance of good I possess! All my circumstances are blessed; and the defect is only in my own organism. Courage and effort!
Oct. 5.– Ever since the 28th I have been good for little, ailing in body and disabled in mind. On Sunday an interesting Russian pair came to see us – M. and Mme. Kovilevsky: she, a pretty creature, with charming modest voice and speech, who is studying mathematics (by allowance, through the aid of Kirchhoff) at Heidelberg; he, amiable and intelligent, studying the concrete sciences apparently – especially geology; and about to go to Vienna for six months for this purpose, leaving his wife at Heidelberg!
I have begun a long-meditated poem, "The Legend of Jubal," but have not written more than twenty or thirty verses.
Oct. 13.– Yesterday Mr. W. G. Clark of Cambridge came to see us, and told of his intention to give up his oratorship and renounce his connection with the Church.
I have read rapidly through Max Müller's "History
