Or like stout Cortez—when with eagle eyesHe stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
You must read "The Shadows of the Clouds." It produces a sort of palpitation that one hardly knows whether to call wretched or delightful. I cannot take up the book again, though wanting very much to read it more closely. Poor and shallow as one's own soul is, it is blessed to think that a sort of transubstantiation is possible by which the greater ones can live in us. Egotism apart, another's greatness, beauty, or bliss is one's own. And let us sing a Magnificat when we are conscious that this power of expansion and sympathy is growing, just in proportion as the individual satisfactions are lessening. Miserable dust of the earth we are, but it is worth while to be so, for the sake of the living soul—the breath of God within us. You see I can do nothing but scribble my own prosy stuff—such chopped straw as my soul is foddered on. I am translating the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" of Spinoza, and seem to want the only friend that knows how to praise or blame. How exquisite is the satisfaction of feeling that another mind than your own sees precisely where and what is the difficulty—and can exactly appreciate the success with which it is overcome. One knows—sed longo intervallo—the full meaning of the "fit audience though few." How an artist must hate the noodles that stare at his picture, with a vague notion that it is a clever thing to be able to paint.
Letter to Mrs. Pears, 10th May, 1849.
I know it will gladden your heart to hear that father spoke of you the other day with affection and gratitude. He remembers you as one who helped to strengthen that beautiful spirit of resignation which has never left him through his long trial. His mind is as clear and rational as ever, notwithstanding his feebleness, and he gives me a thousand little proofs that he understands my affection and responds to it. These are very precious moments to me; my chair by father's bedside is a very blessed seat to me. My delight in the idea that you are being benefited after all, prevents me from regretting you, though you are just the friend that would complete my comfort. Every addition to your power of enjoying life is an expansion of mine. I partake of your ebb and flow. I am going to my post now. I have just snatched an interval to let you know that, though you have taken away a part of yourself from me, neither you nor any one else can take the whole.
It will have been seen from these late letters, that the last few months of her father's illness had been a terrible strain on his daughter's health and spirits. She did all the nursing herself, and Mrs. Congreve (who was then Miss Bury, daughter of the doctor who was attending Mr. Evans—and who, it will be seen, subsequently became perhaps the most intimate and the closest of George Eliot's friends) tells me that her father told her at the time that he never saw a patient more admirably and thoroughly cared for. The translating was a great relief when she could get to it. Under date of 19th April, 1849, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell, "M. A. is happy now with this Spinoza to do: she says it is such a rest for her mind."
The next letter to Rosehill pathetically describes how the end came at last to Mr. Evans's sufferings:
Letter to the Brays, half-past nine, Wednesday morning, 31st May, 1849.
Dear friends, Mr. Bury told us last night that he thought father would not last till morning. I sat by him with my hand in his till four o'clock, and he then became quieter and has had some comfortable sleep. He is obviously weaker this morning, and has been for the last two or three days so painfully reduced that I dread to think what his dear frame may become before life gives way. My brother slept here last night, and will be here again to-night. What shall I be without my father? It will seem as if a part of my moral nature were gone. I write when I can, but I do not know whether my letter will do to send this evening.
P.S.—Father is very, very much weaker this evening.
Mr. Evans died during that night, 31st May, 1849.
Portrait of Mr. Robert Evans.
SUMMARY.
MAY, 1846, TO MAY, 1849.
Visit to Mrs. Hennell at Hackney—Letters to Mrs. Bray—Strauss translation published—Visit to Dover with father—Classical books wanted—Pleasure in Strauss's letter—Brays suspect novel-writing—Letters to Miss Sara Hennell—Good spirits—Wicksteed's review of the Strauss translation—Reading Foster's life—Visit to Griff—Child's view of God (à propos of Miss Hennell's "Heliados")—Visit to London—"Elijah"—Likes London less—The Sibree family and Mrs. John Cash's reminiscences—Letter to Miss Mary Sibree—Letters to Miss Sara Hennell—Mental depression—Opinion of Charles Hennell's "Inquiry"—Visit to the Isle of Wight with father—Admiration of Richardson—Blanco White—Delight in George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur"—Letters to Mr. John Sibree—Opinion of Mrs. Hannah More's letters—"Tancred," "Coningsby," and "Sybil"—D'Israeli's theory of races—Gentile nature kicks against superiority of Jews—Bows only to the supremacy of Hebrew poetry—Superiority of music among the arts—Relation of religion to art—Thorwaldsen's Christ—Admiration of Roberts and Creswick—The intellect and moral nature restrain the passions and senses—Mr. Dawson the lecturer—Satisfaction in French Revolution of '48—The men of the barricade bowing to the image of Christ—Difference between French and English working-classes—The need of utterance—Sympathy with Mr. Sibree in religious difficulties—Longing for a high attic in Geneva—Letters to Miss Sara Hennell—Views on correspondence—Mental depression—Father's illness—Father better—Goes with him to St. Leonard's—Letter to Charles Bray—Depression to be overcome by thought and love—Admiration of Louis Blanc—Recovery from depression—"Jane Eyre"—Return to Coventry—Meets Emerson—Strauss's pamphlet on Julian the Apostate—Carlyle's eulogium on Emerson—Francis Newman—Suffering from depression—Letter to Mrs. Houghton—Self-condemnation for evil speaking—Letters to Miss Hennell—Macaulay's History—On the influence of George Sand's and Rousseau's writing—Writes review of the "Nemesis of Faith" for the Coventry Herald—Opinion of the "Nemesis" and the "Shadows of the Clouds"—Translating Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus"—Letter to Mrs. Pears—The consolations of nursing—Strain of father's illness—Father's death.
CHAPTER IV.
It fortunately happened that the Brays had planned a trip to the Continent for this month of June, 1849, and Miss Evans, being left desolate by the death of her father, accepted their invitation to join them. On the 11th June they started, going by way of Paris, Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa, Milan, Como, Lago Maggiore, Martigny, and Chamounix, arriving at Geneva in the third week of July. Here Miss Evans determined to remain for some months, the Brays returning home. Before they went, however, they helped her to settle herself comfortably en pension, and, as will be seen from the following letters, the next eight months were quietly and peacefully happy. The pension selected in the first instance was the Campagne Plongeon, which stands on a slight eminence a few hundred yards back from the road on the route d'Hermance, some ten minutes' walk from the Hôtel Métropole. From the Hôtel National on the Quai de Mont Blanc one catches a pleasant glimpse of it nestling among its trees. A good-sized, gleaming white house, with a centre, and gables at each side, a flight of steps leading from the middle window to the ground. A meadow in front, nicely planted, slopes charmingly down to the blue lake, and behind the house, on the left-hand side, there is an avenue of remarkably fine chestnut-trees,
