to the Brays, 11th Oct. 1849.
M. and Mme. d'Albert are really clever people—people worth sitting up an hour longer to talk to. This does not hinder madame from being an excellent manager—dressing scrupulously, and keeping her servants in order. She has hung my room with pictures, one of which is the most beautiful group of flowers conceivable thrown on an open Bible, painted by herself. I have a piano which I hire. There is also one in the salon. M. d'Albert plays and sings, and in the winter he tells me they have parties to sing masses and do other delightful things. In fact, I think I am just in the right place. I breakfast in my own room at half-past eight, lunch at half-past twelve, and dine at four or a little after, and take tea at eight. From the tea-table I have gone into the salon and chatted until bedtime. It would really have been a pity to have stayed at Plongeon, out of reach of everything, and with people so little worth talking to. I have not found out the desagrémens here yet. It is raining horribly, but this just saves me from the regret I should have felt at having quitted the chestnuts of Plongeon. That campagne looked splendid in its autumn dress.
George Eliot retained so warm an admiration and love for M. d'Albert Durade to the end of her life that it seems fitting here to mention that he still lives, carrying well the weight of eighty winters. He is conservateur of the Athénée—a permanent exhibition of works of art in Geneva; and he published only last year (1883) a French translation of the "Scenes of Clerical Life," having already previously published translations of "Adam Bede," "Felix Holt," "Silas Marner," and "Romola." The description of his personal appearance, in the following letter, still holds good, save that the gray hair has become quite white. He lost his wife in 1873; and it will be seen from subsequent letters that George Eliot kept up a faithful attachment to her to the end. They were both friends after her own heart. The old apartment is now No. 18, instead of No. 107, Rue des Chanoines, and is occupied as the printing-office of the Journal de Genève. But half of the rooms remain just as they were five-and-thirty years ago. The salon, wainscoted in imitation light-oak panels, with a white China stove, and her bedroom opening off it—as she had often described it to me; and M. d'Albert has still in his possession the painting of the bunch of beautiful flowers thrown on an open Bible mentioned in the last letter. He told me that when Miss Evans first came to look at the house she was so horrified with the forbidding aspect of the stairs that she declared she would not go up above the first floor; but when she got inside the door she was reconciled to her new quarters. Calvin's house is close to the Rue des Chanoines, and she was much interested in it. It will be seen that she did some work in physics under Professor de la Rive; but she principally rested and enjoyed herself during the stay at Geneva. It was exactly the kind of life she was in need of at the time, and the letters show how much she appreciated it.
Letter to the Brays, 26th Oct. 1849.
I languished for your letter before it came, and read it three times running—judge whether I care less for you than of old. It is the best of blessings to know that you are well and cheerful; and when I think of all that might happen in a fortnight to make you otherwise, especially in these days of cholera and crises, I cannot help being anxious until I get a fresh assurance that at least five days ago all was well. Before I say anything about myself, I must contradict your suspicion that I paint things too agreeably for the sake of giving you pleasure. I assure you my letters are subjectively true; the falsehood, if there be any, is in my manner of seeing things. But I will give you some vérités positives, in which, alas! poor imagination has hitherto been able to do little for the world. Mme. d'Albert anticipates all my wants, and makes a spoiled child of me. I like these dear people better and better—everything is so in harmony with one's moral feeling that I really can almost say I never enjoyed a more complete bien être in my life than during the last fortnight. For M. d'Albert, I love him already as if he were father and brother both. His face is rather haggard-looking, but all the lines and the wavy gray hair indicate the temperament of the artist. I have not heard a word or seen a gesture of his yet that was not perfectly in harmony with an exquisite moral refinement—indeed, one feels a better person always when he is present. He sings well, and plays on the piano a little. It is delightful to hear him talk of his friends—he admires them so genuinely—one sees so clearly that there is no reflex egotism. His conversation is charming. I learn something every dinner-time. Mme. d'Albert has less of genius and more of cleverness—a really lady-like person, who says everything well. She brings up her children admirably—two nice, intelligent boys; 29—the youngest, particularly, has a sort of Lamartine expression, with a fine head. It is so delightful to get among people who exhibit no meannesses, no worldlinesses, that one may well be enthusiastic. To me it is so blessed to find any departure from the rule of giving as little as possible for as much as possible. Their whole behavior to me is as if I were a guest whom they delighted to honor. Last night we had a little knot of their most intimate musical friends, and M. and Mme. d'Albert introduced me to them as if they wished me to know them—as if they wished me to like their friends and their friends to like me. The people and the evening would have been just after your own hearts. In fact, I have not the slightest pretext for being discontented—not the shadow of a discomfort. Even the little housemaid Jeanne is charming; says to me every morning, in the prettiest voice: "Madame a-t-elle bien dormi cette nuit?"—puts fire in my chauffe-pied without being told—cleans my rooms most conscientiously. There—I promise to weary you less for the future with my descriptions. I could not resist the temptation to speak gratefully of M. and Mme. d'Albert.
Give my love to Mrs. Pears—my constant, ever-fresh remembrance. My love to Miss Rebecca Franklin—tell her I have only spun my web to Geneva; it will infallibly carry me back again across the gulf, were it twice as great. If Mr. Froude preach the new word at Manchester, I hope he will preach it so as to do without an after-explanation, and not bewilder his hearers in the manner of Mephistopheles when he dons the doctor's gown of Faust. I congratulate you on the new edition,30 and promise to read it with a disposition to admire when I am at Rosehill once more. I am beginning to lose respect for the petty acumen that sees difficulties. I love the souls that rush along to their goal with a full stream of sentiment—that have too much of the positive to be harassed by the perpetual negatives—which, after all, are but the disease of the soul, to be expelled by fortifying the principle of vitality.
Good-bye, dear loves; sha'n't I kiss you when I am in England again—in England! I already begin to think of the journey as an impossibility. Geneva is so beautiful now, the trees have their richest coloring. Coventry is a fool to it—but, then, you are at Coventry, and you are better than lake, trees, and mountains.
Letter to the Brays, 28th Oct. 1849.
We have had some delicious autumn days here. If the fine weather last, I am going up the Salève on Sunday with M. d'Albert. On one side I shall have a magnificent view of the lake, the town, and the Jura; on the other, the range of Mont Blanc. The walks about Geneva are perfectly enchanting. "Ah!" says poor Mlle. de Phaisan, "nous avons un beau pays si nous n'avions pas ces Radicaux!" The election of the Conseil d'État is to take place in November, and an émeute is expected. The actual government is Radical, and thoroughly detested by all the "respectable" classes. The vice-president of the Conseil and the virtual head of the government is an unprincipled, clever fellow, horribly in debt himself, and on the way to reduce the government to the same position.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Oct. 1849.
I like my town life vastly. I shall like it still better in the winter. There is an indescribable charm to me in this form of human nest-making. You enter a by no means attractive-looking house, you climb up two or three flights of cold, dark-looking stone steps, you ring at a very modest door, and you enter a set of rooms, snug, or comfortable, or elegant. One is so out of reach of intruders, so undiverted from one's occupations by externals, so free from cold, rushing winds through hall doors—one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree. I have always had a hankering after this sort of life, and I find it was a true instinct of what would suit me. Just opposite my windows is the street in which the Sisters of Charity live, and, if I look out, I generally see either one of them or a sober-looking ecclesiastic.
