season," or "best novel we have read for a long time," from such authorities as the Sun, or Morning Star, or other orb of the newspaper firmament – as if these sentences were to be selected for reprint in the form of advertisement. I shudder at the suggestion. Am I taking a liberty in entreating you to keep a sharp watch over the advertisements, that no hackneyed puffing phrase of this kind may be tacked to my book? One sees them garnishing every other advertisement of trash: surely no being "above the rank of an idiot" can have his inclination coerced by them? and it would gall me, as much as any trifle could, to see my book recommended by an authority who doesn't know how to write decent English. I believe that your taste and judgment will concur with mine in the conviction that no quotations of this vulgar kind can do credit to a book; and that unless something looking like the real opinion of a tolerably educated writer, in a respectable journal, can be given, it would be better to abstain from "opinions of the press" altogether. I shall be grateful to you if you will save me from the results of any agency but your own – or at least of any agency that is not under your rigid criticism in this matter.
Pardon me if I am overstepping the author's limits in this expression of my feelings. I confide in your ready comprehension of the irritable class you have to deal with.
Journal, 1859.
Feb. 26.– Laudatory reviews of "Adam Bede" in the Athenæum, Saturday, and Literary Gazette. The Saturday criticism is characteristic: Dinah is not mentioned!
The other day I received the following letter, which I copy, because I have sent the original away:
Letter from E. Hall to George Eliot.
"To the Author of 'Adam Bede,'
"Dear Sir, – I got the other day a hasty read of your 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' and since that a glance at your 'Adam Bede,' and was delighted more than I can express; but being a poor man, and having enough to do to make 'ends meet,' I am unable to get a read of your inimitable books.
"Forgive, dear sir, my boldness in asking you to give us a cheap edition. You would confer on us a great boon. I can get plenty of trash for a few pence, but I am sick of it. I felt so different when I shut your books, even though it was but a kind of 'hop-skip-and-jump' read.
"I feel so strongly in this matter that I am determined to risk being thought rude and officious, and write to you.
"Many of my working brethren feel as I do, and I express their wish as well as my own. Again asking your forgiveness for intruding myself upon you, I remain, with profoundest respect, yours, etc.,
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Feb. 1859.
I have written to Chrissey, and shall hear from her again. I think her writing was the result of long, quiet thought – the slow return of a naturally just and affectionate mind to the position from which it had been thrust by external influence. She says: "My object in writing to you is to tell you how very sorry I have been that I ceased to write, and neglected one who, under all circumstances, was kind to me and mine. Pray believe me when I say it will be the greatest comfort I can receive to know that you are well and happy. Will you write once more?" etc. I wrote immediately, and I desire to avoid any word of reference to anything with which she associates the idea of alienation. The past is abolished from my mind. I only want her to feel that I love her and care for her. The servant trouble seems less mountainous to me than it did the other day. I was suffering physically from unusual worrit and muscular exertion in arranging the house, and so was in a ridiculously desponding state. I have written no end of letters in answer to servants' advertisements, and we have put our own advertisement in the Times– all which amount of force, if we were not philosophers and therefore believers in the conservation of force, we should declare to be lost. It is so pleasant to know these high doctrines – they help one so much. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Congreve have called on us. We shall return the call as soon as we can.
Journal, 1859.
March 8.– Letter from Blackwood this morning saying that "'Bedesman' has turned the corner and is coming in a winner." Mudie has sent for 200 additional copies (making 700), and Mr. Langford says the West End libraries keep sending for more.
March 14.– My dear sister wrote to me about three weeks ago, saying she regretted that she had ever ceased writing to me, and that she has been in a consumption for the last eighteen months. To-day I have a letter from my niece Emily, telling me her mother had been taken worse, and cannot live many days.
March 14.– Major Blackwood writes to say "Mudie has just made up his number of 'Adam Bede' to 1000. Simpkins have sold their subscribed number, and have had 12 to-day. Every one is talking of the book."
March 15.– Chrissey died this morning at a quarter to 5.
March 16.– Blackwood writes to say I am "a popular author as well as a great author." They printed 2090 of "Adam Bede," and have disposed of more than 1800, so that they are thinking about a second edition. A very feeling letter from Froude this morning. I happened this morning to be reading the 30th Ode, B. III. of Horace – "Non omnis moriar."
Letter to John Blackwood, 17th March, 1859.
The news you have sent me is worth paying a great deal of pain for, past and future. It comes rather strangely to me, who live in such unconsciousness of what is going on in the world. I am like a deaf person, to whom some one has just shouted that the company round him have been paying him compliments for the last half hour. Let the best come, you will still be the person outside my own home who first gladdened me about "Adam Bede;" and my success will always please me the better because you will share the pleasure.
Don't think I mean to worry you with many such requests – but will you copy for me the enclosed short note to Froude? I know you will, so I say "thank you."
Letter to J. A. Froude from George Eliot.
Dear Sir, – My excellent friend and publisher, Mr. Blackwood, lends me his pen to thank you for your letter, and for his sake I shall be brief.
Your letter has done me real good – the same sort of good as one has sometimes felt from a silent pressure of the hand and a grave look in the midst of smiling congratulations.
I have nothing else I care to tell you that you will not have found out through my books, except this one thing: that, so far as I am aware, you are only the second person who has shared my own satisfaction in Janet. I think she is the least popular of my characters. You will judge from that, that it was worth your while to tell me what you felt about her.
I wish I could help you with words of equal value; but, after all, am I not helping you by saying that it was well and generously done of you to write to me? – Ever faithfully yours,
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st March, 1859.
It was worth your while to write me those feeling words, for they are the sort of things that I keep in my memory and feel the influence of a long, long while. Chrissey's death has taken from the possibility of many things towards which I looked with some hope and yearning in the future. I had a very special feeling towards her – stronger than any third person would think likely.
Journal, 1859.
March 24.– Mr. Herbert Spencer brought us word that "Adam Bede" had been quoted by Mr. Charles Buxton in the House of Commons: "As the farmer's wife says in 'Adam Bede,' 'It wants to be hatched over again and hatched different.'"
March 26.– George went into town to-day and brought me home a budget of good news that compensated for the pain I had felt in the coldness of an old friend. Mr. Langford says that Mudie "thinks he must have another hundred or two of 'Adam' – has read the book himself, and is delighted with it." Charles Reade says it is "the finest thing since Shakespeare" – placed his finger on Lisbeth's account of her coming home with her husband from their marriage – praises enthusiastically the style – the way in which the author handles the Saxon language. Shirley Brooks also delighted. John Murray says