spent at Matlock. I was so renovated that my head was clearer, and I was more unconscious of my body than at the best of times for many months. But it seemed suddenly colder when we were in London, and old uneasy sensations are revisiting us both to-day.
I wonder whether you will soon want to come to town, and will send me word that you will come and take shelter with us for the night? The bed is no softer and no broader; but will you not be tempted by a new carpet and a new bit of matting for your bath? – perhaps there will even be a new fender? If you want to shop, I will take you in the brougham.
I think you will be just able to make out this note, written by a sudden impulse on my knee over the fire.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 16th Nov. 1868.
No oracle would dare to predict what will be our next migration. Don't be surprised if we go to the borders of the White Sea, to escape the fitful fast and loose, hot and cold, of the London climate.
We enjoyed our journey to the north. It was a great experience to me to see the stupendous iron-works at Sheffield; and then, for a variety, we went to the quiet and beauty of Matlock, and I recognized all the spots I had carried in my memory for more than five-and-twenty years. I drove through that region with my father when I was a young grig – not very full of hope about my woman's future. I am one of those perhaps exceptional people whose early, childish dreams were much less happy than the real outcome of life.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Nov. 1868.
I think your birthday comes after mine; but I am determined to write beforehand to prove to you that I bear you in my thoughts without any external reminder.
I suppose we are both getting too old to care about being wished many happy returns of the day. We shall be content to wish each other as many more years as can carry with them some joy and calm satisfaction in the sense of living. But there is one definite prospect for you which I may fairly hope for, as I do most tenderly – the prospect that this time next year you will be looking back on your achieved work as a good seed-sowing. Some sadness there must always be in saying good-bye to a work which is done with love; but there may – I trust there will– be a compensating good in feeling that the thing you yearned to do is gone safely out of reach of casualties that might have cut it short.
We have been to Sheffield at the seducing invitation of a friend, who showed us the miraculous iron-works there; and afterwards we turned aside to beautiful Matlock, where I found again the spots, the turns of road, the rows of stone cottages, the rushing river Derwent, and the Arkwright mills – among which I drove with my father when I was in my teens. We had glorious weather, and I was quite regenerated by the bracing air. Our friend Mr. Spencer is growing younger with the years. He really looks brighter and more enjoying than he ever did before, since he was in the really young, happy time of fresh discussion and inquiry. His is a friendship which wears well, because of his truthfulness. He always asks with sympathetic interest how you are going on.
Journal, 1868.
Nov. 22.– The return of this St. Cecilia's Day finds me in better health than has been usual with me in these last six months. But I am not yet engaged in any work that makes a higher life for me – a life that is young and grows, though in my other life I am getting old and decaying. It is a day for resolves and determinations. I am meditating the subject of Timoleon.
Letter to Mrs. Bray, 30th Nov. 1868.
I like to think of you painting the physiological charts, although they tire your eyes a little; for you must be sure that the good of such work is of a kind that goes deep into young lives. "Fearfully and wonderfully made" are words quite unshaken by any theory as to the making; and I think a great awe in the contemplation of man's delicate structure, freighted with terrible destinies, is one of the most important parts of education. A much-writing acquaintance of ours one day expressed his alarm for "the masses" at the departure of a religion which had terror in it. Surely terror is provided for sufficiently in this life of ours – if only the dread could be directed towards the really dreadful.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 12th Dec. 1868.
We have been having a little company, and are rejoicing to think that our duties of this sort are done for the present. We like our studies and our dual solitude too well to feel company desirable more than one day a-week. I wish our affection may be with you as some little cheering influence through the dark months. We hardly estimate enough the difference of feeling that would come to us if we did not imagine friendly souls scattered here and there in places that make the chief part of the world so far as we have known it.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Dec. 1868.
Tell Dr. Congreve that the "mass of positivism," in the shape of "The Spanish Gypsy," is so rapidly finding acceptance with the public that the second edition, being all sold, the third, just published, has already been demanded to above 700. Do not think that I am becoming an egotistical author. The news concerns the doctrine, not the writer.
Letter to the Brays, 19th Dec. 1868.
I am moved to congratulate you on writing against the ballot with such admirably good sense – having just read your "slip" at the breakfast-table. It has been a source of amazement to me that men acquainted with practical life can believe in the suppression of bribery by the ballot, as if bribery in all its Protean forms could ever disappear by means of a single external arrangement. They might as well say that our female vanity would disappear at an order that women should wear felt hats and cloth dresses. It seems to me that you have put the main unanswerable arguments against the ballot with vigorous brevity.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 29th Dec. 1868.
Thanks for letting me know about the meeting. I shall not be able to join it bodily, but I am glad always to have the possibility of being with you in thought. I have a twofold sympathy on the occasion, for I cannot help entering specially into your own wifely anxieties, and I shall be glad to be assured that Dr. Congreve has borne the excitement without being afterwards conscious of an excessive strain.
Journal, 1868.
Dec. 30.– I make to-day the last record that I shall enter of the old year 1868. It has been as rich in blessings as any preceding year of our double life, and I enjoy a more and more even cheerfulness and continually increasing power of dwelling on the good that is given to me and dismissing the thought of small evils. The chief event of the year to us has been the publication and friendly reception by the public of "The Spanish Gypsy." The greatest happiness (after our growing love) which has sprung and flowed onward during the latter part of the year is George's interest in his psychological inquiries. I have, perhaps, gained a little higher ground and firmer footing in some studies, notwithstanding the yearly loss of retentive power. We have made some new friendships that cheer us with the sense of new admiration of actual living beings whom we know in the flesh, and who are kindly disposed towards us. And we have had no real trouble. I wish we were not in a minority of our fellow-men! I desire no added blessing for the coming year but this – that I may do some good, lasting work, and make both my outward and inward habits less imperfect – that is, more directly tending to the best uses of life.
Letter to John Blackwood, 31st Dec. 1868.
Many thanks for the check, which I received yesterday afternoon. Mr. Lewes is eminently satisfied with the sales; and, indeed, it does appear from authoritative testimony that the number sold is unusually large even for what is called a successful poem.
The cheap edition of the novels is so exceptionally attractive in print, paper, and binding, for 3s. 6d., that I cannot help fretting a little at its not getting a more rapid sale. The fact rather puzzles me, too, in presence of the various proofs that the books really are liked. I suppose there is some mystery of reduced prices accounting for the abundant presentation of certain works and series on the bookstalls at the railways, and the absence of others, else surely those pretty volumes would have a good chance of being bought by the travellers whose taste shrinks from the diabolical red-and-yellow-pictured series. I am sure you must often be in a state of wonderment as to how the business of the world gets done so as not to ruin two thirds of the people concerned