Gainsborough. At Newark we found our old inn, the Ram, opposite the ruins of the castle, and then we went for a stroll along the banks of the Trent, seeing some charming, quiet landscapes.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 20th Sept. 1868.
This note comes to greet you on your return home, but it cannot greet you so sweetly as your letter did me on our arrival from Leeds last night. I think it gave me a deeper pleasure than any I have had for a long while. I am very grateful to you for it.
We went to Leeds on Monday, and stayed two days with Dr. Allbut. Dr. Bridges dined with us one day, and we had a great deal of delightful chat. But I will tell you everything when we see you. Let that be soon – will you not? We shall be glad of any arrangement that will give us the pleasure of seeing you, Dr. Congreve, and Emily, either separately or all together. Please forgive me if I seem very fussy about your all coming. I want you to understand that we shall feel it the greatest kindness in you if you will all choose to come, and also choose how to come – either to lunch or dinner, and either apart or together. I hope to find that you are much the better for your journey – better both in body and soul. One has immense need of encouragement, but it seems to come more easily from the dead than from the living.
Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Sept. 1868.
Your letter gave an additional gusto to my tea and toast this morning. The greater confidence of the trade in subscribing for the second edition is, on several grounds, a satisfactory indication; but, as you observe, we shall be still better pleased to know that the copies are not slumbering on the counters, but having an active life in the hands of readers.
I am now going carefully through the poem for the sake of correction. I have read it through once, and have at present found some ten or twelve small alterations to be added to those already made. But I shall go through it again more than once, for I wish to be able to put "revised" to the third edition, and to leave nothing that my conscience is not ready to swear by. I think it will be desirable for me to see proofs. It is possible, in many closely consecutive readings, not to see errors which strike one immediately on taking up the pages after a good long interval.
We are feeling much obliged for a copy of "Kinglake," which I am reading aloud to Mr. Lewes as a part of our evening's entertainment and edification, beginning again from the beginning.
This week we have had perfect autumnal days, though last week, when we were in Yorkshire, we also thought that the time of outside chills and inside fires was beginning.
We do not often see a place which is a good foil for London, but certainly Leeds is in a lower circle of the great town —Inferno.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 25th Sept. 1868.
I can imagine how delicious your country home has been under the glorious skies we have been having – glorious even in London. Yesterday we had Dr. and Mrs. Congreve, and went with them to the Zoological Gardens, and on our return, about 5 o'clock, I could not help pausing and exclaiming at the exquisite beauty of the light on Regent's Park, exalting it into something that the young Turner would have wanted to paint.
We went to Leeds last week – saw your favorite, David Cox, and thought of you the while. Certainly there was nothing finer there in landscape than that Welsh funeral. Among the figure-painters, Watts and old Philip are supreme.
We went on from Leeds to Bolton, and spent a day in wandering through the grand woods on the banks of the Wharfe. Altogether, our visit to Yorkshire was extremely agreeable. Our host, Dr. Allbut, is a good, clever, graceful man, enough to enable one to be cheerful under the horrible smoke of ugly Leeds; and the fine hospital, which, he says, is admirably fitted for its purpose, is another mitigation. You would like to see the tasteful, subdued ornamentation in the rooms which are to be sick wards. Each physician is accumulating ornamental objects for his own ward – chromo-lithographs, etc. – such as will soothe sick eyes.
It was quite cold in that northerly region. Your picture keeps a memory of sunshine on my wall even on this dark morning.
Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Oct. 1868.
I have gone through the poem twice for the sake of revision, and have a crop of small corrections – only in one case extending to the insertion of a new line. But I wish to see the proof-sheets, so that "Revised by the Author" may be put in the advertisement and on the title-page.
Unhappily, my health has been unusually bad since we returned from abroad, so that the time has been a good deal wasted on the endurance of malaise; but I am brooding over many things, and hope that coming months will not be barren. As to the criticisms, I suppose that better poets than I have gone through worse receptions. In spite of my reason and of my low expectations, I am too susceptible to all discouragement not to have been depressingly affected by some few things in the shape of criticism which I have been obliged to know. Yet I am ashamed of caring about anything that cannot be taken as strict evidence against the value of my book. So far as I have been able to understand, there is a striking disagreement among the reviewers as to what is best and what is worst; and the weight of agreement, even on the latter point, is considerably diminished by the reflection that three different reviews may be three different phases of the same gentleman, taking the opportunity of earning as many guineas as he can by making easy remarks on George Eliot. But, as dear Scott's characters say, "Let that fly stick in the wa' – when the dirt's dry, it'll rub out." I shall look at "Doubles and Quits," as you recommend. I read the two first numbers of "Madame Amelia," and thought them promising.
I sympathize with your melancholy at the prospect of quitting the country; though, compared with London, beautiful Edinburgh is country. Perhaps some good, thick mists will come to reconcile you with the migration.
We have been using the fine autumn days for flights into Kent between Sundays. The rich woods about Sevenoaks and Chislehurst are a delight to the eyes, and the stillness is a rest to every nerve.
Journal, 1868.
Oct. 22.– Received a letter from Blackwood, saying that "The Spanish Gypsy" must soon go into a third edition. I sent my corrections for it.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th Oct. 1868.
At last I have spirit enough in me to thank you for your valuable gift, which Emily kindly brought me in her hand. I am grateful for it – not only because the medallion5 is a possession which I shall always hold precious, but also because you thought of me among those whom you would choose to be its owners.
I hope you are able to enjoy some walking in these sunshiny mornings. We had a long drive round by Hendon and Finchley yesterday morning, and drank so much clear air and joy from the sight of trees and fields that I am quite a new-old creature.
I think you will not be sorry to hear that the "Spanish Gypsy" is so nearly out of print again that the publishers are preparing a new, cheaper edition. The second edition was all bought up (subscribed for) by the booksellers the first day.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 30th Oct. 1868.
Your pretty letter is irresistible. May we then be with you on Tuesday somewhere about twelve, and return home on Wednesday by afternoon daylight? If the weather should be very cold or wet on Tuesday we must renounce or defer our pleasure, because we are both too rickety to run the risk of taking cold. So you see we are very much in need of such sweet friendliness as yours gives us faith in, to keep us cheerful under the burden of the flesh.
Journal, 1868.
Nov. 3.– Went to dine and sleep at the Congreves, at Wandsworth.
Nov. 4.– We set off for Sheffield, where we went over a great iron and steel factory under the guidance of Mr. Benzon. On Saturday, the 7th, we went to Matlock and stayed till Tuesday. I recognized the objects which I had seen with my father nearly thirty years before – the turn of the road at Cromford, the Arkwrights' house, and the cottages with the stone floors chalked in patterns. The landscape was still rich with autumn leaves.
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Thursday evening, 12th Nov. 1868.
We got home