George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3). George Eliot
the usual merit of Correggio's pictures as to painting. A picture we delighted in extremely was one of Murillo's – St. Rodriguez, fatally wounded, receiving the Crown of Martyrdom. The attitude and expression are sublime, and strikingly distinguished from all other pictures of saints I have ever seen. He stands erect in his scarlet and white robes, with face upturned, the arms held simply downward, but the hands held open in a receptive attitude. The silly cupid-like angel holding the martyr's crown in the corner spoils all.
I did not half satisfy my appetite for the rich collection of Flemish and Dutch pictures here – for Teniers, Ryckart, Gerard Dow, Terburg, Mieris, and the rest. Rembrandt looks great here in his portraits, but I like none of the other pictures by him; the Ganymede is an offence. Guido is superlatively odious in his Christs, in agonized or ecstatic attitudes – much about the level of the accomplished London beggar. Dear, grand old Rubens does not show to great advantage, except in the charming half-length Diana returning from Hunting, the Love Garden, and the sketch of his Judgment of Paris.
The most popular Murillo, and apparently one of the most popular Madonnas in the gallery, is the simple, sad mother with her child, without the least divinity in it, suggesting a dead or sick father, and imperfect nourishment in a garret. In that light it is touching. A fellow-traveller in the railway to Leipzig told us he had seen this picture in 1848 with nine bullet holes in it! The firing from the hotel of the Stadt Rom bore directly on the Picture Gallery.
Veronese is imposing in one of the large rooms – the Adoration of the Magi, the Marriage at Cana, the Finding of Moses, etc., making grand masses of color on the lower part of the walls; but to me he is ignoble as a painter of human beings.
It was a charming life – our six weeks at Dresden. There were the open-air concerts at the Grosser Garten and the Brühl'sche Terrace; the Sommer Theater, where we saw our favorite comic actor Merbitz; the walks into the open country, with the grand stretch of sky all round; the Zouaves, with their wondrous make-ups as women; Räder, the humorous comedian at the Sink'sche Bad Theater; our quiet afternoons in our pleasant salon– all helping to make an agreeable fringe to the quiet working time.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th July, 1858.
Since I wrote to you last I have lived through a great deal of exquisite pleasure. First an attack of illness during our last week at Munich, which I reckon among my pleasures because I was nursed so tenderly. Then a fortnight's unspeakable journey to Salzburg, Ischl, Linz, Vienna, Prague, and finally Dresden, which is our last resting-place before returning to Richmond, where we hope to be at the beginning of September. Dresden is a proper climax; for all other art seems only a preparation for feeling the superiority of the Madonna di San Sisto the more. We go three days a week to the gallery, and every day – after looking at other pictures – we go to take a parting draught of delight at Titian's Zinsgroschen and the Einzige Madonna. In other respects I am particularly enjoying our residence here – we are so quiet, having determined to know no one and give ourselves up to work. We both feel a happy change in our health from leaving Munich, though I am reconciled to our long stay there by the fact that Mr. Lewes gained so much from his intercourse with the men of science there, especially Bischoff, Siebold, and Harless. I remembered your passion for autographs, and asked Liebig for his on your account. I was not sure that you would care enough about the handwriting of other luminaries; for there is such a thing as being European and yet obscure – a fixed star visible only from observatories.
You will be interested to hear that I saw Strauss at Munich. He came for a week's visit before we left. I had a quarter of an hour's chat with him alone, and was very agreeably impressed by him. He looked much more serene, and his face had a far sweeter expression, than when I saw him in that dumb way at Cologne. He speaks with very choice words, like a man strictly truthful in the use of language. Will you undertake to tell Mrs. Call from me that he begged me to give his kindest remembrances to her and to her father,6 of whom he spoke with much interest and regard as his earliest English friend? I dare not begin to write about other things or people that I have seen in these crowded weeks. They must wait till I have you by my side again, which I hope will happen some day.
Journal, 1858.
From Dresden, one showery day at the end of August, we set off to Leipzig, the first stage on our way home. Here we spent two nights; had a glimpse of the old town with its fine market; dined at Brockhaus's; saw the picture-gallery, carrying away a lasting delight in Calame's great landscapes and De Dreux's dogs, which are far better worth seeing than De la Roche's "Napoleon at Fontainebleau" – considered the glory of the gallery; went with Victor Carus to his museum and saw an Amphioxus; and finally spent the evening at an open-air concert in Carus's company. Early in the morning we set off by railway, and travelled night and day till we reached home on the 2d September.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 5th Sept. 1858.
Will you not write to the author of "Thorndale" and express your sympathy? He is a very diffident man, who would be susceptible to that sort of fellowship; and one should give a gleam of happiness where it is possible. I shall write you nothing worth reading for the next three months, so here is an opportunity for you to satisfy a large appetite for generous deeds. You can write to me a great many times without getting anything worth having in return.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Oct. 1858.
Thanks for the verses on Buckle. I'm afraid I feel a malicious delight in them, for he is a writer who inspires me with a personal dislike; not to put too fine a point on it, he impresses me as an irreligious, conceited man.
Long ago I had offered to write about Newman, but gave it up again.
The second volume of "Adam Bede" had been sent to Blackwood on 7th September, the third had followed two months later, and there are the following entries in the Journal in November:
Journal, 1858.
Nov. 1.– I have begun Carlyle's "Life of Frederic the Great," and have also been thinking much of my own life to come. This is a moment of suspense, for I am awaiting Blackwood's opinion and proposals concerning "Adam Bede."
Nov. 4.– Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm praise of my third volume, and offering £800 for the copyright of "Adam Bede" for four years. I wrote to accept.
Nov. 10.– Wilkie Collins and Mr. Pigott came to dine with us after a walk by the river. I was pleased with Wilkie Collins – there is a sturdy uprightness about him that makes all opinion and all occupation respectable.
Nov. 16.– Wrote the last word of "Adam Bede" and sent it to Mr. Langford. Jubilate.
History of "Adam Bede."
The germ of "Adam Bede" was an anecdote told me by my Methodist Aunt Samuel (the wife of my father's younger brother) – an anecdote from her own experience. We were sitting together one afternoon during her visit to me at Griff, probably in 1839 or 1840, when it occurred to her to tell me how she had visited a condemned criminal – a very ignorant girl, who had murdered her child and refused to confess; how she had stayed with her praying through the night, and how the poor creature at last broke out into tears and confessed her crime. My aunt afterwards went with her in the cart to the place of execution; and she described to me the great respect with which this ministry of hers was regarded by the official people about the jail. The story, told by my aunt with great feeling, affected me deeply, and I never lost the impression of that afternoon and our talk together; but I believe I never mentioned it, through all the intervening years, till something prompted me to tell it to George in December, 1856, when I had begun to write the "Scenes of Clerical Life." He remarked that the scene in the prison would make a fine element in a story; and I afterwards began to think of blending this and some other recollections of my aunt in one story, with some points in my father's early life and character. The problem of construction that remained was to make the unhappy girl one of the chief dramatis personæ, and connect her with the hero. At first I thought of making the story one of the series of "Scenes," but afterwards, when several motives had induced me close these with "Janet's Repentance," I determined on making what we always called in our conversation "My Aunt's Story" the subject of a long novel, which
Dr. Brabant.