The Life of George Eliot. George Eliot
I have been so pleased to hear some of your letters read to me, but, alas! I can reflect no pleasure at this moment, for I have a woful pain and am in a desperate hurry.
On 14th February, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Sara Hennell that Miss Evans "says she is Strauss-sick—it makes her ill dissecting the beautiful story of the Crucifixion, and only the sight of the Christ-image19 and picture make her endure it. Moreover, as her work advances nearer its public appearance, she grows dreadfully nervous. Poor thing, I do pity her sometimes, with her pale, sickly face and dreadful headaches, and anxiety, too, about her father. This illness of his has tried her so much, for all the time she had for rest and fresh air she had to read to him. Nevertheless, she looks very happy and satisfied sometimes in her work."
And about the end of February there is the following letter from Miss Evans:
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Feb. 1846.
Health and greeting, my Achates, in this veritable spring month. I shall send you a parcel on Monday with sixty-four new pages of German for your intellectual man. The next parcel, which will be the last, I shall send on the Monday following, and when you have read to the end, you may, if you think it desirable, send the whole to me. Your dull ass does not mend his pace for beating; but he does mend it when he finds out that he is near his journey's end, and makes you wonder how he could pretend to find all the previous drawing so hard for him. I plead guilty to having set off in a regular scamper: but be lenient and do not scold me if you find all sorts of carelessnesses in these last hundred pages.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Feb. 1846.
I have been guilty of the most unpardonable piece of carelessness, for which I am stretched on a rack of anxiety and mortification. In the proof that came on Thursday I unwittingly drew out a quarter sheet with the blotting-paper, and did not discover the mistake until Saturday morning, when about to correct the last proof. Surely the printer would discover the absence of the four pages and wait for them—otherwise I would rather have lost one of my fingers, or all the hair from my head, than have committed such a faux pas. For there were three very awkward blunders to be corrected. All this vexation makes a cold and headache doubly intolerable, and I am in a most purgatorial state on this "good Sunday." I shall send the proofs, with the unfortunate quarter sheet and an explanation, to-night to Mr. Chapman, and prithee do thou inquire and see that the right thing is done. The tears are streaming from my smarting eyes—so farewell.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.
I wish we could get the book out in May—why not? I suppose the binding could not be all got through—the printing and writing I should think might be managed in time. Shouldn't I like to fleet the time away with thee as they did in the Golden Age—after all our toils to lie reclined on the hills (spiritually), like gods together, careless of mankind. Sooth to speak, idleness, and idleness with thee, is just the most tempting mirage you could raise before my mind's eye—I say mirage, because I am determined from henceforth to believe in no substantiality for future time, but to live in and love the present—of which I have done too little. Still, the thought of being with you in your own home will attract me to that future; for without all controversy I love thee and miss thee.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.
My soul kisses thee, dear Sara, in gratitude for those dewy thoughts of thine in this morning's note. My poor adust soul wants such refreshment. Continue to do me good—hoping for nothing again. I have had my sister with me all day—an interruption, alas! I cannot write more, but I should not be happy to let the day pass without saying one word to thee.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Mch. 1846.
The last hundred pages have certainly been totally uninteresting to me, considered as matter for translation. Strauss has inevitably anticipated in the earlier part of his work all the principles and many of the details of his criticism, and he seems fagged himself. Mais courage! the neck of the difficulty is broken, and there is really very little to be done now. If one's head would but keep in anything like thinking and writing order! Mine has robbed me of half the last fortnight; but I am a little better now, and am saying to myself Frisch zu! The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are, at all events, better than the bursting asunder of Judas. I am afraid I have not made this dull part of Strauss even as tolerable as it might be, for both body and mind have recoiled from it. Thank you, dearest, for all your love and patience for me and with me. I have nothing on earth to complain of but subjective maladies. Father is pretty well, and I have not a single excuse for discontent through the livelong day.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Mch. 1846.
As I believe that even your kindness cannot overcome your sincerity, I will cast aside my fear that your wish to see me in your own home is rather a plan for my enjoyment than for yours. I believe it would be an unmixed pleasure to me to be your visitor, and one that I would choose among a whole bouquet of agreeable possibilities; so I will indulge myself, and accept the good that the heavens and you offer me. I am miserably in want of you to stir up my soul and make it shake its wings, and begin some kind of flight after something good and noble, for I am in a grovelling, slothful condition, and you are the only friend I possess who has an animating influence over me. I have written to Mr. Hennell anent the titlepage, and have voted for critically examined, from an entire conviction of its preferableness.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, beginning of April, 1846.
See what it is to have a person en rapport with you, that knows all your thoughts without the trouble of communication! I am especially grateful to you for restoring the "therefore" to its right place. I was about to write to you to get you to remonstrate about this and the "dispassionate calmness," which I did not at all like; but I thought you had corrected the prefaces, as the marks against the Latin looked like yours, so I determined to indulge my laissez-faire inclinations, for I hate stickling and debating unless it be for something really important. I do really like reading our Strauss—he is so klar und ideenvoll; but I do not know one person who is likely to read the book through—do you? Next week we will be merry and sad, wise and nonsensical, devout and wicked, together.
On 19th April, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans is "as happy as you may imagine at her work being done. She means to come and read Shakespeare through to us as her first enjoyment." And again, on 27th April, that she "is delighted beyond measure with Strauss's elegant preface. It is just what she likes. And what a nice letter too! The Latin is quite beyond me, but the letter shows how neatly he can express himself."
SUMMARY.
MARCH, 1841, TO APRIL, 1846.
Foleshill—New friends—Mrs. Pears—Coventry life and engagements—Letters to Miss Lewis—Brother's marriage—Mental depression—Reading Nichol's "Architecture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System"—Makes acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Bray—Reads Charles Hennell's book, "An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity"—Effect of this book—Gives up going to church—Family difficulties—Letters to Mrs. Pears—Visit to Griff—Returns to Foleshill and resumes going to church—Acquaintance with Miss Sara Hennell, and development of friendship with her and Mr. and Mrs. Bray—Letters to Miss Sara Hennell describing mental characteristics—Attitude towards immortality—Death of Miss Mary Hennell—Excursion with the Brays, Mr. Charles Hennell, and Miss Hennell to Stratford and Malvern, and to Tenby with same party and Miss Brabant—Meets Robert Owen—Studies German and music with Mrs. Bray—Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, with important declaration of opinion in regard to conformity—Mr. Charles Hennell's marriage—Stay with Dr. Brabant at Devizes—Arrangement for translation of Strauss's "Leben Jesu"—Excursion with Brays to the Cumberland lakes, returning by Manchester and Liverpool—Weary of Strauss—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Poetry of Christianity—Admiration of Harriet Martineau's "The Crofton Boys"—Trip to London—Despair about publication of Strauss—Subscription of £300 for the work—In better heart—Minutiæ of Strauss translation—Pains taken with the Schluss Abhandlung—Opinion of Strauss's work—The book in print—Trip to the Highlands—Strauss difficulties—Miss Hennell reads the translation and makes suggestions—Suffering from headaches