Chapter VIII: Sidenote: Journal, 1858 (1)

_Jan. 2._--George has returned this evening from a week's visit to Vernon Hill. On coming up-stairs he said, "I have some very pretty news for you--something in my pocket." I was at a loss to conjecture, and thought confusedly of possible opinions from admiring readers, when he drew the _Times_ from his pocket--to-day's number, containing a review of the "Scenes of Clerical Life." He had happened to ask a gentleman in the railway carriage, coming up to London, to allow him to look at the _Times_, and felt quite agitated and tremulous when his eyes alighted on the review. Finding he had time to go into town before the train started, he bought a copy there. It is a highly favorable notice, and, as far as it goes, appreciatory.

When G. went into town he called at Nutt's, and Mrs. Nutt said to him, "I think you don't know our curate. _He_ says the author of 'Clerical Scenes' is a High Churchman; for though Mr. Tryan is said to be Low Church, his feelings and _actions_ are those of a High Churchman." (The curate himself being of course High Church.) There were some pleasant scraps of admiration also gathered for me at Vernon Hill. Doyle happening to mention the treatment of children in the stories, Helps said, "Oh, he is a great writer!"

I wonder how I shall feel about these little details ten years hence, if I am alive. At present I value them as grounds for hoping that my writing may succeed, and so give value to my life; as indications that I can touch the hearts of my fellow-men, and so sprinkle some precious grain as the result of the long years in which I have been inert and suffering. But at present fear and trembling still predominate over hope.

_Jan. 5._--To-day the "Clerical Scenes" came in their two-volume dress, looking very handsome.

_Jan. 8._--News of the subscription--580, with a probable addition of 25 for Longmans. Mudie has taken 350. When we used to talk of the probable subscription, G. always said, "I dare say it will be 250!" (The final number subscribed for was 650.)

I ordered copies to be sent to the following persons: Froude, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Ruskin, Faraday, the author of "Companions of my Solitude," Albert Smith, Mrs. Carlyle.

On the 20th of January I received the following letter from Dickens:

[Sidenote: Letter from Charles Dickens to George Eliot, 17th Jan. 1858.]

"TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Monday, 17th Jan. 1858_.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I have been so strongly affected by the two
first tales in the book you have had the kindness to send me,
through Messrs. Blackwood, that I hope you will excuse my
writing to you to express my admiration of their
extraordinary merit. The exquisite truth and delicacy, both
of the humor and the pathos of these stories, I have never
seen the like of; and they have impressed me in a manner that
I should find it very difficult to describe to you, if I had
the impertinence to try.

"In addressing these few words of thankfulness to the creator
of the Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, and the sad
love-story of Mr. Gilfil, I am (I presume) bound to adopt the
name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can
suggest no better one: but I should have been strongly
disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address
the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seemed to me
such womanly touches in those moving fictions, that the
assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me
even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no
man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so
like a woman since the world began.

"You will not suppose that I have any vulgar wish to fathom
your secret. I mention the point as one of great interest to
me--not of mere curiosity. If it should ever suit your
convenience and inclination to show me the face of the man,
or woman, who has written so charmingly, it will be a very
memorable occasion to me. If otherwise, I shall always hold
that impalpable personage in loving attachment and respect,
and shall yield myself up to all future utterances from the
same source, with a perfect confidence in their making me
wiser and better.--Your obliged and faithful servant and
admirer,

"CHARLES DICKENS.

"GEORGE ELIOT, ESQ."

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_Jan. 21._--To-day came the following letter from Froude:

[Sidenote: Letter from J. A. Froude to George Eliot, 17th Jan. 1858.]

"NORTHDOWN HOUSE, BIDEFORD, _17th Jan. 1858_.

"DEAR SIR,--I do not know when I have experienced a more
pleasant surprise than when, on opening a book parcel two
mornings ago, I found it to contain 'Scenes of Clerical
Life,' 'From the author.' I do not often see _Blackwood_; but
in accidental glances I had made acquaintance with 'Janet's
Repentance,' and had found there something extremely
different from general magazine stories. When I read the
advertisement of the republication, I intended fully, at my
leisure, to look at the companions of the story which had so
much struck me, and now I find myself sought out by the
person whose workmanship I had admired, for the special
present of it.

"You would not, I imagine, care much for flattering speeches,
and to go into detail about the book would carry me farther
than at present there is occasion to go. I can only thank you
most sincerely for the delight which it has given me; and
both I myself, and my wife, trust that the acquaintance which
we seem to have made with you through your writings may
improve into something more tangible. I do not know whether I
am addressing a young man or an old--a clergyman or a layman.
Perhaps, if you answer this note, you may give us some
information about yourself. But at any rate, should business
or pleasure bring you into this part of the world, pray
believe that you will find a warm welcome if you will accept
our hospitality.--Once more, with my best thanks, believe me,
faithfully yours,

J. A. FROUDE."

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 17th Jan. 1858.]

I have long ceased to feel any sympathy with mere antagonism and destruction; and all crudity of expression marks, I think, a deficiency in subtlety of thought as well as in breadth of moral and poetic feeling. Mr. William Smith, the author of "Thorndale," is an old acquaintance of Mr. Lewes's. I should say an old _friend_, only I don't like the too ready use of that word. Mr. Lewes admires and esteems him very highly. He is a very accomplished man--a bachelor, with a small independent income; used to write very effective articles on miscellaneous subjects in _Blackwood_. I shall like to know what you think of "Thorndale." I don't know whether you look out for Ruskin's books whenever they appear. His little book on the "Political Economy of Art" contains some magnificent passages, mixed up with stupendous specimens of arrogant absurdity on some economical points. But I venerate him as one of the great teachers of the day. The grand doctrines of truth and sincerity in art, and the nobleness and solemnity of our human life, which he teaches with the inspiration of a Hebrew prophet, must be stirring up young minds in a promising way. The two last volumes of "Modern Painters" contain, I think, some of the finest writing of the age. He is strongly akin to the sublimest part of Wordsworth--whom, by-the-bye, we are reading with fresh admiration for his beauties and tolerance for his faults. Our present plans are: to remain here till about the end of March, then to go to Munich, which I long to see. We shall live there several months, seeing the wonderful galleries in leisure moments. Our living here is so much more expensive than living abroad that we save more than the expenses of our journeying; and as our work can be as well done there as here for some months, we lay in much more capital, in the shape of knowledge and experience, by going abroad.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_Jan. 18._--I have begun the "Eumenides," having finished the "Choephoræ." We are reading Wordsworth in the evening. At least G. is reading him to me. I am still reading aloud Miss Martineau's History.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Jan. 1858.]

I am sure you will be interested in Dickens's letter, which I enclose, begging you to return it as soon as you can, and not to allow any one besides yourself and Major Blackwood to share in the knowledge of its contents. There can be no harm, of course, in every one's knowing that Dickens admires the "Scenes," but I should not like any more specific allusion made to the words of a private letter. There can hardly be any climax of approbation for me after this; and I am so deeply moved by the finely felt and finely expressed sympathy of the letter, that the iron mask of my _incognito_ seems quite painful in forbidding me to tell Dickens how thoroughly his generous impulse has been appreciated. If you should have an opportunity of conveying this feeling of mine to him in any way, you would oblige me by doing so. By-the-bye, you probably remember sending me, some months ago, a letter from the Rev. Archer Gurney--a very warm, simple-spoken letter--praising me for qualities which I most of all care to be praised for. I should like to send him a copy of the "Scenes," since I could make no acknowledgment of his letter in any other way. I don't know his address, but perhaps Mr. Langford would be good enough to look it out in the Clergy List.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_Jan. 23._--There appeared a well-written and enthusiastic article on "Clerical Scenes" in the _Statesman_. We hear there was a poor article in the _Globe_--of feebly written praise--the previous week, but beyond this we have not yet heard of any notices from the press.

_Jan. 26._--Came a very pleasant letter from Mrs. Carlyle, thanking the author of "Clerical Scenes" for the present of his book, praising it very highly, and saying that her husband had promised to read it when released from his mountain of history.

[Sidenote: Letter from Mrs. Carlyle to George Eliot, 21st Jan. 1858.]

"5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA, _21st Jan. 1858_.

"DEAR SIR,--I have to thank you for a surprise, a pleasure,
and a--consolation (!) all in one book! And I do thank you
most sincerely. I cannot divine what inspired the good
thought to send _me_ your book; since (if the name on the
title-page be your real name) it could not have been personal
regard; there has never been a George Eliot among my friends
or acquaintance. But neither, I am sure, could _you_ divine
the circumstances under which I should read the book, and the
particular benefit it should confer on me! I read it--at
least the first volume--during one of the most (physically)
wretched nights of my life--sitting up in bed, unable to get
a wink of sleep for fever and sore throat--and it helped me
through that dreary night as well--better than the most
sympathetic helpful friend watching by my bedside could have
done!

"You will believe that the book needed to be something more
than a 'new novel' for me; that I _could_ at my years, and
after so much reading, read it in positive torment, and be
beguiled by it of the torment! that it needed to be the one
sort of book, however named, that still takes hold of me,
and that grows rarer every year--a _human_ book--written out
of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an
author--full of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of
sentimentality, of sense without dogmatism, of earnestness
without twaddle--a book that makes one _feel friends_ at once
and for always with the man or woman who wrote it!

"In guessing at why you gave me this good gift, I have
thought amongst other things, 'Oh, perhaps it was a delicate
way of presenting the novel to my husband, he being over head
and ears in _history_.' If that was it, I compliment you on
your _tact_! for my husband is much likelier to read the
'Scenes' on _my_ responsibility than on a venture of his
own--though, as a general rule, never opening a novel, he has
engaged to read this one whenever he has some leisure from
his present task.

"I hope to know some day if the person I am addressing bears
any resemblance in external things to the idea I have
conceived of him in my mind--a man of middle age, with a
wife, from whom he has got those beautiful _feminine_ touches
in his book--a good many children, and a dog that he has as
much fondness for as I have for my little Nero! For the
rest--not just a clergyman, but brother or first cousin to a
clergyman! How ridiculous all this _may_ read beside the
reality. Anyhow--I honestly confess I am very curious about
you, and look forward with what Mr. Carlyle would call 'a
good, healthy, genuine desire' to shaking hands with you some
day.--In the meanwhile, I remain, your obliged

JANE W. CARLYLE."

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_Jan. 30._--Received a letter from Faraday, thanking me very gracefully for the present of the "Scenes." Blackwood mentions, in enclosing this letter, that Simpkin & Marshall have sent for twelve additional copies--the first sign of a move since the subscription. The other night we looked into the life of Charlotte Brontë, to see how long it was before "Jane Eyre" came into demand at the libraries, and we found it was not until six weeks after publication. It is just three weeks now since I heard news of the subscription for my book.

[Sidenote: Letter from M. Faraday to George Eliot, 28th Jan. 1858.]

"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _28th Jan. 1858_.

"SIR,--I cannot resist the pleasure of thanking you for what
I esteem a great kindness: the present of your thoughts
embodied in the two volumes you have sent me. They have been,
and will be again, a very pleasant relief from mental
occupation among my own pursuits. Such rest I find at times
not merely agreeable, but essential.--Again thanking you, I
beg to remain, your very obliged servant,
M. FARADAY.

"GEORGE ELIOT, Esq., &c., &c."

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_Feb. 3._--Gave up Miss Martineau's History last night, after reading some hundred pages in the second volume. She has a sentimental, rhetorical style in this history which is fatiguing and not instructive. But her history of the Reform movement is very interesting.

_Feb. 4._--Yesterday brought the discouraging news, that though the book is much talked of, it moves very slowly. Finished the "Eumenides." Bessie Parkes has written asking me to contribute to the _Englishwoman's Journal_--a new monthly which, she says, "We are beginning with £1000, and great social interest."

_Feb. 16._--To-day G. went into the City and saw Langford, for the sake of getting the latest news about our two books--his "Sea-side Studies" having been well launched about a fortnight or ten days ago, with a subscription of 800. He brought home good news. The "Clerical Scenes" are moving off at a moderate but steady pace. Langford remarked, that while the press had been uniformly favorable, not one _critical_ notice had appeared. G. went to Parker's in the evening, and gathered a little gossip on the subject. Savage, author of the "Falcon Family," and now editor of the _Examiner_, said he was reading the "Scenes"--had read some of them already in _Blackwood_--but was now reading the volume. "G. Eliot was a writer of great merit." A barrister named Smythe said he had seen "the Bishop" reading them the other day. As a set-off against this, Mrs. Schlesinger "Couldn't bear the book." She is a regular novel reader; but hers is the first unfavorable opinion we have had.

_Feb. 26._--We went into town for the sake of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Call, and having our photographs taken by Mayall.

_Feb. 28._--Mr. John Blackwood called on us, having come to London for a few days only. He talked a good deal about the "Clerical Scenes" and George Eliot, and at last asked, "Well, am I to see George Eliot this time?" G. said, "Do you wish to see him?" "As he likes--I wish it to be quite spontaneous." I left the room, and G. following me a moment, I told him he might reveal me. Blackwood was kind, came back when he found he was too late for the train, and said he would come to Richmond again. He came on the following Friday and chatted very pleasantly--told us that Thackeray spoke highly of the "Scenes," and said _they were not written by a woman_. Mrs. Blackwood is _sure_ they are not written by a woman. Mrs. Oliphant, the novelist, too, is confident on the same side. I gave Blackwood the MS. of my new novel, to the end of the second scene in the wood. He opened it, read the first page, and smiling, said, "This will do." We walked with him to Kew, and had a good deal of talk. Found, among other things, that he had lived two years in Italy when he was a youth, and that he admires Miss Austen.

Since I wrote these last notes several encouraging fragments of news about the "Scenes" have come to my ears--especially that Mrs. Owen Jones and her husband--two very different people--are equally enthusiastic about the book. But both have detected the woman.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d March, 1858.]

Perhaps we may go to Dresden, perhaps not: we leave room for the _imprévu_, which Louis Blanc found so sadly wanting in Mr. Morgan's millennial village. You are among the exceptional people who say pleasant things to their friends, and don't feel a too exclusive satisfaction in their misfortunes. We like to hear of your interest in Mr. Lewes's books--at least, _I_ am very voracious of such details. I keep the pretty letters that are written to him; and we have had some really important ones from the scientific big-wigs about the "Sea-side Studies." The reception of the book in that quarter has been quite beyond our expectations. Eight hundred copies were sold at once. There is a great deal of close hard work in the book, and every one who knows what scientific work is necessarily perceives this; happily many have been generous enough to express their recognition in a hearty way.

I enter so deeply into everything you say about your mother. To me that old, old popular truism, "We can never have but one mother," has worlds of meaning in it, and I think with more sympathy of the satisfaction you feel in at last being allowed to wait on her than I should of anything else you could tell me. I wish we saw more of that sweet human piety that feels tenderly and reverently towards the aged. [_Apropos_ of some incapable woman's writing she adds.] There is something more piteous almost than soapless poverty in this application of feminine incapacity to literature. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours with Mr. and Mrs. Call last Friday. It was worth a journey on a cold dusty day to see two faces beaming kindness and happiness.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th March, 1858.]

I enclose a letter which will interest you. It is affecting to see how difficult a matter it often is for the men who would most profit by a book to purchase it, or even get a reading of it, while stupid Jopling of Reading or elsewhere thinks nothing of giving a guinea for a work which he will simply put on his shelves.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, March, 1858.]

When do you bring out your new poem? I presume you are already in the sixth canto. It is true you never told me you intended to write a poem, nor have I heard any one say so who was likely to know. Nevertheless I have quite as active an imagination as you, and I don't see why I shouldn't suppose you are writing a poem as well as you suppose that I am writing a novel. Seriously, I wish you would not set rumors afloat about me. They are injurious. Several people, who seem to derive their notions from Ivy Cottage,[1] have spoken to me of a supposed novel I was going to bring out. Such things are damaging to me.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 31st March, 1858.]

Thanks for your disclaimer. It shows me that you take a right view of the subject. There is no undertaking more fruitful of absurd mistakes than that of "guessing" at authorship; and as I have never communicated to any one so much as an _intention_ of a literary kind, there can be none but imaginary data for such guesses. If I withhold anything from my friends which it would gratify them to know, you will believe, I hope, that I have good reasons for doing so, and I am sure those friends will understand me when I ask them to further my object--which is not a whim but a question of solid interest--by complete silence. I can't afford to indulge either in vanity or sentimentality about my work. I have only a trembling anxiety to do what is in itself worth doing, and by that honest means to win very necessary profit of a temporal kind. "There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed" in due time. But till that time comes--till I tell you myself, "This is the work of my hand and brain"--don't believe anything on the subject. There is no one who is in the least likely to know what I can, could, should, or would write.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_April 1, 1858._--Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm praise of "Adam Bede," but wanting to know the rest of the story in outline before deciding whether it should go in the Magazine. I wrote in reply refusing to tell him the story.

On Wednesday evening, April 7th, we set off on our journey to Munich, and now we are comfortably settled in our lodgings, where we hope to remain three months at least. I sit down in my first leisure moments to write a few recollections of our journey, or rather of our twenty-four hours' stay at Nürnberg; for the rest of our journey was mere endurance of railway and steamboat in cold and sombre weather, often rainy. I ought to except our way from Frankfort to Nürnberg, which lay for some distance--until we came to Bamberg--through a beautifully varied country. Our view both of Würzburg and Bamberg, as we hastily snatched it from our railway carriage, was very striking--great old buildings, crowning heights that rise up boldly from the plain in which stand the main part of the towns. From Bamberg to Nürnberg the way lay through a wide rich plain sprinkled with towns. We had left all the hills behind us. At Bamberg we were joined in our carriage by a pleasant-looking elderly couple, who spoke to each other and looked so affectionately that we said directly, "Shall we be so when we are old?" It was very pretty to see them hold each other's gloved hands for a minute like lovers. As soon as we had settled ourselves in our inn at Nürnberg--the Baierische Hof--we went out to get a general view of the town. Happily it was not raining, though there was no sun to light up the roof and windows.

[Sidenote: Journal, April, 1858.]

How often I had thought I should like to see Nürnberg, and had pictured to myself narrow streets with dark quaint gables! The reality was not at all like my picture, but it was ten times better. No sombre coloring, except the old churches: all was bright and varied, each _façade_ having a different color--delicate green, or buff, or pink, or lilac--every now and then set off by the neighborhood of a rich reddish brown. And the roofs always gave warmth of color with their bright red or rich purple tiles. Every house differed from its neighbor, and had a physiognomy of its own, though a beautiful family likeness ran through them all, as if the burghers of that old city were of one heart and one soul, loving the same delightful outlines, and cherishing the same daily habits of simple ease and enjoyment in their balcony-windows when the day's work was done.

The balcony window is the secondary charm of the Nürnberg houses; it would be the principal charm of any houses that had not the Nürnberg roofs and gables. It is usually in the centre of the building, on the first floor, and is ornamented with carved stone or wood, which supports it after the fashion of a bracket. In several of these windows we saw pretty family groups--young fair heads of girls or of little children, with now and then an older head surmounting them. One can fancy that these windows are the pet places for family joys--that papa seats himself there when he comes home from the warehouse, and the little ones cluster round him in no time. But the glory of the Nürnberg houses is the roofs, which are no blank surface of mere tiling, but are alive with lights and shadows, cast by varied and beautiful lines of windows and pinnacles and arched openings. The plainest roof in Nürnberg has its little windows lifting themselves up like eyelids, and almost everywhere one sees the pretty hexagonal tiles. But the better houses have a central, open sort of pavilion in the roof, with a pinnacle surmounted by a weathercock. This pavilion has usually a beautifully carved arched opening in front, set off by the dark background which is left by the absence of glass. One fancies the old Nürnbergers must have gone up to these pavilions to smoke in the summer and autumn days. There is usually a brood of small windows round this central ornament, often elegantly arched and carved. A wonderful sight it makes to see a series of such roofs surmounting the tall, delicate-colored houses. They are always high-pitched, of course, and the color of the tiles was usually of a bright red. I think one of the most charming vistas we saw was the Adler-Gasse, on the St. Lorenz side of the town. Sometimes, instead of the high-pitched roof, with its pavilion and windows, there is a richly ornamented gable fronting the street; and still more frequently we get the gables at right angles with the street at a break in the line of houses.

Coming back from the Burg we met a detachment of soldiers, with their band playing, followed by a stream of listening people; and then we reached the market-place, just at the point where stands "The Beautiful Fountain"--an exquisite bit of florid Gothic which has been restored in perfect conformity with the original. Right before us stood the Frauen-Kirche, with its fine and unusual _façade_, the chief beauty being a central chapel used as the choir, and added by Adam Krafft. It is something of the shape of a mitre, and forms a beautiful gradation of ascent towards the summit of _façade_. We heard the organ and were tempted to enter, for this is the one Catholic Church in Nürnberg. The delicious sound of the organ and voices drew us farther and farther in among the standing people, and we stayed there I don't know how long, till the music ceased. How the music warmed one's heart! I loved the good people about me, even to the soldier who stood with his back to us, giving us a full view of his close-cropped head, with its pale yellowish hair standing up in bristles on the crown, as if his hat had acted like a forcing-pot. Then there was a little baby in a close-fitting cap on its little round head, looking round with bright black eyes as it sucked its bit of bread. Such a funny little complete face--rich brown complexion and miniature Roman nose. And then its mother lifted it up that it might see the rose-decked altar, where the priests were standing. How music, that stirs all one's devout emotions, blends everything into harmony--makes one feel part of one whole which one loves all alike, losing the sense of a separate self. Nothing could be more wretched as art than the painted St. Veronica opposite me, holding out the sad face on her miraculous handkerchief. Yet it touched me deeply; and the thought of the Man of Sorrows seemed a very close thing--not a faint hearsay.

We saw Albert Dürer's statue by Rauch, and Albert Dürer's house--a striking bit of old building, rich dark-brown, with a truncated gable and two wooden galleries running along the gable end. My best wishes and thanks to the artists who keep it in repair and use it for their meetings. The vistas from the bridges across the muddy Pegnitz, which runs through the town, are all quaint and picturesque; and it was here that we saw some of the _shabbiest_-looking houses--almost the only houses that carried any suggestion of poverty, and even here it was doubtful. The town has an air of cleanliness and well-being, and one longs to call one of those balconied apartments one's own home, with their flower-pots, clean glass, clean curtains, and transparencies turning their white backs to the street. It is pleasant to think there is such a place in the world where many people pass peaceful lives.

On arriving at Munich, after much rambling, we found an advertisement of "Zwei elegant möblirte Zimmer," No. 15 Luitpold Strasse; and to our immense satisfaction found something that looked like cleanliness and comfort. The bargain was soon made--twenty florins per month. So here we came last Tuesday, the 13th April. We have been taking sips of the Glyptothek and the two Pinacotheks in the morning, not having settled to work yet. Last night we went to the opera--Fra Diavolo--at the Hof-Theatre. The theatre ugly, the singing bad. Still, the orchestra was good, and the charming music made itself felt in spite of German throats. On Sunday, the 11th, we went to the Pinacothek, straight into the glorious Rubens Saal. Delighted afresh in the picture of "Samson and Delilah," both for the painting and character of the figures. Delilah, a magnificent blonde, seated in a chair, with a transparent white garment slightly covering her body, and a rich red piece of drapery round her legs, leans forward, with one hand resting on her thigh, the other, holding the cunning shears, resting on the chair--a posture which shows to perfection the full, round, living arms. She turns her head aside to look with sly triumph at Samson--a tawny giant, his legs caught in the red drapery, shorn of his long locks, furious with the consciousness that the Philistines are upon him, and that this time he cannot shake them off. Above the group of malicious faces and grappling arms a hand holds a flaming torch. Behind Delilah, and grasping her arm, leans forward an old woman, with hard features full of exultation.

This picture, comparatively small in size, hangs beside the "Last Judgment," and in the corresponding space, on the other side of the same picture, hangs the sublime "Crucifixion." Jesus alone, hanging dead on the Cross, darkness over the whole earth. One can desire nothing in this picture--the grand, sweet calm of the dead face, calm and satisfied amidst all the traces of anguish, the real, livid flesh, the thorough mastery with which the whole form is rendered, and the isolation of the supreme sufferer, make a picture that haunts one like a remembrance of a friend's death-bed.

_April 12 (Monday)._--After reading Anna Mary Howitt's book on Munich and Overbeck on Greek art, we turned out into the delicious sunshine to walk in the Theresien Wiese, and have our first look at the colossal "Bavaria," the greatest work of Schwanthaler. Delightful it was to get away from the houses into this breezy meadow, where we heard the larks singing above us. The sun was still too high in the west for us to look with comfort at the statue, except right in front of it, where it eclipsed the sun; and this front view is the only satisfactory one. The outline made by the head and arm on a side view is almost painfully ugly. But in front, looking up to the beautiful, calm face, the impression it produces is sublime. I have never seen anything, even in ancient sculpture, of a more awful beauty than this dark, colossal head, looking out from a background of pure, pale-blue sky. We mounted the platform to have a view of her back, and then walking forward, looked to our right hand and saw the snow-covered Alps! Sight more to me than all the art in Munich, though I love the _art_ nevertheless. The great, wide-stretching earth and the all-embracing sky--the birthright of us all--are what I care most to look at. And I feel intensely the new beauty of the sky here. The blue is so exquisitely clear, and the wide streets give one such a broad canopy of sky. I felt more inspirited by our walk to the Theresien Platz than by any pleasure we have had in Munich.

_April 16._--On Wednesday we walked to the Theresien Wiese to look at the "Bavaria" by sunset, but a shower came on and drove us to take refuge in a pretty house built near the Ruhmeshalle, whereby we were gainers, for we saw a charming family group: a mother with her three children--the eldest a boy with his book, the second a three-year-old maiden, the third a sweet baby-girl of a year and a half; two dogs, one a mixture of the setter and pointer, the other a turn-spit; and a relation or servant ironing. The baby cried at the sight of G. in beard and spectacles, but kept her eyes turning towards him from her mother's lap, every now and then seeming to have overcome her fears, and then bursting out crying anew. At last she got down and lifted the table-cloth to peep at his legs, as if to see the monster's nether parts.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 17th April, 1858.]

We have been just to take a sip at the two Pinacotheks and at the Glyptothek. At present the Rubens Saal is what I most long to return to. Rubens gives me more pleasure than any other painter, whether that is right or wrong. To be sure, I have not seen so many pictures, and pictures of so high a rank, by any other great master. I feel sure that when I have seen as much of Raphael I shall like him better; but at present Rubens, more than any one else, makes me feel that painting is a great art, and that he was a great artist. His are such real, breathing men and women, moved by passions, not mincing and grimacing, and posing in mere aping of passion! What a grand, glowing, forceful thing life looks in his pictures--the men such grand-bearded, grappling beings, fit to do the work of the world; the women such real mothers. We stayed at Nürnberg only twenty-four hours, and I felt sad to leave it so soon. A pity the place became Protestant, so that there is only one Catholic church where one can go in and out as one would. We turned into the famous St. Sebald's for a minute, where a Protestant clergyman was reading in a cold, formal way under the grand Gothic arches. Then we went to the Catholic church, the Frauen-Kirche, where the organ and voices were giving forth a glorious mass; and we stood with a feeling of brotherhood among the standing congregation till the last note of the organ had died out.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_April 23._--Not being well enough to write, we determined to spend our morning at the Glyptothek and Pinacothek. A glorious morning--all sunshine and blue sky. We went to the Glyptothek first, and delighted ourselves anew with the "Sleeping Faun," the "Satyr and Bacchus," and the "Laughing Faun" (Fauno colla Macchia). Looked at the two young satyrs reposing with the pipe in their hands--one of them charming in the boyish, good-humored beauty of the face, but both wanting finish in the limbs, which look almost as if they could be produced by a turning-machine. But the conception of this often-repeated figure is charming: it would make a garden seem more peaceful in the sunshine. Looked at the old Silenus too, which is excellent. I delight in these figures, full of droll animation, flinging some nature, in its broad freedom, in the eyes of small-mouthed, mincing narrowness.

We went into the modern Saal also, glancing on our way at the Cornelius frescoes, which seem to me stiff and hideous. An Adonis, by Thorwaldsen, is very beautiful.

Then to the Pinacothek, where we looked at Albert Dürer's portrait again, and many other pictures, among which I admired a group by Jordaens: "A satyr eating, while a peasant shows him that he can blow hot and cold at the same time;" the old grandmother nursing the child, the father with the key in his hand, with which he has been amusing baby, looking curiously at the satyr, the handsome wife, still more eager in her curiosity, the quiet cow, the little boy, the dog and cat--all are charmingly conceived.

_April 24._--As we were reading this afternoon Herr Oldenbourg came in, invited us to go to his house on Tuesday, and chatted pleasantly for an hour. He talked of Kaulbach, whom he has known very intimately, being the publisher of the "Reineke Fuchs." The picture of the "Hunnen Schlacht" was the first of Kaulbach's on a great scale. It created a sensation, and the critics began to call it a "Weltgeschichtliches Bild." Since then Kaulbach has been seduced into the complex, wearisome, symbolical style, which makes the frescoes at Berlin enormous puzzles.

When we had just returned from our drive in the Englische Garten, Bodenstedt pleasantly surprised us by presenting himself. He is a charming man, and promises to be a delightful acquaintance for us in this strange town. He chatted pleasantly with us for half an hour, telling us that he is writing a work, in five volumes, on the "Contemporaries of Shakspeare," and indicating the nature of his treatment of the Shakspearian drama--which is historical and analytical. Presently he proposed that we should adjourn to his house and have tea with him; and so we turned out all together in the bright moonlight, and enjoyed his pleasant chat until ten o'clock. His wife was not at home, but we were admitted to see the three sleeping children--one a baby about a year and a half old, a lovely waxen thing. He gave the same account of Kaulbach as we had heard from Oldenbourg; spoke of Genelli as superior in genius, though he has not the fortune to be recognized; recited some of Hermann Lingg's poetry, and spoke enthusiastically of its merits. There was not a word of detraction about any one--nothing to jar on one's impression of him as a refined, noble-hearted man.

_April 27._--This has been a red-letter day. In the morning Professor Wagner took us over his "Petrifacten Sammlung," giving us interesting explanations; and before we left him we were joined by Professor Martius, an animated, clever man, who talked admirably, and invited us to his house. Then we went to Kaulbach's studio, talked with him, and saw with especial interest the picture he is preparing as a present to the New Museum. In the evening, after walking in the Theresien Wiese, we went to Herr Oldenbourg's, and met Liebig the chemist, Geibel and Heyse the poets, and Carrière, the author of a work on the Reformation. Liebig is charming, with well-cut features, a low, quiet voice, and gentle manners. It was touching to see his hands, the nails black from the roots, the skin all grimed.

Heyse is like a painter's poet, ideally beautiful; rather brilliant in his talk, and altogether pleasing. Geibel is a man of rather coarse texture, with a voice like a kettledrum, and a steady determination to deliver his opinions on every subject that turned up. But there was a good deal of ability in his remarks.

_April 30._--After calling on Frau Oldenbourg, and then at Professor Bodenstedt's, where we played with his charming children for ten minutes, we went to the theatre to hear Prince Radziwill's music to the "Faust." I admired especially the earlier part, the Easter morning song of the spirits, the Beggar's song, and other things, until after the scene in Auerbach's cellar, which is set with much humor and fancy. But the scene between Faust and Marguerite is bad--"Meine Ruh ist hin" quite pitiable, and the "König im Thule" not good. Gretchen's second song, in which she implores help of the Schmerzensreiche, touched me a good deal.

_May 1._--In the afternoon Bodenstedt called, and we agreed to spend the evening at his house--a delightful evening. Professor Löher, author of "Die Deutschen in America," and another much younger _Gelehrter_, whose name I did not seize, were there.

_May 2._--Still rainy and cold. We went to the Pinacothek, and looked at the old pictures in the first and second Saal. There are some very bad and some fine ones by Albert Dürer: of the latter, a full length figure of the Apostle Paul, with the head of Mark beside him, in a listening attitude, is the one that most remains with me. There is a very striking "Adoration of the Magi," by Johannes van Eyck, with much merit in the coloring, perspective, and figures. Also, "Christ carrying his Cross," by Albert Dürer, is striking. "A woman raised from the dead by the imposition of the Cross" is a very elaborate composition, by Böhms, in which the faces are of first-rate excellence.

In the evening we went to the opera and saw the "Nord Stern."

_May 10._--Since Wednesday I have had a wretched cold and cough, and been otherwise ill, but I have had several pleasures nevertheless. On Friday, Bodenstedt called with Baron Schack to take us to Genelli's, the artist of whose powers Bodenstedt had spoken to us with enthusiastic admiration. The result to us was nothing but disappointment; the sketches he showed us seemed to us quite destitute of any striking merit. On Sunday we dined with Liebig, and spent the evening at Bodenstedt's, where we met Professor Bluntschli, the jurist, a very intelligent and agreeable man, and Melchior Meyr, a maker of novels and tragedies, otherwise an ineffectual personage.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th May, 1858.]

Our life here is very agreeable--full of pleasant novelty, although we take things quietly and observe our working hours just as if we were at Richmond. People are so kind to us that we feel already quite at home, sip _baierisch Bier_ with great tolerance, and talk bad German with more and more _aplomb_. The place, you know, swarms with professors of all sorts--all _gründlich_, of course, and one or two of them great. There is no one we are more charmed with than Liebig. Mr. Lewes had no letter to him--we merely met him at an evening party; yet he has been particularly kind to us, and seems to have taken a benevolent liking to me. We dined with him and his family yesterday, and saw how men of European celebrity may put up with greasy cooking in private life. He lives in very good German style, however; has a handsome suite of apartments, and makes a greater figure than most of the professors. His manners are charming--easy, graceful, benignant, and all the more conspicuous because he is so quiet and low spoken among the loud talkers here. He looks best in his laboratory, with his velvet cap on, holding little phials in his hand, and talking of Kreatine and Kreatinine in the same easy way that well-bred ladies talk scandal. He is one of the professors who has been called here by the present king--Max--who seems to be a really sensible man among kings; gets up at five o'clock in the morning to study, and every Saturday evening has a gathering of the first men in science and literature, that he may benefit by their opinions on important subjects. At this _Tafel-rund_ every man is required to say honestly what he thinks; every one may contradict every one else; and if the king suspects any one of a polite insincerity, the too polished man is invited no more. Liebig, the three poets--Geibel, Heyse, and Bodenstedt--and Professor Löher, a writer of considerable mark, are always at the _Tafel-rund_ as an understood part of their functions; the rest are invited according to the king's direction. Bodenstedt is one of our best friends here--enormously instructed, after the fashion of Germans, but not at all stupid with it.

We were at the Siebolds' last night to meet a party of celebrities, and, what was better, to see the prettiest little picture of married life--the great comparative anatomist (Siebold) seated at the piano in his spectacles playing the difficult accompaniments to Schubert's songs, while his little round-faced wife sang them with much taste and feeling. They are not young. Siebold is gray, and probably more than fifty; his wife perhaps nearly forty; and it is all the prettier to see their admiration of each other. She said to Mr. Lewes, when he was speaking of her husband, "Ja, er ist ein netter Mann, nicht wahr?"[2]

We take the art in very small draughts at present--the German hours being difficult to adjust to our occupations. We are obliged to dine at _one!_ and of course when we are well enough must work till then. Two hours afterwards all the great public exhibitions are closed, except the churches. I _cannot_ admire much of the modern German art. It is for the most part elaborate lifelessness. Kaulbach's great compositions are huge charades; and I have seen nothing of his equal to his own "Reineke Fuchs." It is an unspeakable relief, after staring at one of his pictures--the "Destruction of Jerusalem," for example, which is a regular child's puzzle of symbolism--to sweep it all out of one's mind--which is very easily done, for nothing grasps you in it--and call up in your imagination a little Gerard Dow that you have seen hanging in a corner of one of the cabinets. We have been to his _atelier_, and he has given us a proof of his "Irrenhaus,"[3] a strange sketch, which he made years ago--very terrible and powerful. He is certainly a man of great faculty, but is, I imagine, carried out of his true path by the ambition to produce "Weltgeschichtliche Bilder," which the German critics may go into raptures about. His "Battle of the Huns," which is the most impressive of all his great pictures, was the first of the series. He painted it simply under the inspiration of the grand myth about the spirits of the dead warriors rising and carrying on the battle in the air. Straightway the German critics began to smoke furiously that vile tobacco which they call _æsthetik_, declared it a "Weltgeschichtliches Bild," and ever since Kaulbach has been concocting these pictures in which, instead of taking a single moment of reality and trusting to the infinite symbolism that belongs to all nature, he attempts to give you at one view a succession of events--each represented by some group which may mean "Whichever you please, my little dear."

I must tell you something else which interested me greatly, as the first example of the kind that has come under my observation. Among the awful mysterious names, hitherto known only as marginal references whom we have learned to clothe with ordinary flesh and blood, is Professor Martius (Spix and Martius), now an old man, and rich after the manner of being rich in Germany. He has a very sweet wife--one of those women who remain pretty and graceful in old age--and a family of three daughters and one son, all more than grown up. I learned that she is Catholic, that her daughters are Catholic, and her husband and son Protestant--the children having been so brought up according to the German law in cases of mixed marriage. I can't tell you how interesting it was to me to hear her tell of her experience in bringing up her son conscientiously as a Protestant, and then to hear her and her daughters speak of the exemplary priests who had shown them such tender fatherly care when they were in trouble. They are the most harmonious, affectionate family we have seen; and one delights in such a triumph of human goodness over the formal logic of theorists.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]

_May 13._--Geibel came and brought me the two volumes of his poems, and stayed chatting for an hour. We spent the evening quietly at home.

_May 14._--After writing, we went for an hour to the Pinacothek, and looked at some of the Flemish pictures. In the afternoon we called at Liebig's, and he went a long walk with us--the long chain of snowy mountains in the hazy distance. After supper I read Geibel's "Junius Lieder."

_May 15._--Read the 18th chapter of "Adam Bede" to G. He was much pleased with it. Then we walked in the Englische Garten, and heard the band, and saw the Germans drinking their beer. The park was lovely.

_May 16._--We were to have gone to Grosshesselohe with the Siebolds, and went to Frühstück with them at 12, as a preliminary. Bodenstedt was there to accompany us. But heavy rain came on, and we spent the time till 5 o'clock in talking, hearing music, and listening to Bodenstedt's "Epic on the destruction of Novgorod." About seven, Liebig came to us and asked us to spend the evening at his house. We went and found Voelderndorff, Bischoff and his wife, and Carrière and Frau.

_May 20._--As I had a feeble head this morning, we gave up the time to seeing pictures, and went to the _Neue Pinacothek_. A "Lady with Fruit, followed by three Children," pleased us more than ever. It is by Wichmann. The two interiors of Westminster Abbey by Ainmueller admirable. Unable to admire Rothmann's Greek Landscapes, which have a room to themselves. Ditto Kaulbach's "Zerstörung von Jerusalem."

We went for the first time to see the collection of porcelain paintings, and had really a rich treat. Many of them are admirable copies of great pictures. The sweet "Madonna and Child," in Raphael's early manner; a "Holy Family," also in the early manner, with a Madonna the exact type of the St. Catherine; and a "Holy Family" in the later manner, something like the Madonna Delia Sedia, are all admirably copied. So are two of Andrea del Sarto's--full of tenderness and calm piety.

_May 23._--Through the cold wind and white dust we went to the Jesuits' Church to hear the music. It is a fine church in the Renaissance style, the vista terminating with the great altar very fine, with all the crowd of human beings covering the floor. Numbers of men!

In the evening we went to Bodenstedt's, and saw his wife for the first time--a delicate creature who sang us some charming Bavarian _Volkslieder_. On Monday we spent the evening at Löher's--Baumgarten, _ein junger Historiker_, Oldenbourg, and the Bodenstedts meeting us.

Delicious _Mai-trank_, made by putting the fresh _Waldmeister_--a cruciferous plant with a small white flower, something like Lady's Bedstraw--into mild wine, together with sugar, and occasionally other things.

_May 26._--This evening I have read aloud "Adam Bede," chapter xx. We have begun Ludwig's "Zwischen Himmel und Erde."

_May 27._--We called on the Siebolds to-day, then walked in the Theresien Wiese, and saw the mountains gloriously. Spent the evening at Prof. Martius's, where Frau Erdl played Beethoven's Andante and the Moonlight Sonata admirably.

_May 28._--We heard from Blackwood this morning. Good news in general, but the sale of our books not progressing at present.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th May, 1858.]

It is invariably the case that when people discover certain points of coincidence in a fiction with facts that happen to have come to their knowledge, they believe themselves able to furnish a key to the whole. That is amusing enough to the author, who knows from what widely sundered portions of experience--from what a combination of subtle, shadowy suggestions, with certain actual objects and events, his story has been formed. It would be a very difficult thing for me to furnish a key to my stories myself. But where there is no exact memory of the past, any story with a few remembered points of character or of incident may pass for a history.