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Since I heard, on authority, that you were the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede,' I have read them again, and I must once more tell you how earnestly, fully, and _humbly_ I admire them. I never read anything so complete and beautiful in fiction in my life before. Very sweet and noble of her, was it not? She went on to speak of her having held to the notion of Liggins, but she adds,
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I was never such a goose as to believe that books like yours were a mosaic of real and ideal. The
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Seth Bede and
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Adam Bede, Junior, are speculations of those who are always ready to fasten themselves like leeches on a popular fame. Such things must be endured: they are the shadow to the bright fact of selling 16,000 in one year. As to the silly falsehoods and empty opinions afloat in some petty circles, I have quite conquered my temporary irritation about them--indeed, I feel all the more serene now for that very irritation; it has impressed on me more deeply how entirely the rewards of the artist lie apart from everything that is narrow and personal: there is no peace until that lesson is thoroughly learned. I shall go on writing from my inward promptings--writing what I love and believe, what I feel to be true and good, if I can only render it worthily--and then leave all the rest to take its chance:
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As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be with those who are to produce any art that will lastingly touch the generations of men. We have been reading Darwin's book on the
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Origin of Species just now: it makes an epoch, as the expression of his thorough adhesion, after long years of study, to the Doctrine of Development--and not the adhesion of an anonym like the author of the
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Vestiges, but of a long-celebrated naturalist. The book is sadly wanting in illustrative facts--of which he has collected a vast number, but reserves them for a future book, of which this smaller one is the _avant-coureur_. This will prevent the work from becoming popular as the
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Vestiges did, but it will have a great effect in the scientific world, causing a thorough and open discussion of a question about which people have hitherto felt timid. So the world gets on step by step towards brave clearness and honesty! But to me the Development Theory, and all other explanations of processes by which things came to be, produce a feeble impression compared with the mystery that lies under the processes. It is nice to think of you reading our great, great favorite Molière, while, for the present, we are not taking him down from the shelves--only talking about him, as we do very often. I get a good deal of pleasure out of the sense that some one I love is reading and enjoying my best-loved writers. I think the
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Misanthrope the finest, most complete production _of its kind_ in the world. I know you enjoy the
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I like going to those little provincial theatres. One's heart streams out to the poor devils of actors who get so little clapping, and will go home to so poor a supper. One of my pleasures lately has been hearing repeatedly from my Genevese friends M. and Mme. d'Albert, who were so good to me during my residence with them. M. d'Albert had read the
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Scenes of Clerical Life before he knew they were mine, and had been so much struck with them that he had wanted to translate them. One likes to feel old ties strengthened by fresh sympathies. The _Cornhill Magazine_ is going to lead off with great spirit, and promises to eclipse all the other new-born periodicals. Mr. Lewes is writing a series of papers for it--
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Studies in Animal Life --which are to be subsequently published in a book. It is quite as well that your book should not be ready for publication just yet. February is a much better time than Christmas. I shall be one of your most eager readers--for every book that comes from the heart of hearts does me good, and I quite share your faith that what you yourself feel so deeply and find so precious will find a home in some other minds. Do not suspect that I impose on you the task of writing letters to answer my _dilettante_ questions.
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Am I on a bed of roses?
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The Mill on the Floss