What I Remember Part 20

[It is quite impossible that Lewes could have so written, while my wife, Theodosia, so great a favourite with both him and his wife, and so constantly inquired for tenderly by them, was yet alive. I lost her on the 13th of April, 1865. It is certain therefore, that Lewes's letter was written in 1866, and not as the post-mark declares in 1865.

After speaking of some literary business matters, the letter goes on:--]

"And when am I to receive those articles from you, which you projected? I suppose other work keeps you ever on the stretch. But so active a man must needs 'fulfil himself in many ways.'

"We have been ailing constantly without being ill, but our work gets on somehow or other. Polly is miserable over a new novel, and I am happy over the very hard work of a new edition of my _History of Philosophy_, which will almost be a new book, so great are the changes and additions. Polly sends her love to you and Bice.

"Yours very faithfully,

"G.H. LEWES."

Then after a long break, and after a new phase of my life had commenced, Lewes writes on the 14th of January, 1869, from "21, North Bank":--

"DEAR T.T.,--We did not meet in Germany because our plans were altogether changed. We pa.s.sed all the time in the Black Forest, and came home through the Oberland. I did write to Salzburg however, and perhaps the letter is still there; but there was nothing in it.

"You know how fond we are of you, and the pleasure it always gives us to get a glimpse of you. (Not that we have not also very pleasant a.s.sociations with your wife,[1] but she is as yet stranger to us of course.) But we went away in search of complete repose. And in the Black Forest there was not a soul to speak to, and we liked it so much as to stay on there.

[Footnote 1: I had married my second wife on the 29th of October, 1866.]

"We contemplate moving southwards in the spring, and if we go to Italy and come _near_ Florence, we shall a.s.suredly make a _detour_ and come and see you. Polly wants to see Arezzo and Perugia. And I suppose we can still get a _vetturino_ to take us that way to Rome? Don't want railways, if to be avoided. I don't think we can get away before March, for my researches are so absorbing, that, if health holds out, I must go on, if not, we shall pack up earlier. The worst of Lent is that one gets no theatres, and precisely because we never go to the theatre in London, we hugely enjoy it abroad. Yesterday we took the child of a friend of ours to a morning performance of the pantomime, and are utterly knocked up in consequence. Somehow or other abroad the theatre agrees with us. Polly sends the kindest remembrances to you and your wife. Whenever you want anything done in London, consider me an idle man.

"Ever yours faithfully,

"G.H. LEWES."

And on the 28th February, in the same year, accordingly he writes:--

"Touching our visit to Florence, you may be sure we could not lightly forego such a pleasure. We start to-morrow, and unless we are recalled by my mother's health, we calculate being with you about the end of March. But we shall give due warning of our arrival. We both look forward to this holiday, and 'languish for the purple seas;' though the high winds now howl a threat of anything but a pleasant crossing to Calais. _Che! Che!_ One must pay for one's pleasure! With both of our warmest salutations to you and yours,

"Believe me, yours faithfully,

"G.H. LEWES."

The travellers must, however, have reached us some days before the end of March, for I have a letter to my wife from George Eliot, dated from Naples on the 1st of April, 1869, after they had left us. She writes:--

"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--The kindness which induces you to shelter travellers will make you willing to hear something of their subsequent fate. And I am the more inclined to send you some news of ourselves because I have nothing dismal to tell. We bore our long journey better than we dared to expect, for the night was made short by sleep in our large coupe, and during the day we had no more than one headache between us. Mr. Lewes really looks better, and has lost his twinges.

And though pleasure-seekers are notoriously the most aggrieved and howling inhabitants of the universe, we can allege nothing against our lot here but the persistent coldness of the wind, which is in dangerously sudden contrast with the warmth of the suns.h.i.+ne whenever one gets on the wrong side of a wall. This prevents us from undertaking any carriage expeditions, which is rather unfortunate, because such expeditions are among the chief charms of Naples. We have not been able to renew our old memories of that sort at all, except by a railway journey to Pompeii; and our days are spent in the museum and in the sunniest out-of-door spots. We have been twice to the San Carlo, which we were the more pleased to do, because when we were here before, that fine theatre was closed. The singing is so-so, and the tenor especially is gifted with limbs rather than with voice or ear. But there is a baritone worth hearing and a soprano, whom the Neapolitans delight to honour with hideous sounds of applause.

"We are longing for a soft wind, which will allow us to take the long drive to Baiae during one of our remaining days here. At present we think of leaving for Rome on Sunday or Monday. But our departure will probably be determined by an answer from the landlord of the Hotel de Minerva, to whom Mr. Lewes has written. We have very comfortable quarters here, out of the way of that English and American society, whose charms you can imagine. Our private dinner is well served; and I am glad to be away from the Chiaja, except--the exception is a great one--for the sake of the sunsets which I should have seen there.

"Mr. Lewes has found a book by an Italian named Franchi, formerly a priest, on the present condition of philosophy in Italy. He emerges from its depths--or shallows--to send his best remembrances; and to Bice he begs especially to recommend Plantation Bitters.

"I usually think all the more of things and places the farther I get from them, and, on that ground, you will understand that at Naples I think of Florence, and the kindness I found there under my small miseries. Pray offer my kind regards to Miss Blagden when you see her, and tell her that I hope to shake hands with her in London this spring.

"We shall obey Mr. Trollope's injunctions to write again from Perugia or elsewhere, according to our route homeward. But pray warn him, that when my throat is not sore, and my head not stagnant, I am a much fiercer antagonist. It is perhaps a delight to one's egoism to have a friend who is among the best of men with the worst of theories. One can be at once affectionate and spit-fire. Pray remember me with indulgence, all of you, and believe, dear Mrs. Trollope,

"Most truly yours,

"M.E. LEWES."

It will be seen from the above that George Eliot had very quickly fraternised--what is the feminine form?--with my second wife, as I, without any misgivings, foresaw would be the case. Indeed subsequent circ.u.mstances allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up between them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's mother, restricted as her intercourse with the latter had been by failing health, and the comparative fewness of the hours they had pa.s.sed together. Neither she nor Lewes had ever pa.s.sed a night under my roof until I received them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with my second wife.

What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter alludes, I have entirely forgotten. In all probability we differed on some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless it would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed deeply d.a.m.ning. There was a question of my undertaking the foreign correspondence of a London paper, which came to nothing till some four years later, under other circ.u.mstances; and with reference to that project he writes:--

[Footnote 1: My wife, on reading this pa.s.sage, tells me that according to her recollection the differences in question had no reference to politics at all, but to matters of higher interest relating to man's ultimate destinies.]

"Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you. She was rejoiced that you should once more be giving yourself to public affairs, which you so well understand.... We are but just come back from the solitudes of a farm-house in Surrey, whither I took Polly immediately after our loss [of his son], of which I suppose Anthony told you. It had shaken her seriously. She had lavished almost a mother's love on the dear boy, and suffered a mother's grief in the bereavement. He died in her arms; and for a long while it seemed as if she could never get over the pain. But now she is calm again, though very sad. But she will get to work, and _that_ will aid her.

"For me, I was as fully prepared (by three or four months' conviction of its inevitableness) as one can be in such cases. It is always sudden, however foreseen. Yet the preparation was of great use; and I now have only a beautiful image living with me, and a deep thankfulness that his sufferings are at an end, since recovery was impossible.

"Give my love to your wife and Bice, and believe ever in yours faithfully,

"G.H. LEWES."

The following highly interesting letter was written to my wife by Mrs. Lewes, about a year after his death. It is dated "The Priory, 19 December, 1879":--

"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--In sending me Dr. Haller's words you have sent me a great comfort. A just appreciation of my husband's work from a competent person is what I am most athirst for; and Dr. Haller has put his finger on a true characteristic. I only wish he could print something to the same effect in any pages that would be generally read.

"There is no biography. An article ent.i.tled 'George Henry Lewes'

appeared in the last _New London Quarterly_. It was written by a man for whom he had much esteem; but it is not strong. A few facts about the early life and education are given with tolerable accuracy, but the estimate of the philosophic and scientific activity is inadequate.

Still it is the best thing you could mention to Dr. Haller. You know perhaps that a volume ent.i.tled _The Study of Psychology_ appeared in May last, and that another volume (500 pp.) of _Problems of Life and Mind_ has just been published. The best history of a writer is contained in his writings; these are his chief actions. If he happens to have left an autobiography telling (what n.o.body else can tell) how his mind grew, how it was determined by the joys, sorrows, and other influences of childhood and youth--that is a precious contribution to knowledge. But biographies generally are a disease of English literature.

"I have never yet told you how grateful I was to you for writing to me a year ago. For a long while I could read no letter. But now I have read yours more than once, and it is carefully preserved. You had been with us in our happiness so near the time when it left me--you and your husband are peculiarly bound up with the latest memories.

"You must have had a mournful summer. But Mr. Trollope's thorough recovery from his severe attack is a fresh proof of his const.i.tutional strength. We cannot properly count age by years. See what Mr.

Gladstone does with seventy of them in his frame. And my lost one had but sixty-one and a half.

"You are to come to England again in 1881, I remember, and then, if I am alive, I hope to see you. With best love to you both, always, dear Mrs. Trollope,

"Yours faithfully,