Your account of Mr. Main[17] sets my mind at ease about him; for in this case I would rather have your judgment than any opportunity of forming my own. The one thing that gave me confidence was his power of putting his finger on the right passages, and giving emphasis to the right idea (in relation to the author's feeling and purpose). Apart from that, enthusiasm would have been of little value.
One feels rather ashamed of authoresses this week after the correspondence in the _Times_. One hardly knows which letter is in the worst taste. However, if we are to begin with marvelling at the little wisdom with which the world is governed, we can hardly expect that much wisdom will go to the making of novels.
I should think it quite a compliment if the general got through "Miss Brooke." Mr. Lewes amused himself with the immeasurable contempt that Mr. Casaubon would be the object of in the general's mind.
I hardly dare hope that the second part will take quite so well as the first, the effects being more subtile and dispersed; but Mr. Lewes seems to like the third part better than anything that has gone before it. But can anything be more uncertain than the reception of a book by the public? I am glad to see that the "Coming Race" has got into a fourth edition. Let us hope that the Koom Posh may be at least mitigated by the sale of a good book or two.
As for me, I get more and more unable to be anything more than a feeble sceptic about all publishing plans, and am thankful to have so many good heads at work for me. _Allah illah allah!_
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1871.]
We who are getting old together have the tie of common infirmities. But I don't find that the young troubles seem lighter on looking back. I prefer my years now to any that have gone before. I wish you could tell me the same thing about yourself. And, surely, writing your book is, on the whole, a joy to you--it is a large share in the meagre lot of mankind. All hail for the morrow! How many sweet laughs, how much serious pleasure in the great things others have done, you and I have had together in a past islet of time that remains very sunny in my remembrance.
_Dec. 1._--This day the first part of "Middlemarch" was published. I ought by this time to have finished the fourth part, but an illness which began soon after our return from Haslemere has robbed me of two months.