U INTRODUCTION NFORTUNATELY for the reader who may wish to learn something of the conception and development of the "Impressions of Theophrastus Such," George Eliot had given up keeping her journal nearly eleven months before the book was completed, and probably some time before it was even begun. Up to the time when the journal closed with the end of 1877 no mention is made of any plans for such a book. It is safe to say, however, that the gentleman who told Mr. Charles Lewes that it was "a higher order of book, and more difficult to write, than a novel" was mistaken, in the last particular at all events, for it is hard to imagine a series of discursive essays causing anything like such anxiety and depression as George Eliot's novels were responsible for. "Theophrastus Such" was written chiefly, if not entirely, at The Heights, Witley, Surrey, a house which the Leweses had bought in December, 1876, and which had since been their country home. The manuscript was completed and sent to the Blackwoods in November, 1878, but publication was delayed by the death of Lewes, who fell ill on the afternoon of the very day on which he had sent it off, and died on the 28th of the month. It was long before George Eliot's grief would let her think of publishing, and she wrote Mr. Blackwood, February 25, 1879, begging him not to announce "Theophrastus" in any way. She corrected the proofs at this time, however, completing this work on the 5th of March. When she read the revise she was dissatisfied with the book, and proposed to suppress it till the time when she should recover the power to to "regenerate" it. But Mr. Blackwood must have advised against this plan, for we find her writing him under date of April 5: "After weighing what you have said, agree to the publication of Theophrastus' in May. There are some things in it which I want to get said, and if the book turned out to be effective in proportion to my other things, the form would lend itself to a 'second series' — supposing I lived and kept my faculties." I The "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" was published in May, accordingly. It was "welcomed" by the book-buyers, and the author wrote to her publisher on June 20, “The way in which the public takes 'Theophrastus' is really a comfort to me." By the middle of July the third edition had been issued, and in September the book was still selling well. In "Theophrastus Such" George Eliot for the first time had an opportunity to say her say on many subjects which touched her nearly, unhampered by the requirements of the more exacting literary forms. "The book,' says Mr. Oscar Browning, "from its inherent truthfulness and absence of affectation, is a most valuable source of information for the feelings and opinions which lay deepest at her heart. 'Looking Backward' is full of autobiographical recollections;' The Modern Hep! Hep! Hep!' the cry with which the Jews were persecuted, is a plain and solemn exposition of the feelings which prompted the defence of the Jews in 'Deronda.'” |