I called on several publishers and asked for employment,
but could get none till I came to John Chapman, editor and
proprietor of the Westminster Review, as well as publisher, mainly
of books which were theologically heretical, and, I am sorry to say,
did not pay. He lived at 142 Strand.
As the New College council had tested my orthodoxy, so Chapman
tested my heresy and found that I was fit for the propagandist work
in No. 142 and for its society. He asked me if I believed in
miracles. I said "Yes and no". I did not believe that an actual
Curtius leaped into the gulf in the Forum and saved Rome, but I did
believe in the spiritual truth set forth in the legend. This reply
was allowed to pass, although my scepticism would have been more
satisfactory and more useful if it had been a little more thorough.
I was soon taken off the Westminster, and my occupation now was to
write Chapman's letters, to keep his accounts, and, most
disagreeable, to "subscribe" his publications, that is to say, to
call on booksellers and ask how many copies they would take. Of
George Eliot, who lodged at No. 142, I have often spoken, and have
nothing to add. It is a lasting sorrow to me that I allowed my
friendship with her to drop, and that after I left Chapman I never
called on her.
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