Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 25-29 April 1879
Title
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 25-29 April 1879
Title
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 25-29 April 1879
Sender
Edith Simcox
Recipient
U
Date(s)
- 1879-04-25–<br /> 1879-04-29
Place
London
Letter Content
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 25-29 April 1879
MS: Bodleian.
Friday 25 April 1879
. . . At last I reached the cemetery; men were at work again; I doubt if the grave had been visited since I was there; the white wreath was withered to a brown skeleton; the fir twigs of mine were still just green -- and in the centre of it I laid a bunch of fresh primroses: then I fled from the workmen with their well meaning assurances the slab would look better when it was cleaned up a bit; it was a flat marble slab with his name and the date of birth and death. I roamed about and then turned to the Church of England portion, where the slope of the hill is steeper, the trees shadier, and the whole aspect less like that of new built suburb. Then I came back and passed near the workmen again -- then, a little before 3 I turned to leave; as I was walking down the lane below the cemetery, I saw a carriage half open -- and a well known face -- set and sad she was looking straight before her and did not see me and my first impulse was to look away as an intruder; my heart was wrung for her and I walked up and down long, but it was some time before I began to feel what I have felt with bitter regret ever since, -- that I might have turned and tried to overtake her -- have met her at the gate and let her lean on me as she walked and perhaps come between her and the workmen. I lost this chance and had only the comfort of hoping that she would be glad to find the fresh flowers as a sign he was not quite forgotten. I have regretted my cowardice ever since, all the more because I think if I had thought first of her only, my impulse must have been to fly to her side -- and yet one hardly knows -- could she have borne for any one to be near? Since then I have longed to write to her, but all words seem a profanation.
Tuesday 29 April 1879
On Saturday I saw Brett, who said she had just returned from her drive. I was resolute in not expecting anything more, but on Sunday, with much hesitation I wrote to her -- saying what had happened, and then speaking of his book. Today I called as usual; Brett was out and "Mary" answered my questions. Mrs. Herbert Lewes and the children had arrived, on Saturday, and had been to see Mrs. Lewes, and she had just driven them back and was still out. Mary was full of the beauty of the children. Sometimes one is forced to believe in a Providence. I was hardly outside the gate when I saw the carriage driving up -- this time there could be no hesitation and I darted up to open the door for her and give my hand; she asked me to turn back and come in with her.
There is something infinitely touching to me in what one sees as a resolve to throw off the overmastering sense of grief and "live for others in a living world." 483 She spoke of the loveliness of the children and said, though it wasn't right or reasonable, she could never care for a plain child, though with dogs or any other kind of creature ugliness appealed to all her sympathies. She was tired with the children, who were full of life and restlessness and said she was glad she had not even attempted to have them with her. She smiled compassionately at the good friends who think these children will be a comfort and interest to her -- of course she is glad to be able to provide for them, but they cannot enter into her life. And yet she said, if the girl 484 had been alone in the world, it would have been a temptation to her; but it was best as it was; she always became a slave to the child or whatever else she lived with. Her sister had a little girl, since dead, 485 who used to stay with her, and notwithstanding the biting things she has written since about maternal follies, she used every night long before bedtime to undress this child and rock her to sleep in her arms, feeling a sort of rapture in the mere presence, even though she might want the time for reading.
She spoke half in self-reproach of the people who live in so many relations that their life must be always full, whereas she always sent the strength of her feeling in the channel which absorbed it all. It had been so with her father. And then she said something that I cannot quite repeat -- a reference to the step they had taken, which, without injuring, perhaps favouring the work they could do best for other people, forced them to live for each other and in such complete independence of the outer world that the world could be nothing for them. She said it seemed a sort of dual egoism: but then again that it must surely be best to make the nearest relation perfect: it was sad to see husbands and wives running away from each other after philanthropic works while the true life was left unblessed.
I asked about her nephew Vivian, 486 who is to be married at Christmas. I tried to say I had been interested in that love story because he spoke of it to me, but I broke down, swallowed the last of my tea and said I must go. She said she was tired, and that I must not cry: she could not bear it: she was obliged to turn herself by force from the passion of grief. That she had the comfort of knowing his life was perfect to the last, that mind and character suffered no falling off, and she -- here she broke down into sobs, that she must live while she could -- as he would have wished for her. -- I knelt and kissed her, reproaching myself inwardly for having brought on the painful outbreak, but she recovered herself again. Said she was anxious to be at Witley and free from disturbance. -- That what she missed most was the moral support -- that she ended once -- she was glad now to think she had -- a summary of a year's journal 487 by saying his presence was a check on all that was evil, an encouragement to all that was good in her: her feeling was of rest and freedom from all difficulty because her pleasure was to do what he wished and he never wished anything but the right. Her one pleasure now was to read appreciation of him. She mentioned a letter from Peter Bayne 488 -- a man she had only seen once, but who had written her a letter of such just estimate of what was most characteristic of his criticism that she had been truly grateful. He mentioned his reluctance to give pain and she quoted as a fresh and precious memory how some 3 and 20 years before when she was, for a short time, writing reviews, she had referred to some inadequate translation with a strong and appropriate adjective -- and he asked her to leave out the adjective -- why should she make a poor man miserable unnecessarily? She spoke of having the perfect life to look back on -- which might have been a hell: death would be welcome when it came -- the path that he had trod. -- At least, she said, she had more duties, she could do hard things now -- he had kept all difficulties far from her. I said her duty would be to let other people do all they could for her, but she clung to the scourge and called herself self indulgent.
Then she referred to the time when they were poor and how then and since they laughed at all their troubles and how he exaggerated hers -- which would have been quite intolerable to her -- who had had a very luxurious life -- but for the happy love, -- which reconciled her to having nothing but a very hard chair covered with moreen to sit on when her head ached badly. I said I had read all that between the lines about Lydgate and Rosamond. At 6, after 'be of an hour, I left, gathering up her things, and she came with me to the door and I put my arms around her for a last kiss. Nearly the first thing she said was that [the] morbid time of repulsion was over for ever -- that it was a strange and horrible experience to her to feel the springs of affection dried up, but it was over, and love and tenderness were as precious -- or more precious -- than ever. She said she had written to me and this evening the sweet lines came. If the mere thought of her pain seemed to me to make discontent at one's own small ills impossible, how much more the thought of the pain not merely suffered but endured as she endures with upright loving courage?
MS: Bodleian.
Friday 25 April 1879
. . . At last I reached the cemetery; men were at work again; I doubt if the grave had been visited since I was there; the white wreath was withered to a brown skeleton; the fir twigs of mine were still just green -- and in the centre of it I laid a bunch of fresh primroses: then I fled from the workmen with their well meaning assurances the slab would look better when it was cleaned up a bit; it was a flat marble slab with his name and the date of birth and death. I roamed about and then turned to the Church of England portion, where the slope of the hill is steeper, the trees shadier, and the whole aspect less like that of new built suburb. Then I came back and passed near the workmen again -- then, a little before 3 I turned to leave; as I was walking down the lane below the cemetery, I saw a carriage half open -- and a well known face -- set and sad she was looking straight before her and did not see me and my first impulse was to look away as an intruder; my heart was wrung for her and I walked up and down long, but it was some time before I began to feel what I have felt with bitter regret ever since, -- that I might have turned and tried to overtake her -- have met her at the gate and let her lean on me as she walked and perhaps come between her and the workmen. I lost this chance and had only the comfort of hoping that she would be glad to find the fresh flowers as a sign he was not quite forgotten. I have regretted my cowardice ever since, all the more because I think if I had thought first of her only, my impulse must have been to fly to her side -- and yet one hardly knows -- could she have borne for any one to be near? Since then I have longed to write to her, but all words seem a profanation.
Tuesday 29 April 1879
On Saturday I saw Brett, who said she had just returned from her drive. I was resolute in not expecting anything more, but on Sunday, with much hesitation I wrote to her -- saying what had happened, and then speaking of his book. Today I called as usual; Brett was out and "Mary" answered my questions. Mrs. Herbert Lewes and the children had arrived, on Saturday, and had been to see Mrs. Lewes, and she had just driven them back and was still out. Mary was full of the beauty of the children. Sometimes one is forced to believe in a Providence. I was hardly outside the gate when I saw the carriage driving up -- this time there could be no hesitation and I darted up to open the door for her and give my hand; she asked me to turn back and come in with her.
There is something infinitely touching to me in what one sees as a resolve to throw off the overmastering sense of grief and "live for others in a living world." 483 She spoke of the loveliness of the children and said, though it wasn't right or reasonable, she could never care for a plain child, though with dogs or any other kind of creature ugliness appealed to all her sympathies. She was tired with the children, who were full of life and restlessness and said she was glad she had not even attempted to have them with her. She smiled compassionately at the good friends who think these children will be a comfort and interest to her -- of course she is glad to be able to provide for them, but they cannot enter into her life. And yet she said, if the girl 484 had been alone in the world, it would have been a temptation to her; but it was best as it was; she always became a slave to the child or whatever else she lived with. Her sister had a little girl, since dead, 485 who used to stay with her, and notwithstanding the biting things she has written since about maternal follies, she used every night long before bedtime to undress this child and rock her to sleep in her arms, feeling a sort of rapture in the mere presence, even though she might want the time for reading.
She spoke half in self-reproach of the people who live in so many relations that their life must be always full, whereas she always sent the strength of her feeling in the channel which absorbed it all. It had been so with her father. And then she said something that I cannot quite repeat -- a reference to the step they had taken, which, without injuring, perhaps favouring the work they could do best for other people, forced them to live for each other and in such complete independence of the outer world that the world could be nothing for them. She said it seemed a sort of dual egoism: but then again that it must surely be best to make the nearest relation perfect: it was sad to see husbands and wives running away from each other after philanthropic works while the true life was left unblessed.
I asked about her nephew Vivian, 486 who is to be married at Christmas. I tried to say I had been interested in that love story because he spoke of it to me, but I broke down, swallowed the last of my tea and said I must go. She said she was tired, and that I must not cry: she could not bear it: she was obliged to turn herself by force from the passion of grief. That she had the comfort of knowing his life was perfect to the last, that mind and character suffered no falling off, and she -- here she broke down into sobs, that she must live while she could -- as he would have wished for her. -- I knelt and kissed her, reproaching myself inwardly for having brought on the painful outbreak, but she recovered herself again. Said she was anxious to be at Witley and free from disturbance. -- That what she missed most was the moral support -- that she ended once -- she was glad now to think she had -- a summary of a year's journal 487 by saying his presence was a check on all that was evil, an encouragement to all that was good in her: her feeling was of rest and freedom from all difficulty because her pleasure was to do what he wished and he never wished anything but the right. Her one pleasure now was to read appreciation of him. She mentioned a letter from Peter Bayne 488 -- a man she had only seen once, but who had written her a letter of such just estimate of what was most characteristic of his criticism that she had been truly grateful. He mentioned his reluctance to give pain and she quoted as a fresh and precious memory how some 3 and 20 years before when she was, for a short time, writing reviews, she had referred to some inadequate translation with a strong and appropriate adjective -- and he asked her to leave out the adjective -- why should she make a poor man miserable unnecessarily? She spoke of having the perfect life to look back on -- which might have been a hell: death would be welcome when it came -- the path that he had trod. -- At least, she said, she had more duties, she could do hard things now -- he had kept all difficulties far from her. I said her duty would be to let other people do all they could for her, but she clung to the scourge and called herself self indulgent.
Then she referred to the time when they were poor and how then and since they laughed at all their troubles and how he exaggerated hers -- which would have been quite intolerable to her -- who had had a very luxurious life -- but for the happy love, -- which reconciled her to having nothing but a very hard chair covered with moreen to sit on when her head ached badly. I said I had read all that between the lines about Lydgate and Rosamond. At 6, after 'be of an hour, I left, gathering up her things, and she came with me to the door and I put my arms around her for a last kiss. Nearly the first thing she said was that [the] morbid time of repulsion was over for ever -- that it was a strange and horrible experience to her to feel the springs of affection dried up, but it was over, and love and tenderness were as precious -- or more precious -- than ever. She said she had written to me and this evening the sweet lines came. If the mere thought of her pain seemed to me to make discontent at one's own small ills impossible, how much more the thought of the pain not merely suffered but endured as she endures with upright loving courage?
Citation
Edith Simcox, Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 25-29 April 1879, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/91794