Frederic W. H. Myers to GE, Cheltenham, 8 December 1872
Title
Frederic W. H. Myers to GE, Cheltenham, 8 December 1872
Title
Frederic W. H. Myers to GE, Cheltenham, 8 December 1872
Sender
Frederic W. H. Myers
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1872-12-08
Place
Cheltenham
Letter Content
Frederic W. H. Myers to GE, Cheltenham, 8 December 1872
MS: Yale.
Brandon House | Cheltenham | December 8/72.
Dear Mrs. Lewes,
I have often wanted to write to you while Middlemarch was coming out, but have restrained myself hitherto, partly because you must be bored with many letters of the kind from slight acquaintances, like myself, or even from strangers, and partly because I felt hindered by the idea that you might think that I had expected an answer. But after reading the last volume my impulse to write is so strong that I shall yield to it. I do not expect an answer, and I write to give myself the pleasure and relief of thanking you for an enjoyment which has brightened the whole year.
Each reader of complex books like yours will care most for some particular strain which appeals most directly to his personal tastes and experience. Though I thoroughly enjoy the whole of Middlemarch I care far the most for the scenes between Ladislaw and Dorothea. Noble love making, -- the surprised and pure contact of lofty souls, -- is hardly ever described truly. When it is described truly, to read the description is better than to live through any scenes but such as those. Life has come to such a pass, -- now that there is no longer any God or any hereafter or anything in particular to aim at, -- that it is only by coming into contact with some other person that one can be oneself. There is no longer anything to keep an isolated fire burning within one, -- all one can do is to feel the sparks fly from one for a moment when one strikes a kindred soul. Such contact in real life can make one feel for the moment immortal; but the necessary circumstances are so unusual! Mere love, delicate or passionate, will not do; to have its best savour love must be set among great possibilities and great sacrifices, and must demand the full strain of all the forces within one. Unless things can so happen the first moment of love is apt to be the best. And therefore it is that to read of Dorothea's night of struggle and visit to Rosamond is better, though it is only on paper and in a book, than an ordinary passion; for this is what one wants, though it be but a shadow; this is the best conception of life that in this stage of the world we can form. Scenes like these go straight into the only imperishable world, -- the world which is peopled by the lovely conceptions which have disengaged themselves in successive generations from the brains of men. The interest of such conceptions is more than artistic; they are landmarks in the history of the race, showing the height to which, at successive periods, man's ideal of his own life has vision.
And you seem now to be the only person who can make life appear potentially noble and interesting without starting from any assumptions. De Stendhal, perhaps, while himself detached from all illusions has painted life in the same grand style. But he remains too much outside his characters, and though in his books nobleness seems possible it seems possible only as an aberration. And others who have shown more or less of the same power of rising into clear air, -- Mme de Stael in Corinne, Mrs. Craven in Fleurange, George Sand in Consuelo, -- have all needed some fixed point to lean against before they could spread wings to soar. But one feels that you know the worst, and one thanks you in that you have not despaired of the republic.
I remain, dear Mrs. Lewes,
Yours very truly
Frederic W. H. Myers.
MS: Yale.
Brandon House | Cheltenham | December 8/72.
Dear Mrs. Lewes,
I have often wanted to write to you while Middlemarch was coming out, but have restrained myself hitherto, partly because you must be bored with many letters of the kind from slight acquaintances, like myself, or even from strangers, and partly because I felt hindered by the idea that you might think that I had expected an answer. But after reading the last volume my impulse to write is so strong that I shall yield to it. I do not expect an answer, and I write to give myself the pleasure and relief of thanking you for an enjoyment which has brightened the whole year.
Each reader of complex books like yours will care most for some particular strain which appeals most directly to his personal tastes and experience. Though I thoroughly enjoy the whole of Middlemarch I care far the most for the scenes between Ladislaw and Dorothea. Noble love making, -- the surprised and pure contact of lofty souls, -- is hardly ever described truly. When it is described truly, to read the description is better than to live through any scenes but such as those. Life has come to such a pass, -- now that there is no longer any God or any hereafter or anything in particular to aim at, -- that it is only by coming into contact with some other person that one can be oneself. There is no longer anything to keep an isolated fire burning within one, -- all one can do is to feel the sparks fly from one for a moment when one strikes a kindred soul. Such contact in real life can make one feel for the moment immortal; but the necessary circumstances are so unusual! Mere love, delicate or passionate, will not do; to have its best savour love must be set among great possibilities and great sacrifices, and must demand the full strain of all the forces within one. Unless things can so happen the first moment of love is apt to be the best. And therefore it is that to read of Dorothea's night of struggle and visit to Rosamond is better, though it is only on paper and in a book, than an ordinary passion; for this is what one wants, though it be but a shadow; this is the best conception of life that in this stage of the world we can form. Scenes like these go straight into the only imperishable world, -- the world which is peopled by the lovely conceptions which have disengaged themselves in successive generations from the brains of men. The interest of such conceptions is more than artistic; they are landmarks in the history of the race, showing the height to which, at successive periods, man's ideal of his own life has vision.
And you seem now to be the only person who can make life appear potentially noble and interesting without starting from any assumptions. De Stendhal, perhaps, while himself detached from all illusions has painted life in the same grand style. But he remains too much outside his characters, and though in his books nobleness seems possible it seems possible only as an aberration. And others who have shown more or less of the same power of rising into clear air, -- Mme de Stael in Corinne, Mrs. Craven in Fleurange, George Sand in Consuelo, -- have all needed some fixed point to lean against before they could spread wings to soar. But one feels that you know the worst, and one thanks you in that you have not despaired of the republic.
I remain, dear Mrs. Lewes,
Yours very truly
Frederic W. H. Myers.
Signature
Frederic W. H. Myers.
Citation
Frederic W. H. Myers, Frederic W. H. Myers to GE, Cheltenham, 8 December 1872, 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/91853