GE to Alice Wellington, London, 16 January 1873
Title
GE to Alice Wellington, London, 16 January 1873
Title
GE to Alice Wellington, London, 16 January 1873
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Alice Welling
Date(s)
- 1873-01-16
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Alice Wellington, London, 16 January 1873
Text: Cross, New Edition, p. 506.
The signs of your sympathy sent to me across the wide water have touched me with the more effect because you imply that you are young. I care supremely that my writing should be some help and stimulus to those who have probably a long life before them.
Mr Lewes has carefully read through the articles which were accompanied by your kind letter, and he has a high opinion of the feeling and discernment exhibited in them. Some concluding passages which he read aloud to me are such as I register among the grounds of any encouragement in looking backward on what I have written, if not in looking forward to any future writing.
Thank you, dear young friend, whom I shall probably never know otherwise than in this spiritual way. And certainly, apart from those relations in life which bring daily opportunities of lovingness, the most satisfactory of all ties is this effective invisible intercourse of an elder mind with a younger.
That quotation in your letter, from Hawthorne's book, 706 offers an excellent type, both for men and women, in the value it assigns to that order of work which is called subordinate, but becomes ennobling by being finely done. Yours with sincere obligation.
P.S. -- By the way, Mr Lewes tells me that you ascribe to me a hatred of blue eyes, -- which is amusing, since my own eyes are blue-grey. I am not in any sense one of the "good haters"; on the contrary, my weaknesses all verge towards an excessive tolerance and a tendency to melt off the outlines of things.
GHL DIARY, LONDON, 16 JANUARY 1873
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Went to see Susanna -- and Gertrude and Blanche. On our return found a young American actor MacKaye 707 waiting for us with a letter from Pigott. He came wanting our aid, or permission, in the dramatization of Silas Marner. His enthusiasm and pleasant voice at first carried us away and we agreed to hear him read his sketch some evening. But on reflection the whole thing appeared louche and unpromising so I wrote to withdraw from the affair. [Tristram Shandy.] 708 Proofs of [Goethe.] 709
Text: Cross, New Edition, p. 506.
The signs of your sympathy sent to me across the wide water have touched me with the more effect because you imply that you are young. I care supremely that my writing should be some help and stimulus to those who have probably a long life before them.
Mr Lewes has carefully read through the articles which were accompanied by your kind letter, and he has a high opinion of the feeling and discernment exhibited in them. Some concluding passages which he read aloud to me are such as I register among the grounds of any encouragement in looking backward on what I have written, if not in looking forward to any future writing.
Thank you, dear young friend, whom I shall probably never know otherwise than in this spiritual way. And certainly, apart from those relations in life which bring daily opportunities of lovingness, the most satisfactory of all ties is this effective invisible intercourse of an elder mind with a younger.
That quotation in your letter, from Hawthorne's book, 706 offers an excellent type, both for men and women, in the value it assigns to that order of work which is called subordinate, but becomes ennobling by being finely done. Yours with sincere obligation.
P.S. -- By the way, Mr Lewes tells me that you ascribe to me a hatred of blue eyes, -- which is amusing, since my own eyes are blue-grey. I am not in any sense one of the "good haters"; on the contrary, my weaknesses all verge towards an excessive tolerance and a tendency to melt off the outlines of things.
GHL DIARY, LONDON, 16 JANUARY 1873
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
Went to see Susanna -- and Gertrude and Blanche. On our return found a young American actor MacKaye 707 waiting for us with a letter from Pigott. He came wanting our aid, or permission, in the dramatization of Silas Marner. His enthusiasm and pleasant voice at first carried us away and we agreed to hear him read his sketch some evening. But on reflection the whole thing appeared louche and unpromising so I wrote to withdraw from the affair. [Tristram Shandy.] 708 Proofs of [Goethe.] 709
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Alice Wellington, London, 16 January 1873, 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/92014