GE to Charles Bray, [Foleshill, 21 October 1846]
Title
GE to Charles Bray, [Foleshill, 21 October 1846]
Title
GE to Charles Bray, [Foleshill, 21 October 1846]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Bray
Date(s)
- 1846-10-21
Place
Foleshill
Letter Content
GE to Charles Bray, [Foleshill, 21 October 1846]
MS: Yale. Endorsed by Mrs. Bray: Postmark Coventry Oc 22 1846. Published: TLS, 12 February 1971, p. 187.
Wednesday Evening.
My dear Friend
When I wrote to Cara I complained that I had no news to tell her -- but oh the mutations of this giddy planet! little did I think that ere another week passed away I should be an actress in scenes so novel as those which it has now become a duty of friendship to relate to you. But a truce to prefaces and palpitations. I will plunge at once in medias res. 21
The other day as I was sitting in my study, Mary came with a rather risible cast of expression to deliver to me a card, saying that a gentleman was below requesting to see me. The name on the card ran thus -- Professor B'fccherwurm, Moderig University. Down I came, not a little elated at the idea that a live professor was in the house, and, as you know I have quite the average quantity of that valuable endowment which spiteful people call assurance, but which I dignify with the name of self possession, you will believe that I neither blushed nor made a nervous giggle in attempting to smile, as is the lot of some unfortunate young ladies who are immersed in youthful bashfulness.
And whom do you think I saw? A tall, gaunt personage with huge cheek bones, dull grey eyes, hair of a very light neutral tint, un grand nez retrouss'e9, and very black teeth. As novel writers say, I give you at once what was the result of a survey carried on by degrees through a long interview. My professor's coat was threadbare enough for that of a firstrate genius, and his linen and skin dirty enough to have belonged to the Emperor Julian. 22 A profound reverence. I begged him to be seated, and this very begrimed professor began in sufficiently good English, [Madam, you can form no preconception of my design in waiting on you.] I bowed. [About a fortnight ago I came to London to seek -- singular as it may seem to you -- a wife.] (Surely, thought I, this poor man has escaped from a lunatic asylum, and I looked alternately at the door and the poker, measuring my distance from the two.) [But,] my professor continued, [there were certain qualifications which were indispensable to me in the person whom I could receive into that relation. I am a voluminous author -- indeed my works already amount to some 20 vols. -- my last publication in 5 vols. was a commentary on the book of Tobit. I have also written a long dissertation on the Greek Digamma, a treatise on Buddhism shewing that Christianity is entirely derived from this monstrous oriental superstition, and a very minute inquiry into the date, life and character of Cheops. My chief work, however, and that by which I hope to confer a lasting benefit on mankind is yet on hand. It is a system of metaphysics which I doubt not will supersede the latest products of the German philosophic mind.
[But like most authors who, as our divine Schiller says, live citizens of the age to come, 23 my books are not appreciated in my own country. Now I wish that England should at least have the opportunity of profiting by them, and as I can find no indifferent person who will undertake a translation I am determined if possible to secure a translator in the person of a wife. I have made the most anxious and extensive inquiries in London after all female translators of German. I find them very abundant, but I require, besides ability to translate, a very decided ugliness of person and a sufficient fortune to supply a poor professor with coffee and tobacco, and an occasional draft of schwarzbier, as well as to contribute to the expenses of publication. After the most toilsome inquiries I have been referred to you, Madam, as presenting the required combination of attributes, and though I am rather disappointed to see that you have no beard, an attribute which I have ever regarded as the most unfailing indication of a strong-minded woman, I confess that in other respects your person at least comes up to my ideal.]
At this the professor bowed and coughed as waiting for my reply. I said that certainly I was taken by surprize, having long given up all hope of such an application as the present, but that I was decidedly pleased with the business-like tone of my suitor, and I thought no woman had been wooed in a more dignified manner since the days of the amazons, who were won with the sword. I thought it possible we might come to terms, always providing that he acceded to my irrevocable conditions. [For you must know, learned Professor,] I said, [that I require nothing more in a husband than to save me from the horrific disgrace of spinster-hood and to take me out of England. As negative conditions, my husband must neither expect me to love him nor to mend his clothes, and he must allow me about once in a quarter a sort of conjugal saturnalia in which I may turn the tables upon him, hector and scold and cuff him. At other times I will be a dutiful wife so far as the task of translation is concerned, and I promise to give to the English a lucid idea of your notions respecting Cheops and Tobit etc. As to my want of beard I trust that defect may be remedied, since I doubt not there must be creams and essences which gentlemen whose having in beard is but a younger brother's revenue 24 employ to cherish the too reluctant down, and it is an interesting physiological experiment yet to be tried, whether the feminine lip and chin may not be rendered fertile by this top-dressing.]
So we agreed to refer the matter to my Father. He, considering that it would probably be my last chance, at length consented though the professor peremptorily insisted on the wedding taking place next week, as he could not defer his literary projects for a longer period. My Father theorized a little on the undesirableness of long courtships, in order to reconcile his conscience, and accordingly the arrangements are made. On Wednesday next I become the Professorin and wend my way with my tocher and my husband to Germany -- never more to appear in this damp atmosphere and dull horizon. So if you wish to utter a last farewell, you must come home before next Wednesday.
I have ordered a magnificent wedding dress just to throw dust into the eyes of the Coventry people, but I have gone to no further expense in the matter of trousseau, as the Professor prefers as a female garb a man's coat, thrown over what are justly called the petticoats, so that the dress of a woman of genius may present the same sort of symbolical compromise between the masculine and feminine attire of which we have an example in the breastplate and petticoat of the immortal Joan.
I have requested Sara to be my bridesmaid, but her notions are far too contracted for her to comprehend or sanction a scheme of matrimony so much beyond the views of the present age. But as I know that you, my dear Friend, hold the most enlightened and liberal views of these subjects, and regard all subjection to feeling in such affairs as a weakness, proper to small heads, under 20 inches in circumference, I doubt not you will honour my bridal with your presence.
MS: Yale. Endorsed by Mrs. Bray: Postmark Coventry Oc 22 1846. Published: TLS, 12 February 1971, p. 187.
Wednesday Evening.
My dear Friend
When I wrote to Cara I complained that I had no news to tell her -- but oh the mutations of this giddy planet! little did I think that ere another week passed away I should be an actress in scenes so novel as those which it has now become a duty of friendship to relate to you. But a truce to prefaces and palpitations. I will plunge at once in medias res. 21
The other day as I was sitting in my study, Mary came with a rather risible cast of expression to deliver to me a card, saying that a gentleman was below requesting to see me. The name on the card ran thus -- Professor B'fccherwurm, Moderig University. Down I came, not a little elated at the idea that a live professor was in the house, and, as you know I have quite the average quantity of that valuable endowment which spiteful people call assurance, but which I dignify with the name of self possession, you will believe that I neither blushed nor made a nervous giggle in attempting to smile, as is the lot of some unfortunate young ladies who are immersed in youthful bashfulness.
And whom do you think I saw? A tall, gaunt personage with huge cheek bones, dull grey eyes, hair of a very light neutral tint, un grand nez retrouss'e9, and very black teeth. As novel writers say, I give you at once what was the result of a survey carried on by degrees through a long interview. My professor's coat was threadbare enough for that of a firstrate genius, and his linen and skin dirty enough to have belonged to the Emperor Julian. 22 A profound reverence. I begged him to be seated, and this very begrimed professor began in sufficiently good English, [Madam, you can form no preconception of my design in waiting on you.] I bowed. [About a fortnight ago I came to London to seek -- singular as it may seem to you -- a wife.] (Surely, thought I, this poor man has escaped from a lunatic asylum, and I looked alternately at the door and the poker, measuring my distance from the two.) [But,] my professor continued, [there were certain qualifications which were indispensable to me in the person whom I could receive into that relation. I am a voluminous author -- indeed my works already amount to some 20 vols. -- my last publication in 5 vols. was a commentary on the book of Tobit. I have also written a long dissertation on the Greek Digamma, a treatise on Buddhism shewing that Christianity is entirely derived from this monstrous oriental superstition, and a very minute inquiry into the date, life and character of Cheops. My chief work, however, and that by which I hope to confer a lasting benefit on mankind is yet on hand. It is a system of metaphysics which I doubt not will supersede the latest products of the German philosophic mind.
[But like most authors who, as our divine Schiller says, live citizens of the age to come, 23 my books are not appreciated in my own country. Now I wish that England should at least have the opportunity of profiting by them, and as I can find no indifferent person who will undertake a translation I am determined if possible to secure a translator in the person of a wife. I have made the most anxious and extensive inquiries in London after all female translators of German. I find them very abundant, but I require, besides ability to translate, a very decided ugliness of person and a sufficient fortune to supply a poor professor with coffee and tobacco, and an occasional draft of schwarzbier, as well as to contribute to the expenses of publication. After the most toilsome inquiries I have been referred to you, Madam, as presenting the required combination of attributes, and though I am rather disappointed to see that you have no beard, an attribute which I have ever regarded as the most unfailing indication of a strong-minded woman, I confess that in other respects your person at least comes up to my ideal.]
At this the professor bowed and coughed as waiting for my reply. I said that certainly I was taken by surprize, having long given up all hope of such an application as the present, but that I was decidedly pleased with the business-like tone of my suitor, and I thought no woman had been wooed in a more dignified manner since the days of the amazons, who were won with the sword. I thought it possible we might come to terms, always providing that he acceded to my irrevocable conditions. [For you must know, learned Professor,] I said, [that I require nothing more in a husband than to save me from the horrific disgrace of spinster-hood and to take me out of England. As negative conditions, my husband must neither expect me to love him nor to mend his clothes, and he must allow me about once in a quarter a sort of conjugal saturnalia in which I may turn the tables upon him, hector and scold and cuff him. At other times I will be a dutiful wife so far as the task of translation is concerned, and I promise to give to the English a lucid idea of your notions respecting Cheops and Tobit etc. As to my want of beard I trust that defect may be remedied, since I doubt not there must be creams and essences which gentlemen whose having in beard is but a younger brother's revenue 24 employ to cherish the too reluctant down, and it is an interesting physiological experiment yet to be tried, whether the feminine lip and chin may not be rendered fertile by this top-dressing.]
So we agreed to refer the matter to my Father. He, considering that it would probably be my last chance, at length consented though the professor peremptorily insisted on the wedding taking place next week, as he could not defer his literary projects for a longer period. My Father theorized a little on the undesirableness of long courtships, in order to reconcile his conscience, and accordingly the arrangements are made. On Wednesday next I become the Professorin and wend my way with my tocher and my husband to Germany -- never more to appear in this damp atmosphere and dull horizon. So if you wish to utter a last farewell, you must come home before next Wednesday.
I have ordered a magnificent wedding dress just to throw dust into the eyes of the Coventry people, but I have gone to no further expense in the matter of trousseau, as the Professor prefers as a female garb a man's coat, thrown over what are justly called the petticoats, so that the dress of a woman of genius may present the same sort of symbolical compromise between the masculine and feminine attire of which we have an example in the breastplate and petticoat of the immortal Joan.
I have requested Sara to be my bridesmaid, but her notions are far too contracted for her to comprehend or sanction a scheme of matrimony so much beyond the views of the present age. But as I know that you, my dear Friend, hold the most enlightened and liberal views of these subjects, and regard all subjection to feeling in such affairs as a weakness, proper to small heads, under 20 inches in circumference, I doubt not you will honour my bridal with your presence.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Bray, [Foleshill, 21 October 1846], 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/92079