GE to Charles Ritter, London, 3 January 1875
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, London, 3 January 1875
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, London, 3 January 1875
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Ritter
Date(s)
- 1875-01-03
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Charles Ritter, London, 3 January 1875
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, p. 535.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
January 3. 1875.
Dear M. Ritter
Your kind letter was among the most valued gifts of the New Year's Day. Like each former letter of yours it is made precious to me by being an expression not only of sympathy, but of a mind whose favourable judgment is a guarantee of the kind I most desire.
Both Mr. Lewes and I have read all the translated extracts and we think -- always of course with diffidence as to our power of estimating the capabilities of a foreign language -- that the evident care with which the meaning is rendered has been not seldom repaid by a felicity. We should both rejoice if you found satisfaction in carrying out the plan which you mention of further translation. I understand your discontent with your own rendering. No one language is completely furnished with verbal and idiomatic equivalents for another, and it is easier to produce something better than the original than what is everywhere exactly equivalent to it. Nevertheless careful translation is a beneficent work. And if there is any help toward a nobler life to be got out of a book, surely the French literature of our times has need of it!
I am delighted with what you write about my husband's books. Imagine a man as objectively absorbed as it is possible to be in the work he is doing for its own sake, quite free from oblique glances at minor results, knowing nothing of jealousy, and open as day to sympathy in the work of others: you have then imagined my husband. He gets more pleasure out of any work of mine than I do, and he especially enjoys the delicacy of your appreciations.
I suffer always increasingly from doubt as to the quality of what I am actually doing. Just now I am writing a new novel (which will not be ready for a long while to come), but if it were not for his firmness of opinion as to the worth of what is already written I could not carry out my intention. In this way he has always supported me -- by his unreserved sympathy and the independence of his judgment.
I trust that your health is undisturbed by the severities of the winter, and that your life has as equable a flow of happiness as we susceptible mortals can reasonably expect in the vast entanglements of the world.
I am glad to think that you have some communication with our young friend Mr. Main (whom also I have never seen). 184 Your fine, experienced criticism might be of much service to him in his efforts as a writer.
Mr. Lewes unites with me in high and grateful regards towards a friend who seems to be near to us in spite of miles and mountains, and who has been among our valued possessions ever since the arrival of that letter announcing the volume of Strauss's Essays in the summer of 1872. Believe me, my dear Sir,
Always yours most sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
M. Charles Ritter.
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, p. 535.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
January 3. 1875.
Dear M. Ritter
Your kind letter was among the most valued gifts of the New Year's Day. Like each former letter of yours it is made precious to me by being an expression not only of sympathy, but of a mind whose favourable judgment is a guarantee of the kind I most desire.
Both Mr. Lewes and I have read all the translated extracts and we think -- always of course with diffidence as to our power of estimating the capabilities of a foreign language -- that the evident care with which the meaning is rendered has been not seldom repaid by a felicity. We should both rejoice if you found satisfaction in carrying out the plan which you mention of further translation. I understand your discontent with your own rendering. No one language is completely furnished with verbal and idiomatic equivalents for another, and it is easier to produce something better than the original than what is everywhere exactly equivalent to it. Nevertheless careful translation is a beneficent work. And if there is any help toward a nobler life to be got out of a book, surely the French literature of our times has need of it!
I am delighted with what you write about my husband's books. Imagine a man as objectively absorbed as it is possible to be in the work he is doing for its own sake, quite free from oblique glances at minor results, knowing nothing of jealousy, and open as day to sympathy in the work of others: you have then imagined my husband. He gets more pleasure out of any work of mine than I do, and he especially enjoys the delicacy of your appreciations.
I suffer always increasingly from doubt as to the quality of what I am actually doing. Just now I am writing a new novel (which will not be ready for a long while to come), but if it were not for his firmness of opinion as to the worth of what is already written I could not carry out my intention. In this way he has always supported me -- by his unreserved sympathy and the independence of his judgment.
I trust that your health is undisturbed by the severities of the winter, and that your life has as equable a flow of happiness as we susceptible mortals can reasonably expect in the vast entanglements of the world.
I am glad to think that you have some communication with our young friend Mr. Main (whom also I have never seen). 184 Your fine, experienced criticism might be of much service to him in his efforts as a writer.
Mr. Lewes unites with me in high and grateful regards towards a friend who seems to be near to us in spite of miles and mountains, and who has been among our valued possessions ever since the arrival of that letter announcing the volume of Strauss's Essays in the summer of 1872. Believe me, my dear Sir,
Always yours most sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
M. Charles Ritter.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Ritter, London, 3 January 1875, 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/92254