GE to Charles Ritter, Witley, [5 June 1877]
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, Witley, [5 June 1877]
Title
GE to Charles Ritter, Witley, [5 June 1877]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Charles Ritter
Date(s)
- 1877-06-05
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to Charles Ritter, Witley, [5 June 1877]
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights | Witley | Godalming.
Dear M. Ritter
I am sure you will excuse my delay in acknowledging your kind letter of the 25th with the accompanying translations, 706 when I tell you that in the interim we have been paying a visit to Cambridge where the days were filled with the excitement of constant society, among new friends as well as old, and that we only yesterday arrived at this country home, where we are still in some hurry and incompleteness as to our arrangements.
Mr. Lewes and I both feel that we can congratulate you on the neatness and felicity of your rendering in the little collection of extracts which you have sent me as a specimen of your labours. It is a real joy to me that a mind like yours can care to dwell on what I have written so as to find expression for me in a foreign tongue requiring so much delicate precision as the French. And I must again assure you, as I have probably done several times already, that your sympathy with my work will always be to me an unforgotten source of encouragement.
Thanks, too, for your kind present of your photograph -- though I have so keen a memory of faces that the sun-picture is less complete than the remembered image. I must beg you, however, in relation to your photograph, to be Christianly content with giving, asking for nothing again. The process of being photographed is one that I have promised and vowed to myself never to undergo.
It was a sincere pleasure to me to shake hands with you 707 and behold you in all the strength of your best age, correcting my conception of you as an elderly personage with white or iron-grey locks.
We shall always be delighted to renew our conversation with you on any future visit you may make to England. And surely a residence in London of some months would be a valuable experience to you. We English are more lovable when seen at home than foreigners who observe us wandering only are likely to believe. I remain, dear M. Ritter,
Very truly yours
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. Lewes, if he were not busy with the builders, would desire to have his best remembrances offered to you. But this is a moment of varied demands such as we both of us dislike fulfilling -- demands about the externals of our life, chairs, tables, water-pipes that will not act properly, and workmen who misunderstand orders.
MS: Biblioth'e8que Publique et Universitaire, Geneva. Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights | Witley | Godalming.
Dear M. Ritter
I am sure you will excuse my delay in acknowledging your kind letter of the 25th with the accompanying translations, 706 when I tell you that in the interim we have been paying a visit to Cambridge where the days were filled with the excitement of constant society, among new friends as well as old, and that we only yesterday arrived at this country home, where we are still in some hurry and incompleteness as to our arrangements.
Mr. Lewes and I both feel that we can congratulate you on the neatness and felicity of your rendering in the little collection of extracts which you have sent me as a specimen of your labours. It is a real joy to me that a mind like yours can care to dwell on what I have written so as to find expression for me in a foreign tongue requiring so much delicate precision as the French. And I must again assure you, as I have probably done several times already, that your sympathy with my work will always be to me an unforgotten source of encouragement.
Thanks, too, for your kind present of your photograph -- though I have so keen a memory of faces that the sun-picture is less complete than the remembered image. I must beg you, however, in relation to your photograph, to be Christianly content with giving, asking for nothing again. The process of being photographed is one that I have promised and vowed to myself never to undergo.
It was a sincere pleasure to me to shake hands with you 707 and behold you in all the strength of your best age, correcting my conception of you as an elderly personage with white or iron-grey locks.
We shall always be delighted to renew our conversation with you on any future visit you may make to England. And surely a residence in London of some months would be a valuable experience to you. We English are more lovable when seen at home than foreigners who observe us wandering only are likely to believe. I remain, dear M. Ritter,
Very truly yours
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. Lewes, if he were not busy with the builders, would desire to have his best remembrances offered to you. But this is a moment of varied demands such as we both of us dislike fulfilling -- demands about the externals of our life, chairs, tables, water-pipes that will not act properly, and workmen who misunderstand orders.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Charles Ritter, Witley, [5 June 1877], 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/92255