GE to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, London, 13 November 1877
Title
GE to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, London, 13 November 1877
Title
GE to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, London, 13 November 1877
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
Date(s)
- 1877-11-13
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, London, 13 November 1877
MS: The late Mr. Gabriel Wells. A copy misdated 13 March 1877 is at Yale. Published: Century Magazine, 104 (September 1922), pp. 646-647.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 13. 77.
My dear Miss Phelps
Sincere thanks for your kind letter and for the copy of Avis 761 which has been duly sent to me. I have read several chapters, and shall continue to read the work with interest, but as I shall read it slowly, taking it up at odd moments, I cannot defer all sign of my sympathy till I reach the end. What you say of broken health as a hindrance and a severe demand for submission to doing the smaller thing where you had hoped to do the greater, goes straight to my heart. This sort of renunciation or resignation enters more or less into the life of every ardent soul, for its vision and longing must always be larger than its achievement, but when the limit is fixed by bodily weakness or malaise the trial is incomparably hard. I know something of this.
I find the writing of these early chapters filled with indications of that keen sensibility and observation which are only to be attained through much inward experience, which always means a large proportion of pain as well as enjoyment. But do not expect [criticism] from me. I hate [sitting in the seat of judgment,] and I would rather try to impress the public generally with the sense that they may get the best result from a book without necessarily forming an [opinion] about it, than I would rush into stating opinions of my own. The floods of nonsense printed in the form of critical opinions seem to me a chief curse of our time, a chief obstacle to true culture.
In general -- perhaps I may have told you -- it is my rule not to read contemporary fiction, and I have had to say so in many cases to country-women of yours. But you are an exceptional woman to my feeling, and I read your [Avis.] Only let this be entre nous. I am usually studying some particular subject, and the reading I take outside that line is done aloud to Mr. Lewes. I daresay you will understand that for my own spiritual food I need all other sorts of reading more than I need fiction. I know nothing of our contemporary English novelists with the exception of Miss Thackery's and (a few of) Anthony Trollope's works. My constant groan is, that I must leave so much of the greatest writing which the centuries have sifted for us, unread for want of time.
I can answer your kind inquiries about my health more cheerfully than usual. A summer spent on the breezy hills of Surrey and in untravelling quietude has sent me back to town with a sense of strength which I had not known for the last two or three years.
O that difficult question -- how to make men temperate. 762 One moves despairingly in a circle: they can't leave off drinking till they have something else to cheer them, and they can't get a taste for that something else till they leave off drinking. At least, this is the form of fact in the case of our own day-labourers. But of course, we as well as you, have the drinking mania which is part of the idle-wealthy craving for excitement.
Always yours sincerely,
M. E. Lewes.
MS: The late Mr. Gabriel Wells. A copy misdated 13 March 1877 is at Yale. Published: Century Magazine, 104 (September 1922), pp. 646-647.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 13. 77.
My dear Miss Phelps
Sincere thanks for your kind letter and for the copy of Avis 761 which has been duly sent to me. I have read several chapters, and shall continue to read the work with interest, but as I shall read it slowly, taking it up at odd moments, I cannot defer all sign of my sympathy till I reach the end. What you say of broken health as a hindrance and a severe demand for submission to doing the smaller thing where you had hoped to do the greater, goes straight to my heart. This sort of renunciation or resignation enters more or less into the life of every ardent soul, for its vision and longing must always be larger than its achievement, but when the limit is fixed by bodily weakness or malaise the trial is incomparably hard. I know something of this.
I find the writing of these early chapters filled with indications of that keen sensibility and observation which are only to be attained through much inward experience, which always means a large proportion of pain as well as enjoyment. But do not expect [criticism] from me. I hate [sitting in the seat of judgment,] and I would rather try to impress the public generally with the sense that they may get the best result from a book without necessarily forming an [opinion] about it, than I would rush into stating opinions of my own. The floods of nonsense printed in the form of critical opinions seem to me a chief curse of our time, a chief obstacle to true culture.
In general -- perhaps I may have told you -- it is my rule not to read contemporary fiction, and I have had to say so in many cases to country-women of yours. But you are an exceptional woman to my feeling, and I read your [Avis.] Only let this be entre nous. I am usually studying some particular subject, and the reading I take outside that line is done aloud to Mr. Lewes. I daresay you will understand that for my own spiritual food I need all other sorts of reading more than I need fiction. I know nothing of our contemporary English novelists with the exception of Miss Thackery's and (a few of) Anthony Trollope's works. My constant groan is, that I must leave so much of the greatest writing which the centuries have sifted for us, unread for want of time.
I can answer your kind inquiries about my health more cheerfully than usual. A summer spent on the breezy hills of Surrey and in untravelling quietude has sent me back to town with a sense of strength which I had not known for the last two or three years.
O that difficult question -- how to make men temperate. 762 One moves despairingly in a circle: they can't leave off drinking till they have something else to cheer them, and they can't get a taste for that something else till they leave off drinking. At least, this is the form of fact in the case of our own day-labourers. But of course, we as well as you, have the drinking mania which is part of the idle-wealthy craving for excitement.
Always yours sincerely,
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, London, 13 November 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/92293