GE to Francis Watts, 421 Griff, 11 April [1842]
Title
GE to Francis Watts, 421 Griff, 11 April [1842]
Title
GE to Francis Watts, 421 Griff, 11 April [1842]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Francis Watts
Date(s)
- 1842-04-11
Place
421 GRIFF
Letter Content
GE to Francis Watts, 421 Griff, 11 April [1842]
MS: Yale. Address: The Revd Francis Watts | Spark Brook | Birmingham. Postmark: Illegible. Hitherto unpublished.
Griff, near Bedworth. April 11th.
Revd and dear Sir,
Very indifferent health and the desire to peruse Vinet's book 422 have withheld longer than I wished the expression of my warm and grateful pleasure on the reception of your note and the accompanying loans. Your sunny kindness would lure any one to part with a cloak of reserve -- even one who has been so accustomed to grope her way as a purblind solitary, that it has become an effort rather than a relief, to take a guiding hand.
You have well stated one of my sources of doubt: still I am aware that with adequate evidence Bishop Butler's little phrase [for aught we know] 423 must silence objections, for, the existence of evil being allowed, and the solution adopted that all partial evil is universal good, then as a certain amount of temporal evil is to the whole amount of temporal good, so in an infinitely surpassing proportion would be the eternal woe of a limited number to the eternal bliss of a larger multitude and to possible moral results co-extensive with the Divine Government. Still the difficulty appears to me so immense and connected with the vexed question of free-will, so contradictory to a priori conceptions -- I am so far from seeing that, as you with a clearer and more extended vision believe, no other system is less burthened with insoluble problems, that I cannot at present embrace it on the strength of our amount of testimonial evidence, such as that evidence now appears to me.
I am aware of my inadequacy, with the inexperience and ignorance of twenty-two years, to judge on a subject so difficult, and I am willing to allow that it is nothing but my lack of a larger and more accurate view of the merits of the question that originates my doubt. It is no small sacrifice to part with the assurance that life and immortality have been brought to light, and to be reduced to the condition of the great spirits of old who looked yearningly to the horizon of their earthly career, wondering what lay beyond; but I cannot think the conviction that immortality is man's destiny indispensable to the production of elevated and heroic virtue and the sublimest resignation. I feel with Coleridge, that the notion of Revelation abandoned, there is ever a tendency towards Pantheism, and the personality of the Deity is not to be maintained quite satisfactorily apart from Christianity. 424
But I am filling my paper without mentioning my admiration of the [Liberté des Cultes] and my desire to become its translator. I venture to send you an échantillon that you may judge whether I should be in danger of wofully travestying Vinet's style, and if you approve of my project I shall be delighted if you will become foster-father to the work, and arrange for its publication. I should like to set about the translation immediately as I have need of an occupation that would occasionally withdraw me from myself. If you send me encouragement, I will return your copy and procure one of my own. I shall be greatly obliged by the loan of the [Essais.] 425 If I did not remember your benevolent smile, I should fear to interrupt your very important avocations with my trivialities. Once more I thank you for your kind interest in me, and I assure you that I am, Revd and dear Sir,
Yours with respect and esteem,
Mary Ann Evans.
MS: Yale. Address: The Revd Francis Watts | Spark Brook | Birmingham. Postmark: Illegible. Hitherto unpublished.
Griff, near Bedworth. April 11th.
Revd and dear Sir,
Very indifferent health and the desire to peruse Vinet's book 422 have withheld longer than I wished the expression of my warm and grateful pleasure on the reception of your note and the accompanying loans. Your sunny kindness would lure any one to part with a cloak of reserve -- even one who has been so accustomed to grope her way as a purblind solitary, that it has become an effort rather than a relief, to take a guiding hand.
You have well stated one of my sources of doubt: still I am aware that with adequate evidence Bishop Butler's little phrase [for aught we know] 423 must silence objections, for, the existence of evil being allowed, and the solution adopted that all partial evil is universal good, then as a certain amount of temporal evil is to the whole amount of temporal good, so in an infinitely surpassing proportion would be the eternal woe of a limited number to the eternal bliss of a larger multitude and to possible moral results co-extensive with the Divine Government. Still the difficulty appears to me so immense and connected with the vexed question of free-will, so contradictory to a priori conceptions -- I am so far from seeing that, as you with a clearer and more extended vision believe, no other system is less burthened with insoluble problems, that I cannot at present embrace it on the strength of our amount of testimonial evidence, such as that evidence now appears to me.
I am aware of my inadequacy, with the inexperience and ignorance of twenty-two years, to judge on a subject so difficult, and I am willing to allow that it is nothing but my lack of a larger and more accurate view of the merits of the question that originates my doubt. It is no small sacrifice to part with the assurance that life and immortality have been brought to light, and to be reduced to the condition of the great spirits of old who looked yearningly to the horizon of their earthly career, wondering what lay beyond; but I cannot think the conviction that immortality is man's destiny indispensable to the production of elevated and heroic virtue and the sublimest resignation. I feel with Coleridge, that the notion of Revelation abandoned, there is ever a tendency towards Pantheism, and the personality of the Deity is not to be maintained quite satisfactorily apart from Christianity. 424
But I am filling my paper without mentioning my admiration of the [Liberté des Cultes] and my desire to become its translator. I venture to send you an échantillon that you may judge whether I should be in danger of wofully travestying Vinet's style, and if you approve of my project I shall be delighted if you will become foster-father to the work, and arrange for its publication. I should like to set about the translation immediately as I have need of an occupation that would occasionally withdraw me from myself. If you send me encouragement, I will return your copy and procure one of my own. I shall be greatly obliged by the loan of the [Essais.] 425 If I did not remember your benevolent smile, I should fear to interrupt your very important avocations with my trivialities. Once more I thank you for your kind interest in me, and I assure you that I am, Revd and dear Sir,
Yours with respect and esteem,
Mary Ann Evans.
Signature
Mary Ann Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Francis Watts, 421 Griff, 11 April [1842], 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/92330