GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, [29 January 1861]
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, [29 January 1861]
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, [29 January 1861]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Francois D'albert-Durade
Date(s)
- 1861-01-29
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, [29 January 1861]
Text: Cross, New Edition, p. 331, dated 22 January 1861.
I was delighted to have your letter this morning, bringing me good news not only of a literary but of a personal kind. It is pleasant to know that your labours on '91Adam'92 have been so far appreciated; but I think it is pleasanter still to know that Maman has had the comfort of seeing her son Charles this Christmas, and that your prospects concerning him are hopeful. I begin, you know, to consider myself an experienced matron, knowing a great deal about parental joys and anxieties. Indeed
I have rather too ready a talent for entering into anxieties of all sorts.
I can well imagine that you find '91The Mill'92 more difficult to render than '91Adam.'92 690 But would it be inadmissible to represent in French, at least in some degree, those "interm'e9diaires entre le style commun et le style 'e9l'e9gant" to which you refer? It seems to me that I have discerned such shades very strikingly rendered in Balzac, and occasionally in George Sand. Balzac, I think, dares to be thoroughly colloquial, in spite of French strait-lacing. Even in English this daring is far from being general. The writers who dare to be thoroughly familiar are Shakspeare, Fielding, Scott (where he is expressing the popular life with which he is familiar), and indeed every other writer of fiction of the first class. Even in his loftiest tragedies -- in Hamlet, for example -- Shakspeare is intensely colloquial. One hears the very accent of living men. I am not vindicating the practice: I know that is not necessary to you, who have so quick a sensibility for the real and the humorous. You, of course, have knowledge as to what is or can be done in French literature beyond any that my reading can have furnished me with.
I see that you think there are many readers who will prefer '91The Mill'92 to '91Adam.'92 To my feeling, there is more thought and a profounder veracity in '91The Mill'92 than in '91Adam'92; but Adam is more complete, and better balanced. My love of the childhood scenes made me linger over them; so that I could not develop as fully as I wished the concluding "Book" in which the tragedy occurs, and which I had looked forward to with much attention and premeditation from the beginning. My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them; and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them. I am not afraid that you will be unable to distinguish that frankness from self-conceit.
Text: Cross, New Edition, p. 331, dated 22 January 1861.
I was delighted to have your letter this morning, bringing me good news not only of a literary but of a personal kind. It is pleasant to know that your labours on '91Adam'92 have been so far appreciated; but I think it is pleasanter still to know that Maman has had the comfort of seeing her son Charles this Christmas, and that your prospects concerning him are hopeful. I begin, you know, to consider myself an experienced matron, knowing a great deal about parental joys and anxieties. Indeed
I have rather too ready a talent for entering into anxieties of all sorts.
I can well imagine that you find '91The Mill'92 more difficult to render than '91Adam.'92 690 But would it be inadmissible to represent in French, at least in some degree, those "interm'e9diaires entre le style commun et le style 'e9l'e9gant" to which you refer? It seems to me that I have discerned such shades very strikingly rendered in Balzac, and occasionally in George Sand. Balzac, I think, dares to be thoroughly colloquial, in spite of French strait-lacing. Even in English this daring is far from being general. The writers who dare to be thoroughly familiar are Shakspeare, Fielding, Scott (where he is expressing the popular life with which he is familiar), and indeed every other writer of fiction of the first class. Even in his loftiest tragedies -- in Hamlet, for example -- Shakspeare is intensely colloquial. One hears the very accent of living men. I am not vindicating the practice: I know that is not necessary to you, who have so quick a sensibility for the real and the humorous. You, of course, have knowledge as to what is or can be done in French literature beyond any that my reading can have furnished me with.
I see that you think there are many readers who will prefer '91The Mill'92 to '91Adam.'92 To my feeling, there is more thought and a profounder veracity in '91The Mill'92 than in '91Adam'92; but Adam is more complete, and better balanced. My love of the childhood scenes made me linger over them; so that I could not develop as fully as I wished the concluding "Book" in which the tragedy occurs, and which I had looked forward to with much attention and premeditation from the beginning. My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them; and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them. I am not afraid that you will be unable to distinguish that frankness from self-conceit.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, [29 January 1861], 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/92339