GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 27 January 1871
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 27 January 1871
Title
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 27 January 1871
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Francois D'Albert-Durade
Date(s)
- 1871-01-27
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 27 January 1871
Text: Composite from Cross, New Edition, p. 468, W. V. Daniell Catalogue, (1906), item 365, and Raphael King, Ltd. Catalogue 42 (1945), item 99.
I had a great longing to hear from you, and I confess I had almost suspected you of having ceased to think of me. That was an unworthy suspicion, for since I had not ceased to think of you, I had the best reason for trusting in your faithful kindness as greater than my own. It is unspeakably sweet to me to have some intimation of what you and dear Madame D'Albert have been feeling and doing in these late months. Seventy-one! I imagine how beautifully venerable she must look now. Is it not nearly ten years since I saw her, with her fine figure as firm and upright as ever? I bless her from my heart. She is one of the sweet memories of my life.
This war has been a personal sorrow to every human creature with any sympathy, who has been within reach of hearing about it, still more to those who have gone out to see and help the sufferers. Several of our friends have been among these latter. 255 But even we who have stayed at home have seen as well as heard the effects of the great calamity, for the French who are among us are many of them half or wholly ruined. Last Sunday we had the eminent paysagiste D'Aubigny 256 to see us, -- a grave, amiable, simple-mannered man. His house on the Loire, full of his own painting and such objects as his daughter's bedstead and all such family memories, has been completely destroyed. He is now living with his parents in small lodgings at Kensington. This is but a mild sample of the myriad sorrows produced by the regression of barbarism from that historical tomb where we thought it so picturesquely buried -- if indeed we ought not to beg pardon of barbarism, which had no weapons for making eight wounds at once in our body, and rather call the present warfare that of the devil and all his legions. Enough! I like better to think how Madame D'Albert would exert herself in all helpfulness as long as she had strength to do it.
Mr. Lewes has lately prepared a new edition of his History of Philosophy with many changes and additions. 257 . . . I think my affections grow more intense and my interest in his studies increases rather than diminishes; but physically I feel old, and Death seems to me very near. The idea of dying has no melancholy for me, except in the parting and leaving behind which Love makes so hard to contemplate.
Text: Composite from Cross, New Edition, p. 468, W. V. Daniell Catalogue, (1906), item 365, and Raphael King, Ltd. Catalogue 42 (1945), item 99.
I had a great longing to hear from you, and I confess I had almost suspected you of having ceased to think of me. That was an unworthy suspicion, for since I had not ceased to think of you, I had the best reason for trusting in your faithful kindness as greater than my own. It is unspeakably sweet to me to have some intimation of what you and dear Madame D'Albert have been feeling and doing in these late months. Seventy-one! I imagine how beautifully venerable she must look now. Is it not nearly ten years since I saw her, with her fine figure as firm and upright as ever? I bless her from my heart. She is one of the sweet memories of my life.
This war has been a personal sorrow to every human creature with any sympathy, who has been within reach of hearing about it, still more to those who have gone out to see and help the sufferers. Several of our friends have been among these latter. 255 But even we who have stayed at home have seen as well as heard the effects of the great calamity, for the French who are among us are many of them half or wholly ruined. Last Sunday we had the eminent paysagiste D'Aubigny 256 to see us, -- a grave, amiable, simple-mannered man. His house on the Loire, full of his own painting and such objects as his daughter's bedstead and all such family memories, has been completely destroyed. He is now living with his parents in small lodgings at Kensington. This is but a mild sample of the myriad sorrows produced by the regression of barbarism from that historical tomb where we thought it so picturesquely buried -- if indeed we ought not to beg pardon of barbarism, which had no weapons for making eight wounds at once in our body, and rather call the present warfare that of the devil and all his legions. Enough! I like better to think how Madame D'Albert would exert herself in all helpfulness as long as she had strength to do it.
Mr. Lewes has lately prepared a new edition of his History of Philosophy with many changes and additions. 257 . . . I think my affections grow more intense and my interest in his studies increases rather than diminishes; but physically I feel old, and Death seems to me very near. The idea of dying has no melancholy for me, except in the parting and leaving behind which Love makes so hard to contemplate.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Francois D'Albert-Durade, London, 27 January 1871, 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/92359