GE to Frederic Harrison, Witley, 14 June 1877
Title
GE to Frederic Harrison, Witley, 14 June 1877
Title
GE to Frederic Harrison, Witley, 14 June 1877
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Frederic Harrison
Date(s)
- 1877-06-14
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to Frederic Harrison, Witley, 14 June 1877
MS: Tinker Collection, Yale. Envelope: Frederic Harrison Esq | 1 Southwick Place | London | W. Postmarks: GODALMING | D | JU 14 | 77; LONDON. W | Y7 | JU 15. Published: Cross, III, 311-312.
The Heights | Witley | Godalming | June 14. 1877.
Dear Mr. Harrison
I am greatly indebted to you for your letter. 709 It has done something towards rousing me from what I will not call self-despair but resignation to being of no use.
I wonder whether you at all imagine the terrible pressure of disbelief in my own duty right to speak to the public, which is apt with me to make all beginnings of work like a rowing against tide. Not that I am without more than my fair ounce of self-conceit and confidence that I know better than the critics, whom I don't take the trouble to read but who seem to fill the air as with the smoke of bad tobacco.
But I will not dwell on my antithetic experiences. I only mention them to show why your letter has done me a service, and also to help in the explanation of my mental attitude towards your requests or suggestions.
I do not quite understand whether you have in your mind any plan of straightway constructing a liturgy to which you wish me to contribute in a direct way. That form of contribution would hardly lie within my powers. But your words of trust in me as possibly an organ of feelings which have not yet found their due expression is as likely as any external call could be to prompt such perfectly unfettered productions as that which you say has been found acceptable.
I wasted some time three years ago in writing (what I do not mean to print) a poetic dialogue embodying or rather shadowing very imperfectly the actual contest of ideas. 710 Perhaps what you have written to me may promote and influence a different kind of presentation. At any rate, all the words of your letter will be borne in mind and will enter into my motives.
We are tolerably settled now in our camping, experimental fashion. Perhaps before the summer is far advanced you may be in our neighbourhood, and come to look at us. I trust that Mrs. Harrison is by this time in her usual health. Please give my love to her and believe me always, with many grateful memories,
Yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. and Mrs. H. Crompton are coming to lunch with us today.
MS: Tinker Collection, Yale. Envelope: Frederic Harrison Esq | 1 Southwick Place | London | W. Postmarks: GODALMING | D | JU 14 | 77; LONDON. W | Y7 | JU 15. Published: Cross, III, 311-312.
The Heights | Witley | Godalming | June 14. 1877.
Dear Mr. Harrison
I am greatly indebted to you for your letter. 709 It has done something towards rousing me from what I will not call self-despair but resignation to being of no use.
I wonder whether you at all imagine the terrible pressure of disbelief in my own duty right to speak to the public, which is apt with me to make all beginnings of work like a rowing against tide. Not that I am without more than my fair ounce of self-conceit and confidence that I know better than the critics, whom I don't take the trouble to read but who seem to fill the air as with the smoke of bad tobacco.
But I will not dwell on my antithetic experiences. I only mention them to show why your letter has done me a service, and also to help in the explanation of my mental attitude towards your requests or suggestions.
I do not quite understand whether you have in your mind any plan of straightway constructing a liturgy to which you wish me to contribute in a direct way. That form of contribution would hardly lie within my powers. But your words of trust in me as possibly an organ of feelings which have not yet found their due expression is as likely as any external call could be to prompt such perfectly unfettered productions as that which you say has been found acceptable.
I wasted some time three years ago in writing (what I do not mean to print) a poetic dialogue embodying or rather shadowing very imperfectly the actual contest of ideas. 710 Perhaps what you have written to me may promote and influence a different kind of presentation. At any rate, all the words of your letter will be borne in mind and will enter into my motives.
We are tolerably settled now in our camping, experimental fashion. Perhaps before the summer is far advanced you may be in our neighbourhood, and come to look at us. I trust that Mrs. Harrison is by this time in her usual health. Please give my love to her and believe me always, with many grateful memories,
Yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. and Mrs. H. Crompton are coming to lunch with us today.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Frederic Harrison, Witley, 14 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/92426