GE to George Combe, Coventry, 8 April 1852
Title
GE to George Combe, Coventry, 8 April 1852
Title
GE to George Combe, Coventry, 8 April 1852
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
George Combe
Date(s)
- 1852-04-08
Place
Coventry
Letter Content
GE to George Combe, Coventry, 8 April 1852
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: Rosehill | Miss Evans.
Rosehill, April 8. 1852.
My dear Sir
I rely on your habitually kind construction of me and my actions for having prevented you from putting any wrong interpretation on my slowness in replying to your two last letters -- letters which I feel it to have been a real kindness in you to write, and for which I am truly obliged. The reason of my silence has been, as usual, illness. But now that I have fairly sat down to write to you, let me first thank you and Mrs. Combe for your kind invitation, which is the one of all others I should have the most pleasure in accepting. I will allow myself to hope that nothing will happen before October to prevent my spending at least part of that month with you. I have full faith in the promised good to my soul and body.
I am much obliged to you for the "Edinburgh News" containing the notice of Jeffrey's Life by Dr. Samuel Browne. 76 I have carefully compared the estimate of Jeffrey there given with that by Mr. Weir in the Spectator of March 20 77 and I confess I find no essential difference between the two. Dr. S. Browne says: "We feel, notwithstanding all our unfeigned love and admiration, that our brilliant and amazingly successful compatriot and fellow townsman has really created nothing, discovered nothing, invented nothing." Mr. Weir says: "A lively delicate sense of the beautiful, a generous and chivalrous disposition, much benevolence, and a vivid play of fancy, impart a charm to all his observations; but it would be difficult to point out in any of his writings, one original generalized truth" etc. Mr. Weir, too, so cordially recognizes the amiability of Jeffrey's moral and social character, that I must think him free in this instance from the charge of being swayed in his literary judgment by personal considerations -- since, from what you say, such considerations must, in his case, have been adverse to Jeffrey. I cannot but regret, however, that our acceptance of Mr. Weir's offer to become the reviewer of Jeffrey's Life for the Westminster, has deprived us of the advantage to be derived from the communication of your knowledge and views on the subject.
Mr. Chapman sends me word that he has written to you on the subject of one of your letters, which I concluded that you wished me to read to him. I mean the one referring to the conversation in which the Westminster was branded with the imputation of '91trimming'92 and cowardice. I should have been less surprized if this imputation had been founded on an alleged tameness in the contents of the first number, but it appears to have been given out as if on authority. I can only say for myself, that if, in the management of the Westminster, I found any objects sought after as conditions of success, which would warp the honest effort to secure the best thought and the best writing on the most important topics, I should at once cease to interest myself in it. I say this simply as my testimony to the intended course of the Review. The assertion that "it will not admit even an incidental allusion, if respectful, to such subjects as Mesmerism and Phrenology and that it ignores them altogether as topics of human thought and scientific investigation" is false. But I think you will agree with me that the great majority of '91investigators'92 of mesmerism are anything but '91scientific.'92 The reason for excluding that or any other subject of moment from the Review, would be the difficulty of getting it adequately treated. An ordinary pilot will do for plain sailing, but we want clear vision and long experience when we set out on voyages of discovery. It is no small difficulty, in conducting a Review, to secure the right man for each subject, and when you think you have him, he often disappoints you -- is not equal to himself, or to your previous conception of his powers. And so it often happens that after very faithful editorial effort, the result is poor. Hence our friends are doing us good service -- at least such as you, whose judgment is reliable -- in suggesting writers to us. The subject you mention, Mental Physiology, would, I should think, suit admirably for the October number for which no scientific article is yet engaged. I hope you will approve the article on '91Physical Puritanism'92 in the last number 78 as the onus of its acceptance rests on me. I dare say you will recognize the writer.
I fear I shall have annoyed you with my illegible handwriting this morning. When I write fast I am apt to get rather unconventional in the form of my letters. With kind regards to Mrs. Combe, I remain, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
Marian Evans.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: Rosehill | Miss Evans.
Rosehill, April 8. 1852.
My dear Sir
I rely on your habitually kind construction of me and my actions for having prevented you from putting any wrong interpretation on my slowness in replying to your two last letters -- letters which I feel it to have been a real kindness in you to write, and for which I am truly obliged. The reason of my silence has been, as usual, illness. But now that I have fairly sat down to write to you, let me first thank you and Mrs. Combe for your kind invitation, which is the one of all others I should have the most pleasure in accepting. I will allow myself to hope that nothing will happen before October to prevent my spending at least part of that month with you. I have full faith in the promised good to my soul and body.
I am much obliged to you for the "Edinburgh News" containing the notice of Jeffrey's Life by Dr. Samuel Browne. 76 I have carefully compared the estimate of Jeffrey there given with that by Mr. Weir in the Spectator of March 20 77 and I confess I find no essential difference between the two. Dr. S. Browne says: "We feel, notwithstanding all our unfeigned love and admiration, that our brilliant and amazingly successful compatriot and fellow townsman has really created nothing, discovered nothing, invented nothing." Mr. Weir says: "A lively delicate sense of the beautiful, a generous and chivalrous disposition, much benevolence, and a vivid play of fancy, impart a charm to all his observations; but it would be difficult to point out in any of his writings, one original generalized truth" etc. Mr. Weir, too, so cordially recognizes the amiability of Jeffrey's moral and social character, that I must think him free in this instance from the charge of being swayed in his literary judgment by personal considerations -- since, from what you say, such considerations must, in his case, have been adverse to Jeffrey. I cannot but regret, however, that our acceptance of Mr. Weir's offer to become the reviewer of Jeffrey's Life for the Westminster, has deprived us of the advantage to be derived from the communication of your knowledge and views on the subject.
Mr. Chapman sends me word that he has written to you on the subject of one of your letters, which I concluded that you wished me to read to him. I mean the one referring to the conversation in which the Westminster was branded with the imputation of '91trimming'92 and cowardice. I should have been less surprized if this imputation had been founded on an alleged tameness in the contents of the first number, but it appears to have been given out as if on authority. I can only say for myself, that if, in the management of the Westminster, I found any objects sought after as conditions of success, which would warp the honest effort to secure the best thought and the best writing on the most important topics, I should at once cease to interest myself in it. I say this simply as my testimony to the intended course of the Review. The assertion that "it will not admit even an incidental allusion, if respectful, to such subjects as Mesmerism and Phrenology and that it ignores them altogether as topics of human thought and scientific investigation" is false. But I think you will agree with me that the great majority of '91investigators'92 of mesmerism are anything but '91scientific.'92 The reason for excluding that or any other subject of moment from the Review, would be the difficulty of getting it adequately treated. An ordinary pilot will do for plain sailing, but we want clear vision and long experience when we set out on voyages of discovery. It is no small difficulty, in conducting a Review, to secure the right man for each subject, and when you think you have him, he often disappoints you -- is not equal to himself, or to your previous conception of his powers. And so it often happens that after very faithful editorial effort, the result is poor. Hence our friends are doing us good service -- at least such as you, whose judgment is reliable -- in suggesting writers to us. The subject you mention, Mental Physiology, would, I should think, suit admirably for the October number for which no scientific article is yet engaged. I hope you will approve the article on '91Physical Puritanism'92 in the last number 78 as the onus of its acceptance rests on me. I dare say you will recognize the writer.
I fear I shall have annoyed you with my illegible handwriting this morning. When I write fast I am apt to get rather unconventional in the form of my letters. With kind regards to Mrs. Combe, I remain, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
Marian Evans.
Signature
Marian Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to George Combe, Coventry, 8 April 1852, 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/92456