GE to George Combe, London, 22 April 1852
Title
GE to George Combe, London, 22 April 1852
Title
GE to George Combe, London, 22 April 1852
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
George Combe
Date(s)
- 1852-04-22
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to George Combe, London, 22 April 1852
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: London | Miss Evans.
42 Strand | April 22. 1852.
My dear Sir
It is time that I should thank you for the two very interesting and valuable letters which I received from you last week. You will see that I have migrated in the interim, and exchanged the pure air and quiet of Rosehill for the smoke and noise of the Strand. I think, however, that I am becoming acclimatized here and that I may hope to be well enough for moderate work, though not up to the pitch of any great undertakings.
We shall be glad if you will finally arrange with Dr. James Coxe 82 that he shall furnish us with an article on Mental Physiology for the October number. It is undesirable, except in special cases, that articles should exceed from 25 to 30 pages in length; but a circular in relation to this and other practical details is about to be printed, which we will forward to Dr. Coxe. It would be interesting to me, though I do not require it for my satisfaction after having had the guarantee of your judgment, to see a short abstract of the intended article, if it were not asking too much of Dr. Coxe to &unknown;supply&unknown; request it.
The proper occasion for a discussion of Comte's Philosophy in the Westminster will be the appearance of Miss Martineau's abridged translation, which, I suppose, will be out in the course of a year. I shall be glad to be favoured with your ideas on this subject, and I assure you that you will always find me a willing, if not an adequately intelligent auditor. Mr. Lewes's second and third papers on Comte in the Leader 83 do not promise well, though he is understood to have applied himself very closely to the subject. You have probably seen the review, in the Times, of J. S. Mill -- at present the chief English interpreter of Comte. 84 The reviewer has seized some weak points in Mill but is himself floundering among ideas which will presently be obsolete.
The conception of Jeffrey which I have gathered from his Life and Letters corresponds very closely with the character which you attribute to him. The indications of his difficulties as an Editor have a special interest for me. I am struck with one passage in a letter of his to Francis Horner (Vol.II, p. 151) where he says: "it always appeared to me that a considerable diversity was quite compatible with all the consistency that should be required in a work of this description" (the Review, 85 of course) "and that doctrines might very well be maintained in the same number which were quite irreconcilable with each other, except in their common tendency to repress servility and diffuse a general spirit of independence in the body of the people." This is allowing latitude with a vengeance, and is quite beyond my editorial creed; still I am glad of any authority to cite which will tend to prove the impossibility of securing perfect harmony in a work dependent on fluctuating contributors.
The agitation in the Bookselling business is being carried on with increasing vivacity. A meeting of Authors, at which Charles Dickens is to preside, will be held here shortly. Some distinguished men, who are unable to attend, will send letters expressive of their concurrence in the object of the meeting. Mr. Chapman remarks, in answer to the arguments contra stated by you, that though the parallel between the publisher and the patentee may be a just one, the retail booksellers cannot be regarded as agents or employ'e9s, but are simply purchasers, who have made a commodity their own, and have a right to dispose of it at their pleasure. Still he agrees with you that the grand argument for freedom of trade in books is -- that it is demonstrably for the interest of the "patentee."
Your mention of a discussion as to the meaning of "originality" renews a desire I have often had to write or to see written a thorough inquiry into that subject and also into the meaning of "genius" -- a word equally vague and undetermined in its application. The antithesis of Dr. Combe's 86 reviewer seems to me to be built on confusion. All discovery must be the discovery either of a fact or of a relation. Now we know that the discovery of facts -- even those which have had the most momentous influence on the destinies of mankind -- has been often due rather to a happy contingency of external circumstances than to any such wide preeminence in the discover as would suffice to account for his being such. The discovery of a fact may be a consequence of pre-eminent faculties in the discoverer, but is not necessarily so. The discovery of a relation, on the contrary, is strictly and exclusively the consequence of pre-eminent faculties, or power of origination.
Thank you very much for the facts about Dr. Gregory's patient. We get impatient of phenomena which do not link on to our previous knowledge, and of which the laws are so latent as to forbid even the formation of a hypothesis concerning them. This and the great mass of loose statement and credulity which surround the whole subject of mesmerism repel many minds from it which are anything but bigoted or unenlightened. But indications of claire-voyance witnessed by a competent observer are of thrilling interest and give me a restless desire to get at more extensive and satisfactory evidence.
Mr. Chapman has requested me to enclose some copies of a letter which appears to him to contain the gist of that vexed and vexing question which is now occupying him. He also begs me to say that if your views on the subject sufficiently coincide with his own to enable you to express your concurrence in a letter which you would authorize him to read at the meeting of Authors, 87 such a proof of your adhesion would, he thinks, be highly valuable to the cause. He has this morning received a letter from Edinburgh in which he is informed that at least 20 booksellers there are simply coerced into compliance with the old system.
I shall be glad to hear from you what is the general opinion in your circle of the "Theory of Population" 88 in the Westminster. Mr. Robert Chambers, who was here the other night, expressed a high opinion of it. I am very ignorant on the subject, but I rather wish to believe the theory than see ground for doing so.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Combe, I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
Marian Evans.
Your article has arrived from Mr. Ellis's 89 this morning.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: London | Miss Evans.
42 Strand | April 22. 1852.
My dear Sir
It is time that I should thank you for the two very interesting and valuable letters which I received from you last week. You will see that I have migrated in the interim, and exchanged the pure air and quiet of Rosehill for the smoke and noise of the Strand. I think, however, that I am becoming acclimatized here and that I may hope to be well enough for moderate work, though not up to the pitch of any great undertakings.
We shall be glad if you will finally arrange with Dr. James Coxe 82 that he shall furnish us with an article on Mental Physiology for the October number. It is undesirable, except in special cases, that articles should exceed from 25 to 30 pages in length; but a circular in relation to this and other practical details is about to be printed, which we will forward to Dr. Coxe. It would be interesting to me, though I do not require it for my satisfaction after having had the guarantee of your judgment, to see a short abstract of the intended article, if it were not asking too much of Dr. Coxe to &unknown;supply&unknown; request it.
The proper occasion for a discussion of Comte's Philosophy in the Westminster will be the appearance of Miss Martineau's abridged translation, which, I suppose, will be out in the course of a year. I shall be glad to be favoured with your ideas on this subject, and I assure you that you will always find me a willing, if not an adequately intelligent auditor. Mr. Lewes's second and third papers on Comte in the Leader 83 do not promise well, though he is understood to have applied himself very closely to the subject. You have probably seen the review, in the Times, of J. S. Mill -- at present the chief English interpreter of Comte. 84 The reviewer has seized some weak points in Mill but is himself floundering among ideas which will presently be obsolete.
The conception of Jeffrey which I have gathered from his Life and Letters corresponds very closely with the character which you attribute to him. The indications of his difficulties as an Editor have a special interest for me. I am struck with one passage in a letter of his to Francis Horner (Vol.II, p. 151) where he says: "it always appeared to me that a considerable diversity was quite compatible with all the consistency that should be required in a work of this description" (the Review, 85 of course) "and that doctrines might very well be maintained in the same number which were quite irreconcilable with each other, except in their common tendency to repress servility and diffuse a general spirit of independence in the body of the people." This is allowing latitude with a vengeance, and is quite beyond my editorial creed; still I am glad of any authority to cite which will tend to prove the impossibility of securing perfect harmony in a work dependent on fluctuating contributors.
The agitation in the Bookselling business is being carried on with increasing vivacity. A meeting of Authors, at which Charles Dickens is to preside, will be held here shortly. Some distinguished men, who are unable to attend, will send letters expressive of their concurrence in the object of the meeting. Mr. Chapman remarks, in answer to the arguments contra stated by you, that though the parallel between the publisher and the patentee may be a just one, the retail booksellers cannot be regarded as agents or employ'e9s, but are simply purchasers, who have made a commodity their own, and have a right to dispose of it at their pleasure. Still he agrees with you that the grand argument for freedom of trade in books is -- that it is demonstrably for the interest of the "patentee."
Your mention of a discussion as to the meaning of "originality" renews a desire I have often had to write or to see written a thorough inquiry into that subject and also into the meaning of "genius" -- a word equally vague and undetermined in its application. The antithesis of Dr. Combe's 86 reviewer seems to me to be built on confusion. All discovery must be the discovery either of a fact or of a relation. Now we know that the discovery of facts -- even those which have had the most momentous influence on the destinies of mankind -- has been often due rather to a happy contingency of external circumstances than to any such wide preeminence in the discover as would suffice to account for his being such. The discovery of a fact may be a consequence of pre-eminent faculties in the discoverer, but is not necessarily so. The discovery of a relation, on the contrary, is strictly and exclusively the consequence of pre-eminent faculties, or power of origination.
Thank you very much for the facts about Dr. Gregory's patient. We get impatient of phenomena which do not link on to our previous knowledge, and of which the laws are so latent as to forbid even the formation of a hypothesis concerning them. This and the great mass of loose statement and credulity which surround the whole subject of mesmerism repel many minds from it which are anything but bigoted or unenlightened. But indications of claire-voyance witnessed by a competent observer are of thrilling interest and give me a restless desire to get at more extensive and satisfactory evidence.
Mr. Chapman has requested me to enclose some copies of a letter which appears to him to contain the gist of that vexed and vexing question which is now occupying him. He also begs me to say that if your views on the subject sufficiently coincide with his own to enable you to express your concurrence in a letter which you would authorize him to read at the meeting of Authors, 87 such a proof of your adhesion would, he thinks, be highly valuable to the cause. He has this morning received a letter from Edinburgh in which he is informed that at least 20 booksellers there are simply coerced into compliance with the old system.
I shall be glad to hear from you what is the general opinion in your circle of the "Theory of Population" 88 in the Westminster. Mr. Robert Chambers, who was here the other night, expressed a high opinion of it. I am very ignorant on the subject, but I rather wish to believe the theory than see ground for doing so.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Combe, I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
Marian Evans.
Your article has arrived from Mr. Ellis's 89 this morning.
Signature
Marian Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to George Combe, London, 22 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/92471