GE to George Combe, London, 28 November 1853
Title
GE to George Combe, London, 28 November 1853
Title
GE to George Combe, London, 28 November 1853
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
George Combe
Date(s)
- 1853-11-28
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to George Combe, London, 28 November 1853
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: London 28 Nov | 1853 | Miss Evans | Mr. Huxley | described.
1 Cambridge Street | November 28. 1853.
My dear Sir
I have had a sharp bilious attack from which I am still feeling a good deal shattered, but I am quite able to write in answer to your letter just received.
Mr. Huxley is a man of brilliant talents and patient, hard-working observation, but who is occasionally tempted to prefer paradox and antagonism to truth. I do not mean that his conscious and ultimate aim is not truth -- for he is a real man of science -- but that he is constitutionally liable to deviate from the direct path in the way I mention. You know better than I do that such an organization is not a teachable one and that the fact of its being beckoned in one direction may incline it to turn off in another. Moreover, your forwarding the testimonials etc. 191 would need accounting for. If I were sole editor of the Westminster, I would take the responsibility on myself, and ask you to send them through me, but being a woman and something less than half an editor, I do not see how the step you propose could be taken with the naturalness and biens'e9ance that could alone favour any good result. I should not like Mr. Huxley to allege against me that my having communicated the fact of his being engaged to write on a certain subject had drawn upon him unsought correspondence, however valuable in my own opinion such correspondence may be.
I think however that if a copy of the "Testimonials" could be spared me for a short time I could make use of it in the sense you desire, if not in relation to Mr. Huxley, certainly in other directions.
Pray excuse any want of clearness or other deficiency in a letter written with a bilious head and believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
[no signature]
MS: National Library of Scotland. Endorsed: London 28 Nov | 1853 | Miss Evans | Mr. Huxley | described.
1 Cambridge Street | November 28. 1853.
My dear Sir
I have had a sharp bilious attack from which I am still feeling a good deal shattered, but I am quite able to write in answer to your letter just received.
Mr. Huxley is a man of brilliant talents and patient, hard-working observation, but who is occasionally tempted to prefer paradox and antagonism to truth. I do not mean that his conscious and ultimate aim is not truth -- for he is a real man of science -- but that he is constitutionally liable to deviate from the direct path in the way I mention. You know better than I do that such an organization is not a teachable one and that the fact of its being beckoned in one direction may incline it to turn off in another. Moreover, your forwarding the testimonials etc. 191 would need accounting for. If I were sole editor of the Westminster, I would take the responsibility on myself, and ask you to send them through me, but being a woman and something less than half an editor, I do not see how the step you propose could be taken with the naturalness and biens'e9ance that could alone favour any good result. I should not like Mr. Huxley to allege against me that my having communicated the fact of his being engaged to write on a certain subject had drawn upon him unsought correspondence, however valuable in my own opinion such correspondence may be.
I think however that if a copy of the "Testimonials" could be spared me for a short time I could make use of it in the sense you desire, if not in relation to Mr. Huxley, certainly in other directions.
Pray excuse any want of clearness or other deficiency in a letter written with a bilious head and believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly
[no signature]
Signature
[no signature]
Citation
George Eliot, GE to George Combe, London, 28 November 1853, 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/92479