GE to John Blackwood, London, 18 April 1876
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 18 April 1876
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 18 April 1876
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1876-04-18
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 18 April 1876
MS: National Library of Scotland. Published: Cross, III, 277-280.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
April 18. 76.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
It was better than I expected to receive the proof of Book VII. so soon in this Easter time. And your sympathetic letter is a welcome support to me in the rather depressed condition which has come upon me with a whole week's internal disorder, from the effect, I imagine of a chill taken in the sudden change from mildness to renewed winter. 455 You can understand how trying it is to have a week of incompetence at the present stage of affairs. I am rather concerned to see that the part is nearly a sheet smaller than any of the other parts. But Books V and VI are proportionately thick, and Mr. Lewes insists that B. VII is thick enough. 456 It seemed inadmissible to add anything after the scene with Gwendolen, and to stick anything in, not necessary to development, between the foregoing chapters, is a form of [matter in the wrong place] particularly repulsive to my authorship's sensibility.
People tell us that the book is enormously discussed, and I must share with you rather a neat coincidence which pleased us last week. Perhaps you saw what Mr. Lewes told me of -- namely, that the Spectator opined that the scenes between Lush and Grandcourt were not [vraisemblable] -- were of the imperious feminine, not the masculine character. 457 Just afterwards Mr. Lewes was chatting with a (man) friend who, without having read the Spectator or having the subject in the least led up to by Mr. Lewes, said that he had been at Lady Waldegrave's where the subject of discussion had been [Deronda] and Bernal Osborne, 459 delivering himself on the book, said that the very best parts were the scenes between Grandcourt and Lush. Don't you think that Bernal Osborne has seen more of the Grandcourt and Lush life than that critic has seen? -- But several men of experience have put their fingers on those scenes as having surprizing verisimilitude, and I naturally was peculiarly anxious about such testimony where my construction was grounded on a less direct knowledge.
We are rather vexed, now it is too late, that I did not carry out a sort of incipient intention to expunge a motto from Walt Whitman which I inserted in Book IV. Of course the whole is irrevocable by this time, but I should have otherwise thought it worth while to have a new page, not because the motto itself is objectionable to me -- it was one of the finer things which had clung to me from among his writings -- but because, since I quote so few poets, my selection of a motto from Walt Whitman might be taken as the sign of a special admiration which I am very far from feeling. 460 How imperfectly one's mind acts in proof reading! Mr. Lewes had taken up Book IV yesterday to re-read it for his pleasure merely, and though he had read it several times before, he never till yesterday made a remark against taking a motto from Walt Whitman. I, again, had continually had an [appetency] towards removing the motto and had never carried it out -- perhaps from that sort of flaccidity which comes over me about what has been done, when I am occupied with what is being done.
People in their eagerness about my characters are quite angry, it appears, when their own expectations are not fulfilled -- angry, for example, that Gwendolen accepts Grandcourt etc. etc. One reader is sure that Mirah is going to die very soon and I suppose will be disgusted at her remaining alive. Such are the reproaches to which I make myself liable. However, that you seem to share Mr. Lewes's strong feeling of Book VII being no falling off in intensity, makes me brave. Only, endings are inevitably the least satisfactory part of any work in which there is any merit of development.
We are going tonight to see the first representation of "Queen Mary" which is a literary and dramatic epoch. It is perhaps not likely to be played again, for without transcendant acting of Mary's part the performance will be dreary, and I fear there is no chance of transcendant acting. 461
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
I forgot to say that the tephillin are the small leather bands or phylacteries inscribed with supremely sacred words, which the Jew binds on his arms and head during prayer. Any periphrasis which would be generally intelligible would be undramatic, and I don't much like explanatory foot-notes in a poem or story. But I must consider what I can do to remedy the unintelligibility.
The printers have sadly spoiled the beautiful Greek name Kalonymos, which was the name of a celebrated family of scholarly Jews transplanted from Italy into Germany in mediaeval times. But my writing was in fault. 462
MS: National Library of Scotland. Published: Cross, III, 277-280.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
April 18. 76.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
It was better than I expected to receive the proof of Book VII. so soon in this Easter time. And your sympathetic letter is a welcome support to me in the rather depressed condition which has come upon me with a whole week's internal disorder, from the effect, I imagine of a chill taken in the sudden change from mildness to renewed winter. 455 You can understand how trying it is to have a week of incompetence at the present stage of affairs. I am rather concerned to see that the part is nearly a sheet smaller than any of the other parts. But Books V and VI are proportionately thick, and Mr. Lewes insists that B. VII is thick enough. 456 It seemed inadmissible to add anything after the scene with Gwendolen, and to stick anything in, not necessary to development, between the foregoing chapters, is a form of [matter in the wrong place] particularly repulsive to my authorship's sensibility.
People tell us that the book is enormously discussed, and I must share with you rather a neat coincidence which pleased us last week. Perhaps you saw what Mr. Lewes told me of -- namely, that the Spectator opined that the scenes between Lush and Grandcourt were not [vraisemblable] -- were of the imperious feminine, not the masculine character. 457 Just afterwards Mr. Lewes was chatting with a (man) friend who, without having read the Spectator or having the subject in the least led up to by Mr. Lewes, said that he had been at Lady Waldegrave's where the subject of discussion had been [Deronda] and Bernal Osborne, 459 delivering himself on the book, said that the very best parts were the scenes between Grandcourt and Lush. Don't you think that Bernal Osborne has seen more of the Grandcourt and Lush life than that critic has seen? -- But several men of experience have put their fingers on those scenes as having surprizing verisimilitude, and I naturally was peculiarly anxious about such testimony where my construction was grounded on a less direct knowledge.
We are rather vexed, now it is too late, that I did not carry out a sort of incipient intention to expunge a motto from Walt Whitman which I inserted in Book IV. Of course the whole is irrevocable by this time, but I should have otherwise thought it worth while to have a new page, not because the motto itself is objectionable to me -- it was one of the finer things which had clung to me from among his writings -- but because, since I quote so few poets, my selection of a motto from Walt Whitman might be taken as the sign of a special admiration which I am very far from feeling. 460 How imperfectly one's mind acts in proof reading! Mr. Lewes had taken up Book IV yesterday to re-read it for his pleasure merely, and though he had read it several times before, he never till yesterday made a remark against taking a motto from Walt Whitman. I, again, had continually had an [appetency] towards removing the motto and had never carried it out -- perhaps from that sort of flaccidity which comes over me about what has been done, when I am occupied with what is being done.
People in their eagerness about my characters are quite angry, it appears, when their own expectations are not fulfilled -- angry, for example, that Gwendolen accepts Grandcourt etc. etc. One reader is sure that Mirah is going to die very soon and I suppose will be disgusted at her remaining alive. Such are the reproaches to which I make myself liable. However, that you seem to share Mr. Lewes's strong feeling of Book VII being no falling off in intensity, makes me brave. Only, endings are inevitably the least satisfactory part of any work in which there is any merit of development.
We are going tonight to see the first representation of "Queen Mary" which is a literary and dramatic epoch. It is perhaps not likely to be played again, for without transcendant acting of Mary's part the performance will be dreary, and I fear there is no chance of transcendant acting. 461
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
I forgot to say that the tephillin are the small leather bands or phylacteries inscribed with supremely sacred words, which the Jew binds on his arms and head during prayer. Any periphrasis which would be generally intelligible would be undramatic, and I don't much like explanatory foot-notes in a poem or story. But I must consider what I can do to remedy the unintelligibility.
The printers have sadly spoiled the beautiful Greek name Kalonymos, which was the name of a celebrated family of scholarly Jews transplanted from Italy into Germany in mediaeval times. But my writing was in fault. 462
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 18 April 1876, 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/92620