GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Bordeaux, [4 January 1867]
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Bordeaux, [4 January 1867]
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Bordeaux, [4 January 1867]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon
Date(s)
- 1867-01-04
Place
Bordeaux
Letter Content
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Bordeaux, [4 January 1867]
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Extract published: Cross, III, 1-2.
Hotel de Nantes, Bordeaux.
Sitting by the fire on a rainy morning with all our things packed and nothing particular to do.
Dearest Barbara
I am so delighted with your letters from Spain, that I want to try and get them printed in a good organ. I gave them to Madame Mohl to read, and she expressed the same wish, saying they were better than the usual printed Travels, and that she especially wished the testimony about the Bull-fights to be made public. What do you feel and think about my sending the letters (in confidence) to Mr. G. Smith, of whose judgment I have a good opinion, and asking him whether he will print them in the Pall Mall? They would go in at twice, or thrice at the most -- i.e. in the form of two or three letters. The last I got before leaving home was the sheet in which you speak of the Soeurs de St. Vincent de Paul at Malaga. I put this question first because it is the most important thing, and the only thing I have to say that demands an answer.
You have suggested delicious pictures to me. My favourite is that in the potter's workshop, on the Albajcin at Granada -- the still life of the pottery and the pans and the moving life of the dance and the music. But all through, I am ready to read over again and dwell on what you say. Of course, if the letters were printed the proof should be sent to you. But I should think there is nothing that need be left out except names, and a sentence about the people in Algiers. In one place, "traditional patterns" should be substituted for "legendary patterns." I hardly remember anything else that signifies.
We enjoyed our stay in Paris in order to see Madame Mohl, who was very good to us -- invited the Scherers and other interesting people to meet us at dinner on the 29th and tempted us to stay and breakfast with her on the 31st by promising to invite Renan, which she did successfully and so procured us a bit of experience that we were glad to have, over and above the pleasure of seeing a little more of herself and M. Mohl. I like them both, and wish there were a chance of knowing them better. We paid for our pleasure by being obliged to walk in the rain (from the impossibility of getting a carriage) all the way from the Rue de Rivoli, where a charitable German printer who had taken us up in his fiacre was obliged to set us down -- to the Hotel du Helder, through streets literally jammed with carriages and omnibuses carrying people who were doing the severe social duties of the last day in the year. The rain it raineth every day, with the one exception of yesterday: we can't travel away from it apparently. But we start in desperation for Bayonne in half an hour.
George got worse and worse, thinner and thinner, after you saw him, and was induced at last to leave his Hist[ory] of Philosophy unfinished. I hope you will not have written to me in England before you receive this, because then you will tell me everything in answering this -- which pray do at once and address Poste Restante, Biarritz. We contemplate staying a little while at Biarritz, if we like it. But as that is an uncertainty among uncertainties, your writing at once will simplify things, and prevent the risks of ordering letters to be sent on.
George sends his chivalrous love -- and I a great many unexpressed thoughts and wishes. Bless you, dear Barbara. Keep me always as
Your faithful loving friend
M. E. L.
You see, I have been writing on my knees.
MS: Mr. Philip Leigh-Smith. Extract published: Cross, III, 1-2.
Hotel de Nantes, Bordeaux.
Sitting by the fire on a rainy morning with all our things packed and nothing particular to do.
Dearest Barbara
I am so delighted with your letters from Spain, that I want to try and get them printed in a good organ. I gave them to Madame Mohl to read, and she expressed the same wish, saying they were better than the usual printed Travels, and that she especially wished the testimony about the Bull-fights to be made public. What do you feel and think about my sending the letters (in confidence) to Mr. G. Smith, of whose judgment I have a good opinion, and asking him whether he will print them in the Pall Mall? They would go in at twice, or thrice at the most -- i.e. in the form of two or three letters. The last I got before leaving home was the sheet in which you speak of the Soeurs de St. Vincent de Paul at Malaga. I put this question first because it is the most important thing, and the only thing I have to say that demands an answer.
You have suggested delicious pictures to me. My favourite is that in the potter's workshop, on the Albajcin at Granada -- the still life of the pottery and the pans and the moving life of the dance and the music. But all through, I am ready to read over again and dwell on what you say. Of course, if the letters were printed the proof should be sent to you. But I should think there is nothing that need be left out except names, and a sentence about the people in Algiers. In one place, "traditional patterns" should be substituted for "legendary patterns." I hardly remember anything else that signifies.
We enjoyed our stay in Paris in order to see Madame Mohl, who was very good to us -- invited the Scherers and other interesting people to meet us at dinner on the 29th and tempted us to stay and breakfast with her on the 31st by promising to invite Renan, which she did successfully and so procured us a bit of experience that we were glad to have, over and above the pleasure of seeing a little more of herself and M. Mohl. I like them both, and wish there were a chance of knowing them better. We paid for our pleasure by being obliged to walk in the rain (from the impossibility of getting a carriage) all the way from the Rue de Rivoli, where a charitable German printer who had taken us up in his fiacre was obliged to set us down -- to the Hotel du Helder, through streets literally jammed with carriages and omnibuses carrying people who were doing the severe social duties of the last day in the year. The rain it raineth every day, with the one exception of yesterday: we can't travel away from it apparently. But we start in desperation for Bayonne in half an hour.
George got worse and worse, thinner and thinner, after you saw him, and was induced at last to leave his Hist[ory] of Philosophy unfinished. I hope you will not have written to me in England before you receive this, because then you will tell me everything in answering this -- which pray do at once and address Poste Restante, Biarritz. We contemplate staying a little while at Biarritz, if we like it. But as that is an uncertainty among uncertainties, your writing at once will simplify things, and prevent the risks of ordering letters to be sent on.
George sends his chivalrous love -- and I a great many unexpressed thoughts and wishes. Bless you, dear Barbara. Keep me always as
Your faithful loving friend
M. E. L.
You see, I have been writing on my knees.
Signature
M.E.L.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, Bordeaux, [4 January 1867], 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/92983