GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 15 January 1866
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 15 January 1866
Title
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 15 January 1866
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon
Date(s)
- 1866-01-15
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 15 January 1866
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
1 North Bank | January 15. 1866.
My dear Barbara
My not writing is due rather to the want of health, which robs me of energy for things that are not peremptory, than to want of time. One can always find time to scribble a letter, if the spaces between work are not filled with malaise. George and I have both been more suffering than usual, 686 but we are always grumblers, so there is no use in dwelling on what is so far from exceptional. Your illness is much more of a case to inquire about. Why did you not tell me what was the matter with you? -- Palpitation -- or what else? And are you well again? I am terribly afraid that you are worrying yourself about the unchangeable -- looking for fowls' milk or some other impossibility -- when half the great lesson of life is to adapt one's soul to the irremediable.
Confess, and be healed by adopting the prescriptions you have had over and over again. There are no other. Certain human natures, and certain periods of life for some natures, have limits as immovable as the Jura. You may say that one can't help feeling anguish, and that is true enough. But the anguish is fed by false hope, as fire is fed by fuel. However, I will not go on preaching across France and the Mediterranean: perhaps by this time you are bright again, well in health and able to paint.
Life is very interesting to us in spite of disordered mucous membranes. Great subjects become greater to us, and for that reason smaller ones lose their power of tormenting. As soon as Bertie is gone to his farming again, we shall migrate to Tunbridge Wells for a fortnight and try the effect of the purer air to take our daily walks in. George gets thinner and thinner, and the less there is of him, as with the Sybil's papers, the more precious he becomes.
Poor Mr. Neuberg had a sad accident in driving his little carriage, about six weeks ago. His sister was pitched out and had a contusion of the head which has caused a prolonged state of feebleness. He says it made him feel twenty years older. But she is recovering without having incurred erisypelas, which was the great dread.
I have been delighted to know of Bessie's final decision against the marriage. She seems bright and happy, and courageous in the hope of working with her pen so as to eke out her income.
You remembered the beautiful-eyed, clever, amiable Lord Edward Seymour? 687 Did you see the account of his death -- after amputation of a leg, made necessary by a gunshot? I was grieved by his death. He was not one of the ordinary young Liberals, who echo the catchwords of a party. He had genuine opinions, and strove after their precise expression.
When you write again, remember to tell me particularly about the progress of Nannie's health. I want to hear that she is thoroughly restored to all the enjoyments of life -- that she can walk, ride, paint, and be active in the many valuable ways her nature prompts. Yesterday, Mr. Hamerton, whose books and (bad) pictures you are acquainted with, came to be introduced to me. 688 He is a very unaffected man, but not of transparent porcelain, rather of good honest earthenware. He really writes well, but I have been told by others as well as you that his pictures are a painful non sequitur to all his able theorizing. "So vast is art, so narrow human wit." 689
We were much interested by your account of all you gathered about Courbet, and after reading your letter I was less sceptical as to Proudhon's conception of his genius. Apropos of Proudhon, in the Revue Contemporaine, 690 there are four interesting papers by Sainte Beuve, giving a sketch of Proudhon from his correspondence which was unusually copious and representative of the man. If the last 4 Numbers of the Revue Cont[emporain]e come in your way, read them.
Always, dear Barbara
Your faithfully affectionate
Marian.
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
1 North Bank | January 15. 1866.
My dear Barbara
My not writing is due rather to the want of health, which robs me of energy for things that are not peremptory, than to want of time. One can always find time to scribble a letter, if the spaces between work are not filled with malaise. George and I have both been more suffering than usual, 686 but we are always grumblers, so there is no use in dwelling on what is so far from exceptional. Your illness is much more of a case to inquire about. Why did you not tell me what was the matter with you? -- Palpitation -- or what else? And are you well again? I am terribly afraid that you are worrying yourself about the unchangeable -- looking for fowls' milk or some other impossibility -- when half the great lesson of life is to adapt one's soul to the irremediable.
Confess, and be healed by adopting the prescriptions you have had over and over again. There are no other. Certain human natures, and certain periods of life for some natures, have limits as immovable as the Jura. You may say that one can't help feeling anguish, and that is true enough. But the anguish is fed by false hope, as fire is fed by fuel. However, I will not go on preaching across France and the Mediterranean: perhaps by this time you are bright again, well in health and able to paint.
Life is very interesting to us in spite of disordered mucous membranes. Great subjects become greater to us, and for that reason smaller ones lose their power of tormenting. As soon as Bertie is gone to his farming again, we shall migrate to Tunbridge Wells for a fortnight and try the effect of the purer air to take our daily walks in. George gets thinner and thinner, and the less there is of him, as with the Sybil's papers, the more precious he becomes.
Poor Mr. Neuberg had a sad accident in driving his little carriage, about six weeks ago. His sister was pitched out and had a contusion of the head which has caused a prolonged state of feebleness. He says it made him feel twenty years older. But she is recovering without having incurred erisypelas, which was the great dread.
I have been delighted to know of Bessie's final decision against the marriage. She seems bright and happy, and courageous in the hope of working with her pen so as to eke out her income.
You remembered the beautiful-eyed, clever, amiable Lord Edward Seymour? 687 Did you see the account of his death -- after amputation of a leg, made necessary by a gunshot? I was grieved by his death. He was not one of the ordinary young Liberals, who echo the catchwords of a party. He had genuine opinions, and strove after their precise expression.
When you write again, remember to tell me particularly about the progress of Nannie's health. I want to hear that she is thoroughly restored to all the enjoyments of life -- that she can walk, ride, paint, and be active in the many valuable ways her nature prompts. Yesterday, Mr. Hamerton, whose books and (bad) pictures you are acquainted with, came to be introduced to me. 688 He is a very unaffected man, but not of transparent porcelain, rather of good honest earthenware. He really writes well, but I have been told by others as well as you that his pictures are a painful non sequitur to all his able theorizing. "So vast is art, so narrow human wit." 689
We were much interested by your account of all you gathered about Courbet, and after reading your letter I was less sceptical as to Proudhon's conception of his genius. Apropos of Proudhon, in the Revue Contemporaine, 690 there are four interesting papers by Sainte Beuve, giving a sketch of Proudhon from his correspondence which was unusually copious and representative of the man. If the last 4 Numbers of the Revue Cont[emporain]e come in your way, read them.
Always, dear Barbara
Your faithfully affectionate
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Barbara [Mme Eugene] Bodichon, London, 15 January 1866, 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/93029