GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [11 October 1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [11 October 1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [11 October 1849]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1849-10-11
Place
Geneva
Letter Content
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [11 October 1849]
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre. Postmarks: GENEVE | 11 | OCTO | 49 | 8s; COVENTRY | OC 16 | 1849 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 230-231.
Rue des Chanoines No. 107.
Dear Friends
You do not want to hear from me again yet, but I want to hear from you -- that is the reason I write on this third day of my abode in my new lodgings. I like them very much. M. and Mde. D'Albert are really clever people, people worth sitting up an hour longer to talk to. This does not hinder Mde. from being an excellent manager, dressing scrupulously and keeping her servants in order. She has hung my room with pictures, one of which is the most beautiful group of flowers conceivable thrown on an open Bible -- painted by herself. I have a piano which I hire. There is also one in the salon. M. D'Albert plays and sings, and in the winter he tells me they have parties to sing masses and do other delightful things. There is at present a lady in the house who is studying crayons with M. D'Albert -- though she appears to be nearly fifty. I fancy she is doing it from some motive of duty. She will leave soon. M. D'A. is deformed with a face indicative of talent and feeling. 855 Mde. is a nice-looking woman -- the boys perfectly quiet, well-behaved and intelligent. In fact I think I am just in the right place. They appear to be evangelical and conservative, b[ut] 856 one finds these views in company with more breadth of cultu[re] here than one can
ever augur from them in England. I break[fast] in my own room at 'bd past eight, lunch at 'bd past 12, and dine at 4 or a little after, and take tea at 8. From the tea-table I have gone into the salon and chatted until bed-time. It would really have been a pity to have staid at Plongeon out of reach of everything and with people so little worth talking to. I have not found out the desagrémens here yet -- of course I shall, but I think they will not be more numerous than they would necessarily be in any sublunary lodgings.
Two unhappy newspapers 857 have cost each a franc and 20 centimes. The last however only cost 10 centimes. I do not know the reason of this but until the last came I was going to write to say that I must renounce the pleasure of having them -- since I am adopting Poor Richard's style of calculation, a franc a week etc. It is raining horribly here -- raining blue devils -- but this just saves me from the regret I should have felt at having quitted the chestnuts of Plongeon. That campagne looked splendid in its autumn dress. There are two good people there now -- a captain of the navy and his wife named Weavers, 858 whom I thought perfect nullities when they came, but it turned out that the husband is accustomed to the best scientific and literary society of London. We became capital friends and were sorry to part.
I have had a letter from Miss Sibree and am going to write to her to tell her that I think it right to abstain from correspondence with her. She is a sweet good girl, but her ideas want testing -- she should be let alone. I am by no means sure that she is prepared for the hardships of the new Protestantism. Also there is a strong leaven of Sibreeanism in her which I have tended to nourish by shewing a very strong interest in her. Sibreeanism is that degree of egotism which we call bad taste but which does not reach to gross selfishness -- the egotism that does not think of others, but would be very glad to do them good if it did think of them -- the egotism that eats up all the bread and butter and is ready to die of confusion and distress after having done it.
I am much obliged to Mr. Dawson for sending me so exceptional a proof of his regard -- tell him I only deserve it in consideration of my admiration for him. Dear souls I wish you had as great a freedom from care as I -- it is true my health has taken the place of all other cares or rather my want of health and I am sometimes ready to think that everybody is really prematurely worn out -- at other times I am more hopeful. Write to me soon.
Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre. Postmarks: GENEVE | 11 | OCTO | 49 | 8s; COVENTRY | OC 16 | 1849 | A. Extracts published: Cross, I, 230-231.
Rue des Chanoines No. 107.
Dear Friends
You do not want to hear from me again yet, but I want to hear from you -- that is the reason I write on this third day of my abode in my new lodgings. I like them very much. M. and Mde. D'Albert are really clever people, people worth sitting up an hour longer to talk to. This does not hinder Mde. from being an excellent manager, dressing scrupulously and keeping her servants in order. She has hung my room with pictures, one of which is the most beautiful group of flowers conceivable thrown on an open Bible -- painted by herself. I have a piano which I hire. There is also one in the salon. M. D'Albert plays and sings, and in the winter he tells me they have parties to sing masses and do other delightful things. There is at present a lady in the house who is studying crayons with M. D'Albert -- though she appears to be nearly fifty. I fancy she is doing it from some motive of duty. She will leave soon. M. D'A. is deformed with a face indicative of talent and feeling. 855 Mde. is a nice-looking woman -- the boys perfectly quiet, well-behaved and intelligent. In fact I think I am just in the right place. They appear to be evangelical and conservative, b[ut] 856 one finds these views in company with more breadth of cultu[re] here than one can
ever augur from them in England. I break[fast] in my own room at 'bd past eight, lunch at 'bd past 12, and dine at 4 or a little after, and take tea at 8. From the tea-table I have gone into the salon and chatted until bed-time. It would really have been a pity to have staid at Plongeon out of reach of everything and with people so little worth talking to. I have not found out the desagrémens here yet -- of course I shall, but I think they will not be more numerous than they would necessarily be in any sublunary lodgings.
Two unhappy newspapers 857 have cost each a franc and 20 centimes. The last however only cost 10 centimes. I do not know the reason of this but until the last came I was going to write to say that I must renounce the pleasure of having them -- since I am adopting Poor Richard's style of calculation, a franc a week etc. It is raining horribly here -- raining blue devils -- but this just saves me from the regret I should have felt at having quitted the chestnuts of Plongeon. That campagne looked splendid in its autumn dress. There are two good people there now -- a captain of the navy and his wife named Weavers, 858 whom I thought perfect nullities when they came, but it turned out that the husband is accustomed to the best scientific and literary society of London. We became capital friends and were sorry to part.
I have had a letter from Miss Sibree and am going to write to her to tell her that I think it right to abstain from correspondence with her. She is a sweet good girl, but her ideas want testing -- she should be let alone. I am by no means sure that she is prepared for the hardships of the new Protestantism. Also there is a strong leaven of Sibreeanism in her which I have tended to nourish by shewing a very strong interest in her. Sibreeanism is that degree of egotism which we call bad taste but which does not reach to gross selfishness -- the egotism that does not think of others, but would be very glad to do them good if it did think of them -- the egotism that eats up all the bread and butter and is ready to die of confusion and distress after having done it.
I am much obliged to Mr. Dawson for sending me so exceptional a proof of his regard -- tell him I only deserve it in consideration of my admiration for him. Dear souls I wish you had as great a freedom from care as I -- it is true my health has taken the place of all other cares or rather my want of health and I am sometimes ready to think that everybody is really prematurely worn out -- at other times I am more hopeful. Write to me soon.
Mary Ann.
Signature
Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, [11 October 1849], 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/93156