GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, 4 October [1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, 4 October [1849]
Title
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, 4 October [1849]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1849-10-04
Place
Geneva
Letter Content
GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, 4 October [1849]
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre | Voie de France. Postmarks: GENEVE | 5 | OCTO | 49 | 2s; COVENTRY | OC 9 | 1849. Extracts published: Cross, I, 227-228.
Plongeon Thursday October 4.
Dear dear Friends
I cannot write much today for I am tired after an expedition into the town about my removal, but I write nevertheless because I am anxious for you to know my new address, as I shall leave here on Tuesday. Mde. Gaussen's house is full, so I have been enquiring in other directions -- or rather good people have been enquiring for me -- and I think I have at last found the very thing. I shall be the only lodger. The appartement is assez joli, with an alcove so that it looks like a sitting-room in the day-time -- the people, an artist 851 of great respectability and his wife, a most kind-looking lady-like person with two boys who have the air of being well educated. They seem very anxious to have me and are ready to do anything to accommodate me. I shall live with them -- that is, dine with them -- breakfast in my own room. The terms are 150 f. per month, light included. M. and Mde. D'Albert are middle-aged -- between forty and fifty probably -- musical -- and I am told have "beaucoup d'esprit." I hardly know how I could have done better -- except indeed that I could have done more cheaply, but I hope this will not exceed my means for 4 or 5 months. There is a nice large salon and a good salle 'e0 manger. I am told that their society is very good. Mde. de Ludwigsdorff was about going there a year ago, and it was she who recommended it to me.
I hope Sara's fears are supererogatory -- a proof of a too nervous solicitude about me for which I am grateful, though it does me no good to hear of it. I want encouraging rather than warning and checking. I believe I am so constituted that I shall never be cured of any faults except by God's discipline -- if human beings would but believe it, they do me most good by saying to me the kindest things truth will permit -- and really I cannot hope those will be superlatively kind. The reason I wished to raise a little extra money is that I wanted to have some lessons and other means of culture, not for my daily bread, for which I hope I shall have enough, but since you think my scheme impracticable we will dismiss it. I am much better -- indeed very well now -- and I am convinced that I shall improve when I am comfortably settled.
Mde. de Ludwigsdorff sets off for Vienna on Saturday. I am afraid I shall hardly see her again -- she seems so uncertain about her destiny. The Forbeses are gone too. And so enough of myself.
A thousand thanks, dear friends, for your kind letters. I wanted them very badly. Alas alas -- lose another £2000! However I will hope on -- as you always do. There are places about Geneva -- Vaudeuvres, Bex, Clarens, etc., where you can live well for 3 and even 2 fs. a day. I have it from persons who have been there -- so you see [man needs but little] 852 here emphatically. But I think I am doing more wisely at present to keep with some intelligent respectable people even at the sacrifice of not saving £8 or 10.
I will leave everything out of my letter today because I [am] 853 in too great a hurry and too nervous to write agreeably. Whe[n] I am fairly settled in my new home, I will write again. My address will be, M.
D'Albert Durade, Rue des Chanoines, No. 107. 854 Love to Mrs. Pears -- to Sara much, much love -- I am concerned to hear of her illness. Au reste, be in no anxiety about me. Nothing is going wrong that I know of. I am not such an absolute fool and weakling as dear Sara seems to suppose me. Goodbye dear creatures. Heaven bless you -- but it has given you the supreme blessing in making you so good, perhaps one ought to ask no more.
<Marianne> Mary Ann.
MS: Yale. Address: Charles Bray Esq | Rosehill | Coventry | Angleterre | Voie de France. Postmarks: GENEVE | 5 | OCTO | 49 | 2s; COVENTRY | OC 9 | 1849. Extracts published: Cross, I, 227-228.
Plongeon Thursday October 4.
Dear dear Friends
I cannot write much today for I am tired after an expedition into the town about my removal, but I write nevertheless because I am anxious for you to know my new address, as I shall leave here on Tuesday. Mde. Gaussen's house is full, so I have been enquiring in other directions -- or rather good people have been enquiring for me -- and I think I have at last found the very thing. I shall be the only lodger. The appartement is assez joli, with an alcove so that it looks like a sitting-room in the day-time -- the people, an artist 851 of great respectability and his wife, a most kind-looking lady-like person with two boys who have the air of being well educated. They seem very anxious to have me and are ready to do anything to accommodate me. I shall live with them -- that is, dine with them -- breakfast in my own room. The terms are 150 f. per month, light included. M. and Mde. D'Albert are middle-aged -- between forty and fifty probably -- musical -- and I am told have "beaucoup d'esprit." I hardly know how I could have done better -- except indeed that I could have done more cheaply, but I hope this will not exceed my means for 4 or 5 months. There is a nice large salon and a good salle 'e0 manger. I am told that their society is very good. Mde. de Ludwigsdorff was about going there a year ago, and it was she who recommended it to me.
I hope Sara's fears are supererogatory -- a proof of a too nervous solicitude about me for which I am grateful, though it does me no good to hear of it. I want encouraging rather than warning and checking. I believe I am so constituted that I shall never be cured of any faults except by God's discipline -- if human beings would but believe it, they do me most good by saying to me the kindest things truth will permit -- and really I cannot hope those will be superlatively kind. The reason I wished to raise a little extra money is that I wanted to have some lessons and other means of culture, not for my daily bread, for which I hope I shall have enough, but since you think my scheme impracticable we will dismiss it. I am much better -- indeed very well now -- and I am convinced that I shall improve when I am comfortably settled.
Mde. de Ludwigsdorff sets off for Vienna on Saturday. I am afraid I shall hardly see her again -- she seems so uncertain about her destiny. The Forbeses are gone too. And so enough of myself.
A thousand thanks, dear friends, for your kind letters. I wanted them very badly. Alas alas -- lose another £2000! However I will hope on -- as you always do. There are places about Geneva -- Vaudeuvres, Bex, Clarens, etc., where you can live well for 3 and even 2 fs. a day. I have it from persons who have been there -- so you see [man needs but little] 852 here emphatically. But I think I am doing more wisely at present to keep with some intelligent respectable people even at the sacrifice of not saving £8 or 10.
I will leave everything out of my letter today because I [am] 853 in too great a hurry and too nervous to write agreeably. Whe[n] I am fairly settled in my new home, I will write again. My address will be, M.
D'Albert Durade, Rue des Chanoines, No. 107. 854 Love to Mrs. Pears -- to Sara much, much love -- I am concerned to hear of her illness. Au reste, be in no anxiety about me. Nothing is going wrong that I know of. I am not such an absolute fool and weakling as dear Sara seems to suppose me. Goodbye dear creatures. Heaven bless you -- but it has given you the supreme blessing in making you so good, perhaps one ought to ask no more.
<Marianne> Mary Ann.
Signature
<Marianne> Mary Ann.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mr. Charles Bray and Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Geneva, 4 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/93163