GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 25 March 1874
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 25 March 1874
Title
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 25 March 1874
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Date(s)
- 1874-03-25
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 25 March 1874
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1874. Extracts published: Cross, III, 228-229.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 25. 74.
My dear Cara
Tracy has sent Mr. Lewes also a rigmarole to much the same effect as what he sent you. As to the objection that the anecdotes are taken from the Animal World -- that is ridiculous. As if boys were running about to select anecdotes for their own improvement!
I fear the fatal fact about your story is the absence of God and Hell. "My dear madam, you have not presented motives to the children!" It is really hideous to find that those who sit in the scribes' seats have got no farther than the appeal to selfishness which they call God. The old Talmudists were better teachers. They make Rachel remonstrate with God for his hardness, and remind him that she was kinder to her sister Leah than He to his people -- thus correcting the traditional God by human sympathy. However we must put up with our contemporaries since we can neither live with our ancestors nor with posterity.
Would not the respectable Partridge 60 publish [Paul Bradly]? I have just been looking again over the [tiny] Richard Barton, and the charm of the illustrations both in the story and in the pages of advertisement gives me quite an affection for that publisher. I am loth to have the tale cut up into parts until its publication as a whole is proved quite hopeless.
It is cheering to see the programme of your new Society. There certainly is an awakening of conscience about animals in general as our fellow-creatures -- even the vogue of Balaam's ass is in that sense a good sign. A lady wrote to me the other day that when she went to church in the island of Sark, the sermon turned on that remonstrant hero or heroine.
Thanks, I have been on the whole better this last week or two, though this morning it happens that I have a nasty headache.
Don't imagine that we have had any trouble which should vex you. There is nothing for you to be vexed about except the fact that it is difficult to get good wholesome teaching into print.
Always your loving
Marian.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: 1874. Extracts published: Cross, III, 228-229.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 25. 74.
My dear Cara
Tracy has sent Mr. Lewes also a rigmarole to much the same effect as what he sent you. As to the objection that the anecdotes are taken from the Animal World -- that is ridiculous. As if boys were running about to select anecdotes for their own improvement!
I fear the fatal fact about your story is the absence of God and Hell. "My dear madam, you have not presented motives to the children!" It is really hideous to find that those who sit in the scribes' seats have got no farther than the appeal to selfishness which they call God. The old Talmudists were better teachers. They make Rachel remonstrate with God for his hardness, and remind him that she was kinder to her sister Leah than He to his people -- thus correcting the traditional God by human sympathy. However we must put up with our contemporaries since we can neither live with our ancestors nor with posterity.
Would not the respectable Partridge 60 publish [Paul Bradly]? I have just been looking again over the [tiny] Richard Barton, and the charm of the illustrations both in the story and in the pages of advertisement gives me quite an affection for that publisher. I am loth to have the tale cut up into parts until its publication as a whole is proved quite hopeless.
It is cheering to see the programme of your new Society. There certainly is an awakening of conscience about animals in general as our fellow-creatures -- even the vogue of Balaam's ass is in that sense a good sign. A lady wrote to me the other day that when she went to church in the island of Sark, the sermon turned on that remonstrant hero or heroine.
Thanks, I have been on the whole better this last week or two, though this morning it happens that I have a nasty headache.
Don't imagine that we have had any trouble which should vex you. There is nothing for you to be vexed about except the fact that it is difficult to get good wholesome teaching into print.
Always your loving
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, London, 25 March 1874, 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/93294