GE to Mrs. Charles Meredith, Witley, 7 November 1878
Title
GE to Mrs. Charles Meredith, Witley, 7 November 1878
Title
GE to Mrs. Charles Meredith, Witley, 7 November 1878
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Charles Meredith
Date(s)
- 1878-11-07
Place
Witley
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Charles Meredith, Witley, 7 November 1878
MS: Yale. Endorsed: From "George Eliot." Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
November 7. 78.
My dear Madam
I feel with you most keenly in your affliction under the sufferings of your Son, whose excellence must make the trial all the harder to you. What heroic endurance he has shown! I wish some of our complaining idle young men in this old country could have such examples impressed on them.
Your interesting contribution to Zoology shall be taken the utmost care of. We return to town next week, and Mr. Lewes will at once seek in the first instance to put the drawings and M.S. in the hands of Dr. Allman, the President of the Linnaean Society. 145 These beautiful Sabellae remind us of our old joys in hunting on the coast, when we thought it a great glory to find a specimen of a kind already familiar to the Zoological world. We shall be exceedingly glad if the Dons[?] of our Linnaean Society give you any sort of appreciation of your labour that will be a pleasure to you.
We quite understand, and sympathize with, your disappointment in having the appearance of your work so long deferred. But I trust that there will by and by be some good results which will not come "too late." We are very near Christmas now, and are at the beginning of the busy season for book-selling -- if in this sad time of wars and trade-depression we can count on any briskness of sale. It is comforting amidst the sad news that fill our papers to get signs from you of good works going on in your newer society. What an antithesis the tenderness to animals which is a mark of our times, presents to the persistence in war and the apparent hopelessness that it will be even reduced for the next generation!
Believe me, dear Madam,
Yours very sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mrs. Meredith.
MS: Yale. Endorsed: From "George Eliot." Hitherto unpublished.
The Heights, Witley, | Nr. Godalming.
November 7. 78.
My dear Madam
I feel with you most keenly in your affliction under the sufferings of your Son, whose excellence must make the trial all the harder to you. What heroic endurance he has shown! I wish some of our complaining idle young men in this old country could have such examples impressed on them.
Your interesting contribution to Zoology shall be taken the utmost care of. We return to town next week, and Mr. Lewes will at once seek in the first instance to put the drawings and M.S. in the hands of Dr. Allman, the President of the Linnaean Society. 145 These beautiful Sabellae remind us of our old joys in hunting on the coast, when we thought it a great glory to find a specimen of a kind already familiar to the Zoological world. We shall be exceedingly glad if the Dons[?] of our Linnaean Society give you any sort of appreciation of your labour that will be a pleasure to you.
We quite understand, and sympathize with, your disappointment in having the appearance of your work so long deferred. But I trust that there will by and by be some good results which will not come "too late." We are very near Christmas now, and are at the beginning of the busy season for book-selling -- if in this sad time of wars and trade-depression we can count on any briskness of sale. It is comforting amidst the sad news that fill our papers to get signs from you of good works going on in your newer society. What an antithesis the tenderness to animals which is a mark of our times, presents to the persistence in war and the apparent hopelessness that it will be even reduced for the next generation!
Believe me, dear Madam,
Yours very sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mrs. Meredith.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Charles Meredith, Witley, 7 November 1878, 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/93344