GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, [London, October? 1872]
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, [London, October? 1872]
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, [London, October? 1872]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Harriet Beecher S
Date(s)
- 1872-10
Place
[London]
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, [London, October? 1872]
Text: Copy at Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
[The beginning of this letter is lacking.] away from Germany.
How good and generous you are to me! When I think how much you have lived through, the ardour of your sympathy for me, so far away as I am, seems the more wonderful and precious. True thanks, dear Friend, for every loving helpful word that you have sent me. But do not for a moment imagine that Dorothea's marriage experience is drawn from my own. Impossible to conceive any creature less like Mr. Casaubon than my warm, enthusiastic husband, who cares much more for my doing than for his own, and is a miracle of freedom from all author's jealousy and all suspicion. I fear that the Casaubon-tints are not quite foreign to my own mental complexion. At any rate I am very sorry for him.
I have never written to Mr. Dale Owen, because the questions his letter and book open are too large for me to venture a correspondence upon, economy in letter-writing being a necessity to me. And a mere note of acknowledgment seemed to me hardly a suitable sign from me. But I am sincerely obliged by his gift and by the expressions in his letter, and I should like him to know that, if any opportunity occurs for you to convey it to him without effort.
If you receive this note while you are still with Mrs. Fields, will you give me the additional security that my thanks reach her by giving them to her on my behalf? I will continue to hope that she has by this time received my letter, until I learn that the post has really been untrustworthy.
Farewell, dear Friend, and whenever you write again, tell me more about yourself and all that belongs to you.
Ever yours most gratefully and affectionately
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Copy at Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
[The beginning of this letter is lacking.] away from Germany.
How good and generous you are to me! When I think how much you have lived through, the ardour of your sympathy for me, so far away as I am, seems the more wonderful and precious. True thanks, dear Friend, for every loving helpful word that you have sent me. But do not for a moment imagine that Dorothea's marriage experience is drawn from my own. Impossible to conceive any creature less like Mr. Casaubon than my warm, enthusiastic husband, who cares much more for my doing than for his own, and is a miracle of freedom from all author's jealousy and all suspicion. I fear that the Casaubon-tints are not quite foreign to my own mental complexion. At any rate I am very sorry for him.
I have never written to Mr. Dale Owen, because the questions his letter and book open are too large for me to venture a correspondence upon, economy in letter-writing being a necessity to me. And a mere note of acknowledgment seemed to me hardly a suitable sign from me. But I am sincerely obliged by his gift and by the expressions in his letter, and I should like him to know that, if any opportunity occurs for you to convey it to him without effort.
If you receive this note while you are still with Mrs. Fields, will you give me the additional security that my thanks reach her by giving them to her on my behalf? I will continue to hope that she has by this time received my letter, until I learn that the post has really been untrustworthy.
Farewell, dear Friend, and whenever you write again, tell me more about yourself and all that belongs to you.
Ever yours most gratefully and affectionately
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, [London, October? 1872], 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/93457