GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 11 July 1869
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 11 July 1869
Title
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 11 July 1869
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Mrs. Harriet Beecher S
Date(s)
- 1869-07-11
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 11 July 1869
MS: Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. Published: Cross, III, 91-94.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 11. 1869.
My dear Friend
I hoped before this to have seen our friend Mrs. Fields on her return from Scotland, 86 and to have begged her to send you word of a domestic affliction, which has prevented me from writing to you since I received your and your husband's valued letters. Immediately on our return from Italy, Mr. Lewes's second son, a fine young man of five and twenty, returned to us from Natal, wasted by suffering from a longstanding spinal injury. This was on the 8th of May, and since then we have both been absorbed in our duties to this poor child, and have felt our own health and nervous energy insufficient for our needful activity of body and mind. He is at present no better and we look forward to a long trial.
Nothing but a trouble so great as this would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I have received and read "Oldtown Folks." I think few of your many readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation, for my interest in it has a double root: one is my love for our old-fashioned provincial life which had its affinities with a contemporary life even all across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father and mother with their relatives; the other is, my experimental acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which I can see has been a labour of love.
Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the indications which the Professor gives of his peculiar psychological experience, 87 and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in every way distinguished mind. He will, I am sure, accept the brief thanks which I can give in this letter, for all that he has generously written to me. He says "I have had no connection with any of the modern movements, except as Father Confessor," and I can well believe that he must be peculiarly sensitive to the repulsive aspects which those movements present. Your view as to the cause of that "great wave of spiritualism" which is rushing over America, namely, that it is a sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement towards the invisible existence of the loved ones, is deeply affecting. But so far as "spiritualism" (by which I mean, of course, spirit-communications by rapping, guidance of the pencil etc.) has come within reach of my judgment on our side of the water, it has appeared to me either as degrading folly, imbecile in the estimate of evidence, or else as impudent imposture. So far as my observation and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured methods of studying the open secret of the universe 88 any large amount of attention to alleged manifestations which are so defiled by low adventurers and their palpable trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the doubtfulness of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed, which testimonies are no more true objectively because they are honest subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is true because it seemed to Tycho Brahe a better explanation of the heavenly movements than the Copernican. This is a brief statement of my position on the subject, which your letter shows me to have an aspect much more compulsory on serious attention in America than I can perceive it to have in England. I should not be as simply truthful as my deep respect for you demands if I did not tell you exactly what is my mental attitude in relation to the phenomena in question. But whatever you print on the subject and will send me, I shall read with attention, and the idea you give me of the hold which spiritualism has gained on the public mind in the U. S. is already a fact of historic importance.
Forgive me, dear friend, if I write in the scantiest manner, unworthily responding to letters which have touched me profoundly. You have known so much of life, both in its more external trials and in the peculiar struggles of a nature which is made twofold in its demands by the yearnings of the author as well as of the woman, that I can count on your indulgence and power of understanding my present inability to correspond by letter.
May I add my kind remembrances to your daughters 89 to the high regard which I offer to your husband? Believe me, dear Friend
Yours always with affection
Marian E. Lewes.
MS: Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. Published: Cross, III, 91-94.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 11. 1869.
My dear Friend
I hoped before this to have seen our friend Mrs. Fields on her return from Scotland, 86 and to have begged her to send you word of a domestic affliction, which has prevented me from writing to you since I received your and your husband's valued letters. Immediately on our return from Italy, Mr. Lewes's second son, a fine young man of five and twenty, returned to us from Natal, wasted by suffering from a longstanding spinal injury. This was on the 8th of May, and since then we have both been absorbed in our duties to this poor child, and have felt our own health and nervous energy insufficient for our needful activity of body and mind. He is at present no better and we look forward to a long trial.
Nothing but a trouble so great as this would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I have received and read "Oldtown Folks." I think few of your many readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation, for my interest in it has a double root: one is my love for our old-fashioned provincial life which had its affinities with a contemporary life even all across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father and mother with their relatives; the other is, my experimental acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which I can see has been a labour of love.
Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the indications which the Professor gives of his peculiar psychological experience, 87 and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in every way distinguished mind. He will, I am sure, accept the brief thanks which I can give in this letter, for all that he has generously written to me. He says "I have had no connection with any of the modern movements, except as Father Confessor," and I can well believe that he must be peculiarly sensitive to the repulsive aspects which those movements present. Your view as to the cause of that "great wave of spiritualism" which is rushing over America, namely, that it is a sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement towards the invisible existence of the loved ones, is deeply affecting. But so far as "spiritualism" (by which I mean, of course, spirit-communications by rapping, guidance of the pencil etc.) has come within reach of my judgment on our side of the water, it has appeared to me either as degrading folly, imbecile in the estimate of evidence, or else as impudent imposture. So far as my observation and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured methods of studying the open secret of the universe 88 any large amount of attention to alleged manifestations which are so defiled by low adventurers and their palpable trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the doubtfulness of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed, which testimonies are no more true objectively because they are honest subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is true because it seemed to Tycho Brahe a better explanation of the heavenly movements than the Copernican. This is a brief statement of my position on the subject, which your letter shows me to have an aspect much more compulsory on serious attention in America than I can perceive it to have in England. I should not be as simply truthful as my deep respect for you demands if I did not tell you exactly what is my mental attitude in relation to the phenomena in question. But whatever you print on the subject and will send me, I shall read with attention, and the idea you give me of the hold which spiritualism has gained on the public mind in the U. S. is already a fact of historic importance.
Forgive me, dear friend, if I write in the scantiest manner, unworthily responding to letters which have touched me profoundly. You have known so much of life, both in its more external trials and in the peculiar struggles of a nature which is made twofold in its demands by the yearnings of the author as well as of the woman, that I can count on your indulgence and power of understanding my present inability to correspond by letter.
May I add my kind remembrances to your daughters 89 to the high regard which I offer to your husband? Believe me, dear Friend
Yours always with affection
Marian E. Lewes.
Signature
Marian E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, London, 11 July 1869, 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/93460