GE to William Blackwood, London, 14 December 1880
Title
GE to William Blackwood, London, 14 December 1880
Title
GE to William Blackwood, London, 14 December 1880
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
William Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1880-12-14
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to William Blackwood, London, 14 December 1880
MS: National Library of Scotland.
Cheyne Walk, | Chelsea, S.W.
December 14. 1880.
My dear Mr. William
I thank you with much feeling for sending me the well-judged volume in memory of your dear Uncle. 562 I have read through it this morning, and I should not have believed beforehand that a selection of Obituary Notices would give me so much satisfaction. They are sober and truthful and, I imagine, only inexact in some minor details. It is really to the credit of our press that such a volume would be a trustworthy authority to a writer who wished to give a full history of our literature and its personnel in the last quarter of a century.
My experience and affection say a hearty amen to all the praise of your Uncle's character contained in this volume. I feel that his death was an irreparable loss to my mental life, for nowhere else is it possible that I can find the same long-tried genuineness of sympathy and unmixed impartial gladness in anything I might happen to do well. To have had a publisher who was in the fullest sense of the word a gentleman and at the same time a man of excellent moral judgment, has been an invaluable stimulus and comfort to me. Your Uncle had retained that fruit of experience which makes a man of the world as opposed to the narrow man of literature. He judged well of writing because he had learned to judge well of men and things, not merely through quickness of observation and insight, but with the illumination of a heart in the right place -- a thorough integrity and rare tenderness of feeling.
When you write to me again I should be very glad to hear news about your Uncle's family, especially his son. I finish hurriedly in order to send this to the post.
Yours always sincerely,
M. A. Cross.
MS: National Library of Scotland.
Cheyne Walk, | Chelsea, S.W.
December 14. 1880.
My dear Mr. William
I thank you with much feeling for sending me the well-judged volume in memory of your dear Uncle. 562 I have read through it this morning, and I should not have believed beforehand that a selection of Obituary Notices would give me so much satisfaction. They are sober and truthful and, I imagine, only inexact in some minor details. It is really to the credit of our press that such a volume would be a trustworthy authority to a writer who wished to give a full history of our literature and its personnel in the last quarter of a century.
My experience and affection say a hearty amen to all the praise of your Uncle's character contained in this volume. I feel that his death was an irreparable loss to my mental life, for nowhere else is it possible that I can find the same long-tried genuineness of sympathy and unmixed impartial gladness in anything I might happen to do well. To have had a publisher who was in the fullest sense of the word a gentleman and at the same time a man of excellent moral judgment, has been an invaluable stimulus and comfort to me. Your Uncle had retained that fruit of experience which makes a man of the world as opposed to the narrow man of literature. He judged well of writing because he had learned to judge well of men and things, not merely through quickness of observation and insight, but with the illumination of a heart in the right place -- a thorough integrity and rare tenderness of feeling.
When you write to me again I should be very glad to hear news about your Uncle's family, especially his son. I finish hurriedly in order to send this to the post.
Yours always sincerely,
M. A. Cross.
Signature
M. A. Cross.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to William Blackwood, London, 14 December 1880, 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/94186