GHL to Alexander Main, London, [30 November 1874]
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, [30 November 1874]
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, [30 November 1874]
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1874-11-30
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Alexander Main, London, [30 November 1874]
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Sunday.
My dear Main
We have returned from our continental trip in fairly good condition, and I am hard at work on the final proofs of Volume 2 while Mrs. Lewes advances with her new work. You need be under no anxiety about her beginning to publish until the whole is complete -- or at least so much of it that no probable interruption would occur.
After leaving the country house we paid a visit in Cambridgeshire then went to Paris and through the Ardennes (visiting Sedan) to Brussels, going almost nightly to the theatre and leading a very holiday existence. The weather was transcendent. On our return home we started again for a tour through Wiltshire having long promised ourselves a sight of Salisbury plain and Stonehenge. This was a delightful tour though the weather was often wretched.
I have not seen Picton's book, 169 though your words about it will give it an interest for me should it fall in my way. I have too much to read for my own purposes -- and in a quite different direction -- to look after other people's speculations.
Reading the proofs of Vol. 2 is very dispiriting. All seems so dull and incomplete. One wishes to have the whole thing rewritten -- a wish checked by the knowledge that even then it would produce just the same effect! It is only by the response of other minds that one can ever feel lasting satisfaction. All I can console myself with is the consciousness that I have done my best to condense into a few chapters the best results of years of meditation. But it is not only the prosperity of a jest half of which lies in the hearer 170 -- the prosperity of all writing half depends on the reader. The listener seldom brings any prepossession which will disturb the effect of the jest -- but generally the reader brings his views, theories, superstitions to disturb the effect of a proposition.
Mrs. Lewes bids me send her affectionate remembrances.
Ever yours
G. H. L.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Sunday.
My dear Main
We have returned from our continental trip in fairly good condition, and I am hard at work on the final proofs of Volume 2 while Mrs. Lewes advances with her new work. You need be under no anxiety about her beginning to publish until the whole is complete -- or at least so much of it that no probable interruption would occur.
After leaving the country house we paid a visit in Cambridgeshire then went to Paris and through the Ardennes (visiting Sedan) to Brussels, going almost nightly to the theatre and leading a very holiday existence. The weather was transcendent. On our return home we started again for a tour through Wiltshire having long promised ourselves a sight of Salisbury plain and Stonehenge. This was a delightful tour though the weather was often wretched.
I have not seen Picton's book, 169 though your words about it will give it an interest for me should it fall in my way. I have too much to read for my own purposes -- and in a quite different direction -- to look after other people's speculations.
Reading the proofs of Vol. 2 is very dispiriting. All seems so dull and incomplete. One wishes to have the whole thing rewritten -- a wish checked by the knowledge that even then it would produce just the same effect! It is only by the response of other minds that one can ever feel lasting satisfaction. All I can console myself with is the consciousness that I have done my best to condense into a few chapters the best results of years of meditation. But it is not only the prosperity of a jest half of which lies in the hearer 170 -- the prosperity of all writing half depends on the reader. The listener seldom brings any prepossession which will disturb the effect of the jest -- but generally the reader brings his views, theories, superstitions to disturb the effect of a proposition.
Mrs. Lewes bids me send her affectionate remembrances.
Ever yours
G. H. L.
Signature
G. H. L.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Alexander Main, London, [30 November 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/94398