GHL to Alexander Main, London, 20 December 1871
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 20 December 1871
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 20 December 1871
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1871-12-20
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 20 December 1871
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 71.
My dear Main
It was a kind prompting which moved you to send that very welcome bit of news, which has cheered and strengthened her not a little. I don't know whether I told you that she does not read criticism on her works, favorable or unfavorable, -- not because she is less sensitive than others but because she is more, and does not think it right to occupy her mind with such necessarily distracting details. But she is proportionately delighted at all such evidences of influence as your letters have conveyed -- and these have reached her from all parts of the world, so that now in spite of her extraordinary diffidence and self-questioning, she begins to feel that her life has indeed not been unavailing. Unhappily the habitual tone of her mind is distrust of herself, and no sympathy, no praise, can do more than lift her out of it for a day or two; but by repetition the curing influences tell, for they become massed, and as we psychologists say they enable her to apperceive the fact that her books are something more than mere amusements.
We shall welcome the "little stranger" as a real Christmas child, and hope you will reap the full credit for your own share in the work -- a work which could not have been executed except by one who to loving insight added literary taste. I was so easy to go wrong in such a matter, that Mr. Blackwood was justified in his hesitation.
Ever yours faithfully
G. H. Lewes.
Alexr. Main Esq.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 71.
My dear Main
It was a kind prompting which moved you to send that very welcome bit of news, which has cheered and strengthened her not a little. I don't know whether I told you that she does not read criticism on her works, favorable or unfavorable, -- not because she is less sensitive than others but because she is more, and does not think it right to occupy her mind with such necessarily distracting details. But she is proportionately delighted at all such evidences of influence as your letters have conveyed -- and these have reached her from all parts of the world, so that now in spite of her extraordinary diffidence and self-questioning, she begins to feel that her life has indeed not been unavailing. Unhappily the habitual tone of her mind is distrust of herself, and no sympathy, no praise, can do more than lift her out of it for a day or two; but by repetition the curing influences tell, for they become massed, and as we psychologists say they enable her to apperceive the fact that her books are something more than mere amusements.
We shall welcome the "little stranger" as a real Christmas child, and hope you will reap the full credit for your own share in the work -- a work which could not have been executed except by one who to loving insight added literary taste. I was so easy to go wrong in such a matter, that Mr. Blackwood was justified in his hesitation.
Ever yours faithfully
G. H. Lewes.
Alexr. Main Esq.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Alexander Main, London, 20 December 1871, 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/94414