GHL to Alexander Main, London, 5 December 1872
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 5 December 1872
Title
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 5 December 1872
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1872-12-05
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Alexander Main, London, 5 December 1872
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 1872.
My dear Main
In return for your ever welcome "screed" I send you a rare sample of moral judgment. A lady known to Mrs. Lewes declared to another lady that she couldn't get to sleep at night thinking of "poor Bulstrode and all that had fallen on him after sitting up to tend on that wretch. . . . and I don't believe it was the Brandy that killed him. . . . Well, now Bulstrode has nothing left but Christ!" Isn't this just the sort of touch George Eliot would have invented? To me it is strangely significant. 1st of the profoundly real impression the book makes. 2nd of the profoundly immoral teaching that passes for religious. Here is a pious woman so utterly blinded by the fact of Bulstrode's piety that it prevents her from seeing what Bulstrode himself sees, the guilt which that piety has not prevented. In real life where motives are hidden and deeds admit of many explanations, we would expect the mere fact of piety to lead judgment astray, and make people seek for any but a criminal explanation; but there we see that in the face of the clearest evidence, and the sinner's own confession, the guilt is not believed in!
Curiously enough an orthodox West-End preacher, the Rev. Stanley Leathes, 650 quoted this very picture of Bulstrode (in his sermon on Hosea) as a striking illustration of the "true prophetic spirit."
Among the pleasant tidings that have reached Mrs. Lewes she places foremost the declaration of Sir James Paget that not only is there no medical detail which is erroneous but that in some respects the insight into medical life is so surprisingly deep that he could not understand how the author had not had some direct personal experience -- it seemed to him that there must have been a biographical foundation for Lydgate's career. 651 When I told him that she had never even known a surgeon intimately, and had no acquaintance in any degree resembling Lydgate, he said it was like "assisting at the creation -- a universe formed out of nothing!" While the medical men are surprised at the medical fidelity the lawyers are expressing their astonishment at the ingenuity and correctness of the Law. And all of us wonder at the insight into Soul!
Dorothea is now busily engaged in going through the collections for that "Key of all Psychologies" which hangs over her husband. How many "excursus on Crete" she will have to omit one shudders to think. If she knew I was writing to you she would send some loving message -- imagine it sent and believe ever in
Yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
December 1872.
My dear Main
In return for your ever welcome "screed" I send you a rare sample of moral judgment. A lady known to Mrs. Lewes declared to another lady that she couldn't get to sleep at night thinking of "poor Bulstrode and all that had fallen on him after sitting up to tend on that wretch. . . . and I don't believe it was the Brandy that killed him. . . . Well, now Bulstrode has nothing left but Christ!" Isn't this just the sort of touch George Eliot would have invented? To me it is strangely significant. 1st of the profoundly real impression the book makes. 2nd of the profoundly immoral teaching that passes for religious. Here is a pious woman so utterly blinded by the fact of Bulstrode's piety that it prevents her from seeing what Bulstrode himself sees, the guilt which that piety has not prevented. In real life where motives are hidden and deeds admit of many explanations, we would expect the mere fact of piety to lead judgment astray, and make people seek for any but a criminal explanation; but there we see that in the face of the clearest evidence, and the sinner's own confession, the guilt is not believed in!
Curiously enough an orthodox West-End preacher, the Rev. Stanley Leathes, 650 quoted this very picture of Bulstrode (in his sermon on Hosea) as a striking illustration of the "true prophetic spirit."
Among the pleasant tidings that have reached Mrs. Lewes she places foremost the declaration of Sir James Paget that not only is there no medical detail which is erroneous but that in some respects the insight into medical life is so surprisingly deep that he could not understand how the author had not had some direct personal experience -- it seemed to him that there must have been a biographical foundation for Lydgate's career. 651 When I told him that she had never even known a surgeon intimately, and had no acquaintance in any degree resembling Lydgate, he said it was like "assisting at the creation -- a universe formed out of nothing!" While the medical men are surprised at the medical fidelity the lawyers are expressing their astonishment at the ingenuity and correctness of the Law. And all of us wonder at the insight into Soul!
Dorothea is now busily engaged in going through the collections for that "Key of all Psychologies" which hangs over her husband. How many "excursus on Crete" she will have to omit one shudders to think. If she knew I was writing to you she would send some loving message -- imagine it sent and believe ever in
Yours truly
G. H. Lewes.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Alexander Main, London, 5 December 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/94424