GHL to Henry Austin Dobson, London, 19 December 1873
Title
GHL to Henry Austin Dobson, London, 19 December 1873
Title
GHL to Henry Austin Dobson, London, 19 December 1873
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
Henry Austin Dobson
Date(s)
- 1873-12-19
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to Henry Austin Dobson, London, 19 December 1873
MS: University of London.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
'ab20'bb 19 December 73.
My dear Sir
I have been slowly sipping and resipping the small flask of Falernian you were good enough to send me, and cannot resist telling you how charmed I have been with the delicacy, ease, and real poetic feeling of this vintage. To drop the clumsy metaphor and to keep within the region of sincerity I will add that many times in the course of the volume I have regretted a too artificially colloquial expression -- and the scraps of French which give a patchy and ostentatiously frivolous aspect to a Muse which in her better moods is wholly charming. If I did not admire many of the poems very much you will believe me when I say that I should never have thought of specifying what seems not admirable.
Yours very truly
G. H. Lewes.
Austin Dobson Esq.
MS: University of London.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
'ab20'bb 19 December 73.
My dear Sir
I have been slowly sipping and resipping the small flask of Falernian you were good enough to send me, and cannot resist telling you how charmed I have been with the delicacy, ease, and real poetic feeling of this vintage. To drop the clumsy metaphor and to keep within the region of sincerity I will add that many times in the course of the volume I have regretted a too artificially colloquial expression -- and the scraps of French which give a patchy and ostentatiously frivolous aspect to a Muse which in her better moods is wholly charming. If I did not admire many of the poems very much you will believe me when I say that I should never have thought of specifying what seems not admirable.
Yours very truly
G. H. Lewes.
Austin Dobson Esq.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to Henry Austin Dobson, London, 19 December 1873, 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/94551