GHL to John Blackwood, Dresden, 19 July [1858]
Title
GHL to John Blackwood, Dresden, 19 July [1858]
Title
GHL to John Blackwood, Dresden, 19 July [1858]
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1858-07-19
Place
Dresden
Letter Content
GHL to John Blackwood, Dresden, 19 July [1858]
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Waisenhaus Strasse | Dresden 19 July.
My dear Blackwood
After an exquisite journey through the Tyrol, down the Danube, a stay of three days at Vienna and one day at Prag, we are here comfortably settled and ready for work once more after the holiday. 1163 We left Munich with ungrateful alacrity; and carry away no pleasant memories of the place, although so many of the people! I do not regret the time given to it for it has been extremely beneficial to me, but I never want to see Munich itself again. Dresden, as you know, is the most habitable of German towns, and our lodgings front the Johannis All'e9e, to which we pass out, and there the perpetual sight of green foliage and the pleasant sound of birds presents a striking contrast to our Munich prospect of tall blank houses, with not handsome Bavarians lolling out of the windows and asthmatic soprani and bellowing bassi singing through the summer day.
E. says he has seen so much beauty this last fortnight, and such fine works that he feels it shameful not to have spent less time in Munich, and more in the Tyrol or elsewhere. The Bedesman ought to profit by such a journey; whether any glimpse of beauty will irradiate my Physiology may be more confidently questioned. It was so very amusing to find myself thinking of "nerve cells" amid the grand mountains, and of physiological processes on the shores of a lake. But after all the two went perfectly well together.
I have a heap of letters to write and send this only to give you our address for the next six weeks. Is it as hot with you as it is and has been with us? But you run off to St. Andrews I suppose and get the breezes. I wish Dresden had a coast!
E. begs to be most kindly remembered and believe me, my dear Blackwood
Ever truly yours
G. H. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Waisenhaus Strasse | Dresden 19 July.
My dear Blackwood
After an exquisite journey through the Tyrol, down the Danube, a stay of three days at Vienna and one day at Prag, we are here comfortably settled and ready for work once more after the holiday. 1163 We left Munich with ungrateful alacrity; and carry away no pleasant memories of the place, although so many of the people! I do not regret the time given to it for it has been extremely beneficial to me, but I never want to see Munich itself again. Dresden, as you know, is the most habitable of German towns, and our lodgings front the Johannis All'e9e, to which we pass out, and there the perpetual sight of green foliage and the pleasant sound of birds presents a striking contrast to our Munich prospect of tall blank houses, with not handsome Bavarians lolling out of the windows and asthmatic soprani and bellowing bassi singing through the summer day.
E. says he has seen so much beauty this last fortnight, and such fine works that he feels it shameful not to have spent less time in Munich, and more in the Tyrol or elsewhere. The Bedesman ought to profit by such a journey; whether any glimpse of beauty will irradiate my Physiology may be more confidently questioned. It was so very amusing to find myself thinking of "nerve cells" amid the grand mountains, and of physiological processes on the shores of a lake. But after all the two went perfectly well together.
I have a heap of letters to write and send this only to give you our address for the next six weeks. Is it as hot with you as it is and has been with us? But you run off to St. Andrews I suppose and get the breezes. I wish Dresden had a coast!
E. begs to be most kindly remembered and believe me, my dear Blackwood
Ever truly yours
G. H. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to John Blackwood, Dresden, 19 July [1858], 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/94596