John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 26 June 1879
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 26 June 1879
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 26 June 1879
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1879-06-26
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 26 June 1879
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Randolph Crescent
June 26/79.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
I send you a little volume on the ethics and religious aspects of your Works by our late friend John Brown 281 who was as you will recollect with us at 45 George St for something like 45 years. He had written the bulk of it long ago and never told me but I found him completing and correcting it during his last illness. I was so much struck with it and with his perfect devotion to you, which also the queer contrairy chap had if anything rather concealed from me, tempering as it were my admiration, that I got the M.S. from him intending to have it out at once but meanwhile, poor fellow, he died. Then I thought that in the circumstances possibly I had taken too high a view of what John had written and put it aside until his widow recalled it.
I am very much distressed to hear that you have been in so great pain and anxiously hope that you have got over the attack. You will I know bear pain heroically but it hits high sensitive natures hardest. I am getting fairly well again and we mean to be off to Strathtyrum on Saturday. Jack is to meet us with artillerymen at Cupar 8 miles from Strathtyrum. He thought of telling off a guard at St. Andrews Station and escorting us up the Avenue but it would be irregular and discipline is the soul of the British Army.
Our officers are terribly cut up about the poor Prince Imperial's death. 282 British officers are always doing something bold to recklessness and that one of them should desert a dismounted comrade never entered the mind of man. That comrade too a Prince and the guest of the whole British Army there is something incredible in the way the story is told.
Hoping heartily that this may find you better I am
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
You were quite right we only printed 1000 of 3d edition.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Randolph Crescent
June 26/79.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
I send you a little volume on the ethics and religious aspects of your Works by our late friend John Brown 281 who was as you will recollect with us at 45 George St for something like 45 years. He had written the bulk of it long ago and never told me but I found him completing and correcting it during his last illness. I was so much struck with it and with his perfect devotion to you, which also the queer contrairy chap had if anything rather concealed from me, tempering as it were my admiration, that I got the M.S. from him intending to have it out at once but meanwhile, poor fellow, he died. Then I thought that in the circumstances possibly I had taken too high a view of what John had written and put it aside until his widow recalled it.
I am very much distressed to hear that you have been in so great pain and anxiously hope that you have got over the attack. You will I know bear pain heroically but it hits high sensitive natures hardest. I am getting fairly well again and we mean to be off to Strathtyrum on Saturday. Jack is to meet us with artillerymen at Cupar 8 miles from Strathtyrum. He thought of telling off a guard at St. Andrews Station and escorting us up the Avenue but it would be irregular and discipline is the soul of the British Army.
Our officers are terribly cut up about the poor Prince Imperial's death. 282 British officers are always doing something bold to recklessness and that one of them should desert a dismounted comrade never entered the mind of man. That comrade too a Prince and the guest of the whole British Army there is something incredible in the way the story is told.
Hoping heartily that this may find you better I am
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
You were quite right we only printed 1000 of 3d edition.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 26 June 1879, 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/95243