John Blackwood to GE, St. Andrews, 5 November 1876
Title
John Blackwood to GE, St. Andrews, 5 November 1876
Title
John Blackwood to GE, St. Andrews, 5 November 1876
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1876-11-05
Place
St. Andrews
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GE, St. Andrews, 5 November 1876
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Strathtyrum | St. Andrews | N.B.
November 5/76.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
It gives me much pleasure to receive your interesting letter and to hear that you have got quit of the cold which our damp wretched autumn had spread so freely.
I quite understand your feeling of wishing to keep up parental relations with your goodly progeny of good works, and I think we shall have no difficulty in arranging a system of lordship to your satisfaction. 554 This is to be our last week here for the season so tell Lewes I propose not to go into the matter until I go to Edinburgh where I intend to be on the 13th or 14th.
The loss of his promising son at Natal must have been a heavy blow to him. It is hard to see the useful and active taken away while bad shillings always keep cropping up from the uttermost ends of the earth.
You need not disturb yourself about reviews of Deronda, while people keep discussing the book like a great historical event about which there is a difference of opinion. The discussion would not exist if the book were not felt and doing its work even among those who most dissent. I always knew that the strong Jew element would be unpopular, but your picture of the Jew family at home did wonders in overcoming the public distaste to a kindly human view of the Jewish character.
This is a glorious day here and the woods are looking beautiful with as many colours as Joseph's Coat. The weather looks too as if it would last and give us a good wind up of the season here.
My wife and daughter are sorrowing that we are so soon to go, and to me the move to Edinburgh is always the mark that another year is gone. We are all well and so are the numerous animals, bar old Tickler the terrier, whose skin and temper show increasing marks of age and irritability. I shall have a good many golf matches this week and tomorrow one of my antagonists is Mr. Whyte Melville now in his 80th year but looking as young as his son. 555
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Strathtyrum | St. Andrews | N.B.
November 5/76.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
It gives me much pleasure to receive your interesting letter and to hear that you have got quit of the cold which our damp wretched autumn had spread so freely.
I quite understand your feeling of wishing to keep up parental relations with your goodly progeny of good works, and I think we shall have no difficulty in arranging a system of lordship to your satisfaction. 554 This is to be our last week here for the season so tell Lewes I propose not to go into the matter until I go to Edinburgh where I intend to be on the 13th or 14th.
The loss of his promising son at Natal must have been a heavy blow to him. It is hard to see the useful and active taken away while bad shillings always keep cropping up from the uttermost ends of the earth.
You need not disturb yourself about reviews of Deronda, while people keep discussing the book like a great historical event about which there is a difference of opinion. The discussion would not exist if the book were not felt and doing its work even among those who most dissent. I always knew that the strong Jew element would be unpopular, but your picture of the Jew family at home did wonders in overcoming the public distaste to a kindly human view of the Jewish character.
This is a glorious day here and the woods are looking beautiful with as many colours as Joseph's Coat. The weather looks too as if it would last and give us a good wind up of the season here.
My wife and daughter are sorrowing that we are so soon to go, and to me the move to Edinburgh is always the mark that another year is gone. We are all well and so are the numerous animals, bar old Tickler the terrier, whose skin and temper show increasing marks of age and irritability. I shall have a good many golf matches this week and tomorrow one of my antagonists is Mr. Whyte Melville now in his 80th year but looking as young as his son. 555
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GE, St. Andrews, 5 November 1876, 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/95341