Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray to GE, Coventry, [2 October 1859]
Title
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray to GE, Coventry, [2 October 1859]
Title
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray to GE, Coventry, [2 October 1859]
Sender
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1859-10-02
Place
Coventry
Letter Content
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray to GE, Coventry, [2 October 1859]
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
Dearest Marian
I must express how much pain it gives us that you should have to suffer from these petty annoyances. It is so grievous that works like yours should bring anything to you but pure good. I suppose it is in the nature of things that such annoyances should cluster about a great fame as the toadstools grow at the foot of the oak and the shining ones of the earth always get crucified somehow. People who have no difficulty in believing in the miracle of genius some hundred years ago, make every effort to escape believing in it when it is before their eyes and seek some common vulgar solution of it suited better to their own mode of thought; and I hardly think anything will effectually drive the Liggins nightmare out of some people's brain but the production of other works from your pen which will certainly prove to the dullest that the inspiration has but one source. I feel intensely the provoking, shuffling tones of Mr. B's letters. He is irritated by Mr. Lewes's censure which he does not evidently feel was deserved, and meets it, not in a manly, but in a small spiteful way. I am very sorry that we have unavoidably been the means of these absurdities coming to your knowledge. I cannot bear to think of their pestering you.
We have removed your dear picture and it will be nearer to us in our bedroom than in the dining room. Dear Marian, I hear your voice and see your sympathising smile every time now that I take up Adam Bede, and cannot at all account now for the Liggins incubus having blinded us from seeing you in every line, every thought, as it certainly did. I now see us really to read the book for the first time. You do not want praise -- you must be tired of that, but I think it would please you to hear some things as we do, of the good the book does in unexpected quarters, such as a young minister we know saying that it has "awakened him to a higher life" and one fast fancy man being convinced of sin by it.
I owe Mr. Lewes a great amount of delight from the Physiology.
Yours ever
C. B.
MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
Dearest Marian
I must express how much pain it gives us that you should have to suffer from these petty annoyances. It is so grievous that works like yours should bring anything to you but pure good. I suppose it is in the nature of things that such annoyances should cluster about a great fame as the toadstools grow at the foot of the oak and the shining ones of the earth always get crucified somehow. People who have no difficulty in believing in the miracle of genius some hundred years ago, make every effort to escape believing in it when it is before their eyes and seek some common vulgar solution of it suited better to their own mode of thought; and I hardly think anything will effectually drive the Liggins nightmare out of some people's brain but the production of other works from your pen which will certainly prove to the dullest that the inspiration has but one source. I feel intensely the provoking, shuffling tones of Mr. B's letters. He is irritated by Mr. Lewes's censure which he does not evidently feel was deserved, and meets it, not in a manly, but in a small spiteful way. I am very sorry that we have unavoidably been the means of these absurdities coming to your knowledge. I cannot bear to think of their pestering you.
We have removed your dear picture and it will be nearer to us in our bedroom than in the dining room. Dear Marian, I hear your voice and see your sympathising smile every time now that I take up Adam Bede, and cannot at all account now for the Liggins incubus having blinded us from seeing you in every line, every thought, as it certainly did. I now see us really to read the book for the first time. You do not want praise -- you must be tired of that, but I think it would please you to hear some things as we do, of the good the book does in unexpected quarters, such as a young minister we know saying that it has "awakened him to a higher life" and one fast fancy man being convinced of sin by it.
I owe Mr. Lewes a great amount of delight from the Physiology.
Yours ever
C. B.
Signature
C. B.
Citation
Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray, Caroline [Mrs. Charles] Bray to GE, Coventry, [2 October 1859], 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/95543