William Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 30 October 1879
Title
William Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 30 October 1879
Title
William Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 30 October 1879
Sender
William Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1879-10-30
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
William Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 30 October 1879
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Lansdowne Cres[cen]t | October 30th 1879.
My dear Mrs. Lewes
I have been much gratified and comforted by receipt of your very kind and beautiful letter of 28th about your old friend my dear Uncle of whose sudden death I sent you the painful news in a very hurried note yesterday. I was sent for the day after I wrote to you and found my much loved Uncle rapidly sinking with marks of the approaching end visibly portrayed on his beautiful face, and he was unable to talk clearly the mind having become confused. But he knew me quite well and looked so pleased to see me and said, "I am glad you have come I am very ill" and then the thought could not be further expressed or disappeared from him. It was very sad and painful for all of us, but he breathed his last very peacefully and painlessly and it was a great happiness to look upon the gentle and beautiful expression his face took when death relieved him. I had to come over last night to make the necessary arrangements for the last earthly duties, and I had to leave my Aunt and Cousins very heartbroken and stunned. The funeral is fixed for Monday next and then all will be taken from us of the one we all admired and loved for his many manly and noble traits.
I was sure you would be very pained at the news I had to give you last Sunday but I did not think the end was so close at hand then or I should have written to you sooner. I was very vexed not to be able to be more with him last week but I had to be here to attend to Maga and other pressing business matters which he understood perfectly.
I wish so much I could have given him your loving message and about the last business talk I had with him he spoke much of you, and as to your suggestion about The Sayings he remarked "We will overcome the difficulty, Willie, by making a supplementary Volume and removing the poetry into it or not as Mrs. Lewes likes." I intended to have written it to you in that last letter but I was so harassed with grief that I stupidly forgot it and it haunted me often.
The London papers of to-day have just come in and I know you will be grateful as we are in reading the notices about him and to see that justice is being done to his sound and acute literary insight and other genial characteristics. The great liberal Newspaper of Scotland has come out nobly about him and by post I have sent you a copy as I thought you would like to see what his political opponents here thought of him. The Times, Standard and Daily Telegraph all write very delightfully and his sorrowing widow and children will read them with gratifying comfort but what a loss for us all. I hope and trust that I have not wearied you by this long letter and thanking you warmly for your anxious thoughts about the valued lost one and us all. Believe me dear Mrs. Lewes
Always yours sincerely
(signed) William Blackwood.
P.S. I forgot to say that my Uncle on Monday expressed a strong desire to see Mr. Langford but alas before he arrived on Tuesday he was too ill and he never saw his beloved esteemed Master and friend until he saw him dead. Having had him with me was an immense comfort and help to me, my Uncle must have felt a presentiment that I would require an old friend by me with his old forethought.
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Lansdowne Cres[cen]t | October 30th 1879.
My dear Mrs. Lewes
I have been much gratified and comforted by receipt of your very kind and beautiful letter of 28th about your old friend my dear Uncle of whose sudden death I sent you the painful news in a very hurried note yesterday. I was sent for the day after I wrote to you and found my much loved Uncle rapidly sinking with marks of the approaching end visibly portrayed on his beautiful face, and he was unable to talk clearly the mind having become confused. But he knew me quite well and looked so pleased to see me and said, "I am glad you have come I am very ill" and then the thought could not be further expressed or disappeared from him. It was very sad and painful for all of us, but he breathed his last very peacefully and painlessly and it was a great happiness to look upon the gentle and beautiful expression his face took when death relieved him. I had to come over last night to make the necessary arrangements for the last earthly duties, and I had to leave my Aunt and Cousins very heartbroken and stunned. The funeral is fixed for Monday next and then all will be taken from us of the one we all admired and loved for his many manly and noble traits.
I was sure you would be very pained at the news I had to give you last Sunday but I did not think the end was so close at hand then or I should have written to you sooner. I was very vexed not to be able to be more with him last week but I had to be here to attend to Maga and other pressing business matters which he understood perfectly.
I wish so much I could have given him your loving message and about the last business talk I had with him he spoke much of you, and as to your suggestion about The Sayings he remarked "We will overcome the difficulty, Willie, by making a supplementary Volume and removing the poetry into it or not as Mrs. Lewes likes." I intended to have written it to you in that last letter but I was so harassed with grief that I stupidly forgot it and it haunted me often.
The London papers of to-day have just come in and I know you will be grateful as we are in reading the notices about him and to see that justice is being done to his sound and acute literary insight and other genial characteristics. The great liberal Newspaper of Scotland has come out nobly about him and by post I have sent you a copy as I thought you would like to see what his political opponents here thought of him. The Times, Standard and Daily Telegraph all write very delightfully and his sorrowing widow and children will read them with gratifying comfort but what a loss for us all. I hope and trust that I have not wearied you by this long letter and thanking you warmly for your anxious thoughts about the valued lost one and us all. Believe me dear Mrs. Lewes
Always yours sincerely
(signed) William Blackwood.
P.S. I forgot to say that my Uncle on Monday expressed a strong desire to see Mr. Langford but alas before he arrived on Tuesday he was too ill and he never saw his beloved esteemed Master and friend until he saw him dead. Having had him with me was an immense comfort and help to me, my Uncle must have felt a presentiment that I would require an old friend by me with his old forethought.
Signature
(signed) William Blackwood.
Citation
William Blackwood, William Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 30 October 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/95653