Charles Lee Lewes to Mme Louis Belloc, London, 6 December 1878
Title
Charles Lee Lewes to Mme Louis Belloc, London, 6 December 1878
Title
Charles Lee Lewes to Mme Louis Belloc, London, 6 December 1878
Sender
Charles Lee Lewes
Recipient
Mme Louis Belloc
Date(s)
- 1878-12-06
Place
London
Letter Content
Charles Lee Lewes to Mme Louis Belloc, London, 6 December 1878
MS: The Countess of Iddesleigh. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 6 December 78.
Dear Mrs. Belloc,
My Mother is as you may imagine quite incapable even of reading letters at present, and I am doing what I can to satisfy her friends with news. She hears from whom each letter is and then they are laid by for her to read some day when time has softened the anguish of the first terrible grief. You will rejoice to hear that she is bearing it bravely.
She is strong in the determination to try and carry out the work my dear Father left behind him. She cannot bear to see any one but me. It will be long she says before it will be possible to her to have intercourse even with the nearest and dearest of friends. She must keep all the strength she has to devote to the work and the sight of any one for a long time would quite unnerve her. I shall be constantly with her. At present and for some little while to come I am almost living here. It is a great thing that she is able to take comfort in the doing things and planning with me.
My Father died from a chill, which caused inflammation of the stomach; but we have the great consolation of knowing that he could not in any case have lived more than another six months, and that with constant and increasingly great suffering -- as he had a fatal malady coming on -- a fact which was unknown to him.
Yours very truly
C. L. Lewes.
MS: The Countess of Iddesleigh. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory | 6 December 78.
Dear Mrs. Belloc,
My Mother is as you may imagine quite incapable even of reading letters at present, and I am doing what I can to satisfy her friends with news. She hears from whom each letter is and then they are laid by for her to read some day when time has softened the anguish of the first terrible grief. You will rejoice to hear that she is bearing it bravely.
She is strong in the determination to try and carry out the work my dear Father left behind him. She cannot bear to see any one but me. It will be long she says before it will be possible to her to have intercourse even with the nearest and dearest of friends. She must keep all the strength she has to devote to the work and the sight of any one for a long time would quite unnerve her. I shall be constantly with her. At present and for some little while to come I am almost living here. It is a great thing that she is able to take comfort in the doing things and planning with me.
My Father died from a chill, which caused inflammation of the stomach; but we have the great consolation of knowing that he could not in any case have lived more than another six months, and that with constant and increasingly great suffering -- as he had a fatal malady coming on -- a fact which was unknown to him.
Yours very truly
C. L. Lewes.
Signature
C. L. Lewes.
Citation
Charles Lee Lewes, Charles Lee Lewes to Mme Louis Belloc, London, 6 December 1878, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/91747