Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 16 January 1878
Title
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 16 January 1878
Title
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 16 January 1878
Sender
Edith Simcox
Recipient
U
Date(s)
- 1878-01-16
Place
London
Letter Content
Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 16 January 1878
MS: Bodleian. Extract published: McKenzie, p. 94.
Wednesday 16 January 1878
After hesitating "to go or not to go" Monday and yesterday, a kind providence took me N.W. today. Mr. Lewes had gone to see a man with an artificial larynx 407 "could anything be more delightful?" -- and she was alone. Could anything be more delightful? First she took me to task again about Cobbett and said she wanted me to get her another book and wouldn't tell me what unless I confessed the price of the Rural Rides. So I had to own to 10/6 and then it appeared she wanted our old friend "The Child's Own Book." 408 That I was delightedly able to promise anyway to lend her. She said they had laughed at the fatality of my crossing with Johnny last week; I said I knew I should poison his shirts some day, and she hoped I wouldn't, he saved them a great deal of trouble about money affairs, besides being the best of sons and brothers -- I said of course, that was just why; I was jealous.
Then I told her of Mary's departure, and tried to explain why I thought I might do more work in consequence. I talked of a German dictionary -- she was not enthusiastic, but said Sander's German one (like Littr'e9's) would be a good foundation; but it would be useless unless one were employed by a publisher. I also mentioned as possible themes folklore and a history of property. She wanted a book made out of all the nice stories of ancient and modern history -- the stories that all modern writers leave out to make room for characters etc. quite as mythical as the stories and much less entertaining. She also wished I could get one of the new primers, like Macmillan's, to do. Otherwise she encouraged the folk lore -- she was much interested in the subject -- the history of property likewise, though with rather more latent doubt as to my making the most of it. She thought it was a failing of mine to want to make my work impracticably complete -- instancing "Natural Law" as well as what I said now of the unsatisfactoriness of the folklore investigation unless one could reach a satisfactory theory.
She also urged me to say and make people feel what she, as an author had a scruple about saying critically, that authorship should not be regarded in the same light as other professions, that every writer was ipso facto a teacher, -- an educational influence -- on his readers -- and the lightest poetaster could not escape the weight of attendant responsibility. She wished me to write because she thought the root of the matter was in me -- concerning the moral relations of life -- and whatever one wrote about, the work would be "informed" with one's fundamental views. She wished people would think more of the real matter of life -- even the word "right" had come to have a dangerous metaphysical use -- people would say you ought to do a thing, not for the real present reason, but because it is "right" to do it.
I stayed nearly two hours, and talked round and round, sometimes getting out something that I wanted to say, sometimes feeling helpless, as when she laughed at me again for being like Mr. Sidgwick 409 -- talking as if what "bad people" might do was out of the question: . . . then she went on speaking of our fundamental agreement and of the extent to which one's character was in one's own hands; this apropos of my reference to the old difficulty. I said, did she not believe that it depended on the strength of a man's own inborn inclination whether he ever did anything to count in the world; she first said I was perverting her doctrine, and then agreed to my statement of it and quoted a definition of genius "God's gift, a man's own exertion, and circumstances to suit." But she added what was true, that it is suicidal to stop one's life in the middle by the application of a formula -- that might cease to apply if from then onwards one gave one's mind to making the application cease. She insisted on calling the cooperative scheme "admirable" and on being glad that I had taken up some practical work besides authorship. I said after all the root of the evil was idleness.
I spoke of the creeping onwards of middle-aged content -- or resignation -- which I refused to call a progress when the evils were unaltered, only grown tolerable by use. I said, and she agreed that it was evil when people can do no more than -- as in Mary Cross's story 410 -- "find life possible and even bearable without any happiness in particular." She said no one could take a sadder view of life than she did -- sometimes not on account of her own experience, that had been, but she had gone beyond it, -- she lay back in her chair, and I said caressingly, it would be ungrateful if she did not like to live when she made so many people happy -- I kissed her again and again and wondered meditatively how it was that one should be so glad just because somebody else was what she was. She wondered why I was so fond of her and I didn't know unless it was because she was herself and not somebody else, whereto she, that was no merit of hers, and I -- No I gave providence the glory.
On the whole I was very happy, and came away consoled and resigned -- to not being resigned just yet to final, fatal failure. She said once that I was wiser than I used to be -- I talked less discontent -- I hinted one might think the more. She admitted that there might be cases -- though in frequently -- of people to whom opportunities do not come, and said in answer to my charge that she believed in providence that she had never risked her influence more than by breaking out to a young woman who was sobbing to her -- "I know it must be all for my good" -- "it" being a trial proceeding from somebody's wrong doing -- "Nay, but a great many things happen to people that are not at all good for them." Altogether she is a darling, and I shall proceed to write.
MS: Bodleian. Extract published: McKenzie, p. 94.
Wednesday 16 January 1878
After hesitating "to go or not to go" Monday and yesterday, a kind providence took me N.W. today. Mr. Lewes had gone to see a man with an artificial larynx 407 "could anything be more delightful?" -- and she was alone. Could anything be more delightful? First she took me to task again about Cobbett and said she wanted me to get her another book and wouldn't tell me what unless I confessed the price of the Rural Rides. So I had to own to 10/6 and then it appeared she wanted our old friend "The Child's Own Book." 408 That I was delightedly able to promise anyway to lend her. She said they had laughed at the fatality of my crossing with Johnny last week; I said I knew I should poison his shirts some day, and she hoped I wouldn't, he saved them a great deal of trouble about money affairs, besides being the best of sons and brothers -- I said of course, that was just why; I was jealous.
Then I told her of Mary's departure, and tried to explain why I thought I might do more work in consequence. I talked of a German dictionary -- she was not enthusiastic, but said Sander's German one (like Littr'e9's) would be a good foundation; but it would be useless unless one were employed by a publisher. I also mentioned as possible themes folklore and a history of property. She wanted a book made out of all the nice stories of ancient and modern history -- the stories that all modern writers leave out to make room for characters etc. quite as mythical as the stories and much less entertaining. She also wished I could get one of the new primers, like Macmillan's, to do. Otherwise she encouraged the folk lore -- she was much interested in the subject -- the history of property likewise, though with rather more latent doubt as to my making the most of it. She thought it was a failing of mine to want to make my work impracticably complete -- instancing "Natural Law" as well as what I said now of the unsatisfactoriness of the folklore investigation unless one could reach a satisfactory theory.
She also urged me to say and make people feel what she, as an author had a scruple about saying critically, that authorship should not be regarded in the same light as other professions, that every writer was ipso facto a teacher, -- an educational influence -- on his readers -- and the lightest poetaster could not escape the weight of attendant responsibility. She wished me to write because she thought the root of the matter was in me -- concerning the moral relations of life -- and whatever one wrote about, the work would be "informed" with one's fundamental views. She wished people would think more of the real matter of life -- even the word "right" had come to have a dangerous metaphysical use -- people would say you ought to do a thing, not for the real present reason, but because it is "right" to do it.
I stayed nearly two hours, and talked round and round, sometimes getting out something that I wanted to say, sometimes feeling helpless, as when she laughed at me again for being like Mr. Sidgwick 409 -- talking as if what "bad people" might do was out of the question: . . . then she went on speaking of our fundamental agreement and of the extent to which one's character was in one's own hands; this apropos of my reference to the old difficulty. I said, did she not believe that it depended on the strength of a man's own inborn inclination whether he ever did anything to count in the world; she first said I was perverting her doctrine, and then agreed to my statement of it and quoted a definition of genius "God's gift, a man's own exertion, and circumstances to suit." But she added what was true, that it is suicidal to stop one's life in the middle by the application of a formula -- that might cease to apply if from then onwards one gave one's mind to making the application cease. She insisted on calling the cooperative scheme "admirable" and on being glad that I had taken up some practical work besides authorship. I said after all the root of the evil was idleness.
I spoke of the creeping onwards of middle-aged content -- or resignation -- which I refused to call a progress when the evils were unaltered, only grown tolerable by use. I said, and she agreed that it was evil when people can do no more than -- as in Mary Cross's story 410 -- "find life possible and even bearable without any happiness in particular." She said no one could take a sadder view of life than she did -- sometimes not on account of her own experience, that had been, but she had gone beyond it, -- she lay back in her chair, and I said caressingly, it would be ungrateful if she did not like to live when she made so many people happy -- I kissed her again and again and wondered meditatively how it was that one should be so glad just because somebody else was what she was. She wondered why I was so fond of her and I didn't know unless it was because she was herself and not somebody else, whereto she, that was no merit of hers, and I -- No I gave providence the glory.
On the whole I was very happy, and came away consoled and resigned -- to not being resigned just yet to final, fatal failure. She said once that I was wiser than I used to be -- I talked less discontent -- I hinted one might think the more. She admitted that there might be cases -- though in frequently -- of people to whom opportunities do not come, and said in answer to my charge that she believed in providence that she had never risked her influence more than by breaking out to a young woman who was sobbing to her -- "I know it must be all for my good" -- "it" being a trial proceeding from somebody's wrong doing -- "Nay, but a great many things happen to people that are not at all good for them." Altogether she is a darling, and I shall proceed to write.
Citation
Edith Simcox, Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 16 January 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/91774