Emily Davies to Annie Crow, London, 24 September 1876
Title
Emily Davies to Annie Crow, London, 24 September 1876
Title
Emily Davies to Annie Crow, London, 24 September 1876
Sender
Emily Davies
Recipient
Annie Crow
Date(s)
- 1876-09-24
Place
London
Letter Content
Emily Davies to Annie Crow, London, 24 September 1876
Text: Barbara Stephen, Emily Davies and Girton College, London, Constable, 1927, pp. 184-186.
September 24, 1876.
I mentioned that I was going to see [Mrs. Lewes] yesterday. I went late in the afternoon and found them at home. They have been abroad in Switzerland and the Black Forest, and have not been long back. They were going on to Italy, but Mrs. Lewes was so ill that they thought it better to stay in the cooler parts. She was ailing all the time she was writing her book and very much knocked up at the end. This Mr. L. told me before she came in. She said herself that she had had rather a bad two years, having had much pain in the hip, which was new. I asked if it was sciatica and she said it was not, and did not seem to know what it was. She is much better now.
The talk was chiefly on Morals. It came in this way. Something being said about M. Thiers, Mr. Lewes repeated a bon mot of Royer Collard's -- [M. Guizot sait la morale; M. Thiers ne la connait pas.] I threw out that really to know morals would be about the highest possible attainment. Mrs. L. did not agree. She thought people generally knew that there was a better and a worse thing to do. Then I told her of a controversy as to whether Morals should be taught as a lesson in schools, and that a friend of mine (Adelaide) 526 was going to do it. She said at first that she thought it would be a most dangerous thing to do, but explained afterwards that she meant that, if it was as a set of dry maxims. Such lessons as Adelaide proposes she thinks may be very useful and interesting, and went into what they should be with zest. She spoke of truthfulness as the most important thing to teach -- that it should be explained how important it is as the basis of mutual confidence. She said she thought she had succeeded [with these servants, by talking to them,] in making them understand this, but it was the first time she had ever succeeded with any servants. Usually they only see the harm of falsity in the form of injury by backbiting.
She would not admit the difficulty of deciding when truth ought to be spoken and when not. I instanced keeping secret the authorship of a book. She thought that might be done by refusing to answer questions, but Mr. L. agreed with me that often that is as good as telling, and maintained that denial in such a case was not lying. He said he had himself said No, flatly, when he had been asked about the authorship of her books. She said she did not know that he had, 527 and did not support his view. She thought pains should be taken to avoid situations in which truth cannot be told, so as to keep up the habit of truthfulness. She thinks you are not bound to say all that you think, but would use as a test, whether your silence would lead to action being taken under a false impression. In teaching, she would ask the children to say for themselves why it is right to speak the truth, etc. She was anxious that my friend should impress upon them the wide, far-reaching consequences of every action, as a corrective of the common feeling that it does not signify what we do -- and on the other hand how society reacts upon us, and how much we owe to it. People are always asking, Why should I do what is good for society? What is society to me? The answer is that if it were not for the accumulated result of social effort, we should be in the state of wild beasts.
Something was said about [Assuming life to be a blessing.] I asked if we were entitled to assume that, and she said, Certainly not, in talking to people who deny it, and she knew several people who think it a curse. But she says that so long as you don't commit suicide, you must admit that there is a better life, and a worse life, and may try for the better. Some deny even this, but when you come to such stupid scepticism as that it's no use talking to them.
She hoped my friend would teach the girls not to think too much of political measures for improving society -- as leading away from individual efforts to be good, I understood her to mean. I said I thought there was not much danger of that with girls. It is so much more inculcated upon them to be good and amiable than anything else. She said, was there not a great deal among girls of wanting to do some great thing and thinking it not worth while to do anything because they cannot do that? I said there might be, but I had not come across it. What I had met with more was not caring to do anything. She said, Yes, no doubt stupidity prevails more than anything. Then she hoped my friend would explain to the girls that the state of insensibility in which we are not alive to high and generous emotions is stupidity, and spoke of the mistake of supposing that stupidity is only intellectual, not a thing of the character -- and of the consequent error of its being commonly assumed that goodness and cleverness don't go together, cleverness being taken to mean only the power of knowing. Mr. L. put in, [and of expressing.]
Mr. L. was taking an active part in the conversation all the time, but what I have repeated is hers, except when he said something that seemed to express her views, and in which she was concurring. At this stupidity stage I thought I had staid long enough and came away promising to try to remember to tell my friend what she had said.
Text: Barbara Stephen, Emily Davies and Girton College, London, Constable, 1927, pp. 184-186.
September 24, 1876.
I mentioned that I was going to see [Mrs. Lewes] yesterday. I went late in the afternoon and found them at home. They have been abroad in Switzerland and the Black Forest, and have not been long back. They were going on to Italy, but Mrs. Lewes was so ill that they thought it better to stay in the cooler parts. She was ailing all the time she was writing her book and very much knocked up at the end. This Mr. L. told me before she came in. She said herself that she had had rather a bad two years, having had much pain in the hip, which was new. I asked if it was sciatica and she said it was not, and did not seem to know what it was. She is much better now.
The talk was chiefly on Morals. It came in this way. Something being said about M. Thiers, Mr. Lewes repeated a bon mot of Royer Collard's -- [M. Guizot sait la morale; M. Thiers ne la connait pas.] I threw out that really to know morals would be about the highest possible attainment. Mrs. L. did not agree. She thought people generally knew that there was a better and a worse thing to do. Then I told her of a controversy as to whether Morals should be taught as a lesson in schools, and that a friend of mine (Adelaide) 526 was going to do it. She said at first that she thought it would be a most dangerous thing to do, but explained afterwards that she meant that, if it was as a set of dry maxims. Such lessons as Adelaide proposes she thinks may be very useful and interesting, and went into what they should be with zest. She spoke of truthfulness as the most important thing to teach -- that it should be explained how important it is as the basis of mutual confidence. She said she thought she had succeeded [with these servants, by talking to them,] in making them understand this, but it was the first time she had ever succeeded with any servants. Usually they only see the harm of falsity in the form of injury by backbiting.
She would not admit the difficulty of deciding when truth ought to be spoken and when not. I instanced keeping secret the authorship of a book. She thought that might be done by refusing to answer questions, but Mr. L. agreed with me that often that is as good as telling, and maintained that denial in such a case was not lying. He said he had himself said No, flatly, when he had been asked about the authorship of her books. She said she did not know that he had, 527 and did not support his view. She thought pains should be taken to avoid situations in which truth cannot be told, so as to keep up the habit of truthfulness. She thinks you are not bound to say all that you think, but would use as a test, whether your silence would lead to action being taken under a false impression. In teaching, she would ask the children to say for themselves why it is right to speak the truth, etc. She was anxious that my friend should impress upon them the wide, far-reaching consequences of every action, as a corrective of the common feeling that it does not signify what we do -- and on the other hand how society reacts upon us, and how much we owe to it. People are always asking, Why should I do what is good for society? What is society to me? The answer is that if it were not for the accumulated result of social effort, we should be in the state of wild beasts.
Something was said about [Assuming life to be a blessing.] I asked if we were entitled to assume that, and she said, Certainly not, in talking to people who deny it, and she knew several people who think it a curse. But she says that so long as you don't commit suicide, you must admit that there is a better life, and a worse life, and may try for the better. Some deny even this, but when you come to such stupid scepticism as that it's no use talking to them.
She hoped my friend would teach the girls not to think too much of political measures for improving society -- as leading away from individual efforts to be good, I understood her to mean. I said I thought there was not much danger of that with girls. It is so much more inculcated upon them to be good and amiable than anything else. She said, was there not a great deal among girls of wanting to do some great thing and thinking it not worth while to do anything because they cannot do that? I said there might be, but I had not come across it. What I had met with more was not caring to do anything. She said, Yes, no doubt stupidity prevails more than anything. Then she hoped my friend would explain to the girls that the state of insensibility in which we are not alive to high and generous emotions is stupidity, and spoke of the mistake of supposing that stupidity is only intellectual, not a thing of the character -- and of the consequent error of its being commonly assumed that goodness and cleverness don't go together, cleverness being taken to mean only the power of knowing. Mr. L. put in, [and of expressing.]
Mr. L. was taking an active part in the conversation all the time, but what I have repeated is hers, except when he said something that seemed to express her views, and in which she was concurring. At this stupidity stage I thought I had staid long enough and came away promising to try to remember to tell my friend what she had said.
Citation
Emily Davies, Emily Davies to Annie Crow, London, 24 September 1876, 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/91826