Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 25 May [1868]
Title
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 25 May [1868]
Title
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 25 May [1868]
Sender
Frederic Harrison
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1868-05-25
Place
London
Letter Content
Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 25 May [1868]
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
New Square | May 25.
Dear Mrs. Lewes,
I am very grateful for this great mark of kindness. I have been of course expecting this new book with the greatest interest, and had told them to get me the earliest copy procurable. When you return I shall ask you to write the name in the fly-leaf, and it will be a thing to be kept forever.
But I hope this kind recollection of me will not be associated with the remembrance of my once having given you a great deal of trouble a long time ago.
I had been intending to write to you for some time, but I knew how busy you were, and talking is impossible in your Sunday conversazione. Perhaps in your leisure abroad you will let me write about it. It is just this. I do not know if you remember a long time ago I took heart to suggest as a subject worthy of you, the idealisation of the Positive vision of society as a whole, especially to typify the great institutions and social functions of the future. How far this accorded with ideas already present to you, how you judged it I do not exactly know. I think you considered it too abstract and wide for real art. Perhaps you may remember that I drew out a sketch of the form in which it presented itself to my mind. 768 Since then that same sketch has been taking shape and growing on me and I feel a sort of craving to realise or see it realised in words. Now I want to ask you how far you think it possible. Perhaps you will not think I trouble you too much if during your holiday I write to put this into shape to you.
With many grateful thanks, I am,
Yours sincerely
F. Harrison.
MS: Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
New Square | May 25.
Dear Mrs. Lewes,
I am very grateful for this great mark of kindness. I have been of course expecting this new book with the greatest interest, and had told them to get me the earliest copy procurable. When you return I shall ask you to write the name in the fly-leaf, and it will be a thing to be kept forever.
But I hope this kind recollection of me will not be associated with the remembrance of my once having given you a great deal of trouble a long time ago.
I had been intending to write to you for some time, but I knew how busy you were, and talking is impossible in your Sunday conversazione. Perhaps in your leisure abroad you will let me write about it. It is just this. I do not know if you remember a long time ago I took heart to suggest as a subject worthy of you, the idealisation of the Positive vision of society as a whole, especially to typify the great institutions and social functions of the future. How far this accorded with ideas already present to you, how you judged it I do not exactly know. I think you considered it too abstract and wide for real art. Perhaps you may remember that I drew out a sketch of the form in which it presented itself to my mind. 768 Since then that same sketch has been taking shape and growing on me and I feel a sort of craving to realise or see it realised in words. Now I want to ask you how far you think it possible. Perhaps you will not think I trouble you too much if during your holiday I write to put this into shape to you.
With many grateful thanks, I am,
Yours sincerely
F. Harrison.
Signature
F. Harrison.
Citation
Frederic Harrison, Frederic Harrison to GE, London, 25 May [1868], 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/91844