GE to Alexander Main, London, 1 June 1873
Title
GE to Alexander Main, London, 1 June 1873
Title
GE to Alexander Main, London, 1 June 1873
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1873-06-01
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Alexander Main, London, 1 June 1873
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Extract published: Cross, New Edition, p. 513.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
June 1. 73.
Dear Friend,
Thanks for your letter. 808 What you say of Romola is a great comfort to me. It is a good while now since I read the book, but about two months ago I was looking through the "Sayings," and on running my eyes over those from "Romola" I felt some wonder that any one should think I had written anything better. Apropos of the "Sayings," I found on p. 312 that a quotation from The Spanish Gypsy has (doubtless through inadvertence in correcting the poem) been distorted in its rhythm by a misprinting of the lines. I mean: "Confidence has oft" etc. I don't know whether a little mistake has occurred elsewhere, but the point is one that should be attended to in a revision, i.e. the point of correct ordonnance as to the beginnings and endings of verses. If you felt it desirable to make omissions throughout so as to lessen bulk, do you not think that the best guiding principle would be the exclusion of what has only dramatic truth, such as is necessarily lost in severance from the context? But you have shown so much judgment, so fine a susceptibility, in your selection that I hardly know whether I could point to an extract which that principle would thoroughly condemn.
I am much interested in all you tell me about your youthful companions. 809 You understand that I necessarily care most about the impression my books make on the young. Mr. Lewes has been wont to say that neither the very young nor the ignorant could care about my writing -- that its significance must escape them and that the aspects of life which it presents would not interest them. As to the ignorant I should think that this judgment must be true; but facts seem to be contradicting it in relation to the young. And this makes me glad.
The promptitude and wholeness of mind with which you have given yourself to working at Johnson delights us. You are not of the race of "potterers" who my husband most despairs of. He has told you, I believe, our change of plan for the summer, which has come as a consequence of our inability to get a house in the country. It is possible that we may see M. Ritter in Switzerland but we wish to make no fixed arrangements as to our whereabouts, so that we may profit by the uncalculated incidents of travelling. I am still in need of any favourable chances in relation to my bodily strength, and we wish to linger where we find it good to linger, and to turn back, if necessary, without any revocation of promises.
Do you know that the writer of the Foc's'le Yarn is Mr. Brown, a tutor of Marlborough College? 810 We learned this at Cambridge, when we were visiting among some college friends of his about ten days ago. He spent his boyhood in the Isle of Man, and saw much of the sailor folk there. The passage I like best in the Poem is the scene between the mother and son.
Good bye, dear Friend. I shall not write to you again for a long while, and I wanted to make some little sign before going away, that I am, as always hitherto,
Yours with sincere regard
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Extract published: Cross, New Edition, p. 513.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
June 1. 73.
Dear Friend,
Thanks for your letter. 808 What you say of Romola is a great comfort to me. It is a good while now since I read the book, but about two months ago I was looking through the "Sayings," and on running my eyes over those from "Romola" I felt some wonder that any one should think I had written anything better. Apropos of the "Sayings," I found on p. 312 that a quotation from The Spanish Gypsy has (doubtless through inadvertence in correcting the poem) been distorted in its rhythm by a misprinting of the lines. I mean: "Confidence has oft" etc. I don't know whether a little mistake has occurred elsewhere, but the point is one that should be attended to in a revision, i.e. the point of correct ordonnance as to the beginnings and endings of verses. If you felt it desirable to make omissions throughout so as to lessen bulk, do you not think that the best guiding principle would be the exclusion of what has only dramatic truth, such as is necessarily lost in severance from the context? But you have shown so much judgment, so fine a susceptibility, in your selection that I hardly know whether I could point to an extract which that principle would thoroughly condemn.
I am much interested in all you tell me about your youthful companions. 809 You understand that I necessarily care most about the impression my books make on the young. Mr. Lewes has been wont to say that neither the very young nor the ignorant could care about my writing -- that its significance must escape them and that the aspects of life which it presents would not interest them. As to the ignorant I should think that this judgment must be true; but facts seem to be contradicting it in relation to the young. And this makes me glad.
The promptitude and wholeness of mind with which you have given yourself to working at Johnson delights us. You are not of the race of "potterers" who my husband most despairs of. He has told you, I believe, our change of plan for the summer, which has come as a consequence of our inability to get a house in the country. It is possible that we may see M. Ritter in Switzerland but we wish to make no fixed arrangements as to our whereabouts, so that we may profit by the uncalculated incidents of travelling. I am still in need of any favourable chances in relation to my bodily strength, and we wish to linger where we find it good to linger, and to turn back, if necessary, without any revocation of promises.
Do you know that the writer of the Foc's'le Yarn is Mr. Brown, a tutor of Marlborough College? 810 We learned this at Cambridge, when we were visiting among some college friends of his about ten days ago. He spent his boyhood in the Isle of Man, and saw much of the sailor folk there. The passage I like best in the Poem is the scene between the mother and son.
Good bye, dear Friend. I shall not write to you again for a long while, and I wanted to make some little sign before going away, that I am, as always hitherto,
Yours with sincere regard
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Alexander Main, London, 1 June 1873, 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/91983