GE to Alexander Main, London, 26 May 1875
Title
GE to Alexander Main, London, 26 May 1875
Title
GE to Alexander Main, London, 26 May 1875
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1875-05-26
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Alexander Main, London, 26 May 1875
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, pp. 539-540.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
May 26. 75.
Dear Mr. Main
Your letters are always "a good message from a far country," 265 and we value every assurance you give us of your welfare or of our share in furthering it.
Our plans for the year do not now include a journey to the Continent, which Mr. Lewes had only thought of as a sanitary measure for me. What we are bent on is, to spend the next four or five months quietly in the country, working and breathing the fresh air. There is an unexpected hitch about a house which we had thought ourselves sure of, but if this difficulty can be surmounted we shall leave London next week. 266 I cannot yet tell you our country address, but we always have letters sent on to us from this house.
After an interval of improved health in which I had a pleasant visit to Oxford, some chill caught there revived the old discomforts, but the doctors have decided that there is really nothing at all serious the matter with me, and on the whole I resign myself to the conviction that my ailments have not the dignity of being dangerous. The worst of it is that I have wasted a great deal of time over them.
Mr. Lewes is very bright and enjoying in spite of occasional headachiness, and he will soon have finished the revision of his Goethe for a new edition. He is going, I think, to send you a spare copy of the "Academy" which contains a sympathetic notice of his 2d volume. I fear you are right in believing that it would be difficult to get a copy of the dear little old original Biographical Hist[ory] of Philosophy. 267 Pocket editions of solid books, such as one can carry three or four of without being conscious of a burthen, are now getting delightfully abundant in France. But our system of publishing seems not to admit of agreeable cheapness in the form of books.
We have been much interested lately in seeing Salvini, a genuinely great actor, play Othello. And on Monday we are hoping to see him in Hamlet. I wish you could have the same enjoyment. Great art, in any kind, inspirits me and makes me feel the worth of devoted effort, but from bad pictures, bad books, vulgar music, I come away with a paralyzing depression.
Mr. Lewes is going to republish some interesting little Retrospects of Actors which he wrote nearly ten years ago in the Pall Mall Gazette. He remembers Edmund Kean -- who you know died in 1832. 268
I wish I had time to think of something better to tell you, but I hear the footstep of a visitor to lunch and must close my poor dispatch. It will have answered your question about our movements and also it will have assured you that you are always one of the valued possessions in our spiritual estate.
Ever yours faithfully
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Main's copy owned by Mr. John R. Sprunt. Extracts published: Cross, New Edition, pp. 539-540.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
May 26. 75.
Dear Mr. Main
Your letters are always "a good message from a far country," 265 and we value every assurance you give us of your welfare or of our share in furthering it.
Our plans for the year do not now include a journey to the Continent, which Mr. Lewes had only thought of as a sanitary measure for me. What we are bent on is, to spend the next four or five months quietly in the country, working and breathing the fresh air. There is an unexpected hitch about a house which we had thought ourselves sure of, but if this difficulty can be surmounted we shall leave London next week. 266 I cannot yet tell you our country address, but we always have letters sent on to us from this house.
After an interval of improved health in which I had a pleasant visit to Oxford, some chill caught there revived the old discomforts, but the doctors have decided that there is really nothing at all serious the matter with me, and on the whole I resign myself to the conviction that my ailments have not the dignity of being dangerous. The worst of it is that I have wasted a great deal of time over them.
Mr. Lewes is very bright and enjoying in spite of occasional headachiness, and he will soon have finished the revision of his Goethe for a new edition. He is going, I think, to send you a spare copy of the "Academy" which contains a sympathetic notice of his 2d volume. I fear you are right in believing that it would be difficult to get a copy of the dear little old original Biographical Hist[ory] of Philosophy. 267 Pocket editions of solid books, such as one can carry three or four of without being conscious of a burthen, are now getting delightfully abundant in France. But our system of publishing seems not to admit of agreeable cheapness in the form of books.
We have been much interested lately in seeing Salvini, a genuinely great actor, play Othello. And on Monday we are hoping to see him in Hamlet. I wish you could have the same enjoyment. Great art, in any kind, inspirits me and makes me feel the worth of devoted effort, but from bad pictures, bad books, vulgar music, I come away with a paralyzing depression.
Mr. Lewes is going to republish some interesting little Retrospects of Actors which he wrote nearly ten years ago in the Pall Mall Gazette. He remembers Edmund Kean -- who you know died in 1832. 268
I wish I had time to think of something better to tell you, but I hear the footstep of a visitor to lunch and must close my poor dispatch. It will have answered your question about our movements and also it will have assured you that you are always one of the valued possessions in our spiritual estate.
Ever yours faithfully
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Alexander Main, London, 26 May 1875, 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/91994